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Tag: flying bishops

  • Safeguarding and Patriarchy in the Church of England

    by Revd Martine Oborne, Chair of WATCH (Women and the Church), a group that works for gender equality in the Church of England

    The 253-page Makin report on the Church of England’s handling of the John Smyth abuse case – that has brought about the resignation of the Archbishop of Canterbury – has been pored over by many people in recent days. But one part that has so far been overlooked is the section that links the abuse with patriarchy.

    In 9.1.9-10 the report describes the patriarchal culture of the camps at which the abuse took place and how this was conducive to that abuse. Makin says that the camps were entirely run by men and a victim states: ‘…it was an incredibly sexist set up, a group of people called lady helpers, many of whom were either wives of the leaders or female undergraduates. These lady helpers were kept out of sight, out of mind, they’d be doing the cooking in the kitchen…’

    The report goes on to say that clinical psychologist, Dr Elly Hanson, also explores how this patriarchal approach… ‘was a conducive cultural and organisational factor,’ describing the impact in relation to this case as follows:

    “Misogyny and patriarchy: men are seen as in authority over women… men are granted more power than women and treated as having more wisdom and insight. As a result, John’s behaviour and justifications may have been given more legitimacy; his focus on young men was not questioned; and potentially valuable perspectives from women were absent.”

    The Church of England still uses its exemptions under The Equality Act 2010 to discriminate against women on the grounds of their sex. For example, it is still permissible for churches to ask only male candidates to apply for a post as a vicar. It is permissible for such churches to limit women’s ministry and prohibit them from preaching to, or teaching, men. It is permissible for such churches to say that they cannot accept oversight of a female Bishop but need to be overseen by a male Bishop such as a ‘flying bishop’ like the Bishop of Ebbsfleet. There are many such churches in London and big university cities and they include All Souls Langham Place, St Helen’s Bishopsgate, St Andrew the Great in Cambridge and St Ebbe’s in Oxford.

    The flip side of this permission is alarming: no one can be considered for training as a priest in the Church if they want women and men to be treated equally and do not accept the institutional discrimination that has been in place for thirty years, ever since women were first ‘permitted’ to be priests. And those who critique this discrimination find it very hard, if not impossible, to progress to senior posts in the Church. Ironically, the arrangements are referred to as ‘mutual flourishing’ which is shorthand for the expectation that both women and those who don’t fully accept women’s ministry can flourish.

    This ongoing discrimination is an injustice to women who, both ordained and lay, work hard throughout the country serving their churches and communities and who deserve to be treated equally with their male colleagues.

    And it is also unsafe.

    A culture which is essentially an old boys’ club is a fertile environment not only for abuse but also for its cover up, as we have seen in the Church regarding the Smyth case. Furthermore, it is an environment in which one entitled group is facilitated in exerting coercive control over another group.

    The Bishop of Newcastle has shown great integrity and courage in upholding safeguarding standards in the Church, not only by calling on the Archbishop of Canterbury to resign but also by publishing a letter she received from him and the Archbishop of York recently, which was patronising and coercive in trying to get her to adopt a certain position on another safeguarding issue relating to John Sentamu.

    Women are called to show ‘gracious restraint’ in the Church and to accept that some of their colleagues have the right to limit their ministry. This practice is essentially coercive, requiring women to accept a diminished status without complaint and gaslighting them, if they resist, by calling them unkind and saying that they are marginalising others.

    Although, as a result of the Makin report, there is an immediate need to arrange for independent safeguarding in the Church, safety will not be fully addressed without changing the culture that has been an old boys’ club for far too long. One helpful step would be to put an end to institutional discrimination by sex. If the Church won’t do this itself then maybe Parliament should consider removing its exemptions under The Equality Act – so that it would be illegal for the Church to continue discriminating.

    And, hopefully, it could then authentically become the spiritual voice for the nation – both safeguarding the vulnerable and treating all people equally.

     

     

  • Some Are More Equal Than Others

    by the Venerable Christine Allsopp, archdeacon emeritus of Northampton, exercising a retirement ministry in the Diocese of Oxford

    As the actual date of the 30th Anniversary of my ordination to the priesthood approaches, I have been going through the jumbled collection of papers, scattered through several file boxes, that relate to the 1990s. In one box I found the texts of the presentations that I had given prior to the 1992 vote in General Synod; presentations given to several parishes, to deanery synod, and to a religious community.

    In them I describe how I became convinced of the rightness of women’s priestly ministry long before I felt a personal call: “The process began when I realised with a shock the similarities between George Orwell’s ‘Animal Farm’ and the Church of England. The unjust position of women in the Church of England is like that of the animals who discover that while all are equal, some are more equal and others!”

