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Tag: WATCH

  • 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.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Holy Discomfort: Time to Restore the Unity of the Church?

    by Theo Hobson, who has written various books and articles about the  Church of England and theology and writes regularly for The Spectator. He blogs at theohobson.com

    1 Kings 3: 16-28

    One day two women came to King Solomon, and one of them said:

    “Your Majesty, this woman and I live in the same house. Not long ago my baby was born at home, and three days later her baby was born. Nobody else was there with us. One night while we were all asleep, she rolled over on her baby, and he died. Then while I was still asleep, she got up and took my son out of my bed. She put him in her bed, then she put her dead baby next to me. In the morning when I got up to feed my son, I saw that he was dead. But when I looked at him in the light, I knew he wasn’t my son.”

    “No!” the other woman shouted. “He was your son. My baby is alive!”

    “The dead baby is yours,” the first woman yelled. “Mine is alive!”

    They argued back and forth in front of Solomon, until finally he said, “Both of you say this live baby is yours. Someone bring me a sword.”

    A sword was brought, and Solomon ordered, “Cut the baby in half! That way each of you can have part of him.”

    “Please don’t kill my son,” the baby’s mother screamed. “Your Majesty, I love him very much, but give him to her. Just don’t kill him.”

    The other woman shouted, “Go ahead and cut him in half. Then neither of us will have the baby.”

    Solomon said, “Don’t kill the baby.” Then he pointed to the first woman, “She is his real mother. Give the baby to her.”

    Everyone in Israel was amazed when they heard how Solomon had made his decision. They realized that God had given him wisdom to judge fairly.

     

    This story came to mind recently as I pondered what’s happened in the C of E while preparing to speak to the trustees of WATCH, Women and the Church. Maybe it’s a bit self-righteous to put ourselves in the place of the true mother who eschews self-interest and just wants the safety of the baby, and to say that the traditionalists are happy for the church to be cut in two if they can’t have it all.

    But the story does perhaps sharpen our thinking about division and unity. In what sense is division acceptable, a pragmatic way forward? Solomon’s initial solution seemed to be fair on both women, to respect the rights of each – but it forgot, or pretended to forget, the even deeper truth, that the baby’s life mattered above all.

    You could say that the Church has forgotten this – that it has been an anti-Solomon, allowing itself to be divided so as to be fair to both sides. The importance of unity has been sidelined – to bring it up is to question the wisdom of the Church.

    This signals a change of approach that I think WATCH should take. That also applies to other campaigning groups in the Church of England. Their main message should be the unity of the Church. And they should be wary of the language of rights, of discrimination.

    First let me say something about my own engagement with this issue. In my youth I was never very focused on the issue of the ordination of women – it didn’t feel like my business. I vaguely disapproved of the traditionalists being given so much space but when I heard female clergy complaining about this I still had a sense that it wasn’t really my business, and also that their campaign resembled secular campaigns for equal rights.

    When the Church finally decided to ordain women as bishops I had a vague sense of – well, surely it’s all over now, so surely we don’t still need campaigning rhetoric from the women clergy. It felt like they were being sore winners, stuck in campaigning mode, echoing the rhetoric of identity politics.

    On one level I knew that the issue was about the division of the episcopate, and therefore of the Church. But I didn’t really focus on this. Maybe because the issue of episcopal unity felt rather Catholic, and I’m not very high church so maybe that’s not my concern. Also, most Anglo-Catholics seemed ok with alternative episcopal oversight, so maybe it wasn’t a problem.

    A few years ago my attitude changed a bit. I visited a local parish where the priest is Forward in Faith but the parishioners seemed mostly unaware of their allegiance. It felt like a hindrance to the C of E’s identity, that this dissenting body was tolerated.

    Also, I didn’t like the idea of a big theological issue – the unity of the Church – being off-limits, just because it was so contentious. I became suspicious of the idea that both sides had agreed not to re-open the wound, not to question the other side’s right to exist. The Church had decreed that it was virtuous to accept this form of disunity, and unhelpful to re-start the old painful debate by questioning the Act of Synod.

