The Church of England could restrict the powers of some women bishops under a plan designed to end a rift between traditionalists who want to keep the all-male senior clergy, and liberals demanding equality.
The proposal has reignited the long-running debate over the “stained glass ceiling” that stops women from taking the most senior roles in the church.
Along with homosexual bishops and same-sex marriages, the ordination of women is among the most divisive issues facing the Anglican Communion, which has 77 million members worldwide.
The Church of England body reviewing the law on women bishops, the Revision Committee, has voted to change the rules to remove certain powers from female bishops in dioceses where they face opposition from traditionalists.
Specially appointed male bishops would assume those powers and the new system would be written into British law, the committee said in a statement on Thursday
I think this is ridiculous. Either commit to something or do not. The episcopate is not like the medical profession. You simply can not choose specializations. If you are opposed to the ordination of women, then fight for that. If you support the ordination of women, then fight for that. I find it hard to imagine that there is an advocacy group for female half-bishops.
Yeah – like we are going to take advice from TEC Brian. It is actually encouraging that we are turning back from division and towards mutual respect and support. The TEC all or nothing approach has nothing to commend itself to us from what I have seen.
This move by the committee is a step in the right direction in my view.
It is actually encouraging that we are turning back from division and towards mutual respect and support. The TEC all or nothing approach has nothing to commend itself to us from what I have seen.
This move by the committee is a step in the right direction in my view.
So pageantmaster, your advice is that we should accept noncelibate homosexual bishops with restricted powers and that would be a step in the right direction for you?
No Brian – that would be sinful and divisive.
[blockquote]your advice is that we should accept noncelibate homosexual bishops with restricted powers[/blockquote]
Of course, the problem isn’t “homosexual bishops”, but rather homosexuals who insist that they can engage in sexual activity which is contrary to Scripture, two thousand years of Christian moral doctrine and the discipline of the vast majority of Christians today.
When a church decides to depart from the doctrine and discipline of Christ as received and to impose a new thing, whether it be women priests and bishops or how homosexual behavior is regarded, you can expect to have major problems in that church. TEC is a prime example of this.
With regard to the ordination of women, TEC has managed to drive out most of those catholics who hold to the doctrine, discipline and worship of Christ. With regard to the breakdown of discipline and abandonment of doctrine by bishops of TEC, we have tried alternative pastoral oversight for the faithful, but since the episcopal power has been retained in the diocesan, regardless of what novel doctrines and disciplines (s)he embraces, it hasn’t worked–driving out of TEC yet more of those faithful to the received doctrine and discipline of Christ.
As I read the article (it isn’t clear about this) the proposal is that if a parish wishes to follow the received discipline of Orders, a woman bishop would have no power over that parish, but some sort of “flying bishop” would assume the episcopal duties and powers regarding that parish, so that the faithful would be, to some degree, protected from the aggression of those church leaders who wish to abolish the doctrine, discipline and worship of Christ.
It isn’t an ideal solution to the problems created by adopting a new religion based on secular humanism rather than the Gospel of Jesus Christ and his catholic Church. There is no perfect solution, other than repentance and return to the doctrine, discipline and worship of Christ as received by the catholic Church.
I still recommend TEC as the poster child of what not to do. TEC has, in the past half century managed to transform itself from a growing church into a dying church, having lost something like a third of its membership and, of those remaining, well over half the claimed membership don’t bother to participate in the worship of Christ on Sunday morning. You might as well join the Democratic Party and sleep in on Sunday mornings.
Whatever happened to the first baptismal promise?
[blockquote]Will you continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers?[/blockquote]
This is encouraging news. There are too many centrifugal forces at work in the CoE. This should calm at least one of the whirlygigs.
Is there a possibility (if this works) that this will serve as a model for other jurisdictions? Even ACNA (shhh) will eventually feel this pressure.
I suppose one should find this encouraging, since it seems to be an advance on the doomed ‘code of practice’ idea. (Even that is opposed by the more radical progressives.)
But why not then create a real Third Province? That is what Forward in Faith has called for, and laid out a cogent plan to achieve. Traditionalists know what they need to prosper and thrive. Is giving them a weak approximation of that really a plan to help them become extinct?
FiF laid our carefully the minimal and maximal provisions necessary for their constituency. The CoE reaction is to take the minimal and water it down further. Then, I suspect, they will try to impose it by synodical legislation. How that possibly work?
In case it helps clarify this report here is the official release from the CofE on behalf of the committee:
http://www.cofe.anglican.org/news/pr9509.html
Greetings.
IMVHO, the problem seems to be similar to what I’ve read from some Continuing sources. If a bishop is simply another upper-management job, then it is, in fact, unfair to deny that position to anyone whomsoever who can do it. They should probably be nominally Christian, but that’s more a combination of marketing tool and/or no-compete clause than a necessary qualification.
OTOH, if consecration as a bishop entails some sort of supernatural change in the individual, who must have qualifications laid down by the omnipotent master of the universe, things become a bit more complicated. If there are ontological differences between men and women, things are more complicated still.
I don’t have the answer(s) to any of this, but I don’t see how to resolve those two particular points-of-view.
regards,
JPB
There is no room for compromise. It is a salvation issue that cannot be negotiated to make one feel better. Thanks for thinking of us Anglo-Catholics but no thanks.
