Almost one in three Anglicans not committed on women bishops

To be honest, I wasn't sure how to phrase that headline, but I am trying to summarize the response to one question in a survey recently conducted on 'The Mind of Anglicans' by Christian Research.

The survey, key results of which are published in this month's New Directions, questioned over a thousand regular Anglican churchgoers, 90.4% of them laity and 49.2% female, about their beliefs and views on a number of issues.

Question 11.a was this: "The Church of England should follow the example of other Anglican provinces that have consecrated women bishops" and the instruction to respondents was to tick if this applied.

693, representing 70.3% of the total, ticked that it did. And this, interestingly, comes very close to (though at the bottom end of) the range of 'support' suggested on the Yes 2 women bishops blog.

However, presuming that the other 29.7% either missed the question or, for some other reason, felt they couldn't actually agree with this statement, this means almost a third of those in the sample took a different view.

Thus although it would be going too far, on this evidence, to say they actually opposed women bishops, given the opportunity presented by the questionnaire, it would certainly seem they were not prepared to commit to women bishops in precisely these terms.

Meanwhile, 152 correspondents (15.4% of the total) did actually tick the box that said, "It would not be appropriate for a woman bishop to lead." And here, I think, we can be quite clear about their views.

Furthermore, whilst 47.6% of respondents wanted to see women bishops "As soon as possible", and 21.5% "Within the next 5-10 years", 15.4% wanted to wait for a consensus amongst all other churches, and a further 15.5% responded "Never" (and yes, that does add up to 100%).

So even at this stage, over a third of the members of the Church of England in this sample would be prepared to wait a bit longer for women bishops, whilst a substantial minority simply don't want this to happen at all.

Finally, it is encouraging to note that 30.6% of respondents agreed with the statement that those opposed to the ordination of women "Should be enabled to stay in the Church of England by means of some form of provision which meets their position of conscience." (The survey was obviously not able to cover whether the changing proposals being put before the General Synod would actually be viewed as meeting that criterion.)

Only 1.6% (a mere 17 people) agreed that opponents "Have no business being in the Church of England any longer." Compare this with the 7.2% (75 respondents) who felt that opponents "Should have the right to veto the introduction of women bishops."

Right now, General Synod members are being canvassed by the Yes 2 women bishops group to the effect that this development must happen now because the Church overwhelmingly supports it. And yes, there is a large majority who do.

But the position of the majority is more nuanced than the more vocal supporters might want to believe. They do want women bishops, but not necessarily now, and certainly not (in many cases) at the cost of anyone's conscience in the matter.

It would still take courage for the Church to vote 'not yet'. But it might not be the betrayal of the rank and file membership that some are depicting it to be.

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If Mary Magdalene was an Apostle, why wasn't Joseph Justus?

On Radio 4’s Sunday programme at the weekend I happened to hear Bishop Victoria Matthews speaking about women in the episcopate.

This is a subject on which debate continues (indeed rages within the Church of England at the moment) and yet where people reach different — and according to the Church of England — equally acceptable, conclusions.

During the interview, however, Bishop Matthews advanced an argument which has become almost standard doctrine amongst supporters of women’s ordination and consecration, yet which I think bears careful examination.

This is what she said when asked how she responds to Evangelical questions about her episcopal rôle:

... in terms of a woman bishop I always remind them that to be an Apostle (and a bishop is the successor to the Apostles) two things are necessary. One is to be a witness to the resurrection and the other is to be sent by Christ into the world. Now, Mary Magdalene who was the first witness to the resurrection said, “I have seen the Lord.” Tick. And Jesus said, “Go and tell my brothers.” She was sent out. So Mary Magdalene herself was an Apostle. Therefore to say ‘all the men were Apostles’ [sic] isn’t strictly true.

We will pass over the question of whether a bishop is “the successor to the Apostles” (which many Evangelicals like myself would dispute).

The problem comes in the statement that “to be an Apostle ... two things are necessary.” And the question is whether Bishop Matthews is committing the fallacy of confusing ‘necessary’ with ‘sufficient’ conditions.

One version of argument being put forward may be framed as follows:

1. It is a necessary condition of being an Apostle to be a witness of the resurrection (Acts 1:21-22) and to be sent by Jesus to give witness to that.

2. Mary Magdalene was a witness of the resurrection and was sent give witness of it by Jesus (John 20:17)

3. Therefore Mary Magdalene is an Apostle.

This, however, does not quite work, as can be demonstrated by the following example:

A. It is a necessary condition of being a bishop to be the right age and to have served the requisite number of years as a priest.

B. I am the right age and have served enough years as a priest.

C. Therefore I am a bishop.

The point is that necessary conditions are not the same as sufficient conditions. The argument for Mary Magdalene’s apostleship only works if we say that the conditions put forward by Bishop Matthews are both necessary and sufficient.

At this point we must also add that we are talking about Apostles with a capital ‘A’. In order to sustain the argument that she can be a bishop and “successor to the Apostles”, Bishop Matthews affirms that Mary was an Apostle just like the male Apostles. We are not talking here about just an ‘apostolic’ action, in the same way that local priests nevertheless exercise an ‘episcopal’ rôle, but the Apostolic office.

