Female Bishops: Crossing the Rubicon

Today we have the news we have waited for so long. The name of the Church of England's first female diocesan bishop has been announced. She is Rachel Treweek, currently Archdeacon of Hackney in London. She is to be the next Bishop of Gloucester.

Why is this so significant for the church, perhaps even more so than the hugely welcome appointments of the first two female bishops?  Why have I given this blog the dramatic title Crossing the Rubicon? Surely we have already crossed it by consecrating Libby Lane as the first woman in England to be ordained as a bishop?

Like a bishop suffragan, a diocesan bishop is consecrated to a senior leadership role in the church's ministry of word and sacrament, in mission, service, pastoral care and the teaching of the faith. But what marks out the diocesan bishop is that this role carries distinctive legal jurisdiction. It gives her leadership an authority in her diocese that belongs solely to her. She will of course share her episcope with her senior team in the diocese: her suffragan bishop, her dean, her archdeacons. But ultimately, the jurisdiction will belong uniquely to her.

And this is the rub. For as long as the church did not have a female diocesan bishop, the journey towards full equality in ministry with men was not complete. (Membership of the House of Lords is not the point here, though the special parliamentary provision fast-tracking the first female diocesan into the Upper House is also greatly to be welcomed.) But now, at last, we can say that this 'one more river to cross' has been successfully traversed.

Every diocesan bishop will tell you that it is an awesome responsibility to be a leader in the church in these demanding times. To be a bishop in the 21st century is not (in my view) at all an enviable vocation. Indeed, to be an effective leader in any organisation these days imposes great demands. 'Who is sufficient for these things?' we ask with St Paul. But diocesan bishops will also tell you that it is an enormous privilege to inhabit this role as a servant of the servants of God. It was high time that women were allowed to undertake it. Indeed, it ought never to have taken this long.

Of course, full equality will only be achieved in practice when there are comparable numbers of women and men in the episcopate. This will take many years, maybe decades. But for those like me who longed to see this day, and wondered if we would still be alive when it came, today's announcement is the best possible news.

I have written a number of blogs on the subject of female bishops. In one of them, I took as a metaphor the line embedded in the medieval Frosterley Marble floor by the font at the west end of Durham Cathedral. It marked the boundary which women were not allowed to cross in the days when the Cathedral Priory was a community of male Benedictine monks. They could watch, and listen, but they couldn't be full participants. I've often said that even into our own century, this has continued to be symbolically true for women in our church. The line began to be crossed with the ordination of women as deacons, then priests, then bishops.

But now, one woman has both her feet firmly to the east of the line. One more wall of division has been breached. The gospel that says that in Christ Jesus, we are all one people. Among the distinctions that once counted and must count no longer was that between male and female. Not now, in this new covenant society of grace into which Christ brings us. I think we should be allowed a Lenten alleluia.

So this is, I reckon, the last time I need to blog on this subject. It's a great day for the Church of England, for the women who serve in it so loyally, for Gloucester and, I'm sure, for Rachel and her family. We congratulate her with all our hearts, and promise her our prayers.

Women in the Episcopate - almost there!

This is a great day for the Church of England and for Anglicans across the world. Today, the Reverend Libby Lane is consecrated in York, the first woman to be ordained bishop in the Church of England. A large crowd will be gathering at the Minster as I write. So with millions of others, believers and well-wishers, I want to offer congratulations and prayers. Every pioneer has the privilege of becoming a name in the history books. It is quite something for the Church of England to have arrived at this point after such a long journey.

I've blogged before about how, on the night before I was ordained my Bishop sat me down and said: 'Michael, you do realise, don't you, that this year the General Synod has agreed that there are no theological objections to the ordination of women? This is the position of the church in which tomorrow you become a public minister. If you don't like the idea of female priests and bishops, now is the time to step back.' That was in 1975. It has taken 40 years for a woman to become a bishop in England. Exactly the time it took the Hebrews to enter the promised land. And as in that story, not without many ordeals on the way. Libby is privileged to be the 'first'.

But it will also be a burden she has to carry. She will be under intense scrutiny from all sides, and not just within the church. People will be watching her to see how she inhabits the role of a bishop, what dimension her womanhood adds to the episcopate, how she holds on to her sense of female self in a hierarchy that will still be overwhelmingly male for years to come. We all want her to flourish and are sure that she will make an excellent bishop. If we had any doubts, they were laid to rest by the testimony paid by her charming curate on TV today. When a curate speaks well of their vicar, always believe them! And I hope and believe that even those opposed to idea of female bishops wish her well and with the rest of us hold her in their prayers.

I've added almost there to the title of this blog. Why is today not yet the end of the journey? For three reasons.

The first is simply a matter of time. Only when there are roughly as many women as men among the bishops will we be able to say that equality has been achieved. It will come, though the gender balance of the House of Commons suggests that it may take longer than we would like.

The second reason is more intractable. It's a great pity that Libby's consecration has been coloured by the debate, not all of it good tempered, about the consecration of a traditionalist bishop in a few days' time. The Archbishop of York has requested those bishops who are present at that service and who have themselves ordained women to exercise 'gracious restraint' in not laying hands on a man who does not endorse female ordination. The Archbishop includes himself in this. That isn't my theme today, so I won't say more now other than to regret that divisions that get acted out ritually in the worship of the church cast a real shadow over what should be a joyous celebration. There may be bishops attending today's service in the Minster who will not lay hands on Libby. We remain a broken and divided communion.