Intercessor
So, Intercessor, are you saying that there is no firewall tall enough or sturdy enough to protect your salvation from the presence of purported female bishops? Are you unable to remain a member of any denomination that allows this, even in isolated pockets, without being in peril of hellfire?
Maybe the ACNA will allow for female Bishops under such an arrangement!
#12, not soon, I’ll wager. But eventually, when they have a plethora of senior women priests knocking at the stained glass ceiling, this mIght seem to be attractive.
#11. I have enjoyed and yes even loved your humor,wit,and wisdom over these years on the blogs,but this is not a humorous topic with me.
I do know that unless you have lived your faith like I have lived mine that you could never really truly understand why my wife and I could never compromise. That is why I am an Anglo-Catholic and you probably have chosen a different path. Do I love you any less for that? Of course not and God correct me if I ever do. Would you ask me to compromise breathing by taking in a breath every once in a while? I cannot and I will not compromise my salvation while I have but this short while here on God’s earth. I know that this position of faith brings upon my family derision and ridicule. That is why God hides me under the shadow of his wing.
Intercessor
Actually (to show God’s immense sense of humor I suppose!) I for this one time actually agree 100% with Brian T19.
Intercessor
Pageantmaster, do you see any indication in the proposed solution that they are attempting to protect a male successorship? I suppose they could do that by requiring at least one pair of male hands at a consecration.
I think there may be an element of realpolitik in these proposals which have come from a committee half of which is composed of women. It may be that it is motivated not only from a desire to avoid division in the church, but also with the aim of ensuring that the proposals for women bishops are less unlikely to achieve the necessary consents of all houses and synods who will have to consent to them. You can see the legislative challenge if you read to the end of the CofE release I link at #8 above. You are seeing the consensual nature of Church of England politics at work here. It won’t satisfy either Mr and Mrs Intercessor or the Episco-guerilla ladies of WATCH and their fellow travellers, but it may have more chance of being generally accepted by the solid middle of the church. Approval at the end of the day is still not a done deal at all.
Brer, the proposals have not been fleshed out yet so it is hard to be clear what they involve, but I imagine that an unbroken line of male episcopal consecration and ordination will be part of the proposal if it has any chance of being accepted by FiF and perhaps some of the more traditionalist members of the church.
I think what the committee is also indicating, which I have noted across the board including the Affirming Catholics, is a desire not to bring the chaos and division of the American church here.
Intercessor, I apologize if I worded my question too sharply. I had no intent to offend nor to imply that you should compromise your personal faith.
FWIW, I believe that the attempted creation of female bishops is ill-advised. But I serve under an archbishop who believes that the headship issue is resolved as long as the head of the province is male (himself). We will not likely have any female bishops any time soon. But the possibility still lingers, and I may have to decide some day what to do about my own affiliation.
To put my question another way, would a purported female consecration (or ordination, for that matter) in any corner of your denomination require your withdrawal from said denomination? Or is there a way that you could continue to serve?
The FiF response is available here:
http://www.anglican-mainstream.net/?cat=497
As one might expect, it is rather circumspect- since what is on the table now is so vague, and no one knows yet what they will actually put before Synod to vote on.
[blockquote] I imagine that an unbroken line of male episcopal consecration and ordination will be part of the proposal [/blockquote]
If this be the case, then with this restriction the consecrated female will not only be circumscribed in her jurisdiction, but also defective in her capabilities–unable to ordain nary a deacon on her own.
These are thorny issues.
#18-The cathedral that I was confirmed in has taken on a charismatic tone and has discouraged me from being the last Anglo-Catholic standing. Asking the laity “if there is a word from the body” after the serving of Eucharist as people stand and speak in tongues to me is not a focus on Christ but on themselves. However, that is only my view and I know these people love the Lord with all of their might. Ironically it is also the mother church that houses the offices of ++John David Schofield who was raised a devout catholic. I believe that our affiliation with the ACNA has opened the door to the Charismatic influence as we now have more female deacons some of which have openly pressed to arise into priests in our diocese when Bp.Schofield retires. I gave away my 1979 an attend a small 1928 service,an answer to prayer, on Saturday morning so I am still connected to the people that I love and cherish. We on occaisonally drive 180 miles one way to an APCK parish when budget permits. We attend regularly a Saturday night 1928 high mass in a small parish run by a new rector whose background is with a continuing diocese born of the clash of faith in 1977. That is where our hearts are. To answer your question on how we would serve should not be addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Intercessor but to God alone. He is the one who has blessed us and our faith and I know that no matter what he will never turn against our love for him. Do we think of it…yes…every day we wonder what we would do and where we would go.
Intercessor
Pageantmaster: there are plenty of homosexual bishops (and priests, musicians, churchwardens, etc, etc) in the Church of England, and always have been. I think there is a big element of reality-denial amongst some (Conservative Evangelical?) English Anglicans regarding that issue.
Thanks, Intercessor. In my case I am under Orders and have taken a vow of obedience to my Bishop. He will not ordain a woman as presbyter. There are female presbyters in other dioceses (I believe) but the prospect of a female bishop is, for the nonce, remote.