Now it may well be that Bishop Matthews and others believe that the two conditions she advances are both necessary and sufficient. But if that is the case, it needs to be stated more clearly, and it has some interesting implications.

First, after the Ascension, there were arguably thirteen Apostles. Matthew’s Gospel tells us that Mary Magdalene and the ‘other’ Mary, the mother of James and Joseph, both met the risen Jesus and were sent by him with a message for his brothers (Matt 27:1-10). That message could hardly have been anything other than that Jesus was risen, and the argument deems going to the disciples ‘sufficient’ as far as commissioning is concerned, so on this basis we have the eleven Apostles and the two Mary’s.

However, as we know, there was a vacancy in the ranks of the Twelve which had to be filled. And we discover in Acts 1 that there were two others present who qualified as potential Apostles, namely Joseph (Justus) Barsabbas and Matthias who, we learn, have accompanied the others from the beginning of Jesus’ ministry and have been witnesses to the resurrection (Acts 1:15-26).

So why are they not classed as ‘Apostles’, like the two Marys? The answer has to be that they had not been commissioned personally by Jesus to ‘go into the world’. However, that would also mean they could not have been present at the point described in Acts 1:6-11, when Jesus said to those present, “You will be my witnesses”.

If they had been present, they would have been ‘Apostles’. On the other hand, according to the argument put forward by Bishop Matthews, if these words had not been addressed to the eleven, then they would not have been Apostles, since they would not have received Christ’s specific commission.

It is not enough to argue that they were commissioned before the resurrection, so that the only thing lacking to their ‘Apostleship’ was actually to have witnessed the resurrection, since we cannot narrowly apply Christ’s teaching during his earthly ministry to just the Twelve. (At one time, for example, he sent out seventy-two ‘witnesses’ to himself.) If a commissioning before the resurrection is sufficient, along with being a witness to the resurrection itself, then the circle of Apostles is wider than the thirteen already identified.

The point is that, according to the argument, you don’t have to be told you are being made an Apostle to be an Apostle. It is sufficient to see the resurrected Jesus and hear the words telling you to ‘go’. So the circle of Apostles is both restricted to those who both witnessed the resurrected Jesus and were specifically commissioned by him with words that included directions to ‘go’, and it is widened to anyone and everyone to whom this applies.

We must therefore include Joseph, Matthias and others in the group that saw the risen Christ, but exclude them from the ‘inner circle’ to whom Christ said, “You will be my witnesses.”

Thus, according to the argument, Joseph is not an Apostle, because he heard no words from Christ telling him to ‘go’, whereas Matthias is an Apostle because he was ‘commissioned’ to ‘go’ through being chosen by lot.

At this point, however, we might ask why, given that there were thirteen Apostles in the room, they did not simply pick one of the two Marys. Was it that Peter and the others did not yet understand who qualified as an Apostle? But if they didn’t, how is that we can be sure we do? Was it that to be one of the twelve, you had to be a man? There is no indication that women were considered, since if they had been then the two Marys again would have been prime candidates. Whether one likes it or not, the argument for Mary’s Apostleship specifically raises the question of gender in relation to ‘the Twelve’.

Above all, we must reiterate that, according to this argument, whilst many people saw the risen Jesus (Paul famously refers to “five hundred brothers at one time” — 1 Cor 15:6), at no point did Jesus utter words to them to the effect of ‘go and tell’. Otherwise, like the Apostles in Acts 1, the general ‘commissioning’ plus the specific witnessing of the risen Jesus would, according to the argument, make them Apostles.

We must also consider Andronicus and Junia, mentioned in Romans 16, who some argue were also Apostles. Not everyone would accept this, but if they are then we have to ask on what occasion they both saw the risen Jesus and were specifically told by him to ‘go’. The simple answer is that we don’t know, but (according to the argument) such a situation must have occurred. Of course it may have included others — again we don’t know — but it was not enough that they simply saw Jesus and, later on their own initiative, testified about him.

At the same time, however, we must also observe that ‘Apostleship’ as here defined was not a necessary condition to bearing an effective and powerful witness to the risen Jesus. By any argument, Stephen and Philip were not Apostles. Indeed, Philip needed the ministry of the Apostles to complete what he had begun in Samaria (Acts 8:5-17), with regard to the giving of the Holy Spirit.

But it is not suggested, even in Acts, that this ministry is always necessary. The word of God multiplies even where it would seem that the Apostles (including Paul) are not personally the means to that end (cf Acts 13:49; ). And when Paul encountered some disciples at Ephesus who had not received the Holy Spirit, his question did not seem to focus on whether or not they had heard the gospel from an Apostle.

Certainly by the time we read the letter to the Galatians, it is clear that the effective spread of the gospel and the accompanying outpouring of the Spirit has passed far beyond the personal reach of the very small number of Apostles we can firmly identify.

So despite the argument that Apostleship consists in seeing the risen Christ and being specifically and personally sent by him into the world, the Apostles do not have exclusive ‘rights’ either to the ministry of gospel proclamation or the ministering of the Holy Spirit.

And at this point it is appropriate to ask in what sense the episcopalian bishop is a “successor to the Apostles” as Bishop Matthews claims, for most such bishops do not, in fact, have personal evangelistic proclamation as the defining element of their ministry. Nor, in point of fact, do they have the ‘necessary and sufficient’ personal qualifications to be an Apostle. One might, at a stretch, say their consecration is the equivalent of Matthias’s ‘commissioning’, but obviously they have not seen the risen Christ, and so just as Joseph Justus was excluded on one criterion, so modern bishops are excluded on the other.

