The House of Bishops of the Church of England has issued this statement this afternoon.
Women in the episcopate – House of Bishops’ statement
At its meeting in York on 17/18 May, the House of Bishops discussed the Revision Committee’s report on the draft legislation to enable women to become bishops.
The House noted that the forthcoming meeting of the General Synod in July would be a key moment in the legislative process when all 470 members of Synod would have the opportunity to debate the report and proceed to a clause by clause consideration of the draft Measure and Amending Canon. The House believed that the Synod would be helped in its task by the clarity and thoroughness of the Committee’s analysis.
As previous debates have shown, a majority of the members of the House strongly support the admission of women to the episcopate. At the same time there remains a strong commitment on the part of the House to preserve an honoured place within the Church of England for those unable to receive this development. There continues to be a variety of views within the House over the best way of achieving that, while enabling women fully to exercise their new ministry.
The July Synod has the potential to be one of the most demanding meetings of the Synod for many years. It will, in the view of the House, be an occasion when all concerned will need to listen with particular care to those with views that differ from their own and to acknowledge the passion and sincerity with which those views are held.
The House is aware that there are those who believe that the present legislative process does not have the potential to lead to a satisfactory conclusion and that a better outcome is more likely to be achieved in some years’ time. Most members of the House consider, however, that it is crucial to keep faith with the present process. They see no grounds for believing that the issues with which the Church is grappling will become significantly easier to resolve with the passage of time.
The July debates will provide the chance for the full Synod to decide whether it wishes to make significant changes to the draft legislation, including whether to retain an approach based on a statutory code of practice or to support amendments giving effect to some other approach. What happens thereafter will depend on what Synod decides. On any basis it will be at least another two years before the mind of the Church of England can be determined at the final approval stage.
The House accepted the recommendation of the Revision Committee that, if the proposal for a statutory code of practice is retained in July, work to develop a fresh draft of the code should start soon thereafter. The House will, in those circumstances, establish a group, constituted consistently with the Committee’s recommendation.
Note
The report of the Revision Committee was published on 8 May.
No, by all means move forward. If there is anything that we learned in the Episcopal Church in the process of welcoming women, and now GLBT folks, into all ministries in the Church, it is that it doesn’t get easier with time. Indeed, things can become so much more entrenched.
It is as difficult as you choose to make it.
What special arrangements were offered to the losing side when the Ordination of Women was refused by the Church of England ?
What did anti-ordination of women advocates propose for our amelioration back then ?
All that is needed is the addition of the words ‘and women’ in the Rubric of the service for the Consecration of Bishops.
It’s that simple.
The marriage liturgy can also be simply amended to embrace all couples.
Now then, there are real human needs out there waiting for the Churches to address them …
and the gender of those offering help doesn’t matter a fig to them.
All that is needed is the addition of the words ‘and women’ in the Rubric of the service for the Consecration of Bishops…
…but are these ONLY words or are you changing the meaning, substance and message of faith?
“a majority of the members of the House strongly support the admission of women to the episcopate. … there remains a strong commitment on the part …to preserve an honoured place within the Church of England for those unable to receive this development.” We still have vestiges of this in Canada. Deference to the tender conscience of old boys trumps gender equality every time. Will the last person off the Titanic please stack the deck chairs neatly.
there remains a strong commitment on the part …to preserve an honoured place within the Church of England for those unable to receive this development
this is close to being a bare faced lie without some action or proof to back it up!!!
What do you all make of +Lindsay Urwins thoughts in the Church Times? Read them here
http://sbarnabas.com/blog/2010/05/18/lindsay-urwin-writes/
“…but are these ONLY words or are you changing the meaning, substance and message of faith?”
Oh, definitely changing the meaning, substance and message of faith! That is, if your faith is “No Girls Allowed.”
