Synod Day Two, women bishops

At long last, General Synod has voted in favour of the principle of women bishops. A motion proposed by the Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, went through unamended on Saturday morning with the bishops 31-9 in favour, the clergy 134-42 and the laity, 123-68. Canon Jane Hedges, the first woman to serve as a residentiary canon at Britain's best known former Benedictine enclave, Westminster Abbey, is one of 20 female cathedral canons in England. There are a further nine female archdeacons and two women deans. There are also dozens of able women serving as Team Rectors, Vicars and curates, in total 2,000 parish priests. Considering it is just 12 years since Jane was among the first women ordained in 1994, this is not bad progress. But it would have started to look bad if they could not go any further. Jane spoke to me about her work, which is as Canon Steward. This is a pastoral role dating from the Abbey's time as a monastery, when the monk steward would look after visitors and ensure they received spiritual and nutritional sustenance. No-one in the Church likes being highlighted by us in the media as potential bishop material, but with her pastoral, admin and leadership experience, Jane has got to be up there with June Osborne and Vivienne Faull, Deans of Salisbury and Leicester. She is also a role model for women in other ways. Her husband Chris was an engineer but became a house-husband when their two sons were little. When they began a school, he became a teaching assistant and enjoyed it so much he retrained as a teacher. He is about to start work next term as the new science teacher at Westminster choir school.

The online discussion group COIN is debating now whether the fact that the two-thirds majority that will be needed when the final legislation comes before synod was absent in the house of laity, where the figures show just 64 per cent in favour. The consenus seems to be that the handful needed can be persuaded to change their minds. But also it must be remembered that it will be a different synod by then. It is almost certainly going to take more than four years, beyond the life of this synod, to get to final approval. So women bishops will be a big campaigning issue in the next synod elections.

As Christina Rees, chair of Women and the Church, says: "Although bishops are appointed from priests, and most Anglicans would see the role of bishop as being an extension of the role of priest, it has taken until now for the matter to be decided.

"It’s not as if there are no women who could do the job. Of the 2000 clergywomen currently ministering in the Church, a number have been appointed to senior positions, with many having previously occupied senior positions in other fields such as law, education, business and science. So what has held them back? Or, more to the point, what has held the Church back from reaching this moment only now?

"Reflecting back on the resistance encountered to women’s ordination in the early 1970’s, Monica Furlong, a leading campaigner, wrote in ‘A Dangerous Delight, “Attempting modestly to catch a small fish – that is, to get women ordained – we were astounded to discover that we had got Leviathan at the end of the line, that unwittingly we had reached into the very depths of the malaise not merely of the Church but of society itself.”  The murky Leviathan is visible as the largely unacknowledged sexism in our society and in the Church.

"Some good churchmen (and women) from the tiny minority that still believe God has a special relationship with men, will insist that their convictions have nothing to do with sexism, and that their arguments are drawn from the classic three-legged stool of Scripture, Tradition and Reason.

"Besides the fact that scripture does not address ordination as we now have it, it is inconclusive on what, if any, special or restricted roles women should have. Those who claim that neither Jesus nor Paul spoke out against the low status of women in their time, fail to recognise that they also did not speak out against slavery either.

"Christian tradition has always been dynamic. At various times women have held positions of oversight. Tradition has not stood still for men either, otherwise we Anglicans would not permit our clergy to marry, or, going back to the early church, Christendom would not include Gentiles and the rite of initiation might be circumcision instead of baptism.

"Decisions taken centuries ago that compelled women to give up positions of leadership were based on the mission of the Church, and were intended to prevent the Church from being an embarrassment to those in the surrounding culture, for whom women leaders would have been a problem; as one early writer put it, having women sharing leadership with men would cause the pagans to “mock and scoff”. Reason quite clearly would compel us now towards including women at all levels in the Church’s leadership, ordained and lay. Indeed, in our present cultural context not having women sharing leadership causes people outside as well as inside the Church to “mock and scoff”.