I doubt, however, that this is what Bishop Matthews has in mind. Rather, I am sure she means that her ‘Apostolic’ office consists in (and differs from the ‘priestly’ office) in overseeing and governing the church. That being the case, however, we must add a number of other qualifications to our emerging picture of New Testament ‘Apostleship’. Principally, it now means that those who (a) saw the risen Christ and (b) received personally or collectively from him a commission to ‘tell’ someone else were thereby authorised and equipped to oversee and govern the church.

Now we certainly see in Acts the Twelve exercising this function, though they seem to be assisted by a wider group referred to as ‘the elders’ (Acts 15:2 — in Jewish terms, the latter would be the normal community leaders, also found in the synagogue system). But according to the argument being advanced, we must assume that Jesus’ ‘go and tell’ command implied, though it did not specify, ‘and govern the church’.

At the same time, we must argue that the ‘Apostolic’ office could be detached both from the personal witnessing of the resurrection and from the personal commissioning to ‘go and tell’ and be handed on, in the form of governance, to successors, including those who neither witnessed the resurrection nor received a personal commission.

From all this, a complex picture of Apostleship emerges.

To be in the original group of Apostles, it is necessary, but not sufficient, to have personally witnessed the resurrection. With this qualification, however, it is sufficient to be accounted an Apostle to have also received a commission from Jesus to ‘go’ with a message about him. Justus and Matthias both had the first necessary qualification, but only Matthias received the second (though not verbally from Jesus, but rather the lot falling on him). It was this that qualified Matthias, in Peter’s words, “to take the place in this ministry and apostleship from which Judas turned aside” (Acts 1:25).

Incidentally, we cannot equate the drawing of lots with the later ‘call’ of the Church, since the former action is specifically designed to exclude human intervention and leave the result in God’s hands. One way to replicate this is by drawing lots ourselves, but it is not a specific part of any current selection process.

All this further presumes that neither Justus nor Matthias, nor anyone else known to us outside the circle of the eleven who had witnessed the risen Jesus, was present on the occasion recorded in Acts 1 when Jesus said to the Apostles “you will be my witnesses”. Had they been present, they would already be accounted Apostles with the eleven and the two Marys.

However, if any similar utterances were made during Jesus’ other resurrection appearances, including for example that mentioned in 1 Corinthians 15, then all those present must be deemed thereby to be ‘Apostles’. Furthermore, something of this sort must be invoked if we are to include Andronicus and Junia ‘amongst the Apostles’. There could also be others, of an indeterminable number, who were similarly Apostles on the same grounds.

All this means that it is receiving Christ’s personal commission (though this may be done collectively, not just individually) which is finally and sufficiently determinative of ‘Apostleship’, even though witnessing his resurrection is a necessary condition.

However, the resulting ‘Apostleship’ (Acts 1:25) is not confined to witnessing to others about the risen Christ. On the one hand, we find others doing the same, whose ministry is even accompanied by ‘signs and miracles’. On the other hand, we find the twelve exercising a ‘governance’ rôle in the community. The command ‘go and tell’ therefore automatically entails governance, even though this is not specifically part of the commissioning and there is no evidence of either of the Marys exercising this aspect of the Apostolic rôle.

This, however, is fundamental to the argument, since it must then be applied to the ministry of others who have neither seen the risen Christ nor been directly commissioned by him but who, nevertheless, are deemed be heirs of the Apostles specifically in their ministry of governance — Apostleship here being equated with episcope. However, this episcope does not entail a ministry focussed on ‘going and telling’. Rather, what is finally transferred to those who have neither seen the risen Christ, nor directly received his commission to ‘go and tell’, is a ministry which is not explicit in the commission but is deemed of the essence of Apostleship.

All this is terribly complicated, though it may, just, be plausibly maintained.

There is, however, a simpler solution, which is to say that whilst seeing the risen Christ was a necessary aspect of being included in the original Apostles — and the New Testament contains several indications of this — being then commissioned by him simply to tell someone else was not actually sufficient.

Rather, what was ‘sufficient’, in addition to seeing the risen Christ, was commissioning as an Apostle. Those who received this commissioning to ‘apostleship’ like Matthias and Paul, were Apostles. Those who did not, like the two Marys and Justus, were not. (This does, of course, leave Andronicus and Junia as potential Apostles, but in itself this is not germane to the alternative position being put forward here.) And what this Apostleship entailed, whilst it included ‘going and telling’, was expressed in giving definitive teaching and ruling.

Thus in Acts 2:42 we read that the believers “Devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching ...”. Again, we see in Ephesians 2:20 that the Apostles form part of the ‘foundation’ of the Church (reaffirmed in Rev 21:14) and it is by teaching that the Apostles govern the Church (Eph 4:11, 14). It could, furthermore, be argued that it is handed on to a contemporary bishop who teaches the church and guards its teaching ministry (as is expected in the Prayer Book ordinal).