Ed, you commented on “All that is needed is the addition of the words ‘and women’ in the Rubric of the service for the Consecration of Bishops…” with “…but are these ONLY words or are you changing the meaning, substance and message of faith?” Well, from this and from other things you’ve posted, you clearly think they do. However, for many of us the question is more appropriately, “Are THESE words changing the meaning, substance and message of faith?” Well, for many of us they don’t change what God has done in Christ, and what God is doing in the… Read more »
Rod Gills’ comment on the C.of E. House of Bishops’ response to the Revision Committee’s Report on the Ordination of Women bishops is a valid one. Perhaps the Members of July’s General Synod should study; read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest what can happen in churches where Women Bishops are still subject to an ongoing climate of receptional ambiguity. It is very likely that, whatever provision is made for the opponents of Women Bishops in the Church of England – to ‘live with’ the reality of their ordination into the episcopate – this will not really satisfy their ambition to… Read more »
“All that is needed is the addition of the words ‘and women’ in the Rubric of the service for the Consecration of Bishops…
…but are these ONLY words or are you changing the meaning, substance and message of faith? “
Gee, I thought the meaning, substance and message of my faith was summed up in the Nicene Creed. Never noticed anything about the gender of bishops in there.
It is simply time for those in The Church of England who oppose women in the priesthood or episcopate to move on and find another Christian community. Rome will welcome people who feel this way and many Protestant and Orthodox communities would do so as well. It is time to go. Staying only prolongs your disgust and this is unhealthy. God be with you. I hope you find what you are looking for.
Father Ron: “… Either women are co-equal bearers of the Image and Likeness of the God we serve …” I think that’s the whole point, and, for me, the shortfall in thinking that ‘man’ is somehow more closely representational of God than ‘woman’. By perpetuating a patriarchal priesthood I feel – and I recognise that some Christians of integrity would disagree – we run the risk of projecting an image of God which ‘gets stuck’ on sex and gender. Surely, just as God made us all in the divine image, male and female… so God both understands and feels everything… Read more »
“If there is anything that we learned in the Episcopal Church in the process of welcoming women, and now GLBT folks, into all ministries in the Church, it is that it doesn’t get easier with time. Indeed, things can become so much more entrenched”
Well, my experience has been that it does get easier with time. The more normative it has been in my diocese [Dio of Va], the easier it has been. And check out the secular press reaction to the consecrations in Dio of LA – 2 inch AP stories.
I take your point Susannah but what do we do when God has revealed himself as male if we take scripture seriously. Jesus taught us to pray to a father….that is explicit. And how do you ensure a personal relationship with God when we move away from his revelation and make him both male and female….we start to drift back towards the God we cannot know or see which is the God of Islam and Judaism but manifestly NOT the God of the New Testament. At worst we drift back into paganism with the creator mother God. In your scenario… Read more »
Ed
let me get this straight. You actually believe that God is male in the physical biological sense that all bodily creatures are either male or female because that’s the only way a species can reproduce?
Ed: “And how do you ensure a personal relationship with God when we move away from his revelation and make him both male and female”
Oh dear, Father, it’s not new theology, or radical in any way, to say that God is both beyond and includes both male and female. Aren’t ru’ach and sophia both feminine nouns?
One advantage of using a language such as English, which avoids giving all nouns gender, unlike most other European languages, is that we English-speakers should be the first to understand that linguistic beyond-genderedness is perfectly possible.
“what do we do when God has revealed himself as male if we take scripture seriously. Jesus taught us to pray to a father….that is explicit.” – Ed Tomlinson – Ed, I can hardly believe you said this! The only answer I can think of is that you might understand that God; ‘The Father’ is also God ‘The Mother’ – cf the statement of Jesus when speaking to and of his recalcitrant Jewish contemporaries. He said that he sometimes wished he were like a mother hen who would gather her chickens around her. If that is not a concept of… Read more »
Read what I said carefully. I did NOT say God IS male. I said GOd chose to reveal himself in the masculine, that must have been for a reason.