"Women are not the problem, and they won’t be going away. The problem is an ongoing acceptance and collusion with an ideology that considers one half of the human race to be of greater worth and value than the other half, certainly to the Church, if not also to the Creator, and which, like a deeply hidden underground stream, is still feeding the Church’s attitudes to and treatment of women. Until that changes, women will still have to struggle every step of the way, even if they’ll soon be wearing purple.

"Those of us who are female and who have been working for a Church that values women as much as it values men will know when the Church finally denounces sexism as having no part in the Christian faith and in our understanding of a just society. Among other things, we will see women’s contributions more generously and enthusiastically embraced and celebrated. We will see people chosen for leadership based on their gifts and experience, not on their gender. Even more than that, we will feel it in our bones."

If you listen to the audio tape of the debate, and if you happen to remember the 1992 debate on women priests (not a direct comparison I know because the process on bishops is still at an early stage), you will be unable to ignore the change in mood that has taken place. The General Synod already has a softer, gentler feel. Except perhaps when the bishops are meeting alone. They could definitely do with a few women among them to calm things down a little at present. It will be interesting to see what effect Katharine Jefferts Schori has on the Primates, assuming there is still a Primates' meeting in any recognisable form by the time she makes it to the table. And there is some good Canadian reaction emerging to the debate here, such as in Apprentice on the Way. (Apologies to Tim, see comments below, for putting him in TEC earlier. Does that count as defamation I wonder?)

On Monday, the synod will move to debating the nitty gritty of where to go now, after the collapse of TEA and the bishops' failure to find an alternative. (That wouldn't have happened if they'd had a woman there.) What is crucial now is to cater properly for traditionalists. They want a third province. After TEA collapsed, and with the problems elsewhere in the Communion and the changing shape of parochial and church boundaries, it is difficult to see why there is such strong resistance against this idea. After all, a third province could have a "presiding bishop" without his own diocese, who need not be a third archbishop. It would in effect be formalising the flying bishops scheme which has existed under the Act of Synod. It would be complicated, but surely that is half the fun of these things. And more than half the necessity. If the traditionalists and conservative evangelicals who oppose women bishops are not properly looked after, there is indeed a real danger of the final legislation failing at the last hurdle in the house of laity.

Women priests in 1992 only scraped through because one opponent changed her mind at the last minute, and in a moment of high drama was seen to cross the floor from "no" to "yes". I understand this woman has now become a priest herself.

If the Church of England is not going to look extremely silly in five years time, it is time for some gracious magnanimity. The Archbishop of York gave some good indications of what might be involved in his presidential address. Dr John Sentamu said: "Gracious magnanimity isn’t mere passivity amidst numerous difficulties but an opportunity for a positive engagement of love. It isn’t toughness gone soft - as a Yiddish proverb says, 'If you can’t bite, don’t show your teeth.'

"You will know a jumbo-jet that developed serious engine trouble in mid-Atlantic.  The captain told the passengers and asked them permission to open the hold and dump all their luggage in the ocean.  'Yes, yes, yes', they all cried.  It was done.

"Thirty minutes later the captain said, 'We are still losing altitude.  We must get rid of all your hand luggage.  The cabin crew will collect them and when we have dropped to a safer height they will throw them out.'

'But of course,' the cries went out.  And it was done.
 
An hour later the captain said, 'We still need to lose more weight.  Fifty people will be safely dropped into the water with their life-jackets.  This airline operates an Inclusive Equal Opportunities Policy.  And we shall now put it into operation.  We shall use the alphabet to guide us.
'A – are there any Africans on board?'  Silence.
'B – are there any Blacks on board?'  Silence.
'C – are there any Caribbeans on board?'  Silence.

A little black boy turned to his father and said, 'Dad, what are we?'
The father replied, 'We are Zulus!'

Opponents of women bishops believe the Church cannot afford to lose one third of its laity by going ahead with women bishops, but what about the prospect of losing two-thirds if it doesn't?