The question of whether this is a proper post for a woman, however, would have to be settled other than by an appeal to the ‘Apostleship’ of Mary Madgalene. On the one hand, it has to be admitted that we find no hint of her exercising such a teaching and governance rôle in the church. On the other hand, it does seem that the distinction between ‘necessary’ and ‘sufficient’ qualifications for Apostleship need to be clarified and maintained.

Personally, however, I doubt that Mary Magdalene qualified on either count, blessed though she was.

John Richardson
11 July 2011

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Women in ministry — a story of personal frustration

But perhaps not quite the story you might be expecting. Early last week I was contacted by Justin Brierley at Premier Christian Radio, who runs a great little programme called ‘Unbelievable’, asking whether I would come on and debate ‘women in ministry’ with Christina Rees of WATCH.

As it happened, I was about to embark on what I knew would be an incredibly stressful trip abroad, so I suggested a couple of other names, but they couldn’t do it, so in the end it came back to me.

Plan B actually looked good on paper — do the New Directions board-meeting in London on Thursday, stay overnight with friends and then go on to Premier on Friday. Unfortunately, things began to go wrong as soon as I got to Homerton station.

First one train was cancelled, then a second, then the third was ten minutes late. By the time I got to Highbury I ought to have been at Pimlico, but at least I was moving and had reached the London Underground.

Then, one stop along the Victoria line, everything literally came to a halt. The only realistic option by this stage was to get a taxi, which I did, but had to get the cash to pay for it first. And of course thanks to the underground being out (including, by now, the Piccadilly line) the traffic, even in the London Congestion Zone, was horrendous.

By this time I’d given up trying to tell Justin when I might arrive, but I finally turned up at 2.30, several pounds lighter in both respects.

And so to the interview. Unfortunately, this rather turned out like my perambulations around London — never quite getting to the point but expending a lot of energy in the process. I’ll put up a link when the broadcast goes out (a week today) and people can judge for themselves, but I came away more frustrated by this than by the breakdowns on the trains.

But it is not just the radio debate which frustrates me. In preparation, I had taken away with me Discovering Biblical Equality : Complementarity Without Hierarchy, which has contributions from, amongst others, Gordon Fee, and I Howard Marshall — both people whose scholarship I respect. However, I really felt that the arguments it presented were just not terribly good. Marshall’s conclusion was, I thought, typical. Basically, in Ephesians 5 Paul does really advocate submission from wife to husband, but,

Paul wrote as he did about marriage because in his world he did not know any other form than the patriarchal. (204)

So dear old Paul could, under the revelation of the gospel and the inspiration of the Spirit, get his head around laying off with circumcision and food laws, sacrifices and holy days, indeed the whole Law of Moses, but he hit the buffers when it came to families and households.

This is not to say there is no debate to be had. On the contrary, there is much to debate, not least because (as I said in a previous post about other matters) on principle if “two men say they’re Jesus, one [or both] of them must be wrong”. And certainly both sides can’t be right about women’s ordination.

But there is another elephant in the room when it comes to ordination itself — certainly within Anglican circles. For as I said in the interview, the deacons of the Church of England are nowhere to be found in the New Testament, nor are the bishops the same, and even the priests are clearly somewhat different from New Testament presbyters. If you are a devotee of later tradition, you will perhaps see this as a proper development, but if you are a thoroughgoing evangelical you will surely be wanting to ask serious questions in this area too.

Part of our problem, therefore, is that at the same time as we are rewriting the book on male-female relationships we are unwilling to confront our institutional structures. Indeed, one of the striking things about Discovering Biblical Equality was its repeated antipathy to any sort of metaphorical hierarchy between men and women, whilst having little or nothing to say (at least in the bits I read) about the literal hierarchy to be found in denominations like the Church of England.

If you are to allow some element of the latter, however, then you cannot surely exclude the former simply on the grounds that hierarchy in personal relationships is fundamentally antithetical to the gospel! Yet in the index of DBE, the entry for ‘hierarchy’ simply says ‘See male leadership position’ — something of a blind spot, I would suggest (though not quite on a par with the entry in our old Yellow Pages which read ‘Boring — see Civil Engineers’).

Meanwhile, I was intrigued to discover on the AWESOME website some statistics about women in church leadership. According to one survey published in Quadrant for Christian Research, female ministers generally were most likely to: come from the Salvation Army, or Methodist or URC Churches and be theologically Liberal, Low Church or Broad.

Within the Church of England itself, on the Register of the Evangelical Patrons’ Consultative Council (which brings together bodies who have ‘patronage’ rights regarding parish appointments and which therefore seeks names of potential candidates), in 2004 there were twelve women’s names (13%), and in 2010 just seven (9%).

Some may say this is not surprising, given the views of Conservative Evangelicals like myself. But the fact is that we are a small minority compared with those who identify themselves as evangelicals in favour of women’s ordination, and now consecration (including many in New Wine or associated with the Alpha movement).

The problem, which I have highlighted before, is that this endorsement doesn’t actually seem to be feeding through on the ground. There are not large numbers of evangelical women clergy — certainly not when compared with men — and one is therefore left wondering whether either the arguments of egalitarians are not actually persuading people to step forward for ordination or (and here is the real worry for me) that the arguments are, in fact, essentially liberal in their formulation, and that therefore those whom they persuade do not, ultimately, self-identify as evangelical.