#22 Fr Mark – as you know there is a celibacy requirement outside of marriage as it is understood by the Anglican Communion on all clergy which is promised by them. There is no restiction on laity to be free of sin before serving the church community; indeed if there were few of us would get in, only a heart for repentance and ammendment of life. There is a place for discussion of such matters but I doubt this thread is it.
#20 Brer – I don’t think that is right, because those traditionalist parishes which opted for flying bishops as they then were and as perhaps what are being called super bishops might do again, will be in a sense outside the ambit of both male and female bishops. Those parishes will be able to provide that baptisms, confirmations, ordinations and consecrations are done by priests and bishops who have a clear path back through the succession without break. This has been the case in the past with flying bishops and there would be no logical problem with it happening again.
#21 – I would say to the Intercessors that this proposal is designed to enable people of a traditional outlook who I respect to maintain the worship they were brought up with and for whom it is essential to their understanding of what the church is – something which TEC and now the Church in Wales denies them. You may not find this solution ideal or even desirable but in terms of practice it does seek to preserve your right to worship God in the way you have always done and have a right to do. My hope is that the CofE finds a better way and I think this is a start.
Jesus did not compromise with Herod, Pilot, the Sadducee’s, the Pharisee’s, or with his apostles. I will not compromise!
I am not sure that with this proposal that Intercessor and TLDillon or their English equivalents are being asked to compromise. The aim is to provide traditional male primatial oversight to such congregations with a traditional male priesthood, confirmations, consecrations and eucharistic presidency. It does not go as far as the proposal from FiF for an alternative and separate diocese. If however as Brer notes one requires that the whole of the church does not accept women bishops then no, it would not satisfy them.
For myself I have never found the headship arguments particularly convincing. John Stott did have a stab at a tortuous and unsatisfying argument based on it but I am not sure he convinced himself let alone anyone else. I have more time for the catholic arguments based on apostolic succession, although that is not my background.
Personally I would not have a problem in theory with women bishops but as with other things I subsume that to the teaching of my church at the moment and my desire that we should not drive further from Rome, Constantinople and Moscow in our practice. I am also very clear that the current crop of would-be women bishops we are being offered are largely completely unsuitable. Seeing women bishops in operation in other provinces has also been less than encouraging, Mrs Schori being a case in point….but then TEC has some pretty unsuitable male bishops as well.
Pageantmaster: in point of fact, you are not correct here. I was never asked to take a vow of celibacy in order to be ordained. This has not been the practice of the Church of England since the reign of Elizabeth I. Gay clergy in the past (in my experience of their advances when I was younger) certainly did not feel themselves bound by any vows which they had not made! As I say, there is an element of reality denial here.
Intercessor
Does the presence of female bishops in a Church cause all who remain in that Church to lose their salvation? Or is salvation personal?
#27: “As I say, there is an element of reality denial here.”
Yes, the reality of God’s judgment on sin. What an astonishingly legalistic – or elastic – mindset you display here, Mark. At our baptism/confirmation we made a vow to Christ to turn from sin and seek his grace.
Intercessor
Are you saying that any individual who remains in a Church with women priests/bishops can not be saved. Or is salvation personal between God and that individual?
Brian T19:
Mr. and Mrs. Intercessor cannot take the Body and Blood that is not consecrated by a male priest or bishop. As to your question(s) I am not called to answer for God.
Pax,
Intercessor
Fr Mark – did you not at your ordination make the following vows:
1. to faithfully minister the doctrine and sacraments of Christ as the Church of England has received them;
2. to endeavour to fashion your own life and that of your household according to the way of Christ, that you may be a pattern and example to Christ’s people;
3. to accept and minister the discipline of the Church of England, and respect authority duly exercised within it;
4. under oath to be canonically obedient to your bishop; and
5. under oath to use only the forms of service which are authorized or allowed by Canon?
Somehow,this matter should be simple and straightforward. Do the canons of the church allow women priests and bishops? If the answer is no, then why should it change? Civil rights? Clearly irrelevant here. Because women want it and won’t take no for an answer? This won’t do. Because the Holy Ghost demands the change? And who will check of this to verify its truth? Why change a canon unless is clearly violates scriptural authority? I don’t mean this is a tempest in a chalice, but rather that this is a tornado caused by too much rising hot air. Larry
What Brian said in 1. Both liberals and Catholics rightly oppose such compromises.
Pageantmaster: and I also vowed allegiance at my ordination to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, her heirs and successors. There’s nothing in any of those vows that says clergy have to be celibate (indeed, one of the 39 Articles specifically states that the clergy are not to be forced to be celibate!).
I think “the way of Christ” for gay people may involve committed relationships – whether or not you agree – and the “discipline of the Church of England” is entirely incoherent on the subject of its gay members. I could elaborate the incoherences at great length, but you probably know how I mean. The views I have set out here are shared by large numbers of my fellow clergy and laity, so they are hardly unusual. Anglicans disagree on the issue: we just have to accept that, in the same way we do about more important matters of doctrine, such as the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
The rigorists, unfortunately, generally try to make it sound like theirs is the only view. I don’t object to them having rigorous views as regards themselves, but it has never been the Anglican tradition to impose moral rigour on others: life for the older generation of gay clergy in the C of E (who were certainly not by and large chaste) was, paradoxically, much freer than is now the case. Such is the result of letting Evangelical men with a fragile sense of their own maleness have far too much to say about a topic they understand very little, one fears.
