ViaMedia

Category: Ordination

  • Living in Love and Faith? Insights from the Church of Scotland

    by Professor Paul Middleton, Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at the University of Chester, and a Church of Scotland Minister

    Last month, the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland passed legislation to permit its Ministers and Deacons to conduct and solemnise same-sex marriages. The legislation is permissive, and the rights of those Ministers who choose not to conduct same-sex weddings are protected in Church as well as Civil Law. While the Quakers, Scottish Episcopal Church, United Reformed Church and Methodists have already authorised same-sex marriage, and the Church in Wales last year agreed to bless such marriages, the Church of Scotland is now the largest denomination in the UK to do so. How might this move by the National (distinct from ‘Established’) Church in Scotland affect current discussions in the Church of England as it nears the end of the Living in Love and Faith process?

    In common with virtually every church around the world, the Church of Scotland has wrestled with questions of sexuality, and same-sex relationships in particular. Unsurprisingly, the Kirk originally took a strongly negative view, even initially opposing the setting up of the Wolfenden Committee. However, by the late 1980s, opinion became more divided, and some Ministers began offering services of blessings for same-sex couples. It is widely believed that conducting a blessing was the reason the Rev Margaret Forrester, one of the first women to be ordained, was never elected Moderator of the General Assembly.

    Assembly reports through the 1990s and 2000s held conservative and liberal positions on sexuality in tension as the Church declined to either reaffirm a traditionalist position or endorse more revisionist positions. This was typified in 2006 when the Church refused to ban Ministers from conducting same-sex blessings, but also refused to guarantee those who participated in such blessings could not be subject to disciplinary procedures.

    This uneasy truce was shattered in 2009 when a group of traditionalists challenged the decision of Aberdeen Presbytery to sustain the call of the Rev Scott Rennie, who was in a same-sex relationship, to Queen’s Cross Church. While Rennie was by no means the only Church of Scotland Parish Minister in a same-sex relationship, the action against the Presbytery brought the issue into the open, and began one of the most turbulent periods in the Church’s recent history. General Assembly sided with Aberdeen Presbytery, but agreed to set up a special commission to report on the legal and theological issues raised, while imposing a moratorium on ministers, boards, and courts of the church from making any further comment for two years.

    In 2011, the Special Commission offered the Church two trajectories; one affirming a ‘traditionalist’ approach to sexuality and marriage, which would end any future ordination of Ministers in same-sex relationships, the other a ‘revisionist’ path towards explicitly affirming the place of gay Ministers in the Church. Instead of advocating either path, the Commission allowed arguments for the two contrary positions to sit side by side in the report. While debates over sexuality often make claims about what is ‘biblical’ or ‘unbiblical’, in the report both sides of the argument were dominated by the interpretation of Scripture.

    The Church of Scotland holds that Scripture has a non-negotiable place as ‘the supreme rule of faith and life’, but it also fully embraces the insights of Biblical Criticism. Even ‘conservative’ reports from the 1980s and 1990s explicitly recognised that those equally committed to Scripture can reach different conclusions on this and other important issues. The main interpretative division between the two parts of the 2011 report was essentially over the difference biblical criticism makes to contemporary application. In 2011 the revisionist trajectory narrowly prevailed (56%/44%), but in all subsequent divisions confirming this trajectory from 2013 onwards, the vote has been consistently nearer to a 2:1 majority.

    In 2015, Assembly finally passed legislation to allow congregations to call Ministers in same-sex Civil Partnerships and Marriage. It recognised that a significant minority in the Church did not support this move. Their consciences are protected in what has become known as ‘constrained difference’, in which a variety of views and practices are held, respected, and protected within the Church of Scotland.