John Richardson

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Women's ordination and the other elephant

In all the recent debates in the Church of England about women’s ordination (in which I include those going back to the eighties and nineties), there have been not one, but two elephants in the living room.

The first elephant, gradually acknowledged and initially given space, has been the indecisive attitude of the church. Women’s ordination was sold to the Synod and to the wider Church on the basis of an accommodation. Women would be ordained, but the ordination of women would involve a further process of reception. What lay behind this was a hope on the part of some that there would always be a place for opponents, and on the part of others that opposition would die out as time went on.

Now that (thanks, in part, to some judicious gerrymandering of the bench of bishops) numbers favour the ‘pro’ side, we are seeing signs of the ‘end game’ on this initial compromise.

However, as we look at the options resulting from shooting the first elephant, we must now confront the second, which is that the Church of England embraces two entirely different concepts of the ordained ministry.

At the risk of oversimplification, one of these basically assumes that the pattern of having bishops (who run, or help run, dioceses), priests (who minister more locally, celebrate the sacraments, preach and pastor), and deacons (who are probationary priests), represents the way the church long has been and forever should be. The other takes the view that these same orders are, in the form in which they are found in the Anglican Church, essentially man-made, and therefore dispensable. They may sometimes serve the Church well — they are of its bene esse (its ‘well being’) — but they are not, in their present form, of the esse (the ‘very being’).

Most laypeople, I suspect, take the former view. It is how they have always seen and experienced the Church of England, and they have never bothered to look into why this is the case. So, of course, do the Anglo-Catholics clergy, though they consciously look back to the tradition of the Fathers for a justification. But to them we must add also the Liberal Catholics, who generally take a very ‘high’ view of the ministry, even whilst they might take a very sceptical view of traditional theology.

Then we have what may be popularly known as the ‘Evangelical’ view, though it can be found long before the movement of that name, in the writings of the Fathers of the English Reformation. This group places far more emphasis on the fact (generally acknowledged by Catholics both traditional and liberal), that the New Testament displays nothing exactly like the orders we know in Anglicanism. Specifically, the ‘priest’ of the New Testament church is actually a ‘presbyter-bishop’, whilst the deacon is something entirely distinct, in no way comparable to our one-year ‘priest in waiting’. As to the bishop as the ‘area leader’ of a group of non-episcopal priests, this figure is nowhere to be found.

Like most Catholics, the early members of this group were generally happy to acknowledge that the emergence of the threefold pattern known to us from later years took place in the providence of God. Unlike the Catholics, however, they were equally happy to see it disappear, should it be found to have outlived its usefulness.

Thus, Richard Hooker wrote, in his Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, that no “true and heavenly law can be shewed, by the evidence whereof it may of a truth appear that the Lord himself hath appointed presbyters for ever to be under the regiment of bishops” (VII v 8). Therefore, as far as he was concerned, their authority is “a sword which the Church hath power to take from them” (ibid).

In other words, the Church could manage without bishops — especially if, as he warned, “bishops forget themselves, as if none on earth had authority to touch their states” (ibid).

The same view is found in the writings of Thomas Cranmer, who asserted that, if necessary, the Church could start up from scratch, with the first bishops and priests being ordained by laypeople. And in a series of Questions and Answers Concerning the Sacraments, etc, he asserted that in earliest times the churches were not ruled by the Apostles, but simply listened to their advice:

... not for the supremity, impery [sic], or dominion that the apostles had over them to command, as their princes or masters; but as good people, ready to obey the advice of good counsellors.

Just as importantly, the Homilies (which form part of the historic Anglican ‘formularies’) also recognize an earlier time in the Church’s history when different arrangements prevailed. Thus,

Our Saviour Christ ... [forbade] his Apostles, and by them the whole clergy, all princely dominion over people and nations: and he and his holy Apostles likewise, namely, Peter and Paul, did forbid unto all ecclesiastical Ministers dominion over the church of Christ. (Sermon Against Wilful Rebellion, emphasis added)

In all this, of course, the Reformers were following the Continental Protestants, as was Cranmer in his revision of the service of Holy Communion and in the formulation of the Thirty-nine Articles.

Yet the Church of England never entirely shed its Catholic elements, and under the impulse of the nineteenth century Oxford Movement, reintroduced practices which had not merely been abandoned since the Reformation but declared illegal. Thus, by the time we reach the middle of the twentieth century, we have a Church which is a caricature model of schizophrenia — one side taking the Catholic and the other the Protestant view of the ministry, but both outwardly belonging to the same organization.

Moreover, as I have indicated, the demarcation is not clear-cut, for there are theological ‘liberals’ with decidedly ‘fundamentalist’ views of the threefold ministry (to say nothing of the absolute authority of bishops and the unchangeable nature of the church’s orders). And there are ‘evangelicals’ today whose views of priesthood or episcopal ministry (particularly their own!) are of a decidedly ‘catholic’ bent.

This would be bad enough, but it becomes even more complex when we add in the ordination of women, for then we encounter two quite different objections, for the Catholic objection centres on the nature of priesthood and its relationship with the sacraments, whilst the Protestant objection centres on the nature of ministry and its exercise in the congregation.