    For me, the role of women in the church was a justice issue. So I quoted Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s words to his provincial synod: “The Bible is quite clear that the divine image is constitutive of humanity irrespective of gender. I cannot have struggled against an injustice that penalises people for something they can do nothing about, their race, and then accept with equanimity the gross injustice of penalising others for something they can do nothing about, their gender.”

    I argued that the Church of England had, unlike the Church in South Africa, lost the opportunity to lead the way against discrimination in our own society. Instead of being at the forefront of the fight against discrimination we were limping along behind, with the inevitable accusation that the church was merely following secular society. Nevertheless we could and should have a prophetic role as part of the universal church. Sadly, with some notable exceptions, church leaders often avoid confronting injustice; the prophetic role is inevitably uncomfortable.

    In the months following the vote in General Synod in 1992, I was focused on preparing for my priestly ordination and in moving to a new post. I was hardly aware of the implications of the Act of Synod hurriedly introduced by the House of Bishops to General Synod in 1993 to give more “protection” to those opposed. Yet over the years that followed, its language became subverted in a way not unlike changes in Animal Farm’s Seven Commandments. Wording that had a clear meaning was quietly altered to mean something quite different. “Extended Episcopal Oversight” as exercised by Provincial Episcopal Visitors (Flying Bishops) became “Alternative Episcopal Oversight”; “the integrity of differing beliefs and positions concerning the ordination of women” became “the two integrities”.

    In 2005 I was appointed as an archdeacon and later the same year I was elected to General Synod. I experienced a sense of déjà vu when the same arguments that had been used against the ordination of women as priests were repeated as arguments against their consecrations as bishops. Women were referred to as a problem to be dealt with rather than a gift to be valued. I did not remain on General Synod for the final vote. I am not certain that I could have voted for the Five Guiding Principles that  replaced the Act of Synod, although I can understand why those that did so were weary, and anxious finally to have women as bishops.

    Since then, the language of the Five Guiding Principles has often kept women quiet. All ordinands are required to affirm them before ordination, as if the Declaration of Assent and Oaths to the Bishop and the Sovereign were not enough. The Principles begin by asserting that the Church of England is “fully and unequivocally committed to all orders of ministry being open equally to all, without reference to gender”. All three orders of ministry may be open to us, but there are altars where we are forbidden to preside, posts for which women may not apply. Women continue to be underrepresented at Bishop’s Staff level and underrepresented among leaders of large churches. Nearly ten years after the first woman became a bishop, only seven out of forty-two diocesan bishops are female. While all are equal, some are more equal than others.

    Thirty years on from those first ordinations to the priesthood, what has changed? “Women seem to be getting angrier” observed a bishop to me recently. Anger, or at the very least, frustration, may be understandable reactions to the injustice of a church that still treats a male model of ministry as a norm. Bishops still appoint, and need, Advisors for Women’s Ministry to flag up areas of concern. There are more women in non-stipendiary ministry and fewer women in incumbency roles than men. It is not clear whether the non-stipendiary route is through choice, or whether more accommodation to ensure that roles are possible alongside family responsibilities would encourage more women into stipendiary ministry. How are all women clergy, whether single or married, expected to flourish alongside those who do not accept that we are priests?

    Not all women clergy feel angry or frustrated, and even those that do admit to these feelings can also speak of the great sense of fulfilment that their calling brings to them. Nevertheless, anger can be used productively if it results in challenges to a culture in the Church of England that for too long has avoided dealing with the injustices in the treatment of its women clergy. For we follow the One who challenged the norms of his society in his engagement with women; who was sufficiently angry to challenge the everyday practices in the Temple by overturning tables.

    I am looking forward to attending the Not Equal Yet Conference organised by WATCH (Women and the Church) on 20th April 2024.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Blackburn: What We Still Don’t Know

    by Rev Martine Oborne, Chair of WATCH (Women and the Church), a group that works for gender equality in the Church of England

    Surprise, surprise – there actually is dissension in Blackburn about the Church’s proposed appointment of a bishop who does not ordain women and did not vote in favour of General Synod’s recent decision to allow the blessing of same sex couples.

    When Philip North was nominated as the new Diocesan Bishop of Blackburn in January, there was some surprise that the announcement was apparently greeted by universal joy among female clergy – given that North does not accept that the Church of England has the authority to ordain women as priests and is therefore not sure that these women can consecrate the bread and wine in services.