    What about the Church of England? Decades of inconclusive, aborted reports have not only entrenched already polarised positions, but have resulted in an increasingly intolerable tension between the theoretical ‘official’ position of the Church and the reality on the ground. Issues in Human Sexuality, the ‘official’ Bishops’ teaching statement, dates from 1991 and is an outworking of a conservative 1987 General Synod resolution. It states ‘clergy [as distinct from the laity!] cannot claim the liberty to enter into sexually active homophile [sic!!] relationships.’ However, the fact is that many are. Probably the most bizarre expression of this tension is that while Priests have been permitted to enter into Civil Partnerships since 2013, the Church of England (uniquely) persuaded itself that this was little more than an expression of ‘close friendship’. Unlike the Church of Scotland and the Church in Wales, the Church of England has never really acknowledged the presence of gay Priests, either to explicitly affirm their place in the Church or to enact disciplinary procedures against them. Moreover, in February’s General Synod, the Bishop of London effectively side-lined Issues by suggesting it was never designed to have an official place in the ordination process. A Private Members’ Motion from Rev Mae Christie has recently been tabled, asking ‘That this Synod request that the House of Bishops remove any requirements relating to Issues in Human Sexuality from the Vocations (Shared Discernment) Process.’

    The Church of England already lives with a tense and unacknowledged ‘constrained difference’. Living and Love and Faith appears to be preparing the ground for at least beginning the journey to officially recognising that there is theological and biblical integrity in a range of positions. For what it is worth, it seems to me that agreeing to live with constrained difference on sexuality is far simpler than the Church’s current compromise on women Bishops, since it is effectively recognising what is already the case.

  • Time for the Church to Take Transparency Seriously

    Dr Sharon Jagger is a researcher and lecturer in Religion at York St. John University

    As a feminist researcher, I have spent several years exploring the experiences of women priests in the Church of England. It has been my privilege to talk in depth with 27 ordained women, at different stages of their careers and from different traditions in the Church. Through their experiences I have learned a great deal about women’s relationship not just with the priesthood but also with the institution of the Church.

    Perhaps you feel that this topic is over, and that – given the Church’s need to provide serious responses to institutional racism and calls for equality and inclusion for LGBTQ+ people – we should just move on. The Church of England settled on a structural compromise allowing two positions to be supported: we are ordaining increasing numbers of women, and at the same time structurally accommodating those who oppose women in the priesthood. This may seem like a contradiction, but after 30 years the worms are safely in their cans.

    But my research shows that women priests still face significant challenges and barriers in the Church because of their gender. The structural arrangements put in place in 1992 were flagged at the early stages of their implementation as unsatisfactory and discriminatory (see Monica Furlong’s edited book, Act of Synod, Act of Folly). The structure that limits women’s ordained ministry in the Church was agreed to be open ended and even permanent, but it by no means provides a resolution. The debate is merely in stasis.

    Most parishes support women’s ordained ministry, but some remain unable to accept women priests or bishops, and are led by male clergy who believe the priesthood is a male role. The Church has formal arrangements that allow such parishes, for theological reasons, to request oversight from gender traditional bishops and make a case for male-only priestly ministry (these arrangements were updated in 2014 when women were able to become bishops). After consultation, Parochial Church Councils (PCCs) may vote on a resolution like: ‘This PCC requests, on grounds of theological conviction, that arrangements be made for it in accordance with the House of Bishops’ Declaration on the Ministry of Bishops and Priests’. The number of parishes with such resolutions currently stands at 590 (figures are for 2021), a steady increase on previous years.

    These arrangements may be well-known to some but they are not well understood across the Church. My research also suggests there is a ‘quietness’ around the continuing division on women in the priesthood – a silence partly guided by the notions of ‘good disagreement’ and ‘mutual flourishing’. Whilst I argue there is a need for the Church to re-consider its arrangements because of the harm done to women in the priesthood, a more specific and urgent problem has developed.

    A recent Twitter thread has highlighted – not for the first time – the ongoing concern over lack of transparency in parishes that have voted for the above resolution. This conversation caught my interest because it chimes with stories ordained women shared with me in my research. The Twitter post argues that a significant number of churchgoers are unaware of their own church’s position regarding women’s priestly ministry, since it is not always made public on websites and through other communications. Newcomers may not be made aware of the views held by the leadership, and how that affects practices in their church. Indeed, they may not even realise that divisions in the Church regarding women’s ordination still remain.