Between the two, the Catholic objection is actually easier to present. For the traditionalist Catholic, what matters is the embodiment of the truth in the person of the priest, and the validity of that priest’s sacramental ministry. For Catholics who oppose the ordination of women, the problem is not that a woman should not be a priest but that a priest stands as the eikon of Christ — the embodied representation of the Son of God.

What this means regarding gender is, perhaps, best summed up in the words of Newman’s hymn Praise to the Holiest in the Height:

O generous love! that he who smote
in Man for man the foe,
the double agony in Man
for man should undergo.

Behind this is the thoroughly biblical idea that Jesus is the man par excellence, in whom ‘man’ — the human race — finds redemption. It is an inclusive idea which, significantly, cannot be expressed in modern ‘inclusive’ language, because it runs entirely counter to the modern understanding of humanity. But in this view, the iconic status of Christ requires a man for its present embodiment. And without this, the validity of the priesthood, and therefore the validity of the sacraments, is negated.

Now, at the risk of losing the few internet friends I have left, I must say that this is an argument with which I disagree. But I can feel its force, and I can recognize why, for those who do hold to this view, the issue is so urgent.

For the Protestant, however, things are a bit more messy, and this is because he does not take the same view, either of priesthood or sacrament. Indeed, some Protestants, like Martin Luther, held that women could, indeed, celebrate the sacraments, just as they could proclaim God’s word. The Protestant objection to women in leadership (an objection which was advanced by Luther also), has to do with authority, not sacramental ministry or ontological ‘priesthood’.

The problem, as they experience it, is that in the Church of England, ordination generally not just recognizes ministry but confers authority. This must particularly be so in the case of the episcopate, where the bishop is not merely in authority over a particular congregation (to which the individual may or may not choose to belong), but over entire groups of clergy, who will be given no choice in the matter.

Now again, one may not agree with the argument, but it needs to be understood and recognized. And yet it also needs to be recognized that it is a quite different argument from that advanced by Catholics, and therefore it may admit of quite different solutions.

One unintended consequence of the current debate about women bishops, therefore, may well be to highlight these different views on ordination. For a century, the Church of England has managed to get by without confronting the issue. And whilst the status quo of a universally recognized ministry prevailed, it was able to muck along. Now that the options to compromise are being reduced, the willingness to overlook those differences may also be coming under pressure. And that may have its own unintended consequences.

Revd John P Richardson
21 February 2010

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A spoonful of fudging helps the heresies go down

OK, I admit straight away, this isn’t really about ‘heresy’ in the full-on sense of ‘damnable religious errors’. Nor can I think of a word-play on ‘supercalifragilisticexpialidocious’. But in the old sense of haeresis, meaning wrongful divisions in the body of Christ, I do think that we are currently facing ‘heresies’ caused by fudging the issues, and we will soon be facing more.

Let us go back, for a moment, to the decision to ordain women into the priesthood of the Church of England, taken in 1992 — or rather, let us go back to the ‘indecision’, for that is unarguably what it was.

When the Church of England put to Parliament (as it had to) the necessary legislation to allow women to be ordained as priests, it included in that legislation the option for parishes to reject their priestly ministry. Looking back on it, that was an extraordinary thing to do. Is there any other example of a law where people can choose not to have that law apply to them?

Moreover, the Church itself spoke about the introduction of women priests as being a ‘process of reception’. That is to say, it was not prepared to commit itself to saying that this was exactly right —rather the approach would be ‘suck it and see’.

Then, on top of all this, Synod introduced its own legislation, an ‘Act of Synod’, to provide episcopal ministry for those who would be discomfited by the association of their existing bishop with the theology and action of ordaining women.

Thus, from its inception, the ordination of women was a fudge: systematically, deliberately — and inevitably, for without such a fudge it would not have taken place when it did. If the General Synod had been told, “You must decided now, one way or the other”, it is certain that it would have decided to wait.

However, the fudge was in place. And what happened next was equally inevitable, but unforseen by many. First, the assurances contained in the legislation where deliberately, but covertly, disregarded. The Act of Synod had declared that a person’s views on women’s ordination would not count against them when it came to selection for the higher offices in the Church. Yet extraordinarily, after 1993 almost no opponent of women’s ordination was found to have the qualities necessary to become a bishop. Indeed, there were unsubstantiated rumours of potential candidates being given a ‘fireside chat’ to inform them that on this issue there was only one option —you were for, or you were out.

Secondly, however, it may be argued that the basis of the Synod’s decision affected the quality of the candidates for ministry. Specifically, (and unsurprisingly, given the nature of its debates) the Synod had not decided that ‘this was what the Bible said ought to happen’. Rather, it had fudged the theological basis by failing to settle the biblical issue. Unsurprisingly, those women drawn to ordination to the priesthood tended to be those less committed to biblical precision, whilst those women drawn to full-time ministry, but of precise views, tended to avoid ordination to the priesthood.

What followed was inevitably an influx of women priests with generally ‘liberal’ theological views. And this had a further effect, for gradually the voting constituency for elections to Synods also shifted. The more that liberal women came in, the harder it was for conservatives to get elected. So, just as the Bench of Bishops was gradually being gerrymandered away from traditionalism, so the Houses of Clergy were being voted in the same direction.

Thus, contrary to the (palpably ludicrous) statement made in the 1970s, the theological objections to the ordination of women did not go away, but the objectors were increasingly marginalised. The Church was unequally divided, but the divisions would rapidly become more imbalanced.

