essay 4

W4745067
TMA04
Analyse and explain the reasons why the ordination of women has been such a controversial issue. How did the controversy reflect the themes of conflict, conversion and coexistence?

AA307 concentrates on the Roman Catholic, Lutheran and in particular the Anglican church’s (English provinces of Canterbury and York unified) decisions on the ordination of women in the course text “Religion in History.” Further the relevant readings in Study Guide 4 (8 and 9) concentrate on experiences within the Church of England, with 8 being a report by the House of Bishops and 9 a personal reflection of a woman who opposed the ordination of women, was elected to the Church of England synod and who then abstained on a vote that passed by one allowing the ordination of women owing to a personal desire and calling to seek ordination herself. Reading 9 is thus a story of conflict, conversion and coexistence.

As such this question covers the topic of conversion of opinion within the church as well as conversion to other Christian churches by those who were opposed and couldn’t in conscience support the idea of women priests or episcopates under any circumstance. Generally they viewed the idea of the two integrities with disdain such as the husband of the woman who abstained at the synod vote in reading 9 as he became a Roman Catholic priest under the compromise agreement of the late Cardinal Basil Hume. Said agreement allowed for married Anglican Christians to exercise their ministry within the Roman Catholic Church and is a precursor to the agreement currently being discussed between Forward in Faith and Roman Catholicism of an ordinariat[1]. As such however vitriolic the rhetoric of some opponents within the debate in the 1980s that led the then Bishop of Edinburgh in part to resign his see, coexistence under the sovereign through ‘conversion to a different sub-tradition’ (Woolfe) occurred as did to conversion to Anglicanism of those who wanted equal rights for themselves and probably fancied the job having seen the Vicar of Dibley TV programme.[2]

To tackle the reasons of controversy without resorting to glib comments like that is something I have tried to follow in my life and yet at the same time sought to avoid as I wasn’t a theologian, classing my religion (though confirmed prior to going to uni) on my uni enrolment form in 1998 as NOYB (None of your business) for reasons I shall cover in this essay owing to the regrettable 1920s dispensation of religion in Wales against the Anglican church there until 2001/2. So to tackle this question I shall analyse the following:

1) Analyse the similarities and differences in the Roman Catholic and Church of England arguments both before and since the reformation.
2) Why these are controversial to evangelicals and their distinctive arguments against the ordination of women
3) How they impact on other churches in communion with Canterbury and the rest of the wider church that already have women pastors. Why did they do so and did they agitate against orthodoxy?
4) Why this was allowed and who tolerated it and why.

In understanding the disagreements over and arguments against the ordination of women Woolfe focuses on the Lutheran, Methodists, Anglican (with specific reference to the Church of England) and Roman Catholic. It is worth noting that the Christian (Eastern) Orthodox compromise on priestly celibacy which sees their parish clergy married with both husband and wife integrated into parish life but their bishops celibate was not covered much perhaps because it was not seen as directly relevant save as the medieval notion of daughters of eve being unfit for ordination[3], stemming from the Early Christian church and held in common by all the mainstream churches since the Nicean council convened by the Emperor Constantine[4] which acknowledged like Mumm[5] the role of women in Christianity “…as mentioned throughout Acts and the Epistles.”

However Chidester[6] notes the pre reformation writings of the theologian Albert the Great (1200-80) as showing arguments about the nature of women and their role within the church and from this whether Christs ministers should be women.

1) Since death entered the world through eve, new life of the resurrection should have come through a woman
2) Since the second person of the trinity is wisdom or sapientia, this should be given to a woman
3) Christ performs the role of giving new life to those who begin their oath of salvation

This can be viewed as a more relevant critique than that which was developed and honed in the post war period by some more extreme opponents of womens ordination based on a critique of the maternal role, the lectionary and menstruation and the diverging theologies of the Eucharist (specifically the turning of wine into Christs blood). Some of this actually provoked the concept of the vicar of Dibley as counter propaganda so was this a case of just desserts for excessive negativity?