Actually Fr Mark the church’s teaching is clear although it could be arguably be clearer as the regular disciplinary proceedings taking place against clergy having affairs outside of marriage testifies to. Clergy are expected to hold to a Christian ethic in their own lives. The fact that in cases it is not observed or enforced rigorously does not belie that fact.
I will think you will find that is a view held beyond a few fragile Evangelicals as you term them although not perhaps by a few liberal men with a fragile sense of their own maleness and who have far too much to say about a topic they understand very little, one fears
#34: How can “the way of Christ” involve committed relationshnips for homosexuals when Christ’swords exclude such relationships? He was clear about the pairing of a man and a woman, wasn’t he? You really cannot spin Scripture to make a fast ball a curve. Besides, what about homosexual relationships that are not committed? Why exclude them?
Larry
Fr Mark – Your #27:
“Gay clergy in the past (in my experience of their advances when I was younger) certainly did not feel themselves bound by any vows which they had not made!”
Without wishing to pry, at the time did you feel their advances were appropriate?
Well, I realise, one’s not likely to find much balance here of all places, so there’s probably not much point in arguing about it.
I would say, though, that it ill behoves a lot of angry straight men to make such a fuss about homosexuality. I may be making a fuss about it, you say, but them I’m gay and so the Church’s current nonsense affects me and those I am close to deeply. However, why any balanced straight man would get his knickers in such a twist about the topic is quite beyond me (when, meantime, Britain, for example, has incredibly high rates of both divorce and teenage pregnancy, which you might reasonably expect ethical straight men to have stronger views) about…). Remember, Jesus said NOTHING about homosexuality and LOTS about including and respecting the weak and the outsider. He also spent a huge amount of his time condemning Pharisaism of the sort that leads people like Pageantmaster to quote loads of rules at me and then try and catch me out!
#37 What a weird question! Your technique is similar to the sort of way the Pharisees used to try to catch Our Blessed Lord out. Why not just be open and positive rather than try to trip people up and condemn them? Openly gay people (rather than the repressed ones you’ll otherwise get) could perhaps have good things to bring to you and the Church, you know.
Well perhaps there is more balance with you participating Fr Mark, and you do sound rather angry and perhaps hurt for which I am sorry.
You will have to understand that for many of us we require some persuasion on biblical, ecumenical and moral grounds when people seek to change the teaching of the church. And I do not think that the high rates of teenage pregnancy, divorce and other problems are any less serious or deserving of our attention and maybe our compassionate engagement.
#39 – Fr Mark I wasn’t trying to catch you out – it was a serious question which I pondered when I read your post. There is no requirement that you answer them. And I have no doubt that gay people can and do contribute to the church as in other areas. I don’t think that people are defined by their sexuality; the question is should the church’s teaching be changed…and I am not persuaded.
[blockquote]I would say, though, that it ill behoves a lot of angry straight men to make such a fuss about homosexuality. [b]I may be making a fuss about it, you say, but them I’m gay[/b] and so the Church’s current nonsense affects me and those I am close to deeply. However, why any balanced straight man would get his knickers in such a twist about the topic is quite beyond me…[/blockquote]
Fr. Mark,’You hve this all wrong, but I am not surprised because it is spin and twist as usual. First of all heterosexual men are not angry nor do they have their “knicker” in a twist. It is you and you said it as i have bolded it above. It is the homosexual that is angry and who have their knickers in a twist because the God is clear about their choice of sexual preference. God does not condone nor bless that which He condemns. Marriage was meant for one man and one woman. Sex is designed to be for the married couple, one man and one woman. Oral sex and anal sex is not want those orifices were designed for. It’s wrong and against God’s designed creation. You and the homosexuals and lesbians are asking the Church and God to change that which He has put in place. NO GO! You are asking God and the Church to conform to your sexual choice. NO GO! It is that wy of thinking that has heterosexual people upset. You have hijacked the Church and are trying to change thousands of years of God’s word and teachings. NO GO!
[i] This thread is becoming one-sided and off topic. Please return to discussing the original topic. [/i].
Just before the Elves change the subject by force majeure: sorry, Pageantmaster, one does get rather frustrated about it all, increasingly. Such is the wearing upon one’s spiritual life over the last 6 years or so by the vilification let loose upon us by lovely God-fearing Christians. From your tone, your are not necessarily one of them, so I apologise for jumping at you.
TLDillon, however, is clearly quite another kettle of fish…
#44 Fr Mark – thanks for that. God bless you.
TLDillon is a faithful Christian lady and one of many you may come across on this blog and others who are paying dearly for their commitment to the church they were brought up in. Further up this thread you will read about a congregation in La Crescenta in California who are being forced to leave their church home from the 1920’s and further down about clergy in Pittsburgh who are going to be removed from the ordained ministry by their former colleagues in the diocese who are also after their churches. Not to use mind you, but to deprive them of their use as they are off to join a neighboring diocese. So understand there are some deeply hurting people here. It is civil war – brother against brother and sister against sister and no one wins save for the prince of this world.