Yet the objectors found it difficult to object! On paper, they were to be given equal treatment. Outwardly, the ‘period of reception’ would continue for as long as necessary. They had not been told they were wrong, only that they were a minority — but they were an honoured and welcome group, who would continue to be a valued ‘integrity’ within the Church of England. And most of them believed it. The Anglo-Catholics accepted the very considerable ‘bone’ of ‘Flying Bishops’. The Evangelicals were happy so long as they could get men ordained and accepted into parishes, and for the most part they thought the bishops were pretty laughable anyway. The Catholics fudged their attitude to Rome, the Evangelicals fudged their attitude to Anglicanism, the Liberals fudged their attitude to the Bible. Everyone was happy!

Now let us turn our attention to homosexuality, for back in the 1990s, the Church of England was also tackling this challenge. The definitive solution, however, was reached in 1991, when the House of Bishops produced a short statement titled Issues in Human Sexuality. With typical Anglican deftness, this managed to endorse the prevailing orthodoxy without actually insisting on it. The classic instance of this was the acceptance that the laity could engage in homosexual acts (since they were not bound to exemplify the church’s teaching) and that the clergy could argue for homosexual acts, but not engage in them (since the church’s teaching was binding on their behaviour but not their personal doctrine).

It was a small chunk of fudge, but enough to do the job.

Now let us fast-forward to 2005 and the introduction in the UK of civil partnerships. This was itself a classic fudge, being basically a government ‘cover’ for gay marriages in all but name. However, there was enough compromise involved in the legislation to allow Anglican bishops in the House of Lords to speak in favour of the development on the basis of ‘justice’ (but against broadening their provisions to include siblings or lifelong, opposite-sex, friends).

But what were the bishops to do about partnered clergy? The answer, given in another statement, was to allow for them, on the basis that, according to Issues in Human Sexuality, such relationships need not breach the church’s teaching on sex outside marriage:

The House of Bishops does not regard entering into a civil partnership as intrinsically incompatible with holy orders, provided the person concerned is willing to give assurances to his or her bishop that the relationship is consistent with the standards for the clergy set out in Issues in Human Sexuality. The wording of the Act means that civil partnerships will be likely to include some whose relationships are faithful to the declared position of the Church on sexual relationships (see paragraphs 2-7). [Civil Partnerships- A pastoral statement from the House of Bishops of the Church of England, para 19]

Notice, however, the caution in the first sentence of the above paragraph, that clergy in such partnerships should be “willing to give assurances” about their behaviour to their bishop. This was emphasised two paragraphs later:

... Partnerships will be widely seen as being predominantly between gay and lesbian people in sexually active relationships. Members of the clergy and candidates for ordination who decide to enter into partnerships must therefore expect to be asked for assurances that their relationship will be consistent with the teaching set out in Issues in Human Sexuality. [Ibid, para 21]

Notice, again, what is said: civil partnered clergy or ordination candidates “must ... expect to be asked for assurances” about the sexual nature of their relationship.

Notice also, however, what is not said. It does not say that the responsible bishop must actually seek such assurances, only that partnered clergy should “expect to be asked” for them. In fact, such assurances are certainly not sought by bishops in every case. Yet taken with paragraph 19, the implication is that it is the bishop, and not other potentially interested parties, such as churchwardens, parish representatives or neighbouring clergy, who is entitled to these assurances. Hence, although bishops are not always seeking these assurances themselves, they are unwilling to allow others to seek them, even though, as paragraph 21 says, the public perception of such relationships is that they will be sexually active.

Hence we have more fudge, and its divisive effects continue to spread. Thus the General Synod of the Church of England recently voted to approve pension rights to the civil partners of clergy, though not to their other dependents or supporters. The ‘marital’ status of civil partnerships thus seems to be reaffirmed. But on the basis of justice and morality it is hard to deny at least what was granted (even though one may have reservations about what was not), since all clergy in civil partnerships are supposed to be celibate and to be ready and willing to assure their bishops that this is the case, should they be asked. The assumption is breathtaking, though be careful you don’t choke on your fudge!

Meanwhile, on the ground the facts will establish themselves. Civil partnered clergy will become accepted, and the failure of bishops to establish, clearly and publicly, the nature of their relationships will pass unchallenged. But at the same time, the discomfort of those who hold to the traditional view will increase, for there will be no assurance, and no way of being assured, that the morality which the bishops have declared to be biblical (see their further and much larger document confusingly titled Some Issues in Human Sexuality, issued in 2003) is actually being maintained by those they see in civil partnerships.

The Church of England has, in the past, acted as if compromise were the ‘genius’ of Anglicanism. History, I suspect, will show the opposite — that far from being its genius, it was the agent of its downfall. And why should we be surprised? If the devil is the Father of Lies, then the half truth is surely his own offspring.

Revd John P Richardson
17 February 2010

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Further reflections on the FCA launch

Correction: It has been pointed out to me that it is not correct to say, as I have below, that "the platform and presentations did not feature any ordained women". In fact, the gospel was read by an ordained ( priest) woman, the Rev Erin Clifford, Associate Minister at St Michael's Chester Square, and one of those offering prayer was Rev Carrie Sandom ( a deacon), now based in London. This doubtless will not satisfy some people, but it does put things in a (slightly) different perspective from what my comments may have suggested.