And the mother hen thing is an analogy and stands alone. Wherever God is addressed it is in the masculine. Sorry but this is not incidental for me but revelatory and is not a comment on the power of the sexes but on essential aspects of God in relation to his creation
“Read what I said carefully. I did NOT say God IS male. I said GOd chose to reveal himself in the masculine, that must have been for a reason.” – Ed. Tomlinson – Oh dear, Ed! Surely you’ve been a priest long enough to be able to understand the argument: that the patriarchal religious community into which Jesus was born would never have accepted other than a ‘Son’ of God as Messiah! That does not mean that Jesus only represented the male of the species when he carried out his redemptive ministry on earth. Have you not ‘got it’ yet… Read more »
I’m sorry but that’s just the most hilariously inept argument I’ve ever heard for an all-male’s club posing as a church! Seriously, you’d kill in comedy clubs. The British Stephen Colbert!
The rest of you aren’t getting the joke, though. You keep trying to give answers that will reason away unreason. It’s performance art – like Andy Kauffman.
Make up your mind Ed. Rome is waiting to welcome you and those who think as you do. If Rome is too much for you to handle then you may want to try Russian Orthodox. If that is too much for you, how about one of the many Protestant evangelical communities? The point I am trying to make here, Ed is it is time for you to move on. I have read your many comments on this subject and I am certain that you are sincere. Obviously I do not agree with your position and I feel women were shut… Read more »
Ed “Read what I said carefully. I did NOT say God IS male. I said GOd chose to reveal himself in the masculine, that must have been for a reason.” I’ve said this before – he only had the choice between male or female. If he had chosen to reveal himself as a woman, do you really think he would have been heard in that culture at that time? And do you think this would have meant that men were not allowed to be priests? I suppose the only thing that would convince even the last literalist that men and… Read more »
“I said GOd chose to reveal himself in the masculine, that must have been for a reason. “
Yes, because he knew in first century Judea a female religious leader would never be accepted.
Are people actually saying that there is a cosmic mind that makes decisions, that sent a male perfect representative, either male to represent male and female, thanks to an interpretation by someone who never met him, or a male that represents a male only, when we now live and act and have our being in a world that operates according to natural and uncertain laws that involves no such cosmic interventions? If one takes a view that there is a God, is not the God also about nature and uncertainty and the fact that humans are not central to this… Read more »
Firstly there were plenty of women taken seriously in the ancient world. Plays like ‘the women of thebes’ demonstrate that women’s lib was well known about in ancient Greece. Secondly the many female priestesses in Greek and Roman temples also suggest that women WERE taken seriously in a cultic role. Then we must contemplate that having come to us as man Jesus could easily have taught us the Our Mother. Again concepts about the female divine are as old as civilisation stemming from a pagan base. That God chose to reveal himself through a Judaistic tradition, as a man, whilst… Read more »
Ed “That God chose to reveal himself through a Judaistic tradition, as a man, whilst refering to the divine as Father is pretty clear. That is clear for those who are not determined to see what they want to.” Could you please tell me how God would have had to reveal himself if he had wanted to make sure that we all know that men and women can equally repesent him at the altar? There are only two sexes to choose from, and whichever one he had opted for people like you would insist that it automatically excludes the other.… Read more »
“GOd chose to reveal himself in the masculine, that must have been for a reason.” Doubtless so, Ed. But you have no particular reason to assert that the reason is the one you think it is. Since there were really only two options available, God had to choose one or the other. God chose the one that was more appropriate to the time and place. By what logic do you claim it is any more than that? I suggest, Father, that your assumption is not at all obvious “for those who are not determined to see what they want to.”… Read more »
Ed, Fare thee well, and your god go with you! But don’t forget the ‘male-only’ club pin-number.
Ed, first of all, thank you for your contribution and I understand what you are saying. For what it’s worth, I believe your views can be held, and expressed in a life of faith, with integrity. Nor would I want you at all to leave the Anglican communion, because I think you are a sincere Christian who for all I know is living a far better life than me, and your comments seem to me to reflect a desire to be loyal to God. We could ping-pong well-visited arguments on the subject of women in the episcopate, or the gender… Read more »