Women Bishops in the Church of England?
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Women Bishops in the Church of England? A report of the House of Bishops’ Working Party on Women in the Episcopate Church House Publishing Published 2004 for the House of Bishops Church House of the General Synod of the Church of Great Smith Street England by Church House Publishing. London SW1P 3NZ Copyright © The Archbishops’ Council Tel: 020 7898 1451 2004 Fax: 020 7989 1449 Index copyright © Meg Davies 2004 ISBN 0 7151 4037 X All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or stored or GS 1557 transmitted by any means or in any form, electronic or mechanical, including Printed in England by photocopying, recording, or any information The Cromwell Press Ltd, storage and retrieval system without written Trowbridge, Wiltshire permission, which should be sought from the Copyright Administrator, The Archbishops’ Council, Church of England, Church House, Great Smith Street, London SW1P 3NZ. Email: [email protected]. The Scripture quotations contained herein are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989, by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA, and are used by permission. All rights reserved. iv Contents Membership of the Working Party vii Preface ix Foreword by the Chair of the Working Party xi 1. Introduction 1 2. Episcopacy in the Church of England 8 3. How should we approach the issue of whether women 66 should be ordained as bishops? 4. The development of women’s ministry 114 in the Church of England 5. Can it be right in principle for women to be consecrated as 136 bishops in the Church of England? 6. The issue of timing 183 7. The theological and practical issues raised by possible options 200 for the future 8. Would the ordination of women bishops be a legitimate 228 development in the Church of England? Annex 1: Ordination of women in the Anglican Communion 237 and other Churches (as at February 2004) Annex 2: Possible pastoral arrangements – a summary 240 Annex 3: What does a bishop do? 242 Annex 4: Submissions made to the Working Party 249 Notes 263 General index 280 Index of biblical references 288 v Membership of the Working Party on Women in the Episcopate Members of the Working Party The Bishop of Rochester, the Rt Revd Dr Michael Nazir-Ali (Chair) The Bishop of Stafford, the Rt Revd Christopher Hill (Vice-chair) Dr Christina Baxter (Principal, St John’s College, Nottingham) The Bishop of Lewes, the Rt Revd Wallace Benn The Dean of Leicester, the Very Revd Vivienne Faull The Bishop of Bolton, the Rt Revd David Gillett The Revd Deacon Christine Hall (Director, Bishop Otter Centre for Theology and Ministry, Chichester to 2003) The Bishop of St Albans, the Rt Revd Christopher Herbert (member until September 2002) Professor Ann Loades (University of Durham to 2003) The Bishop of Gibraltar in Europe, the Rt Revd Dr Geoffrey Rowell The Archdeacon of Worcester, the Ven. Dr Joy Tetley Ecumenical representatives The Revd Dr Anthony Barratt – The Roman Catholic Church (Ecumenical Representative on General Synod. Formerly: Vice Rector, St John’s Seminary, Wonersh. Latterly: Our Lady of the Annunciation Church, New York) The Revd Dr Richard Clutterbuck – The Methodist Church (Chair of the British Methodist Faith and Order Committee. Formerly: Principal of The West of England Ministerial Training Course. Latterly: Principal of Edgehill Theological College, Belfast) Consultants The Revd Canon Dr Nicholas Sagovsky (Westminster Abbey) The Revd Canon Professor Anthony Thiselton (University of Nottingham) Staff assessors The Revd Preb. Dr Paul Avis (General Secretary, Council for Christian Unity, Archbishops’ Council) vii Mr William Fittall (Secretary General of the Archbishops’ Council and the General Synod) Mr Stephen Slack (Head of Legal Office, Archbishops’ Council) In attendance Dr Martin Davie (Theological Consultant, House of Bishops, Secretary to the Working Party) Mr Jonathan Neil-Smith (Secretary, House of Bishops) Mr Adrian Vincent (Executive Officer, House of Bishops) viii Preface We are most grateful to the Bishop of Rochester and his working party for producing this comprehensive report. It has been the subject of extensive discussion both within the House of Bishops and the Bishops’ Meeting (consisting of all diocesan, suffragan and full time assistant bishops in the Church of England), and it is now published under the authority of the House. We are happy to commend it for prayerful study within the dioceses of the Church of England and to invite other Churches in the Anglican Communion and our ecumenical partners to let us have their reflections on it. On behalf of the House of Bishops Rowan Cantuar David Ebor November 2004 ix Foreword by the Chair of the Working Party From the very beginning, I have understood