    My research confirms there is often a lack of transparency. One ordained woman told me a painful story about her journey to priesthood that stalled late in the process when she learned that the vicar of the church where she worshipped was a member of Forward in Faith (an umbrella organisation that opposes women’s priesthood), and would not support her vocation. Despite this knowledge being crucial for her formation and the discernment and selection process, as she pursued her call to the ministry there was never any explicit explanation given by her vicar of his theological objections to women’s ordination. This silence meant she had to start the process again, after joining a different church which wholeheartedly supported the ordination of women. Such practices do not conform with the Church’s 2014 commitment, that ‘the Church of England is now fully committed to all orders of ministry being open equally to all, without reference to gender.’ (Guiding Principle 1)

    To complicate and expand this further, even ordained women do not always know where male colleagues stand. Another woman priest I interviewed describes one clergy colleague who does not accept the priesthood of women as ‘wonderful’ and ‘supportive’, but that ‘you would know nothing of the position he takes from anything he says or does.’

    This avoidance of openly discussing theological views and policies on women’s ministry may be a lingering legacy of the division women’s ordination caused in 1992, when the Synod finally voted in its favour by the tiniest of margins in the House of Laity. An Anglo-Catholic woman priest, another interviewee in my research, believes there remains unresolved division that still causes anxiety, resulting in withdrawal and reluctance to continue the debate on both sides. She says:

    People tend to be quite quiet about it because the experience of women’s ordination was quite traumatic, whichever side you were on . . . only talking about things obliquely . . . rather than open debate. Or you know only after the third gin and tonic . . . It’s both a curse and a blessing.

    The quietness is a blessing because it allows women clergy to get on with their ministry without being the perpetual focus of disagreement. But it is a curse because the current arrangements become crystallised without proper scrutiny, discrimination is hidden, and women may feel unsure of their status in parts of the Church. Not knowing whether a church or its leadership oppose women’s ordination is disempowering. It restricts agency and it disrupts an individual’s ability to choose an appropriate worship environment. I speak from experience: it is a shock to learn by chance that the church leader expected to have a hand in your human flourishing believes your gender determines what you can and cannot do and makes decisions accordingly. Lack of transparency is fundamentally unethical.

    The Twitter thread goes on to suggest some solutions: Parishes that vote for the above resolution should publish their position clearly and visibly on their websites, and the Church should publish its own easily accessible national list. Some of this information is available in various places on the internet. Forward in Faith, for example, provides a list of parishes it supports in the Anglo-Catholic tradition. But one must know where to look and be aware that even though there is little open debate, there are places in the Church where women’s ordination is not accepted.

    Theological beliefs that exclude women from leadership and ordained ministry profoundly affect women’s material, emotional, relational, psychological and spiritual experiences of church life. Transparency is the very least the Church should require where beliefs about gender, and policies and practices that flow from these beliefs, curtail women’s futures and their flourishing.

     

     

     

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  • Sharing in Privilege: Black and Collared

    by Revd Dr Augustine Tanner-Ihm, Team Curate at St James & Emmanuel, Didsbury, Manchester and winner of the 2020 Theology Slam

    During theological college, no one told me how differently I would be treated after I was ordained. As a Black man, I’m used to people seeing me as a threat to them. In stores personnel follow me around, walking next to cars people quickly lock their doors or if I’m near a white women she’ll clutch her handbag closer, thinking I’m going to rob her. I have become accustomed to being served the very last at bars and restaurants (I sure miss the app service!). Also, I have become accustomed to people thinking I’m not very clever and assuming I must be from a broken family and community background. Because I look this way, this has been my lived experience and probably the lived experience of many more people that share my amount of melanin.

    But ordination.