    I began to think – why don’t WATCH come out and say that alternative episcopal oversight should be ended? The reason, of course, is that the Church has de-legitimised that position – to speak of re-unifying the Church has become taboo, for it means wanting to exclude a portion of one’s fellow Anglicans. But what a strange situation – that a Church should strongly discourage the desire for unity, treat it as a subversive desire.

    So that’s my analysis of where we are – WATCH has a dilemma. Should it demand the repeal of the current arrangement, and sound aggressive and un-Anglican? Or should it accept the basic set-up, but call out instances of discrimination? If so it is forced to sound like a marginal campaigning group, complaining about the status quo, but not daring to try to change it.

    The current approach, it seems, is a half-way house: it says that the whole set-up is discriminatory, but doesn’t quite follow through with this and call for its repeal. And it stays within a rather secular framework of rights, when its approach could be more boldly theological.

    How can we get out of this rut? I suggest we need a new narrative.

    It comes from seeing that since 1993 we have not been living in normal times – and acknowledging this is only slowly growing on us. In normal times, the moderate centre of the Church defends its unity from factions on each side. But in recent decades the moderate centre of the Church has condoned disunity.

    So, the old idea is still ingrained in us, that bringing unity is what the moderate centre does. We are still not really used to the new era, in which the moderate centre gives its blessing to disunity. And of course so do the traditionalists. The conservatives and the moderate centre have agreed to define unity in a spurious way – to say that it means peace between separate factions – but no church has ever really survived with that idea of unity, with a divided body of bishops. And the Church is now being asked by some conservative evangelicals to do this again over the gay issue.

    It’s a weird state of affairs, that the ideal of unity must be reasserted, but now from the fringe. And I suggest that WATCH has not quite grasped this, in its campaigning – it still sounds like it is representing the interests of a minority, a faction.

    The real task is to launch a new sort of campaigning rhetoric. To say, let’s restore the unity of the Church. It’s the rhetoric that used to be owned by Anglo-Catholic traditionalists, but they have now lost ownership of it, by condoning a divided episcopate – so it’s for liberals to own it.

    This means moving away from the rhetoric of rights, and instead for liberals to present themselves as the champions of unity. The language of rights is unhelpful, because the traditionalists also have rights, according to the official policy of the Church. For liberals to assert the superiority of their rights, because they align with general human rights, sounds secular, and allows the traditionalists to sound more boldly Christian.

    Such a move will attract criticism – that this approach is aggressive, that it seeks to kick out the traditionalists. But this will wake people up to the reality: that the desire for unity has been de-legitimised.

    Is this what a movement such as WATCH is for? I think it could be said that if WATCH doesn’t make this move it is contributing to the status quo. It endorses the official view that unity has been redefined, that a united episcopacy is an illegitimate goal. To put it more provocatively, WATCH can be seen as obscuring the issue of the Church’s disunity. For the average liberal thinks, Oh that’s the job of WATCH, to challenge alternative episcopal oversight, it’s their issue. But of course the unity of the Church is the concern of all.

    If WATCH does move in this direction, its name might be a problem, for its name ties it to the rhetoric of minority-rights-campaigning. To go back to my engagement with the issue, I assumed it wasn’t really my business – because of the word ‘women’. But a campaign to re-unify the Church would have got my attention, drawn me in.

    In conclusion, I think that WATCH has a fascinating challenge. Today, it has a special role in re-unifying the Church. Why? Because the rest of the Church has drifted into accepting disunity as normal, inevitable. Only here is there a real discomfort at disunity – a holy discomfort that can lead to renewal.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Equality, ‘headship’ and authority: drawing the line in schools and churches

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

    It should go without saying that all schools in this country want to teach children that all people are equal and should have equal opportunity. And it is important that schools should do this, as young people may be picking up other messages in society, in their home lives and from religious leaders.