If the Anglican Communion is not careful, it will dump all its passengers and their uncomfortable luggage in its struggle to stay flying along up there in the purity of the clean air. It will become like those airplanes in the "Left Behind" novels, only the passengers won't have been raptured, they will have been drowned.

Comments

[Geoffrey Smith]

I feel I should remind Peter
Kirk that the late Pope John
Paul II declared (in 1994) that
the Catholic Church had "no
authority to ordain women to the priesthood". As far as
orthodox Catholics are concerned (as distinct from the
weirdos), this statement was
declared to be authoritative,
definitive, and therefore
infallible, emanating, as it did, from the Bishop of Rome.
In short - nothing doing.
Not now, not next year, not ever. The tide can turn as
much as it pleases, Peter Kirk, it will always be flowing
away from the truth of the
Gospel.

[Peter Kirk]

I agree that union between the Anglican and RC churches is remote, but surely not because of the issue of women priests or bishops. I suspect that their acceptance of them is as remote not as Pluto but as the next pope but one. For even in Rome they must understand that the tide is turning, and if they want they can find theological justification for ordaining women. They could also start by recognising ordained women in churches with which they have full communion, much as they recognise married clergy in eastern rite Catholic churches in full communion with Rome.

[Tim]

Given the fact that Anglicans have been ordaining women as bishops since the early 1990's (my own bishop, Victoria Matthews, was consecrated in February 1994, and she was not the first), I doubt if the current debate in the Church of England's General Synod is as significant to Cardinal Kasper as some people seem to think. Do you think he doesn't know that the Anglican Communion already has bishops who happen to be women? Or do you people in England think that somehow it's not really Anglican unless you do it?

[Geoffrey Smith]

So Cardinal Kasper's visit to
the Anglican bishops a few days
ago was a complete waste of
time. Perhaps now even he will
admit that he has been banging
his head against a stone wall, and all he has to show for it is a fractured skull. Any hope
of union between the two churches is now, as it has
always been, as remote as the
planet Pluto.

[Ben]

James O'Connell: "It is highly possible that historically there have been unbelieving bishops who ordained other bishops without faith or proper intention, and so invalidly."

Article 26 (of 39 Articles - see link) could suggest that unbelief would not stop an act being valid in Anglican theology.

However, I agree with James that the New Testament uses bishop and elder (Greek: presbyter - which somehow gave us the word "priest") interchangably. Consequently, there is little Biblical basis for having bishops as a separate function in the church.

[James O'Connell]

I apologise for the length of this note but I have, in fact, shortened it almost to the point of oversimplification.

The controversy over women bishops stems from a sacralisation of clerics that stems from sources other than the New Testament. I realise that within the Roman Church - and historically within the Anglican/Episcopalian Church - apostolic succession has for long been seen as a continuity through bishops. Given that Catholic scriptural scholars like Raymond Brown have argued that putting monarchical bishops back into scripture is unhistorical and that 'supervisors' or bishops and 'elders’ or priests were used interchangeably in the Pauline churches, the theology that supports an ‘historic episcopate’ has always been weak. If there was a renewal of episcopal theory within the Roman Church at the time of Vatican II, it was in good part as a reaction to over-centralisation. Since the Council the Roman bureaucrats have seized back the powers that then seemed to be floating away from them.

What is essential in the Church is the continuity of community and faith. The organisation and government of the community have changed from one period to another: diffused in the early Church, feudal in the Middle Ages, princely in the Renaissance, and, centralising, especially in the Roman Church, in our time. Interestingly Roman theologians have always accepted that a lay person may be elected pope. Yet let me add that from the beginning the role of Peter and his successors is crucial in the community. Abuses in its role should not obscure the fact that the papacy has helped during centuries of societal fragmentation to consolidate the faith of scattered communities and that it has in more recent times served as an external norm to confirm Protestant and related churches that share a broad faith but not an organised structure with the Roman Church. Even where it is manifestly wrong as in the case of homosexual behaviour or banning contraceptives it acts as a brake that evokes further reflection and discussion but will give way before thought and time.