My own view is that we do not want to see that division in the UK on women bishops or any other matter and that means us all respecting each others views and not changing our doctrine, save by consensus with each other and with our ecumenical partners. But in saying that I am pretty much a lone voice.
Thank you Pageantmaster…..one of the many reasons I love you as a brother in Christ Jesus so much.
It is not easy being a Traditional Orthodox Christian these days but then, Jesus said we would be persecuted for His sake.
[i]Philip. 3:8
Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ.[/i]
Countless thousands of us see the problems we are facing today that began with the ordination of women.
Come Lord Jesus Come!
Bless you too TLD
Pageantmaster: the problem with that view, though, is that no change would ever happen on that basis. Waiting for the Vatican to come round to the idea of the benefits of women’s ordination is not exactly a practical solution, is it? For the good reason that hierarchical churches are ruled by a small group of old men, so even though 79% of French Roman Catholics and half of the Spanish clergy are in favour of women priests, for example, as I have posted up here http://viaintegra.wordpress.com/women-priests-in-europe/ , (and we can be sure that similar percentages would say the same elsewhere in Europe – Spain has always been reckoned one of the most conservative of Catholic cultures) their voices are not heard in the RC Church. So, if we do think that top-down government fails to provide for the sensus fidelium in the Church, then we do need to allow for movement from the bottom up instead. On the issue of women bishops, it’s clear that the bottom layer of the ecclesiastical pyramid overwhelmingly expects radical change such as to bring about the consecration of women bishops, and that right soon. Waiting for total consensus can become mere procrastination.
Thanks Fr Mark – I have to go off to a bible study but may revert later.
I am not one but for those of a catholic disposition, the apostolic succession through the male line is foundational to the performance of episcopal functions and the validity of the consecration of the Eucharist. For these people there is a real ecclesiological problem with women bishops and priests that no amount of argument about justice issues, equality etc will overcome. This causes deep distress for these Anglicans who have no desire to go anywhere except the church they are part of and which they see being moved under their feet.
Now one can take the view that they are dinosaurs and must get with the program of those who wish to bulldoze this through, such as the ladies of WATCH who have no time for them. However is treating them in this way any better than the marginalisation you complain of Fr Mark?
I suppose much comes down to the view you have of the church: is it ours or God’s? Is time to be dictated by us and our impatience to do things rather than get them right? Is our time God’s time? Is being a bishop our calling to which we have a right or God’s calling to service? If there are quiet but insistent voices calling out in distress do you brazenly steamroller them as happened disgracefully at Synod or do you take time to listen to them and try to understand what they are saying? Should we then try to reach consensus on what God’s teaching is and try to be obedient to that? What do you think Fr Mark?
Pageantmaster: Obviously, any institution with a long history has to both preserve its core values and reinvent itself in each new social context: this goes for the Monarchy, Parliament, the Armed Forces, Oxbridge, the legal system etc, etc as much as for the Church. British institutions have historically been world leaders at doing this, not least the Church of England. I’ve just been reading about the Church settlement at the Restoration, when 1500 clergy were evicted, losing their jobs for expecting to be able to hang on to the Puritan view that had dominated under Cromwell. They went off and became Baptists or whatever, and the C of E was much the happier for it, as far as I can see.
I think it’s dangerous to make arguments in favour of never changing anything. I observe elderly people I know who have sometimes set themselves against the modern world at a certain point in their lives, and consequently spend their old age just getting angry with society and more and more alienated from it: other older people I know decide to look for what is good in the changing society around them, and then have a much happier experience of old age, and are much better able to pass on their wisdom to those around them. So, I see the question for the Church at the moment as essentially a choice between whether it wishes to be seen as an open, benign and avuncular institution (which was long the role of the C of E in British society until recently) or whether it is there, closed, to carp and criticise and make everyone feel bad.
If the former is the better option, then we need to identify what is core to our values and what is extraneous. It seems to me that justice and equality are core Christian values, and always should have been prominent in the Church. The fact that they have not been in recent centuries is to do with the monopoly of the Church by men seeking social influence and power: keeping women down and firmly in the home and always under the authority of a man was a part of that programme. That was a bad thing, and we need to repent of that history, I think.
I also think that many people in churches are there to be comforted rather than challenged, and that is what allows a culture of fear of change to develop, whether it’s to do with women or gay people.
The fact that we churchgoers are very top-heay age-wise makes this more of a danger: there is a sense that we have become a group of people who just want to be left alone to die quietly in a remote corner of society. I don’t think that’s intellectally adequate, particularly when we need to attract more unchurched people and turn the organisation’s decline around before it becomes terminal. I find it all increasingly depressing, I’m afraid. Reasonable people nowadays just don’t expect any institution to discriminate and still be taken seriously, and the fact that one is here still needing to make the case with fellow-Christians shows how unreasonable and cut-off much of the churchy mindset has become. It feels more and more like a parallel rather mad universe, in which people are certainly not any happier or better.