    A couple of weeks ago I was at a Church of England school giving a talk to a group of sixth formers, who were studying Religious Education for A level, about gender equality and how equality is at the heart of the Christian faith. The class was a mixed group of boys and girls, Christians, Muslims, and others of other faiths or none.

    After the talk, I opened the floor for questions and was a bit shocked when one boy put up his hand and said, ‘It’s God’s will that men should be in authority over women.’ A couple of boys sitting next to him smirked and a number of the young people shifted in their seats uncomfortably. I challenged what he was saying, arguing that scripture can be and has been interpreted this way, but it also can and should be interpreted differently. Christian or Muslim, I strongly believe that it is God’s will for us to all see each other as equal – that there is no one lesser or greater than ourselves.

    The boy pushed back, quoting scripture, and explained why he believed women need to be controlled by men. I saw the teacher give him a look, but I calmly responded to his questions, giving alternative interpretations to the scriptures he referred to. He and I could have continued back and forth all day, but I tried to involve others who might have different opinions.

    At the end of the class, when the young people had gone, I had a chat with the teacher. She said that it is a problem that some young people are being taught by faith communities that it is men’s role to lead and women’s role to submit to that leadership. She said that in RE, a few years ago, she would have given some input about the interpretation of different texts regarding gender in scripture and then allow the students to discuss in small groups. She says she can no longer do this, as it causes so much upset and abuse. Another RE teacher I later spoke to about the experience confirmed that, more and more, boys are goading girls at school that they are the superior sex.

    As Chair of WATCH, a campaign group for equality for women in the Church of England, and as a vicar in West London, I spend a lot of time arguing that equality is at the heart of the Gospel and that we shouldn’t be discriminating against people on grounds of sex or other protected characteristics. WATCH calls for an end to the institutional discrimination, whereby it is still permissible for parishes to advertise just for a male vicar or to refuse the authority of a female bishop. Personally, it troubles and upsets me that our church is divided and some priests won’t receive communion from others because they are female and some of my colleagues don’t believe women should be vicars or bishops, or even preach (other than to women and children.)

    Nonetheless, I had not realised that the theologies that underlie these positions, especially headship (or ‘complementarian’) theology, are having such an impact on young people – at least, as evidenced by my visit to that Church of England school.

    Recently there has been some discussion about whether schools, particularly Church of England schools, should be teaching children about the ‘white supremacy pyramid’ and systemic racism. Some dioceses already recommend using the ‘pyramid’; for example, Derby. Whether this is a good idea or not, we all accept that schools should be teaching that it is not right for anyone to consider themselves greater or lesser than anyone else on the grounds of skin colour. But what about gender? How should schools respond to young people who are being taught in mosques or churches that men need to have power over women? Not only is this situation unpleasant and offensive for girls to contend with in schools, it is also dangerous. There is much evidence that in cultures that teach and accept male privilege over women there are higher levels of violence against women and girls, than in cultures which promote equality between the sexes.

    The day before my school visit, I was in York at General Synod and had a number of conversations with Conservative Evangelical Christians while I was there. I was campaigning, along with the Student Christian Movement, for an ‘Honest Church’ where, if we are going to continue with institutional discrimination against women, then we should at least be transparent about this, and churches that limit women’s roles should be clear about their position. Talking to one man, he admitted that his church says nothing about its headship theology on its website, but he said that they do teach headship theology in the church at least once a month, so anyone going to the church for any length of time should soon realise this. When I heard this, I thought that this was probably a good thing so that at least people knew the situation and could choose whether this church was for them or not. But now, having gone into the school, I am not so sure.

    Religious leaders have a lot of power and influence, especially over younger people, and headship teaching is possibly being accepted without any critical analysis or any acknowledgement of alternative approaches. As a result, some men may be hearing that they need to control women; indeed, that it is their role to show authority over women. I’d like to see the Church of England give a clear edict to our schools that it is not God’s will that one sex should have authority over the other. But, given that we allow this teaching in our churches and that we state in recent legislation that we want such churches to flourish, then that currently seems impossible.