    At theological college, wearing clerical clothing was always associated with your church tradition. Even during the theological formation process, clothing seemed mostly pointless. We talked about whether it’s contextual for the setting and about its role for women in showing they are leaders in the parish; but that was all.  At no point duing our practical and theological formation did anyone explain how we would be treated as Black or Brown ministers. Maybe because there weren’t any black staff until my last few months of ordination training. And maybe because for my entire time at theological college there was no mention of how Black and Asian ministers experience different things. I don’t blame the leaders and tutors for not introducing us to these multicultural dynamics because their white worldview and their mostly white ministry were just not affected. Even though I trained at three theological colleges from a diverse range of Church Traditions, this never came up. But as a student, it affects me.

    On 4 July 2021, I was ordained as a deacon in the Church of England. I could finally wear the collar to show that I’m a member of the clergy. Within the first week of walking around the parish and the community of Manchester, I noticed something. When I waited in the bus queue, people let me on first. Instead of merely practising social distancing, people smiled at me and then looked down to the floor. Older white people gave me respect and instead of me calling Black aunts and uncles aunts and uncles, most of them treated me like an elder because of this ontological change. I never knew this ontological change would give me the parts of the experiences that my white siblings experience their entire life. My parish is mostly white professional people and the staff, besides one amazing Iranian woman, is white. Therefore, there just wasn’t anyone to tell me anything different about what would happen.

    My grandfather used to tell me all the time about how he was called a ‘boy’ by white folks his entire life. I remember telling him it’s different now. People don’t say that anymore. He told me it wasn’t different; even if people don’t say boy, their intent is still boy and not man. All my Baptist grandfather wanted is to be treated like a man: a man who worked hard and took care of 11 children, who owned his own business and house. But he never received the respect he deserved which manifested into distrust, disdain and hate for white people. Because of the life experiences I had, and my theological framework, I didn’t have the same valid feelings my grandfather had for white people. Ordination has changed me, or I should say it has changed the way people see me. I feel a little more comfortable going to the shop or going into a room with all middle-class white men because the collar has given me authority, gained me respect, because it signifies something. I’m not just another negro (as some would say) but I’m ‘Father’. I’m not a boy but a man. Sadly, it took a thin white collar to go from boy to man.

    I often wonder how many others experience this sort of change within their ministry. Who can help me understand; who can help with this theological and practical reflection? In my diocese, I have been blessed to have three UKME senior leaders. All are amazing priests and disciples of Jesus.  One leader directed me to reflect on the Biblical teachings of Peter. Therefore, I read and read and read 1st Peter and began to see that, as I continue in ministry, I cannot allow the collar to become my overall identity, but should allow wholeness and holiness to be what I strive for. Some may argue there is no separation but only semantics. But Archbishop Stephen always reminds us of our first call: to be disciples of the one who has died, who rose and who is coming back again. And as Saint Peter tells us, we are to be holy for he is holy. And that’s our call.

  • When is a Week not a Week?

    by the Rev Kat Campion-Spall, Associate Vicar at St Mary Redcliffe, Bristol and Dean of Women’s Ministry

     

    How long is a week? We all know that sometimes time seems to rush past and it is Saturday evening again with most of the jobs we had hoped to do still on a “to be done” list. Weeks during lockdown sometimes seemed to be endless, especially with active children desperate to get out and meet friends. But how many days are there in a week? The Church of England doesn’t seem to be able to come up with a consistent answer to that basic question.

    Seven? Apparently not. Try scanning the end pages of the Church Times, and looking at the part-time incumbencies advertised there. A post described as ‘two-thirds’ which turns out to mean Sunday + 3.5 days, with no mention of remuneration. Another advertised for 4 days including Sunday, for half a stipend plus a house. A ‘half-time’ post: Sunday + 3 other days. Other advertisements offering a 0.5 stipend don’t commit to a number of days, but the job description would be almost impossible even for a full-time incumbent. It’s not transparent, it’s not consistent, it’s often mathematically impossible, and it doesn’t seem to allow for any days off! The Church of England announces that more women than men are being selected for ordination training, but that is not the whole story: these “part-time” roles impact on women much more than on men.