Holding that ministerial ordination is limited to bishops stems from scholastic theory which insisted on a kind of physical causality in the sacraments. A reductio ad absurdum of this theory faces the Church in Ireland. A maverick priest has obtained valid but illegitimate episcopal ordination. He has now the power - in scholastic theory - to ordain priests and bishops at will; and he can do all this without reference to the community. The Church with its present views has no choice other than to accept the validity of these ordinations.

Negatively another point can be made. It is highly possible that historically there have been unbelieving bishops who ordained other bishops without faith or proper intention, and so invalidly. One could then have a succession of invalid ordinations. The only way around this is to insist on community validation for ministry.

James O’Connell

[Christopher]

Geoffrey Smith says: "wait until the General Synod gives its permission to lesbian bishops to adopt children"

Too late, Geoffrey, bishops, lesbian or otherwise already have the right to be considered to adopt children. Synod had nothing to do with it, either.

[Christopher]

Dear NP - Nersen I presume

Did you see the David Frost series on the Alpha Course at Holy Trinity Brompton a couple of years back? I watched most of it but came away feeling rather let down by the quality of challenging questions these affluent, intelligent and supposedly educated young people asked in their seminars each week. I would have thought that in debate, as in tennis, you are supposed to keep the ball in play as long as possible but the moment the convenor answered a supposedly hard question and batted it back over the net almost all the questioners, even the so-called sceptics, let it drop.

Your other comment to Frank "You may wish to see the church disappear and you would not be alone.....people have been hoping for that for a couple of thousand years..." is an interesting question that crops up in a novel I'm reading by Kathy Reichs called Cross Bones. The question arises that a set of bones found in the Kidron Valley might conceivebly be those of Jesus. (I stress this is a fictional account). The question is that if such a thing were to occur it would engender the collapse of Christianity world wide, creating a terrifying power vacuum. It might be satisfying to atheists to be proved right but it could be that Islam that would benefit the most - all those disaffected Christians might immediately flock to Islam, headed first by the Pope and followed shortly by the Archbishop of Canterbury (who already has the beard). So the suggestion implied by the book is that secularists might prefer to keep the balance of religious power as it is, even if it meant suppressing the discovery and leaving Christianity's foundational belief intact. What Buddhism might call a "saving illusion"?

I am sure you will say you don't deal in hypotheticals, Nersen, but in case you are up fo a bit of fun how about this thought experiment? If the bones of Jesus were found what would you do, join the doubters and give up religion, say Shahada and submit to Allah or do what the rabbis who put God on trial at Auschwitz did: found him guilt and went back to prayer. Or maybe there is a fourth option? :-)

[Graeme Buttery]

Thank you Ms. Gledhill for the piece in the Times today - 11th July. I too sat through Monday's debate on the process for women to be consecrated as bishop. I do remember a motion to force people to accept the ordination of women, unless your antenae are more finelt tuned than mine. I accept what was passed about Canon A4, but of course the motion accepting the Lambeth Conference motion was also passed, and the two are in conflict, unless we want to encourage people who believe one thing and say another! The Bishop of Chichester was right, the canon and the measure to allow women priests are contracdictory and have been from day one - and both have the force of law. But finally on the matter of being "forced to accept things: The Archbishop of York did say in the Synod that he would not be part of any Church which made the ordination of women a mark of doctrinal orthodoxy. Oh, yes, also pl;ease note that if Saturday's vote had been on final approval, it would have failed, as the laity did not vote by two thirds for it.

[NP]

Frank Salmon - have you heard of "The Alpha Course" and many, large evangelical churches (conservative and charismatic) in England which are growing year by year and start many new churches every year??

There is church decline but it is in churches led by people who hardly believe their own church's message - in a misguided attempt to be "inclusive"

You may wish to see the church disappear and you would not be alone.....people have been hoping for that for a couple of thousand years but the message has stood the test of time, history and many bad Christian leaders.....

