by Prof Helen King, Professor Emerita in Classical Studies at The Open University and member of General Synod
As Living in Love and Faith moves towards its conclusion, are we heading for a typically Anglican situation in which everyone has to compromise: and nobody gets what they want? How will that feel?
In the Introduction to a collection of essays she edited in 1998, Act of Synod – Act of Folly?, the late Monica Furlong told of a priest – a woman – who was asked by a Diocesan Director of Ordinands not to lay hands on one of the candidates at an ordination which she was attending. “Couched in terms of Christian charity and sweet reasonableness, this request that she must not touch the candidate was difficult to refuse, yet left a nasty taste behind it. My friend agreed, but says ‘I was sickened by my own magnanimity’”.
There is indeed something physically sickening about being the one who has to say “Yes of course, that’s fine” when it’s your own gender identity – or your own sexuality – which is being rejected. The ordination of women as priests, and then their consecration as bishops, divided the Church of England. As with current debates about same-sex marriage, the depth and seriousness of the disagreement was acknowledged. As with same-sex marriage, no simple Bible verse could be located to back up women priests or bishops. Instead, the House of Bishops argued that women bishops represent “a proper development in proclaiming afresh in this generation the grace and truth of Christ”.
Nausea may be positive: a natural part of the beginning of a pregnancy. Maybe the time has come to admit to nausea, while asking whether further waves of it are inevitable as Living in Love and Faith moves into its next phase. Here, as in many other ways, it’s so instructive to look at how the Church of England dealt with disagreement when women were ordained. When Synod passed by the required two-thirds majority the 1992 motion opening the priesthood to women, some male priests took the ‘compensation’ package built into the legislation. That cost the church around £27.5 million: I really can’t see that sort of arrangement happening again. And laity who did not accept women priests? For them, provision was initially made by enabling parishes to pass Resolutions A (women presiding at Holy Communion or giving the absolution) and/or B (women as incumbents, priests-in-charge or team vicars; the ‘headship’ roles). Since 2016, Parochial Church Councils can pass a Resolution placing them under the authority of a bishop who will not ordain women.
Some potential priests who stayed were worried about having a valid line of ordination; had anybody laying hands on them ever ‘laid hands’ on a woman? (This has a very specific meaning in an episcopal church…) This could be seen as ignoring Article 26 of the Thirty-Nine Articles; the understanding that the unworthiness of the minister does not hinder the efficacy of the sacrament. Or is being a woman the sort of ‘unworthiness’ which is beyond the pale?
After Synod passed the 1992 motion, the Ecclesiastical Committee of Parliament brought direct pressure on the Church of England to provide even greater ‘protection’ to opponents as the price tag for its approval. In contrast to the lengthy process of consultation of diocesan and deanery synods which preceded the ordination of women, in less than a year the House of Bishops cooked up the 1993 Act of Synod, adding in something that was not part of the original legislative package, Provincial Episcopal Visitors (PEVs or ‘Flying bishops’). And it was not sent out for wider church consultation.
The Church of England likes the principle of doing something new by presenting it as something old. So Beverley, a PEV for traditional catholic Anglicans, was imagined as continuing a suffragan see (originally created to help the Archbishop of York) which had lapsed in 1923. The other two, Ebbsfleet and Richborough, were newly created for the PEVs. Creating sees is possible at any time by Order in Council. In 2015, a further PEV was appointed, this time for conservative evangelicals: the Bishop of Maidstone. His role is presented as an ‘honorary assistant bishop’ in – gasp – 14 dioceses (2019 figures); the other PEVs, too, work over a number of dioceses, thus breaking the link between a bishop and a geographical area which used to be key to our ecclesiology. So much for the bishop as a ‘focus of unity’.
After the recent resignation of the Bishop of Ebbsfleet – now a priest in the Roman Catholic church – there is a consultation happening about replacing Ebbsfleet with a Bishop of Oswestry (a see created in 1888 but never filled) who would be a suffragan bishop in the Diocese of Lichfield, “rooted in an individual diocese and diocesan college of bishops” rather than floating free.
For many people in the Church of England, of course, none of this is relevant. They belong to a local church and they have no idea what a PEV is. From my experience, I would add that they also have little idea that same-sex marriages can’t happen in churches, that clergy are not supposed to have same-sex marriages, and that different dioceses operate different policies with regard to the sexuality and relationships of candidates for both licensed lay and ordained ministry.
Where women’s ordained ministry is concerned, the ecclesiology and the key documents of the Church of England have been treated with disdain, or constructively stretched, according to your point of view. The 2014 Five Guiding Principles from the House of Bishops attempt to hold it all in a dizzying tension: “the Church of England has reached a clear decision on the matter” yet at the same time those who on theological grounds “are unable to receive the ministry of women bishops or priests continue to be within the spectrum of teaching and tradition of the Anglican Communion”. That echoes the 2008 GS1710 Illustrative Draft Code of Practice, on those who refuse the ordained ministry of women as priests and bishops: “Their convictions are within the spectrum of Anglican teaching and tradition and are deserving of respect”.
Spectrum is an interesting word. Many of us believe that gender and sexuality are also on their own spectrums. So is there a way that, on the current issues of marriage and ordination, we can repurpose those words from GS1710? In a 2018 study guide to the Five Guiding Principles, the Faith and Order Commission stated that “those opposed to the ordination of women should not characterize those in favour as caving in to the fashions of the age, and nor should those in favour stigmatise those opposed as supporters of discrimination and injustice”. Relevant to debates on sexuality, too?
And from that same study guide:
It does not require suspending my judgment that some theological views are wrong, or that some views that are wrong may be actively harmful. It does require that I do not take it upon myself to limit that perceived harm by seeking to restrict the participation of those who hold such views in the common life of our church… It may be tempting for the majority to think that, were the minority to leave or disappear, the ‘problem’ posed by their existence would be resolved and all the energy unfortunately required to manage it be liberated for more productive endeavours. It may be tempting for the minority to think that the more they can separate themselves from the majority and insulate themselves from its influence, the more secure their survival will be.
Can this template from the ordination of women debates be applied to the current debate on human sexuality, or is the nausea – on both sides – just too much to bear?
Further reading:
Judith Maltby, ‘One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism, but Two Integrities?’ in Monica Furlong (ed.), Act of Synod – Act of Folly (SCM Press, 1998)
Judith Maltby, ‘Gender and Establishment: Parliament, “Erastianism” and the Ordination of Women 1993-2010’ in Mark Chapman, Judith Maltby and William Whyte (eds), The Established Church. Past, Present and Future (Continuum, 2011)
Any thoughts?