    And the goading, or worse, seems set to continue.

     

     

  • In Conscience?

    Questions of Conscience (4)

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

    Acting according to theological conscience is the calling of all Christians and must be respected. But I can’t help suspecting that the phrase ‘in conscience’ (just like its cousin ‘for the sake of unity’) is being used more and more in Church of England circles to legitimise bigotry. And, when we hear it, alarm bells should ring.

    As Chair of WATCH (Women and the Church), a national campaign group for equality for women in the Church of England, I want to speak out against discrimination of all kinds. But in particular against women who, comprising two thirds of churchgoers, are in the unique position of being a ‘minoritised majority.’

    The truth is that about half of all human beings are born with XX chromosomes and about half are born with XY chromosomes. Another truth is that some human beings are born with a particular sexuality, just like some human beings have a particular skin colour. We must stop discriminating against women and LGBTQ+ people. It is not only unjust to discriminate, it is also what I would call unGospel. If Jesus teaches us anything, it is that there are no human beings who are lesser or greater than any other human beings. In the Kingdom of God, the first is last and the last is first. Equality is at the very heart of the gospel.

    One of the things that annoys me most in this whole debate is that people like myself, who stand against discrimination, are often decried as ‘liberals’ who are happy to go along with anything and just suck up the whole of modern culture. This is not true. There are plenty of things in modern culture that I’m firmly against. They are things like pride, abuses of power, arrogance and manipulation. They are things like promiscuity, debauchery, exploitation and unfaithfulness. And we see these things in men and women, and in people of all types of sexuality. And these are the things where the Church has something important to speak into modern culture, because these are the things that are causing huge damage to people and our relationships. On the other hand, we need to be speaking up for humility, collaboration, and honesty; and for relationships that are committed, healthy, respectful and faithful.

    In Jesus’s times, the Pharisees could not ‘in conscience’ allow healing on the Sabbath, because scripture said this was not permitted. They could not allow an adulterous woman to be shown mercy, because the scriptures said she must be stoned. They could not eat or associate with the Gentiles, because scripture clearly told them to keep themselves separate and holy. But Jesus healed on the Sabbath, seeing that loving and healing people overrode the need to keep to the letter of the Law; he rescued and redeemed the adulterous woman, despite recognising that she had sinned. And the Holy Spirit blew apart the long-held scriptural understanding that Jewish people could not be brothers and sisters with Gentiles.

    When I was appointed last October as Chair of WATCH I thought that I only had the bandwidth to speak up about discrimination and sexism against women in the Church and I would focus my energies solely on this. But I have found that I cannot challenge discrimination against women without, at the same time, challenging discrimination against other human beings.

    In February this year, I went to a meeting at St Martin in the Fields on the night of the first day of General Synod. In this church, a large number of LGBTQ+ people and allies had gathered to eat together, to encourage each other and to pray for each other – in the light of the LLF conversations and votes that were to take place that week and that affected them so greatly. As I sat there, surrounded by these people, I found myself moved by the depth of brokenness and pain that washed around me. It was like these people had somehow been made to feel that, within the Church, they were the lowest of the low, some kind of detritus, a sort of lower order that was having to fight even for the right to exist in the Church, let alone to be recognised as equal to others, to the entitled. As I silently took all this in, I felt a sense that this was where Jesus was – that Jesus was in that place with those people who saw themselves at the bottom of the pile, despised by many and, at best, tolerated by others.

    Once again, I knew that the very heart of the gospel is equality. That Jesus came to raise up the lowly and to bring down the proud. We are all human beings. It doesn’t matter whether we are men or women or what sexuality we have. The important thing is how we treat one another and discrimination, whether in so-called conscience or not, is not what Jesus wants.