[Geoffrey Smith]

If some people think that the
approval of women bishops is a
world-shaking event, wait until
the General Synod gives its
permission to lesbian bishops
to adopt children.

[Ben]

Frank Salmon: "If the Labour government had had any principles whatsoever, it would long since have disallowed the Appointments Commission to name any bishops until Synod had enabled women to become bishops."

Would more state control over religious appointments and religious beliefs be a good thing?

I personally think the C of E should be disestablished and have greater freedom to choose its own leaders, and decide what crtieria it will use in selecting its leaders.

[Simon]

"The problem is an ongoing acceptance and collusion with an ideology that considers one half of the human race to be of greater worth and value than the other half", certainly to the Church, if not also to the Creator, and which, like a deeply hidden underground stream, is still feeding the Church’s attitudes to and treatment of women. Until that changes, women will still have to struggle every step of the way, even if they’ll soon be wearing purple."

This is clearly someone who doesn't understand or believe in christianity. No one is arguing that women are of less worth or value! How rediculous. Did Jesus call God "father" because he was some quiant, primitive fool with sexist tendancies ??? And what is this "way" that women still have to struggle along ? Is it some calling from god to become a priest ? Did the women around Jesus, clearly many were wise and holy, feel they had to become disciples to please God ?

The fact is that men and women are different. Different physically and different right down to the neurology of our brains. Jesus was not one to follow the conventions of his time, but he deliberately and clearly set up an apostolic tradition in which certain roles were performed exclusively by men. If following Jesus is such a problem then why not set up another religion which doesn't consider Jesus to be the messiah? Because none of this seems to have anything to do with following Jesus or pleasing God. While you're at it you may as well edit out the difficult words in the gospel such as those in Matthew 18:7 - there's no need for that kind of talk nowdays!

If God wished to have women serving on his alter as priests, then surely the Holy Spirit would bring that about through the apostolic succession He initiated in Matthew 16:18-19 ?

PS. Talking about CofE priests now being married as a justification for changing tradition is a complete red herring - Peter was married for a start! Its just more mumbo jumbo by someone who should learn about Christianity before they start trying to change it to suit themselves...

[Frank Salmon]

There is nothing uniquely Anglican about 'Women ... leaving in droves, [or]Men ... leaving faster, and in greater numbers'. That parishes/congregations have been pseudo-religious social clubs has been far more the cause of the decline. Were Jesus to enter these modern temples he might well 'alienate half of the faithful churchgoers ... and destroy classical religious forms' much as Jesus did in Jerusalem's temple.

Now wouldn't that 'rob the Church of its self-confidence'? Many times have I sat in churches and cathedrals and silently thought 'If only that would happen!'

[Quotes are from Austin's posting of Sunday, 09 July 2006 at 08:20 PM]

[Frank Salmon]

If putting in our light bulbs was done with the same expediency as the C of E's unpardonable delay in ordaining female priests and consecrating female bishops, society would have been in the dark for decades.

If the Labour government had had any principles whatsoever, it would long since have disallowed the Appointments Commission to name any bishops until Synod had enabled women to become bishops.

By the way, the C of E's all-male leadership over the last century has done a pretty good job of destroying the institution and making it irrelevant to most in the UK. Unless new female leadership breaks free of that mold very quickly indeed, the church will soon cease to exist.

But then again, that may just be the way God works God's purposes out.

[Austin]

All my life, the Anglican church in the various provinces I have lived in has been on a campaign to make the Church accord with the secular fashions of the day. The assumption was that, unless we "met people where they were" (a once fashionable phrase) they would be estranged from
insitutional religion (another formerly trendy phrase).

The upshot of all this trimming has been, as far as I can see, to alienate half of the faithful churchgoers, rob the Church of its self-confidence, and destroy classical religious forms.

And to what end? We appear not to have attracted the secular world. Many of the frothing reformers gave up religion once they'd wrecked it. And now the Church looks about as up to date as a hula-hoop or a Wham video.

