This month’s letter from the Vicar
Dear friends,
In July I had the privilege of representing my fellow clergy of the diocese at the General Synod in York. It was an important meeting at which we considered the means by which women may be ordained as bishops.
Above all we discussed the provisions for those opposed to the ordination of women bishops. By and large I came away satisfied with what was accomplished at the synod. We worked hard and at times the discussion was quite heated because people had very strong feelings. But I believe that good decisions were made. As most of you know I am strongly in favour of women bishops. I have always favoured the ordination of women to every order of ministry. It has always seemed to me discriminatory – and thus in a strict sense immoral – that women may not be ordained. For me the same logic applies to lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans-gender people. At the same time it is important to understand – and refute – the arguments of those who do not believe in their ordination. It seems to me that those of any seriousness stem from two sources at this time. Some of the conservative evangelicals oppose women priests, and in particular women bishops, because of what is called the ‘headship argument’. There are a small number of verses in the New Testament where the differentiation of the genders is spoken in terms of the husband being the head of the wife (1 Cor.11.3,8,11&12; Eph.5.22-24). It is argued that this domestic pattern must be imitated in the Church, the household of God and that therefore women may not be in positions of authority over men in Church life. Some therefore reject women’s ordination per se, while others particularly reject ordination to the episcopate as this automatically entails a position of authority. My judgment on this argument is twofold. On the one hand the very notion of male headship seems to me to be rooted in a particular cultural context, and one that has long since been left behind.
On the other, even if one were to accept that the husband has a headship in the family, the application of this principle to life in the Church seems dubious. Those who put forward this argument, it seems to me, are interpreting the Bible in a particularly narrow way and one may question whether their motivation is genuinely loyalty to Scripture or has some other root. There are, after all, many other passages in the New Testament which assert the equality of men and women before God. Furthermore there are passages, often overlooked, which indicate that women had important positions of leadership in the early Church, even to the extent of sharing in the apostolate (e.g. the role of Mary Magdalene often spoken of as ‘the apostle to the apostles’ and in particular note the name of Junia in Romans 16.7 who is described as ‘prominent among the apostles’).
If this argument is put forward by conservative evangelicals, another, very different one is propounded by the polar opposite constituency, conservative anglo-catholics. There have been times when this group have questioned the very possibility of ordaining women, but in recent years the heart of their opposition appears to be based on something that is called ‘sacramental assurance’. In essence this is a development and a nuancing of the argument that Anglicans can only do something like ordaining women if and when sanctioned by the Roman Catholic Church. We do not have the authority to act alone in this matter. According to this way of thinking the validity of the sacraments celebrated by women priests is uncertain, we cannot have the assurance that we need that they are legitimate. They may be, the problem is that we just can’t know for sure. Only authorisation by the universal Church could give such sacramental assurance. This is problematic with women priests, but much more so with women bishops because it is through episcopal ordination that priests are given An interesting argument, but nevertheless, surely seriously flawed. To begin with it rests on the assumption that the validity of Anglican Orders is dependent upon the judgement of the Roman Catholic Church. But that Church has already given its judgment and deems all our orders, those of male bishops, priests and deacons as well as women, to be “absolutely null and utterly void”. On that basis those who seek sacramental assurance from that source would surely have to leave the Church of England forthwith. The second issue is this, where does the validity of the sacraments stem from? The sacramental assurance argument asserts that it comes from the Bishop. But the Church of England formularies actually teach something different. Article 26 of the 39 Articles teaches that it stems directly from Christ, the hierarchy of the Church giving order to our practices. The third point concerns what sacramental assurance is intended to assure us of. Though I haven’t seen the argument put like this, I must assume that the worry is that unless we can be sure that the sacraments are valid we cannot be sure that they will be the means of bringing us eternal salvation. But this would seem to make salvation dependent on human actions rather than divine grace, a heresy known as Pelagianism. Even that most sacramental of Catholic theologians, St Thomas Aquinas, says that the ultimate ground of assurance is not the sacraments but God’s omnipotence and mercy.
It seems to me that neither of these arguments against the ordination of women stands up to careful scrutiny. It is also very important to remember that there are many evangelicals and anglo-catholics who do not associate themselves with these objectors, groups probably over-represented in General Synod. Therefore I believe that we must press forward rapidly to make it possible for the many able and effective women priests now serving our Church to become eligible to become bishops. With many others I will work to that end in the coming years.
Richard Franklin
September 2010