It is true that Christ did not speak directly about homosexuality. But then, why should he? The subject never came upandno one asked him, ” What do you think of homosexuality and the case for ssm?” He didn’t speak about Ponzi schemes either, but can we really conclude what he might have said if he had been asked about them? That he did not say in so many words that homosexuality acts are inherently sinful, or that marriage was forbidden to homosexuals, is merely a spin on the statements that he DID make about the pairing of a man and a woman and about marriage and the behavior of those so engaged. And Paul is certainly clear enough, if his words count for anything. Larry
Larry: Our Blessed Lord and Saviour neither married nor performed any marriages nor established any form of marriage for his followers. The closest he came to a marriage was being a guest a someone’s wedding reception and forbidding divorce outright (which doesn’t seem to trouble any Evangelical preachers that I’ve heard). The whole modern English-speaking Protestant fixation with (particular forms of) marriage is bizarre, given the background (even more so in the light of the Old Testament background).
Where I live, in a predominantly Lutheran country, marriage is not even considered a sacrament, on a rather more thoroughgoing Protestant basis than has yet to hit English-speaking Evangelicals. Paul even says that it’s better not marry, and if you must do, the wife must be subject to the husband anyway (who follows that nowadays?).
So a bit of rethinking in the light of our recognition, finally, that imprisonment was not the best way to deal with gay people is hardly radical!
[i] Again, please return to a discussion about women bishops in the Church of England. Any comments about marriage will be removed. [/i]
#51 Fr Mark
Thanks for your considered response. I probably agree with most of your first three paragraphs and much as in each generation new people come to Christ, often with the help of the older generation who have gone along that path, so the Church has to renew itself, both in people and in its engagement with people. The Church is after all just us Christians gathered together.
However in each generation we can and do make mistakes, and part of our function as Christians is to deal well with one another. I don’t regard the eviction of 1500 Puritan clergy as a good example although a few years earlier they might have found themselves incinerated for their convictions on one side or the other, which I also do not think is a good Christian example.
Dealing with how the church deals with questions of change it is important to understand what peoples’ viewpoints are and I don’t think people take the effort or perhaps they decide not to understand the point of view of people they don’t agree with. I listened to someone from WATCH on the Sunday Program yesterday mischaracterising opposition to women bishops as to do with a desire to keep women down or maintain male pre-eminence. Of course the anglo-catholic objection is because of a theological understanding of the handing down from Peter and the Apostles of a sacramental gift and inheritance which affects everything from the validity of orders to the presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Now if you haven’t listened to understand that, as I hadn’t until I started reading their views then one probably would dismiss their outlook. It was alien to my churchmanship so I had to struggle to get my head around what they were saying. But I do now – it is not my outlook but I do understand it.
I think that once one understands what people are saying it is then that one is in a position to understand what the changes proposed really mean to people. I don’t think that should be hurried, and I certainly think it is wrong, as some of the WATCH advocates are doing, to mischaracterise other peoples’ views on women bishops as either discrimination or chauvinism in order to advance ones own agenda, which is what is happening.
Then again looking at the issue of making women bishops at this time, in many ways it could not have been brought forward by the bishops at a worse time. The CofE is just about holding its own in figures but we, as with other Anglican churches, are in the public eye with the crisis in the Anglican Communion, and to some extent the heat from that is being transferred into the debate on women bishops and provision for the anglo-catholic and other traditionalists. I think that for a ship to decide to change its rigging in the middle of a storm is less than ideal for anybody. We could well jeopardise the whole ship by doing so and find that our attendances crash, as is happening in the States.
As for the older congregations, yes there are some which are unfriendly and stuck in the mud and where the only conversation as a visitor you will have is with someone telling you that you are sitting in their seat, but by and large in my experience it is older Christians who I have found the most warm and welcoming. Should you be prepared to spend time with them, you will find them supportive and able to give you the benefit of their considerable wisdom and experience of faith. It is also fair to say that this older generation are the backbone of the Church of England who selflessly serve week after week, whatever the conditions, doing all the small and tiresome tasks which might not get noticed. Far from holding the Church back, the Church would collapse without them.
As for the Committee’s proposals, as I say I think that this is more positive than what happened when WATCH were allowed to run amok at Synod, and more Christian.
Pageantmaster: I don’t think the C of E is just about holding its own in terms of attendance at all: the evidence – except for very unreliable and highly slanted material occasionally put out by Church House, which should know better – suggests quite otherwise http://viaintegra.wordpress.com/european-church-attendance/
In my experience, white English people have just about given up on church attendance in any numbers, and the incoming immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean have not been attracted in in large numbers either – witness the huge growth in “black churches” in the UK rather than absorption into the mainstream denominations. The current hugely divisive rows can only be worsening the effect: in the school where I last taught before moving abroad, three of my teacher colleagues separately came to me at different times and said they would never darken the doors of an Anglican church again because they were so horrified at the C of E’s lurch to the right. One of them had been through Anglican public school, and was a lifelong churchgoer theretofore; another had been churchwarden in his village church; and the other had been a parish director of music in his free time, and was a partnered gay man disgusted at the current policy. Normal English people now have out gay family/friends/colleagues, and expect equality for women everywhere. These are sine qua nons if the Church is ever to connect with large numbers of people again. Surely this is obvious?
I don’t think it follows at all that one fails to understand the view of the opponents of women’s ordination – it is a view I used to share, strongly – but the problem is that there is no means of testing whether it is really a high theological principle rather than fear and prejudice clothed in doctrinal language, is there?
