Events | 2010.02.16
Faith in the future | Christina Rees
This 35-year debate has become tortuous. But one day soon, women will become bishops
This week\'s meeting of General Synod is being dominated by a debate that does not actually appear on the agenda. A year ago synod passed a motion calling for the legislation that will make it possible for women to be bishops in the Church of England. Included in that motion was a request to the drafting committee to bring its proposals to the synod meeting this February. For a variety of reasons, it has failed to do so .
Instead, the Bishop of Manchester, chair of the steering committee, on Monday gave synod a summary of what it had been doing for the past year. With over 300 written submissions to consider, and with the option of synod members to make oral submissions as well, it clearly had its work cut out. No one can accuse it of slacking.
But what should have been a more straightforward process, coming at the end of a 35-year debate, has turned into a tortuous marathon, with requests for every conceivable type of provision for the minority of people in the church who still do not accept that women can – or should – exercise episcopal ministry.
On Tuesday, the archbishop of Canterbury delivered his presidential address to synod, focusing on what he termed as "competing freedoms", including reference to consecrating women as bishops. The archbishop\'s plea was that no arrangements should be put into place that would hinder the future eventuality for greater reconciliation between the differing factors in this debate.
Some interpreted his words as a call for more legal provision for those who remain opposed to having women as bishops, an option that synod has already debated and rejected. Others heard a call for continuing listening and a renewed commitment for any arrangements to be as inclusive as possible.
Part of the reason for the legislation not being ready in time for the current meeting of synod was the attempt of the revision committee to make it possible to open the episcopate to women, while at the same making arrangements which would keep objectors happy. After weeks spent trying to square the circle, it became clear that that was not possible. A church that acknowledges that women should be allowed to be bishops cannot also say that it has doubts about it.
Within a few months the revision committee is due to publish its proposals for the way ahead. Among the hundreds of submissions it will have considered a plea for an entirely separate non-geographical diocese to be created as a woman bishop- and woman priest-free zone. It will have looked at another proposal which asked for the setting up of a new society, along the lines of the Society of Saint Francis or Saint Benedict, and yet another suggestion proposing that a bishop\'s authority automatically be diverted if that bishop is female.
All these proposals were rejected, although only after hours of discussion. It is a testament to the women who sit on the revision committee that they have listened with graciousness to some of their colleagues earnestly arguing for places of sanctuary where they could be protected from the ministry of women. It would be laughable if it wasn\'t so sad.
The observation is made repeatedly that if one were to replace the word "women" in these discussions with "black" or even "French", the breathtaking offence of these views would become obvious. This verbal offence indicates a much deeper issue: females are still considered by some to be unable to represent Christ at the altar and as not being made fully in the image of God.
Of course, this is denied by the men and women who oppose women\'s ordination. They cite tradition, as if that has remained static over the past 2,000 years, and ecclesiology, as if the Church of England\'s relationship with some other churches is more important than what it understands to be true. All this in spite of the fact that elsewhere in the Anglican communion women have been ministering as bishops for over 20 years.
It will come. Within a few years there will be women taking their place among their brothers. As women have been integrated as priests over the last 15 years, now representing nearly 40% of all Church of England clergy, so too will women be appointed as bishops. When that happens, there will at last be parity for women, but what will remain is the more important work of transforming people\'s understanding of what it means to be human in the light of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
For more information, please visit
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/[...]chofengland-christianity-synod