    It is time to repent and to lament how we have treated women, LGBTQ+ people, people of colour, those who are disabled and others, and now to embrace a new culture in our Church where we truly see every human being as no lesser and no greater than any other. Jesus came to break down barriers between us and to bring unity. But he also called for tough choices to be made, and this is why he was so critical of the Pharisees. He wanted people to follow him and to help him bring in the Kingdom of God by following him. But those who, as he saw it, were blind and hard of heart could not help in that ministry.

    Jesus says to his followers, ‘I am the vine and you are the branches.’ He wants us all to be part of the vine, but he also recognises the need for pruning some branches. We want to be a healthy Church rooted in Jesus – so let’s say a clear no to the Pharisees, no to things like pride and promiscuity. And yes to all people being free to live their God-given lives to the full and to use their God-given gifts to the full, respecting how God has made us, male and female and of varying sexuality. And rejoicing in our wonderfully diverse humanity.

     

     

     

  • Leadership for Change: A Response to ‘The Sexism Women Continue to Face in the Church of England’

    by Rev Dr Stacey Rand, Senior Research Fellow in Social Care at the University of Kent

    Revd Martine Oborne’s recent article explored the experience of discrimination faced by many female clergy in the Church of England. It offers an honest and truthful description of the cost carried by female clergy, as they try to faithfully serve their communities.

    However, as many female clergy will know first-hand, it is risky to voice these experiences openly. Why? The view of many, including of female clergy themselves, is that it may deter other women from exploring vocation to ordained ministry. It presents the Church of England in a negative light.

    I am a priest: how I express this on my Twitter bio is “Somehow, also a priest in CofE”. I want to bring my own experience to the points about discrimination made by Martine, particularly around issues that relate to access to theological education and support in ministry. Both of these have had – and continue to have – an impact on my own ‘flourishing in ministry’.

    Access to theological education

    I was recommended at selection in 2013 (aged 30) to begin training for ‘incumbent status’ ordained ministry. I was strongly guided towards part-time training, which was self-funded (except fees) and up to Undergraduate diploma level.

    This is an unusual pathway for a younger candidate. The Diocesan Director of Ordinands (DDO) explained that I was perceived to be a ‘risk’ as a ‘young married woman, who may become pregnant’. It was also said that it would be better to train part-time, as it was far cheaper than full-time residential training. There was no conversation about or consideration of my training needs, formation or future ministry.

    My experience is not unique. Ministry statistics for younger candidates (under 40) show that, whilst roughly equal numbers of women and men train on non-residential pathways, men are more likely than women to train full-time, residentially.  Of course, part-time pathways may enable women (and men) to train alongside family, caring, work or other personal commitments. However, my experience warns that these differences may also reflect bias – conscious or unconscious – that assumes women are ‘risky’ and not worth investing in.

    Support in ministry

    Martine comments that:

    “More women are ordained later in life than men and they tend to get directed towards leading smaller churches or groups of small churches – often without a salary.”

    Since the ordination of the first cohort of women as priests in 1994, women have been over-represented among ‘non-stipendiary’ (unpaid) clergy. Currently, 35% of female clergy are unpaid by comparison to 22% of male clergy. Some of this may be explained by age profile. Women tend to come forward for selection later in life, so the impact of policies offering people over a certain age (usually in their 40s or 50s) no option but non-stipendiary ministry will disproportionately affect women.

    After my pre-ordination training, I was asked to complete a non-stipendiary curacy. In conversation around why I had been asked to do this, rather than being supported with a stipend (as I had indicated as my first preference), again, some assumptions had been made. It was expected that I would give up my paid work to be a parish-focused full-time unpaid curate and that, as a married woman, my husband would support me.

    Again, I had been stereotyped due to my sex/gender and marital status. Those who had made these assumptions would no doubt express their full support for women’s ministry, but allowed their internal assumptions about gender roles to shape their decisions in an unhelpful way. They had not been able to really see or understand the person in front of them. We are all capable of such mistakes; the issue is about creating a culture of self- and mutual accountability that mitigates against this.