    It has now come to light that there are in fact a number of clergy with concerns about the nomination, but we have not heard from them publicly because they are worried about speaking out.

    One vicar, Rev Dr Rebecca Aechtner, who ministers in Scotforth, says she has sometimes been accused of being ‘shouty’ and ‘a feminist’ simply for raising concerns about how women are treated in Church.  Nonetheless, as the only ordained woman elected to Bishops’ Council, she continues to raise ‘serious concerns about how women clergy will be protected and about people being evaded when voicing those concerns.’

    And now, in addition, there are others in the diocese who have concerns about the nomination, given that Bishop Philip abstained in the recent vote at General Synod to permit clergy, if they so choose, to bless same sex couples, and the other bishop in the Blackburn diocese, Jill Duff, voted against.

    With regard to Bishop Philip’s position on women’s ordination, there is still no clarification about the practical outworkings for the diocese – such as which candidates Bishop Philip is willing to ordain as priests. Will this be all male candidates or just male candidates who don’t affirm women’s ordination? And who will ordain female candidates and male candidates who don’t want to be ordained by a non-affirming Bishop?  It would also be good to know what, if any, provisions will be made for clergy and parishes who don’t want to be overseen by a bishop who doesn’t fully affirm women’s ordination. If the situation were the reverse, with an affirming diocesan Bishop being appointed, then parishes who don’t fully accept women’s ordination would have the right for extended episcopal oversight. But there’s no current provision in Church law for the opposite to happen.

    I’m told by senior clergy in the diocese that there was a consultation with clergy and parishes before the nomination of Philip North as a diocesan bishop in which clergy said they did not want a non-affirming Bishop, but they also said they did want Bishop Philip.  This is not logically a feasible request but was taken as support for the nomination.  Details of the consultation have not been published but it does not seem that efforts were made to take readings on the potential appointment with clergy in safe spaces – where people could raise concerns without this being observed by and known to their future boss. Indeed, clergy who have not indicated their wholehearted support have been described as being wilfully disobedient to authority.

    My own opinion is that, given that there are a number of clergy in the diocese, both female and male, who are uneasy with what the nomination signifies and may lead to, it would seem appropriate that the process should be paused, at least until proposals have been made about the practical outworkings of the appointment and these have been consulted on.

    It is not only a disgrace but, frankly, dangerous if we are creating a culture in our Church where people feel unable to speak out. The campaign group, Women and the Church (WATCH), that I chair has recently got together with the Student Christian Movement to launch a new campaign called #honestchurch which calls on churches to be clear and transparent about the limits they put on women’s ministry and also how they welcome people from the LGBTQIA community.  Jesus famously said, ‘What you have whispered behind closed doors will be proclaimed from the housetops.’ Secrecy and coverups are an anathema to our faith.  Let’s give women and men in Blackburn a safe space to say what they really think.

  • Thirty Years On

    by Rev Martine Oborne, recently appointed Chair of WATCH (Women and the Church), a group that works for gender equality in the Church of England

    Thirty years ago, in 1992, I was appointed to the main board of an investment bank in the City called Rothschilds. I was 34 and the youngest woman to have been made a Director in the firm.

    At the same time, a battle was being fought in the Church of England to dismantle the legislation that blocked women from becoming priests. I was almost unaware of this at the time because I had largely given up going to church and would barely have called myself a Christian. Nonetheless, as I look back on 1992 today, I think how I might have been in the thick of that battle if I had stuck firm to the calling I had first received as a child – that God wanted me to be a vicar in his church.

    I didn’t come from a churchgoing family, but my parents sent me and my sister to Sunday School to get us out of the house so that they could have ‘a bit of time to themselves’ (whatever that meant!). And I became a very spiritual child, praying, reading my Bible, enjoying being in Church, watching my vicar Father Stephen and feeling that one day I might grow up and do the things he did. Lighting candles, reading from scripture, talking about God and chatting to old ladies.

    One day at school when I was about ten, my teacher started asking the class what we wanted to be when we grew up. One kid said an astronaut, another said Prime Minister, another said a film star and so on. But, when it got to me, I blurted out that I wanted to be a vicar. This was greeted with much laughter from my friends.  And then my teacher said, ‘Well, you can’t do that, Martine – they don’t have women vicars.’ And, at that, the whole class collapsed into fits of mirth while I just sat there feeling an idiot.

    I felt not only stupid but also confused.  It was the late 1960s and brave women were battling to breakdown discrimination in all areas of the public sphere.  And they were succeeding.  So why was it that I could not be a vicar, just because I had been born female?