Women have been "going away", leaving in droves, actually. Men have been leaving faster, and in greater numbers. And there appear to be almost no children at all. Why not sell off the assets, divide them up equally, and declare the experiment over?

[Dr Irene Lancaster]

In the wake of comments above in which Christina Rees appears to differentiate between the Jewish and Christian way of things, designating Christianty as dynamic, thus leading us to believe that the religion from which it grew, Judaism, is what exactly: static?, bloggers might be interested in perusing the Jewish roots of baptism, as laid out in this link here:

http://www.bebaptized.org/Jewishroots.htm

At least the Archbishop of York appears to have a sense of humour and also knows some Yiddish proverbs, although the one quoted is a new one on me.

[Dan Palmer]

Christina Rees's position is not unlike that of American secular humanists arugument for the ordination of females in PECUSA, and subsequently the ordination of homosexuals and lesbians. Ordination of woman was argued on the basis of equal civil rights. Since World War II, the Church's theology has been molded to correct every civil and human ill without regard to the Biblical imperative. The Church has reengineered Biblical principals so that we do not offend anyone and require nothing from the believer or seeker. We no longer measure our theology against its biblical foundations and apostolic source.

With reference to slavery, there is no Scriptual basis for the notion that the apostles concurred that slavery as a accepted human institution. The one refernce to slavery in the Pauline Epistles appears to require mutual respect between master and slave.

In any form, slavery is an intolerable denial of human personhood and individuality. Was the Church silent on the matter? Yes Did Church leadership articulate the evil of the institution. NO! However, I reject the notion that this matter before Synod is a civil rights matter. The Church is a spiritual institution of members whose consitution is found in the biblical principals of Jesus and the Apostolic teachings given to the Church once and for all times.

Ms. Rees' truly shows her theological cards when she states the Son of God and the Apostles had a blind spot toward women. That statement is simply creative theology that is bound to a secular huamanist view of Jesus and denial of his divine nature. The attempt to degrade Jesus the Christ is the first step toward the denial of the Cross and a unitarian framework for Anglicanism. The next step is to denial the Bible as the Word of God, inspired, whole and complete.

Lastly, for Ms. Rees' to affirm that those who reject the ordination of women must be blind is nothingless that thological imperialism and spiritual bullying. Do C of E liberals propose the same kind of dictatorial bishops to demand enforced acceptance of this proposal as has PECUSA? She seems to be say much like a USA political leader either you are for us or against us?

[Dave]

I don't know ANYONE in the church who considers that "one half of the human race to be of greater worth and value than the other half,", nor have I EVER heard this expressed by anyone in the traditionalist groups.

This is just nasty campaign rhetoric to weaken respect for the sincerely held beliefs of traditionalists and conservative evangelicals.

I am not against women Bishops, by the way, but I am against demonisation, vilification and marginalisation of sections of the church who hold reasonable alternative interpretations of Scripture and Tradition... often by people whose beliefs would hardly classify them as Christian!

[Tim]

Ruth, thank you for the link. However, I do need to point out that 'apprentice on the Way' is Canadian reaction, not American reaction!

Thanks as always for your thoughtful posts.

Tim

[John Penta]

Unless the Church of England wants to proclaim itself as the Only Church, period, I find the complete ignorance of issues relating to Apostolic Succession just a little curious.

[John Richardson]

Christina Rees's position seems to be this: "As a Christian, I worship Jesus as the Son of God, and believe in the one holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. However, the Son of God and the Apostles had a blind spot about women, just as they did about slavery. Today, we, who once were blind like them, now see. Hence, anyone who continues to argue today that their own position on women's ministry arises from the teachings and practices of Christ or his Apostles must be blind (and, unlike them, culpable because the Church now 'sees') or plain misogynist, or both." I wonder what other 'blind' spots of the Lord and his Apostles future generations of the Church will discover? All a long way from the Creeds, I feel.