PS regarding old people in congregations: I’ve been a lifelong churchgoer, which has meant very often being the youngest person present at services. I even had that experience again when at the main Sunday morning Mass in a grand mediaeval church in England when over a couple of months ago – and now I’m 41!
#57 – I’m just 50 which probably makes me one of the old people but I know what you mean. Given that you understand the catholic understanding better probably than I do, certainly there will be people who have mixed motives for opposing women bishops, but I don’t think that belies the argument, indeed the fundamental theology of the Anglo-Catholic movement. I don’t think one can just dismiss it as fear and prejudice, although these things many play a part with some. In many ways they are stuck in it – their catholic understanding of the episcopate and the eucharist make women bishops a real problem, and yet their catholic understanding of what the church is means that they regard their membership of the church as equally foundational. The evangelicals and the charismatics don’t give two hoots for bishops and the institutional church and largely ignore them unless they are onside – but that is their theology where one’s worship and relationship with God is as an individual rather than gathered with the Church militant across space and time.
You say that people think that the place of women bishops is holding the church back [I will not mention the other topic because the Elves will get cross] but to be honest I have never heard anyone in church mention it as an issue. A few senior clergy are much more interested but most people just get on with other stuff.
I think empirically you might have to come up with better figures to back up your contention that having women bishops would affect things one way or another. Certainly looking at TEC the picture is not encouraging, and the one thing that you can guarantee is that argument and heavy-handed implementation of change will be likely to adversely affect the church.
As for the make-up of the church – obviously it depends on where you are but I see many African, European and Asian people in CofE churches I visit.
And the other thing you mention, the effect on peoples’ faith – yes the arguments have been absolutely toxic for so many on all sides. Just taking TEC, figures suggest that they have an ASA down from 727,000 two years ago to under 600,000 this year. Well we can see the figures of those parishes and dioceses who have joined ACNA which is now approaching 100,000, but this is just the tip of the iceberg – there are some who have joined other churches, but there are also unknown numbers of people who have just stopped going to church, any church. Reasons vary, some are conservative upset with the drift of the church to the liberal, some are liberal upset with the treatment of the conservatives in TEC, and some have just found the argument destructive of their faith. I have noticed as well a few gay Christians who are theologically conservative [perhaps you are] who have just been unable to accept the drift in TEC away from the traditional Christian understanding of a triune God and a saving Christ who died on the Cross towards some other form of unitarian and universalist approach which has gone along with the advocacy of ‘justice issues’.
For us in England dealing with the issues and particularly with women bishops I think we should maintain a steady approach at the moment, and perhaps we can show in our treatment of the Anglo-Catholics and others that there is a better way. That means forbearance, which is after all a Christian thing to do – to ‘wait’ on one another before going forward. With flying bishops we gave a lead and example and my hope is that we will do so again.
On the numbers in ACNA, I think they do talk themselves up a lot – I’ve read more independent sources which put their numbers more reliably at 69,000. And these are people who agree about nothing at all except for their dislike of gay people! Women’s ordination will be as much a dividing issue for them in time as for TEC.
And on Catholicism, most Roman Catholics in Europe are in favour of women’s ordination. So, it is obviously not a touchstone of how Catholic you are to be against it. There has been a huge distortion to that effect by Forward in Faith within the the C of E.
Roman Catholic numbers are declining far faster than any other church in Europe, so there is clearly no correlation between being “liberal” and decline in churches.
On the point that you say TEC has drifted from belief in the triune God, I don’t find that to be true at all. The TEC clergy I know are real old-fashioned Anglicans – cultured, civilised, educated and tolerant like the C of E used to be. They also tend to be broadly Anglo-Catholic, as hard-line Protestants have plenty more congenial options in America, and so they are without that harsh Puritan judgmental tone that has recently infected the C of E. I wouldn’t believe Tom Wright’s caricatures and calumnies if I were you.
Although what you have posted above about waiting sounds very calm and tolerant, in fact standing still is not an option in a fast changing world. Otherwise we become as removed from reality as the Russian and Greek churches are at the moment, and then some catastrophic upheaval will overtake us.
#60 Fr Mark
One of the problems for ACNA, as for US conservatives is that if you have strong views on things then the temptation is to divide; this has indeed been the pattern with the continuing movement. If they are to hang together forbearance is important and so far, with rumblings, they are managing to respect each others views. In fact it is remarkable that they have put back together the mixed theologies you find in Anglicanism which everyone tells us is so contradictory and unstable…which is very interesting. I think you will find that that is based on agreement on the GAFCON Jerusalem declaration which is after all only a verbatim restatement of the Church of England canons in large part [there are other parts which are to do with who they recognise].
Catholicism – yes – an RC priest I know and am related to would not be averse to W/O. I am not sure he would go as far as women bishops but there is certainly a diversity of view in that church as with ours. Like I do in my views though, they do defer to the teaching of the church as it is at the time.
TEC is a sad case. There are a great many clergy and laity who are faithful and recognisable triune Christians, but among those with their hands on the levers of power that is often not the case. The PB being a case in point. Many otherwise decent Episcopalian bishops and leaders just seem to find that it is easier to just go along with the leadership of the activists rather than risk being vilified fairly viciously. As for TEC ecclesiology, yes the American church is more outwardly catholic than the UK church – the vestments, thurifers, high candles etc and that seems to date back years. However outside of the largely departed Anglo-Catholic dioceses and churches it tends towards a liberal affirming catholic form: outwardly catholic but that doesn’t follow through in either theology or preaching.
