Sunday, November 18, 2012

Ladies in waiting at the Church of England

Rebecca Swinson was only six years old when the Church of England allowed women to become priests. 
“That was 20 years ago. Some people of my age have only ever had a woman as their vicar,” says the university researcher from south London, who is now campaigning for women to be allowed to serve as bishops.

“People outside the Church can’t understand why they are not already. If a woman in the workplace does not get a job just because she’s a woman, that is unacceptable. We knew it would take time, but how much time is enough?”

The answer to that question may be just another 48 hours or so. 

On Tuesday, the governing body of the Church of England, the General Synod, meets to vote on a measure that will allow the first woman to be made bishop in early 2014.

The debate at Church House in Westminster will be heartfelt and long, with speeches carrying the weight of 20 years of frustration on both sides. 

But as evening comes, the 467 members of the Synod will have to make a momentous decision.
One of those voting will be Miss Swinson, who finds herself in a position of unusual influence for her age. At 26, she is the youngest person ever appointed to the Archbishop’s Council, a panel that acts as a Cabinet to the leaders of the Church. 

She is also part of a new generation of believers who have been campaigning online, through Facebook, Twitter and a website, to urge church members to say they believe the time is right.

So far, almost 2,000 people have used the Yes 2 Women Bishops website to tell their local Synod members they should back the change on Tuesday.

“There comes a time when you have to draw a line,” says Miss Swinson. “This is an important issue that has the potential to revolutionise the ministry of the Church, but there are also a lot of other issues that affect the wider community more, such as what is happening with benefit cuts. We have reached a good compromise. The Church should settle this and put its energy into fighting those other causes.”

The move would transform the public face of the Church, and the way it behaves. 

The front-runners to become the first woman bishop include the Rev Rose Hudson Wilkin, who is chaplain to the Speaker of the House of Commons, and Canon Lucy Winkett of St James, Piccadilly. 

A change in church law would also open the way, ultimately, for a woman to become Archbishop of Canterbury.

But there are those who oppose the appointment of women bishops on sincere and deeply considered theological grounds. 

They fear being forced to leave the Church of England as a matter of conscience, and say the measure does not give enough protection to their rights and traditions. Some are also upset at attempts to settle the issue with what they seen as undue haste.

The incoming Archbishop of Canterbury, the Rt Rev Justin Welby, has made it clear that he supports the measure before Synod, which promises to “respect” those who cannot accept women bishops. 

He is believed to be preparing a speech for Tuesday that will urge waverers to accept the measure.

The outgoing Archbishop, Dr Rowan Williams, has run a supportive campaign from Lambeth Palace called Enough Waiting, with videos by prominent church figures, including Miss Swinson.

One supporter told The Sunday Telegraph: “The impression I get is that Rowan Williams is hoping this will be his lasting legacy. It will be quite a slap in the face for him if the Synod votes against. It will also make life very difficult for Justin Welby, because the next 10 years will be about sorting out the mess.”

But several senior traditionalist clerics object to the current Archbishop coming out so strongly in support of one view, saying that it “closes down” the debate.

The Bishop of Chester, the Rt Rev Peter Forster, said in the Church Times: “For many advocates of women bishops, it has seemed as if there isn’t really anything to debate at all. Once you have women priests [they say], admitting women to the episcopate is inevitable. This is a central plank in the Archbishop of Canterbury’s thinking.”

The bishop rejected Dr Williams’s suggestion that it would be an “affront” to women priests to deny the change, saying: “The difficulty with this argument is that it closes down the discussion.”

Bishop Forster sought to counter the argument that the public perception of the Church would be harmed if it did not welcome women into the episcopate: “First and foremost, the credibility of the Church must be in the eyes of God, not the world.”

There are currently more women being trained for the priesthood than men. The majority of church members believe they should be allowed to become bishops. The argument raging this weekend is whether the measure before the Synod is the best way of going about it.

Those who are opposed would like the legal right to demand that they are overseen by a male bishop instead – but that was rejected by the Synod in July. Supporters of women bishops felt it would undermine their ministry. 

“There is a real commitment to working with people on all sides. We want to be able to hold everyone together in the Church,” says Rebecca Swinson, who is not a lifelong campaigner on this issue, but a church member who has found herself having to make a choice. “If women are bishops, then they are fully bishops. You can’t have a system that says they are second class.”

The new measure guarantees respect for those who cannot accept women bishops, but leaves the details to a new code of practice that will be drawn up after the measure goes through.

For the measure to become church law, it must receive a two-thirds majority in each of the three elements of the Synod: the House of Bishops, the House of Clergy and the House of Laity.

The bishops and the clergy will almost certainly send it through. 

The battleground is among those members elected directly from the pews, and in an electorate of more than 400 people, the decision could come down to fewer than 20 votes.

The waverers are being targeted this weekend, with online campaigns by both sides. Yes 2 Women Bishops was set up to give a voice to people in the pews who have not been elected to the Synod and have had no part in drawing up the measure.

The campaign offers a way to send their Synod representative an email that says: “I believe the danger of voting down the measure now is great, risking at least five more years of internal argument and committing “missional suicide” with a non-church-going public who already believe the Church to be out of step on this issue.”

On the other side of the debate, the website Together Forward was set up earlier this month by the conservative evangelical group, Church Society. Pete Myers, a member of its council, said: “We didn’t like the level of bitterness around the debate – there is quite a lot of personal hurt on both sides.”

He is also unhappy about the Archbishop of Canterbury’s intervention. “I think it is a shame that Lambeth Palace won’t put out the other side of the debate – they are not being balanced. None of the rancour has come from Rowan Williams in any way, but the mistake he has made is in thinking he should just get it through as quickly as he can now.”

Mr Myers, who is training for ordination at Oak Hill theological college in north London, wants more protection enshrined in law. “I don’t think it is the right solution for church unity to just move forward without having the questions answered about how we will function together.”

The Suffragan Bishop of Burnley, the Rt Rev John Goddard, one of the Anglo-Catholic members of the House of Bishops, says: “Respect is not a strong enough word. I think we know well enough in our culture that codes of practice are changed fairly rapidly and are so often observed in the breach.” 

He calls the measure “unjust and unfair” towards traditionalists.

If the measure is passed, some Anglo-Catholics may leave for the Ordinariate, the body set up by the Pope to welcome disaffected Anglicans into the Catholic Church. 

More than 1,300 lay people and clergy have joined since it was established in January last year. 

A spokesman for the Ordinariate acknowledged that many Anglo-Catholics would see the move towards women bishops as a “line in the sand”.

That line looks likely to be drawn on Tuesday. The Rev Hugh Lee, convener in Synod for the campaign group Watch (Women and the Church) says he is “fairly confident” of a two-thirds majority among the clergy and bishops. 

As for the laity, he says: “I’m always an optimist and I always trust in the Holy Spirit, so I’m hopeful. The legislation is the best we could possibly hope for.”

Not surprisingly, Mr Lee says he believes Dr Williams has every right to come down on one side. 

“Archbishop Rowan has been scrupulously correct in that he hasn’t used Church House resources for his campaign. I think that those trying to pick holes in it are fighting at the last ditch.”