On the second evening after the ‘Longest Day’ (the July 6^th launch of FCA UK, which, as I’ve said before, was a bit over-packed), I find myself reflecting that the Church of England may be in even worse trouble than I imagined last night —and that was bad enough.

The reasons for this lie in three reactions to the day I am picking up —two of them simply disappointing, and one of them more challenging.

The first reaction is the not-unexpected, but still sad to behold, visceral dislike from those who have been hostile to GAFCON and were inevitably therefore going to look askance at FCA. These I would generally characterize as ‘liberals’ from all wings of the Church, as well as most wings of the media. Since their opprobrium was inevitable, however, one tends to greet it with the sense that if these are the people one has upset, one has probably done at least something right. Nevertheless, it is still sad.

More disappointing, though, is the response of some who were there as supporters, yet who didn’t feel their ‘side’ was sufficiently represented.

Personally, the lack of ‘balance’ is something I have already noted —and it was not just a matter of breadth of churchmanship. However, this was a launch, not a last word, and on other days the swings may compensate for the roundabouts. More importantly, FCA is attempting to bring together groupings within the Church of England which have a past history of open conflict, yet without compromising or ‘fudging’ their integrity. (In this, I would argue, it is being more bold than anything attempted by ‘Open’ Evangelicalism.)

If this is to become a reality, all of us are going to have to swallow some things which we find unpalatable, and there will be times when ‘our’ point of view takes second place. For me, one such moment was seeing rows of ciboria, neatly labelled as containing so many ‘hosts’, waiting for the end-of-launch communion. The Protestant in me still finds such manifestations of ‘Catholic’ spirituality slightly uncomfortable —but hey, that’s life. Or at least, it will be life if FCA as presently conceived is to succeed.

By the same token, however, I made sure I wore my dog-collar to London (not something which Conservative Evangelical clergy are generally inclined to do), specifically because I wanted to take seriously the sensibilities of Anglo-Catholic clergy who would be there and whom I might meet.

The third reaction, however, is more serious because it is the most challenging. It concerns the ordination of women, but not necessarily in the way people might think.

It has been observed, both by supporters and opponents of FCA, that the platform and presentations did not feature any ordained women [but see correction above], and that, indeed, several known individuals and organizations opposed to the ordination of women were in evidence.

The latter cannot be helped. The truth is that FCA, and GAFCON before it, is attempting to embrace both viewpoints. That being the case, those opposed to the ordination of women will (inevitably) be welcomed, seen and heard. This is not, after all, the House of Bishops or the General Synod!

However, the more challenging reaction is from those on the Anglo-Catholic side who have complained about the very fact that FCA is trying to treat this as a ‘second-order’ issue —one, that is to say, on which Christian brethren can agree to disagree.

Indeed it is rather ironic that at this point Traditionalist Anglo-Catholic and Liberal ‘others’ share the same point of view —in the eyes of both, women’s ordination is a first-order issue, standing in the way of full cooperation with those who think otherwise.

It may, therefore, be the case that FCA cannot finally work, not because it contains those who accept and those who disagree with women’s ordination, but because it cannot contain both those who view this as a first-order issue and those who do not.

The matter is further complicated by the fact that, for Conservative Evangelicals like myself, ordination itself is not a first-order issue. Indeed, I once remarked, slightly tongue in cheek, that this was why I could happily sit down with Anglo-Catholics who have a view of priesthood and sacrament which I regard as somewhat beyond the Pale of true Anglicanism. It is because I don’t think ordination is worth that big a fight that I don’t think someone’s (in my view) extreme position on ordination is similarly worth a major falling out —not when I find myself agreeing with them on so many other things. To illustrate it from another angle, I have previously enjoyed Christian fellowship with Seventh-Day Adventists whose views of the Sabbath are, I think, quite misguided, because I found them to be co-believers in Christ and co-belligerents for the gospel in a very tough situation.

By the same token, however, I can also accept ministry —including sacramental ministry —from an ordained woman, even though I might have serious reservations about women’s ordination generally and women’s consecration specifically. In this respect, it is genuinely, for me, a second-order issue.

However, I have considerable difficulty with those for whom the acceptance of women’s ordination is a first-order issue, especially when the worthiness or otherwise of any enterprise or event is judged by whether or not the women on the platform or the organizing committee were ordained women. To me, this is to elevate ordination to the point where you are not at the ‘pinnacle’ of spiritual development unless you have been endowed with that ‘quality’. Frankly, it smacks of the old concept of priestly ‘character’. Someone who insists at this point that I must see things their way is making a demand with which I simply cannot comply.

And so I find myself surveying the Church of England on this second post-FCA evening with rather less confidence (even) than I had last night. If the FCA cannot work because we are too defensive about our own positions, that will be bad enough. If it turns out that women’s ordination has become a first-order issue on both wings of the Church —the Traditionalist and the Liberal —then those of us who are presently ‘in the middle’ may well wonder if the institution can truly embrace a diversity of views. The only other alternative, I suppose, is that we must adopt the same position ourselves, whichever may be the side on which we come down.

Revd John Richardson
7 July 2009

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