    Does it matter?

    Why does the Church of England not act more decisively on this discrimination? There are only approximately 2,400 female clergy serving in paid or stipendiary roles and a further 1,300 non-stipendiary clergy. Perhaps some think we face more important challenges: recent census data, for example, shows that affiliation with the Church of England has continued to decline since 2011.

    But discrimination against female clergy does matter. The Church of England serves communities, locally and nationally, from local community projects to the House of Lords, and needs to maintain some degree of alignment with those communities. We live in a society where women have equal access to education and opportunities to paid work, even if barriers and challenges remain.

    Martine’s article alludes to the settlement intended to protect and accommodate those who are unable to accept women’s full ministry. While greater transparency – for example, requiring local churches to clearly state their position on websites – could help to some degree, the discrimination faced by female clergy is not limited to those churches, which from their complementarian or traditional catholic convictions conclude that women cannot serve in leadership roles and/or be ordained priest.

    The experiences of training for ministry, which I’ve described here show that, sadly, the problem goes beyond the small constituency of churches who do not recognise or support women’s ministry. Sexism remains persistently embedded, in a way that goes far deeper.

    Next steps?

    We need greater accountability, transparency and shared commitment to specific actions; for example, the development of consistent maternity leave policies across the Church of England. Local or national review of access to theological education should show full commitment to the idea that women should be allowed to flourish in ministry.

    While organisations such as WATCH work on national level awareness-raising, or local advocacy and case work, individual bishops make their own policy and, if such policy discriminates against women, there is no accountability. Consistency across dioceses is lacking in many areas, including in training for ministry.

    But we also need to develop a culture of attention, with space to listen and understand people, rather than relying on short-cut assumptions about individuals that may be inaccurate, misleading or even harmful. We are all part of the problem – when we collude in silencing each other when we ought to speak, reflect on and discuss the issues, or when we minimise or ignore the negative impact of discrimination on human flourishing. Therefore, we all need to share the leadership for change.

     

  • The Sexism Women Continue to Face in the Church of England

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

    At Christmas parties this year, the chances are that someone will start talking to you about the dire national census results for the Church of England, which show that less than 50% of people in the UK now identify as Christians. If, like me, you are ‘in the Church’ in some capacity – perhaps a minister or a Churchwarden – they’ll want your take on it. Why don’t people go to Church anymore? How can people sit down to turkey and all the trimmings without first spending an hour in a chilly ancient building singing ‘O Come all ye faithful’?

    These are good questions. And there are many possible answers. On the positive side, perhaps our Christian values have become so embedded in our culture that we no longer need to be stirred up from the pulpit. Or, on the negative side, perhaps we are put off by a Church that can’t seem to make up its mind about gay marriage. Quite often, however, there’ll be one person at the party who starts going on about the female vicar of their local village church and how everything has gone downhill since she arrived.

    So I want to give a big shout out for that female vicar, and all the other female vicars and leaders in our Church. Do you have any idea how hard they work, how often they feel unvalued and what they have to put up with?

    Usually, the said female vicar has made some kind of change which is, of course, what all new vicars do. Maybe she has asked the Choir to occasionally sing a hymn that was written less than a hundred years ago. Maybe she has introduced an all-age service on the first Sunday of the month – for the two or three children who hardly ever come. She might even have succeeded in growing a congregation of families who now annoy ‘the regulars’ because they don’t sit still and make too much noise. The reason she is doing these things, of course, is a desperate attempt to build a wider congregation than the handful of septuagenarians and octogenarians she has inherited. A male vicar who did this would also be annoying to the indigenous congregation, but a female vicar gets it in the neck because she is a woman. Somehow, it’s simply because she is a woman that she is doing these things. Which is, of course, pure sexism – or unconscious bias, at the very least.

    But sexism is still sadly par for the course in the Church of England. In 2014, with great fanfare, women were finally allowed to be bishops as well as priests. But, in almost complete silence, provisions were then made so that parishes who didn’t accept female vicars and bishops could avoid their ministry. And this situation remains.