My third reason is about the role Libby will take up. She will be the first female bishop, yes, but as suffragan to the Bishop of Chester she will not have in her own right the authority he holds as Diocesan. The media haven't cottoned on to a key aspect of the debate about female bishops which is that it's not simply about exercising a bishop's ceremonial, teaching and pastoral roles. It is very much about jurisdiction in the church. Only a diocesan bishop has this: some theologians believe that the bishop's crozier is a symbol not only of the pastoral office as a shepherd, but also - perhaps especially - of jurisdiction over a diocese. A woman does not yet have episcopal jurisdiction in the Church of England (other than what is delegated to a suffragan by a diocesan). This will come when the first woman is ordained to be a diocesan bishop. No doubt this will happen very soon, maybe in the next few months. When it does, I hope the media will pay attention because that will also be truly ground-breaking.

Female Bishops: on not letting it go

This is the blog I did not want to write.  It is of course about the vote in Synod on women in the episcopate. 

Tuesday 20 November at 6.15pm is now one of those ‘you’ll always remember where you were when it happened’ moments. We had just come out of evensong.  At the service we had heard one of the finest of all psalms, 104: ‘O Lord how manifold are thy works: in wisdom hast thou made them all, the earth is full of thy riches’.  We had prayed for the Synod and its work.  Afterwards a group of us chatted amiably outside the Deanery gate in the dark, waiting for the result. When it came, it was a palpable shock.  We couldn’t believe it. I felt for all the female clergy and how devalued they must be feeling.  I felt for the whole church in throwing away a wonderful opportunity to enrich its ministry.

 

When I looked at the voting figures a few minutes later, I was baffled. The overall majority in favour was much bigger than I had dared to hope: nearly three quarters of those in the chamber. That, read against the fact that 42 out of 44 dioceses had supported it, meant that the resolution had achieved the convincing majority politicians would die for. It looked like a fair following wind (of the Spirit?) for women in the episcopate. It was only the Byzantine synodical rules of engagement that did for it.

Since then, I have had many conversations with people inside and outside the church. Inside, there is shame, anger, despair.  Outside there is incomprehension and the sense,  even among those who wish us well, that the Church of England has shot itself in the foot, lost its authority and put its role in the nation at risk.  As we can see from the quality press, it has stirred up a national debate about how fit the church is any more to fulfil that role. To quote Father Brown, it was never impossible that the vote could go down, but it would be incredible.  This is what our fellow-travellers are saying to us.  There is no answer to it.

In Tuesday’s backwash, there was an ominous symptom of attitude in the church that needs examining.  We were told that General Synod will not now meet in February but only in July 2013. This is extraordinary.  When the nation is in crisis, Parliament is summoned within days to consider it and guide those who have to make rapid decisions in life-threatening situations.  When the Church of England is in its gravest crisis for decades, the Synod postpones its next meeting and decides that it will be sufficient to meet in 8 months’ time.

This looks like a bad case of loss of nerve. It's as if we are in denial that the situation is as serious and urgent as it is.  This is how it’s being perceived in the nation. Most significant at a time of trial, it looks like a failure of governance. There is a big reputational risk here. Just when you want your governing body to be there and exercise its proper authority, it vanishes like the Cheshire Cat into the thicket not to be seen again till the sun comes out next summer. I urge the Synod to meet in the next few weeks to show both church and nation that it has noticed what is happening and is doing something about it.

............

‘Where are we now on women as bishops?’ I asked in a previous blog.  Actually, the same as where we were on Tuesday morning: poised to take this life-changing step with conviction, confident that theology, the nation’s zeitgeist and the will of the church are all behind us. The trouble is, the system for doing that is now discredited. It is time for reform.  Here are some of my thoughts about this.

1.  Voting by houses in the Synod should be abolished.  In an age of collaborative ministry, we are all one in the chamber.  There is no case for a system which, in an extreme example, could have a motion carried unanimously in the houses of clergy and laity but be lost by a single vote in the house of bishops.  The majority would be 95% in favour but it would still be lost in a vote by houses.

2.  We should overhaul the system by which laity are elected to the Synod.  Having deanery synods as the electoral college for each diocese is the weak link in the chain because not enough laity are convinced that serving on a deanery synod is a good use of their time.  This opens the way for parties and pressure-groups to exploit the system and get their adherents on to deanery synods to vote in partisan General Synod candidates.  I should like to see a universal franchise of all the laity on electoral rolls (who are already eligible under the rules to stand as candidates), just as the licensed clergy are already franchised.

 

3.  All candidates for election should be required to state where they currently stand on the likely big issues of their quinquennium so that the electoral colleges know what, as well as whom, they are voting in. Elected members are representatives not delegates, and they must be allowed to listen to arguments and change their minds.  But some preliminary indication is needed.

4.  The General Synod needs to be a lot more versatile and light-footed so that it can meet at short notice for a day to debate real emergencies. This is one of them. Arguments about spaces not being available are specious. Most of the nation’s cathedrals could easily accommodate such a meeting, and among them, half a dozen would be available quickly.  

............

Someone replied to one of my tweets: ‘just let it go; get over it’.  Well, here is why I am not letting it go, because the system that resulted in this fiasco is itself wrong.  Had a majority in the house voted against, that would have been a different matter.  I don’t have a problem with losing an argument and accepting that the organisation wants to go in a different direction – so long, that is, that the process for reaching that place is fair.  My issue today is that it isn’t.

A final thought.  I firmly believe that we shall have female bishops in our church one day, perhaps soon.  It’s not a question of whether but of when. I have a hunch that when it comes back for decision, it will be in a sharper, more convincing, more unafraid form than it did this time.  That will be a much better outcome for the future.  Tuesday’s will turn out to have been a Pyrrhic victory for those whom history will inevitably pass by. We have seen this all before, in relation to slavery, contraception and remarriage after divorce.  The church usually gets it in the end by God’s grace.  I simply want to see us get it in my lifetime. 

 

I pray for that, and have not lost heart.