    A House for Duty post which comes with nothing but that house, and which expects working on Sundays and two or three other days, may be useful for a priest entering retirement with a pension, but anyone under pensionable age will lose pension contributions in such a role. Women clergy are nearly twice as likely as men to be ordained as an SSM (Self Supporting Minister), roles which usually have no kind of remuneration. Two-thirds of women are over 40 when they begin training; nearly 40% who started last September were over 50. Whatever their experience, and whatever the reason for not offering, or being selected, for ordination when younger, this group will usually only be considered for SSM posts. Dioceses differ in the proportion of women who are in such posts; could this be to do with differing attitudes among senior staff towards enabling women to balance ministry with family commitments?

    But there is a growing need for properly paid part-time posts, particularly for the younger women who the Church of England says it wants to attract. Nationally, in the general workforce, in 2020 38% of women in employment were working part-time, many as a considered choice, compared with 13% of men. Yet in the Church of England, only around 15% of women and 6% of men are in part-time stipendiary roles. While examples of flexibility and good practice exist, it seems that the challenges of planning a fair and workable package, usually including housing, often mean that part-time is put in the “too complicated” box, so part-time roles are rare and, where they are offered, can lead to bad practice.

    In my role as Dean of Women’s Ministry, I have heard too many stories from my own diocese and further afield of women who went through discernment for ordination at a time in their lives when they didn’t want or couldn’t manage a full-time post, and so to enable them to have the part-time roles they need, have been pushed into self-supporting ministry which isn’t really what they want, and which does not always allow them to develop the ministry they have the potential to offer.

    There’s the half-time vicar who wasn’t told until she’d started that she had to pay the rent on half the vicarage. There’s the priest who took a half-time chaplaincy post and then looked into an additional half-time parish post to discover there literally were not enough days in the week for her to do both. There’s the vicar with a young family who moved from a full-time stipendiary role to a house for duty post as a way of working part-time, which means she misses out on potentially a decade’s worth of pension contributions despite being in work. And the vicar in her fifties whose peers in other professions were dropping down to 4-day weeks to enjoy a more balanced life, who simply didn’t see that option in the church and so left ministry.

    We know that there are going to be changes in how ministry, both stipendiary and SSM, will have to be organised in the coming years. We also know that a healthy church will need to attract and retain a diverse range of clergy. Until we have cracked a transparent, consistent and fair way of remunerating part-time roles, we won’t be attracting and retaining those clergy for whom full-time doesn’t work: many of them, women.

  • Being a Gay Christian and an Ordinand in the Church in Wales

    by Professor Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones, Professor in Ancient History at Cardiff University and an ordinand in the Church in Wales

    ‘I do not think that others who have gone before you perjured themselves, and I do not believe when your time comes that you will perjure yourself either.’ These words were spoken to me about a month ago by the Bishop of Llandaff when she met with me to iron out the details of the training I will undertake on my route to ordination as a priest in the Church in Wales. Bishop June Osborne was referring to my championing of the sacraments and the pledge I will have to take to respect and uphold them when my ordination ceremony takes place.

    You see, I am a gay Christian man who is legally married to another gay Christian man. We have been married for a decade and, in fact, our marriage did receive a blessing from a priest-cum-friend who, having done the deed, turned to our wedding guests and stated boldly, ‘Never let anyone tell you that what you have witnessed here today is not sanctified by God through his love for this couple.’ Our marriage would not have felt real without that blessing, without having God’s presence with us at that time and forever as we live our married life together. God is part of our family; He is in our home, and we carry Him in our hearts and try to do what He would have us do as much as we can.

    So, the Bishop of Llandaff was right: I will not perjure myself when I take the ordination vow to uphold Christian marriage, for I feel that in my daily life, every single day, I uphold that sacred institution. I have never struggled with my sexuality. I was aware of being ‘gay’ – whatever that means, for believe me, gentle readers, there is no limit to the cosmic-sized definition of that tiny little word – from a young age. But I was also acutely aware of being loved by God. Sure, did I not sing about it at the top of my voice at every Sunday School? “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.”

