The Church of England?

This week we saw the General Synod of the Church of England narrowly defeat the measure to allow women to become Bishops.

I am fully in favor of the consecration of women as bishops and am thoroughly disappointed and shocked that the measure has been voted out at this late stage; a measure that has been the result of many years of prayer, discussion and compromise. And many people in wider society are asking themselves whether the Church of England has lost credibility and legitimacy because of its failure to introduce this Measure.

As the Archbishop said this week:

We have, to put it very bluntly, a lot of explaining to do.  Whatever the motivations for voting yesterday, whatever the theological principle on which people acted, spoke; the fact remains that a great deal of this discussion is not intelligible to our wider society. Worse than that, it seems as if we are wilfully blind to some of the trends and priorities of that wider society.  We have some explaining to do.  We have, as the result of yesterday, undoubtedly lost a measure of credibility in our society, and I make that as an observation as objectively as I can;

I have felt very different walking around the streets as a woman in a dog collar over the past few days, the profile of the church was suddenly much higher. People were talking about and listening to women priests. People were interested in the church, perhaps not for the right reasons! But nonetheless we were in the headlines and for once, perhaps, people were interested in what the church was doing. And that outside voice, the voice of the public, not the ever familiar voice of the internal interest groups in the Church of England, was refreshing.

Suddenly the church was not just an unimportant sect, as it is in danger of becoming but the Church of and in England. That is really important for us to hold on to. To remember and witness to the people of this land, and to do that we have to remember them and understand them and be a part of them in a way which we probably fail to do a lot of the time. ‘There is a matter of mission here and we can’t afford to hang about’, as Rowan put it. We, perhaps, were called back to our vocation as a Church of England during this week. We were reminded that other people are watching what we are doing, and whether they come week by week and sit in our churches is not the matter - people still expect us to reflect the truth. And the truth that Western democracy (with its roots in Christianity) has helped and enabled to come to light is that women are equal to men: that women have various and many gifts that they wish to offer in all different areas of society: in commerce, in law, in education, in the family, in farming, and in the Church, for example. And moreover that wider society has found that their voices, their skills and their viewpoints are valid and help to enrich society.

Perhaps I may speak personally for a little bit about my home life. At the moment I work full-time and my husband works part-time, and whilst I miss my children and wish I had more time with them, my husband has skills and qualities that make him more suitable for being a part-time teacher and a part-time house Daddy. He is wonderful with our children. And this is the truth that can come from a liberating view of gender: men and women can give each other the freedom to be themselves. And this is the truth that society is telling the Church to come to acknowledge; a truth that we have taken and are taking too long to recognize.

So, we as Christians do well to listen to the voice of the wider world and of the society within which we live. To be a credible voice the forms and structures of our institution have to be credible to the society within which we exist. Yet, our Gospel reading* also tells us and makes known to us that the truth that we tell as Christians is also a strange one, one that sits uneasily with worldly power structures and forms of authority.  The government is right to be very cautious about interfering with the legal processes and decisions of the Church of England because we rightly exist as being part of but also set apart from the society within which we operate. So, we are called to listen attentively to the people whom we serve and we are also called to listen deeply to the God who calls us into His mission. Jesus stands before Pilate, a worldly power and tells him plainly that his Kingdom is not of this world. As Christians we affirm week by week that it is Jesus who is King. That it is to the Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit that we owe our allegiance, obedience and praise. But sometimes, society witnesses to the truth, whilst the Church hangs about looking inward and failing to see the Christ in the faces, viewpoints and lives of those who don’t call themselves Christians: for that we should repent and reform. The Church has learnt painfully over the past decades that protectionism (of the institution of the church) and an over-emphasis on being holy and set-apart can lead the church into some dark alleys of self-deceit. So let us let the light of the outsider shine into our church and into our conscience and let us keep working for the truth.

Amen 

* For the Feast of Christ the King:  John 18. 33 – 37

 Then Pilate entered the headquarters again, summoned Jesus, and asked him, ‘Are you the King of the Jews?’ Jesus answered, ‘Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?’ Pilate replied, ‘I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done?’ Jesus answered, ‘My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.’ Pilate asked him, ‘So you are a king?’ Jesus answered, ‘You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.’