    I began to wonder what my calling might be.  In my mid teens I had a time of worrying that I might be called to be a second Virgin Mary and I remember praying that God would send a dream to my mum, rather than to my boyfriend, to explain what was going on.

    But I guess, in all seriousness, this was the start of my giving up on my calling, setting aside the foolish things of my childhood and seeking other paths in life.  I got a place at Oxford, a job in the City and good things followed – a nice home, a family and a rewarding career where I was valued and treated as an equal alongside my mostly male colleagues.

    I started going back to church in my mid thirties to get the children into the local church primary school and I thought I could then drift away again after this mission had been accomplished.  But God took the opportunity to renew my faith and my calling and I discovered that, thanks to the persistence and sacrifice of brave women and men like those at MOW (The Movement for the Ordination of Women), women could become priests and vicars.

    That was, therefore, the beginning of a journey that finds me now happily serving as the vicar of a small parish in West London, doing all the things that Father Stephen had done many years ago.

    End of happy story, yes?  But also no.

    Because, although I am a vicar in the Church of England, I am not a vicar on the same terms as I would be if I were a man.  Although almost every Anglican in the land has wanted ministry in the Church to be equally open to men and women from the 1970s onwards, there have been certain small powerful groups within the Church that have resisted this vigorously and viciously.  This meant that legal provisions were made in the 1990s to allow parishes, if they wanted, to say no to women priests.  And then later, in 2014, when the barriers were removed that had prevented women priests from becoming bishops, new legislation enabled ‘flying bishops’ to be appointed so that parishes, if they wanted, could say no to women bishops.

    So I serve in a church where parishes can still advertise for a new vicar and ask for men only to apply, where bishops who are women are required to delegate their authority of oversight to male bishops for some of their parishes, where some of my colleagues espouse a theology that says God created men to lead and women to be led, and where some of my colleagues believe I am not actually a priest (that my ordination was invalid.)  And the official position of the Church is that we want these people, with the theologies that underpin their positions, to flourish.

    But hang on a second, I hear you say.  Isn’t this kind of discrimination illegal in the UK today under The Equality Act 2010?  And the answer is that yes it would be – except the Church of England has exemptions under that legislation which allow it to discriminate.

    OK, you might say.  But people like bishops who hold public office can’t be exempted under the Act.  And that’s true, which means that women bishops should operate on precisely the same terms as men bishops.  But in 2014 the Church got an amendment to the legislation saying that, for the purposes of the Act, bishops do not hold ‘public office.’  Which is somewhat extraordinary, since twenty six of them sit in the House of Lords.

    So what on earth is going on?  How can we be in 2022 and the national Church is still discriminating against women, who represent about two thirds of their congregations and half the population?

    The arguments boil down to largely two things: one, those who say we can’t have women priests because the Roman Catholic Church doesn’t allow them; two, those who say God created men, and only men, to be in charge and the Bible attests to this.

    I can’t get into the response to all this in this short post.  Suffice it to say that the arguments and theology have been hotly contested over the years and millions of words have been written.  But the Church’s legislative council, General Synod, came to the conclusion that there is no theological basis for women to be prohibited from being priests or bishops.  Which should have been an end to the matter, as the purpose of such councils is to resolve theological disputes and make decisions to bring unity and then allow the Church to move forward.  When the apostles Paul and Peter in the early Church debated whether Gentile Christians needed to be circumcised or not, they came to a conclusion and special provisions were not made for dissenters.  Nonetheless, two thousand years later, special provisions were made for those who continue to say no to women priests and bishops.  And, because of these provisions, the old discredited arguments and theologies not only continue, but are often seen on a par with the arguments and theology underpinning the validity of women’s ministry.

    My personal belief is that we are a separate Church from the Roman Catholic Church and can make our own decisions on women’s ministry, as we have on many other areas of doctrine such as allowing priests to be married.  And I believe that God created humankind in his image, in his image he created us, male and female – as we read in the first chapter of Genesis.  So that we do not reflect that image of God when men and women are not equal in the Church.

    The women and men behind the Movement for the Ordination of Women did great work back in the 1990s and earlier, and we have so much to thank them for.  But the work for equality for women in the Church is not done.  This is why I have accepted the role of Chair at WATCH (Women and the Church), which campaigned for women bishops and now seeks equality for all in our national Church.  I hope and pray that, in my lifetime, I will not only see the Church give up its exemptions from UK equalities legislation but also come to truly value women, both ordained and lay, and lament how it has treated us in the past.

    Please join WATCH here to help.