If there is a reaction in the UK, and I am not convinced that there is, you may find that people just point to TEC and say: is that really where we want to go? I think the behaviour of WATCH and others at Synod was a wake-up call. It made people sit up and think that the TEC activism is coming over here on women bishops. We all had to have a hard think about whether that is in fact a positive way for us to go. One of those advocating a less confrontational approach was Bishop Tom Wright for whom I have a lot of time, as a teacher and as a bishop. He has come in for a lot of stick, unfairly in my view for speaking out.
As for standing still, I am not sure I favor that, but I am for proceeding steadily ahead in a fashion that you would probably find unexciting and slow but which I think is safer. This is I think the way we should approach women bishops.
I also think that one can’t take one area such as the women bishops issue and proceed ignoring all the other things going on which could be destabilised if we go off the deep end and fight with one another rather than calmly and sensibly debating and making space and provision for one another. Like it or not people do look to the Church of England for the lead it gives: some with friendly eyes and others not so friendly. How we deal with the issue of women bishops is being and will be watched closely.
It has been an interesting chat – thanks Fr Mark.
60. Fr Mark wrote:
[blockquote]On the numbers in ACNA, I think they do talk themselves up a lot – I’ve read more independent sources which put their numbers more reliably at 69,000.[/blockquote]
Sort of like TEC and the CoE. Last summer when I was in London there was an interesting article in one of the papers there showing that as the number of English bishops increased, the fewer people were attending CoE services. Perhaps what CoE needs is not women bishops, but fewer bishops.
[blockquote]And these are people who agree about nothing at all except for their dislike of gay people![/blockquote]
That’s simply not true. They generally do agree on the authority of the canonical scriptures, on the literal meaning of the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds (e.g., the Virgin birth and the Resurrection of the Body), on Jesus Christ as the only way, truth and life and on the compelling mission to preach Jesus Christ, the risen Lord and savior. There is no consensus on these things in TEC; General Convention has repeatedly defeated resolutions affirming these things for many years now.
I think one of the remarkable things I’ve seen in TEC in the past decade is that the liberal leadership has managed the reconciliation of Anglican catholics and evangelicals, so that they have, in point of fact, realized that they have far more in common than they have to divide them. They also seem to have started to learn from each other, so that catholics are more aware of the need to evangelize an increasingly pagan world and evangelicals the value of the Church’s tradition in interpreting scripture. And it also seems that there is a genuine attempt to tolerate “diversity” and to allow, for example, catholics to retain in practice as well as in theory, their catholic view of Orders and Sacraments.
[blockquote]And on Catholicism, most Roman Catholics in Europe are in favour of women’s ordination. So, it is obviously not a touchstone of how Catholic you are to be against it.[/blockquote]
There is more to the Roman Church than Europe. Like the Anglican Communion most of its strength lies in Africa, Asia and South America.
Interestingly, you go on to observe,
[blockquote]Roman Catholic numbers are declining far faster than any other church in Europe, so there is clearly no correlation between being “liberal†and decline in churches.[/blockquote]
This is a non sequitur to your previous remark. If European Catholics are so liberal as to want women priests, and European Catholicism is declining, there very well may be a connection between its liberalism and its decline in Europe. There also might be a connection between its conservatism and growth elsewhere.
[blockquote]On the point that you say TEC has drifted from belief in the triune God, I don’t find that to be true at all. The TEC clergy I know are real old-fashioned Anglicans – cultured, civilised, educated and tolerant like the C of E used to be. They also tend to be broadly Anglo-Catholic, as hard-line Protestants have plenty more congenial options in America, and so they are without that harsh Puritan judgmental tone that has recently infected the C of E. I wouldn’t believe Tom Wright’s caricatures and calumnies if I were you.[/blockquote]
There probably are such. But they aren’t the ones running the show in TEC. Now those who are running the show may be into vestments (the gaudier the better), incense, chant and “spirituality”; but such a catholic do not make. It’s a bit like our Lord’s analogy to sepulchres. (See Matthew 23:27)
Ken: my point about the RC Church was that trying to impose a top-down lock on debate about women’s ordination (and issues of sexual ethics) hasn’t worked at all. The official conservative position is ignored by the majority of the faithful – Roman Catholics in Europe divorce and contraceive as much as anyone else, and I don’t suppose American RCs are that diffferent – and only serves to create a culture of moral doublethink which hardly encourages anyone to have any integrity!
I don’t agree what you or Pageantmaster say about the current leadership in TEC. I’ve had dealings up close with each of the last three Archbishops of Canterbury and with the PB, and I can tell you that Bp Katherine, as a leader, is head and shoulders above the usual standard of feeble men we get in England. It is noticeable as soon as she comes into a room that she has a handle on what she is about, and communicates highly effectively, in a way that could not be said of either Archbishop Williams or his predecessor my Lord Carey. I think the vilification of Bp Katherine on these conservative sites is often really shockingly uncharitable, and reeks of locker-room attitudes left over from the 1950s rather than anything to do with Christianity.