    Karl Barth famously stated that in that line was a summation of all the years of hard work he had put into his theology. I believed it then and I believe it now, although after 54 years on this earth, and having given a lot of thought to whom I am and how God moves in my life, I found another scriptural mantra: ‘I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made’. Let’s put that verse into the context of Psalm 139 and as you read it think about how God has made you His own bespoke creation too. I am no better than you; you are no worse than me; we are created as one-off pieces of humanity. Let’s think about how the Psalmist puts it then:

    You have searched me, Lord, and you know me.
    You know when I sit and when I rise;
    you perceive my thoughts from afar.
    You discern my going out and my lying down;
    you are familiar with all my ways.
    Before a word is on my tongue
    you, Lord, know it completely.
    You hem me in behind and before,
    and you lay your hand upon me.
    Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
    too lofty for me to attain.
    Where can I go from your Spirit?
    Where can I flee from your presence?
    If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
    if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
    If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
    if I settle on the far side of the sea,
    even there your hand will guide me,
    your right hand will hold me fast.
    If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
    and the light become night around me,”
    even the darkness will not be dark to you;
    the night will shine like the day,
    for darkness is as light to you.
    For you created my inmost being;
    you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
    I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
    your works are wonderful,
    I know that full well.
    My frame was not hidden from you
    when I was made in the secret place,
    when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
    Your eyes saw my unformed body;
    all the days ordained for me were written in your book
    before one of them came to be.

    God has made me – and you – to be exactly who we should be. God didn’t make a mistake when he made me and somehow placed that ‘gay gene’ in me. It was His plan from the beginning – because ‘I am fearfully and wonderfully made’. The ‘thing’ that is particular to you, is your God-given ‘thing’. And sure, we have many faults and many things to put right – the bad behaviours we have picked up on the path of life – but the essence of you is crafted, specially, singularly, by God for you.

    I once heard Archbishop Rowan Williams talk about the late, great Archbishop Desmond Tutu: ‘Archbishop Tutu was the best at being Archbishop Tutu that Archbishop Tutu could ever be.’ I have confidence that I can be the best that I can be because God made me to be me. People who scorn me, mock me, deride me because of my ‘gayness’ (again, whatever that means or however that manifests itself), simply do not see that I am ‘fearfully and wonderfully made’ – maybe because, sadly, they have not seen yet how ‘fearfully and wonderfully’ they are made too. I pray to God that may open their eyes to show them how differently special they are to Him too.

    It is with confidence that I take the next step towards my ordination. When God is for us, who can be against us, right? And although there will be dissenting voices, I have no doubt, am putting my feet onto a path paved with godliness – for I have every trust in the Church in Wales, the most liberal, accepting, (and yes, let’s admit it) Christian of the Anglican Churches of the UK. Last year, the Church in Wales took the decision to allow for church blessings of gay marriages. The Church also repented of its persecution of gay and other minority people over the centuries. The Church in Wales’ decision is a visionary step forward and the Church in Wales, I predict, will soon sanction gay marriages in church. This is why I am proud to be a member of the Church in Wales and why I want to work for it and in it: it is progressive.

    Do not think all is sweetness and light here in Wales though. Some conservative churchgoers in Wales – heck, some clergy – will find what I have written here heretical, ungodly even. There is a vocal, vicious, group of internet Church in Wales ‘Christians’ who have already condemned several out gay men and women clergy as ‘decadent’, ‘unnatural’, and ‘perverse’. I’m sure I will be a target for their vitriol too. But they are far from Christ and I pray that they may find Him in their hearts. Bishop June, who is a great support to gay Christians, as she is to all Christians (after all, we approach the faith from many angles), said to me, ‘you might want to think about being prepared to defend yourself.’ I am as grateful for her wisdom and her frankness as I am for her championship.

    So, I’ve thought long and hard about my position of defence. And to be honest, it really doesn’t get better than this: ‘Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so’.