    So our vicar, who simply happens to be a woman, just has to put up with this. If she was ordained since 2014 she will have had to sign on the dotted line to say that she accepts that the Church both recognises her as a priest, but also recognises that some, including her colleagues and maybe even her bishop, don’t recognise she is a priest – and that is how the Church intends things to be indefinitely. This means that there may be a church in the next village where she could not cover a Sunday service because that church’s bishop isn’t confident she can consecrate the sacraments validly. And there may be a church in the nearby town, where she could not lead a service because that parish believes that women should not preach to mixed congregations.

    Our woman vicar will be working six days a week, sometimes looking after about six or seven churches and often not being paid a penny. More women are ordained later in life than men and they tend to get directed towards leading small churches or groups of small churches – often without a salary. Men tend to get ordained earlier and end up in paid posts leading bigger churches in more urban environments. One clergy colleague once explained to me why this made sense by saying, ‘Men are generally more dynamic than women and should therefore lead the bigger churches.’ Again, pure sexism.

    Earlier this month, Rev Rob Munro was appointed Bishop of Ebbsfleet to provide episcopal ministry to churches who do not accept female vicars and female bishops, although this purpose was cloaked in church jargon so that any ordinary person might have struggled to understand. The Church said that Munro ‘will have a special national ministry to parishes of a complementarian evangelical theology across England… [who] are unable to receive the priestly or episcopal ministry of women,’ which is fairly clear. But Munro, in his interview with The Church Times, simply talked about his ministry being for ‘resolution churches.’ Neither explained what complementarian theology is – the understanding that God created men to lead and women to submit in the Church and in marriage. Even the word ‘complementarian,’ which is now being used to replace what was previously referred to as ‘male headship,’ is misleading because it suggests equal balance and fairness, rather than one sex having authority and control over the other.

    Of course, neither I nor most of my colleagues in the Church of England agree with this theology but we feel under great pressure not to debate the matter, certainly not publicly. As Chair of Women and the Church (WATCH), a national campaign group for gender equality in the Church, I want to help us lift the lid on the ongoing sexism and discrimination that women, both ordained and lay, experience in the Church and help to change the culture. One of the things that we are asking for is that every church should have a statement in clear English about any limits it puts on women’s ministry in a logical and visible place on its website. This way, ordinary churchgoers can easily be aware of this matter. Munro says he doesn’t believe this should be required – he says it’s up to churches to say whatever they think is important on their websites. But, despite claiming that their theology on women’s ministry is so important they need a special bishop to look after them, churches who limit women’s ministry are mostly saying nothing on their websites or saying something in incomprehensible language on a page deeply buried within it.

    This isn’t about naming and shaming, it’s about being honest on a matter that ordinary Anglicans care about deeply. We have all worked hard to bring discrimination to an end in the secular world but, thanks to exemptions that the Church has under The Equality Act 2010, it can go on discriminating legally. Many people want to be members of churches who say no to this and feel angry when they find out, sometimes after years of support including financial donations, that their church limits women’s ministry. Furthermore, it’s not just a theological matter – these beliefs result in practices that impact women’s opportunities in the Church and their well-being.

    The Student Christian Movement recently launched a campaign called #honestchurch seeking churches to be clear on their websites regarding their theology about LGBTQ+ people. Their CEO, Naomi Nixon, was featured last week on Via Media. And we join with SCM in seeking equal clarity about women.

    So, when you go to Church this Christmas, and I hope you will, please spare a thought for your hardworking vicar. And, if that vicar is female, please tell her she’s doing a great job, a job she has every right to do. If you are ‘in the Church,’ please make sure you know where your Church stands on all this and who your bishop is and what their position is. Not to be a nuisance, but for the long-term good of our Church.

    After all I can’t believe that, if we brought an end to discrimination in the Church of England, this would not have something of an impact on those dire statistics.