the Working Party’s mandate to have been further study of episcopacy so that the issues relevant to the admission of women to the episcopate in the Church of England are raised and addressed. We have tried to do this as comprehensively as possible and hope that our report will prove to be a useful resource for discussion and debate in the Church as a whole, as well as in General Synod. The Working Party was set up by the House of Bishops in response to a request from General Synod and consisted of bishops, ordained and lay women, expert consultants and ecumenical participants. A wide range of views on the subject was to be found among the members – and we have struggled, in the course of our meetings, to understand what each member has been trying to say to us all. Our meetings have demonstrated a basic unity, not only in faith, but quite often in theological approach and commitment to scholarship. It would be wrong to pretend that there has been no pain involved in working together. Members have, however, realized the necessity of this difficult task for the sake of the Church, its mission and its unity. We received over seven hundred submissions in writing. They were from a variety of points of view. Each was read and evaluated in the light of our mandate. We saw a large number of those who had made submissions though, regrettably, we could not see them all. We were able to consult a number of our partner churches in the Anglican Communion, among the Porvoo churches and also some of our ecumenical partners. We hope that many of the views expressed in the submissions and the consultations are reflected in the report. Our approach has been to consider the emergence of episcopacy in the light of the Bible and the experience of the earliest Christian communities. We have also taken account of specifically Anglican emphases in this regard, especially from the sixteenth century onwards. xi Foreword We hope that this work will have value more widely than in just the context of our present discussion. We have considered the place of women in Church and society and have attempted to relate this to an account of women’s ministries down the centuries. Once again, we have done this with our Bibles open before us. Whilst we have not shied away from detailed exegesis of the so-called ‘difficult’ texts, on the one hand, or of the ‘egalitarian’ ones, on the other, our basic approach has been to situate the questions about the place of women in society, and their ministry in Church, within the whole trajectory of a properly biblical anthropology. We have also, of course, reflected on how women have actually exercised ministry since biblical times. Many of the theological arguments involved in the question about women bishops were also raised during the debate about the admission of women to the priesthood. Some of them have, however, been raised in a new way or with fresh force. There are others, of course, which are wholly new. Each has been given attention in the light of the decision which the Church has to make about women bishops. We have set out our views on reception and development not simply in terms of process but as theological ideas. This is important for a living tradition which seeks to be faithful to what has been handed on but seeks also to engage with changing circumstances and new situations. Once again, we hope that the material will have some use beyond the present context. We have examined the possible options for maintaining as much unity as possible, if the Church were to decide that it would be appropriate to admit women to the episcopate. The theological implications for each option have also been outlined. It may well be that theological tidiness has to be balanced, in this context, with the need to maintain as much unity as is possible and to go as far as we can in respecting conscience. The manner in which this is done should be such that the effectiveness of the Church’s mission and ministry is not unnecessarily jeopardized. Beyond its immediate use in a General Synod debate, we are hoping that an appropriate educational process can be developed and made available so that the report can be studied more widely by individuals and groups in dioceses, deaneries and parishes. xii Foreword I am very grateful to the members of the Working Party for all their hard work over the last three years. We are greatly in the debt of the secretary of the Working Party, Dr Martin Davie, and his assistant, Mr Adrian Vincent. Michael Roffen: Bishop of Rochester Chair of the House of Bishops’ Working Party on Women in the Episcopate June 2004 xiii chapter 1 Introduction 1.1 The background to the current report 1.1.1 The twentieth century saw many changes in British society and one of the biggest of these was the change in the status of women within it.