Since the 1530s the Church of England developed its own opposition to women priests and episcopates to maintain its continuity with the church as founded in England by St Augustine. This developed in part as other churches and sects (such as the United Reformed, Congregationalists and Quakers) started having women ministers with the first generation of Methodists having women preachers. This occasional distinction is seen in some interpretations of the theology of St Paul (according to Mumm’s quotes from the Authorised version of the Bible). Thus there has already been coexistence.

In Mumm two attempts by the CofE to explain why women could not be priests are explained, namely 1920 where the practices of the first generations of Christians with male apostles would be considered normative. The second written in 1936 in summary argued that women do not look to male priests lustfully as opposed to a female priesthood as “…a male priesthood do not normally arouse that side of female nature which should be quiscient during the times of adoration to almighty God.” While “…on the other hand, that it would be impossible for the male members of the average Anglican Congregation to be present at a service at which a woman ministered without becoming unduly conscious of her sex.[7]” Frankly I found being an experiment for the Dibley set while a school student in London in the 1990s not conducive so I switched my sixth form study elsewhere and the methods of funding that are sometimes employed by them may be questionable but however well intentioned for the desire of helping the next generation and better healthcare because in the UK chaplaincy then was interdenominational (see below).

I chose non conflict and coexistence within the two integrities but was surprised at how few people turned up for my confirmation when I invited them. This indicates that the CofE acts as a unit or was not prepared to accept a former Roman Catholic presiding as the Bishop in a suffragin capacity at that time because of unity to one prayer book and the ecumenical interdenominational nature of the Christianity taught at that Church of England school at that time. This is regrettable given that bishops pastoral function to London Universities.

Yet in their defence, the debate and its advocates had been marshalled for up to 50 years before then. In Mumm, the case study of Li Tim Oi is discussed. She was a woman who was ordained into the Holy Catholic Church by Bishop R O Hall of Hong Kong and South China on 25/01/1944 which caused a letter from the then Archbishop of Canterbury deploring said ‘ordination’ and as such she only ministered sacraments to those who requested it until other provinces started to ordain women so she finished her career with the Chinese community in Canada. This contrasted with the Male centric rhetoric of Kinder Kurche Kuche of Goebells and the genocidal rants of Hitler within the Nazi propaganda machine which (when combined) made the traditional arguments against the role of women in the church less credible with the non conformists and Lutherans beginning to ordain women in the post war period

d) 1945- Roman Catholicism
Against this backdrop European Roman Catholicism rethought its opposition to have different lines of argument in accordance with the wishes of certain national synods.
The resulting document, Inter Insigniores of 1976 gave six reasons against womens ordination[8]:
-The constant tradition of the church
-Christ only chose male apostles
-The practice of the apostles
-The priest must bear a natural resemblance to Christ
-The male priesthood is part of the ‘mystery’ of the church
-Contemporary issues of gender do not apply to this context
This has produced measured debate and arguments in favour of women’s ordination in the succeeding years as well as women being ordained in the underground churches of Eastern Europe, with one asking why the church objected to the insertion of women into the process of saving souls[9]. There has thus been controversy in this debate as well with women gaining positions by endeavour in difficult and challenging circumstances.

In Study Guide 4 the impacts of the 1960s gender debates and ‘sexual revolution’ debate are also covered. While beyond the direct scope of the question, the resulting conflict and conversion of opinion that contraception and resultant counselling made women equal in procreation but different in their roles if children were produced and relationships formed. With some of these pressure groups forming alliances with the Gay Rights lobby as well difficulties occurred. Combined with in traditionalist’s eyes a further debasement of the Church of England with the appointment of Canon Gene Robinson to a US Anglican see and attempted appintment of Canon J John in the UK. Thus there has been some conversion but again the dangers of when the good do nothing or become believers in coexistence, the fundamental nature of the church alters.

Hence in the press there has been lots of mention of a somewhat juxtaposed notion given the radical and reforming routes of Evangelism, namely ‘Evangelical Conservatives.’ These can be viewed as Anglicans who accept the evangelical roots of mission, evangelism and the gospels to save and change humanity as viewed and interpreted through reading the bible. They use this to maintain the traditions and position of the Church of England within society. As such they fit into and in some way are precursors to the Big Society thinking of the current government. Their common ground with other opponents of women’s ordination is a belief in the male headship of the church as laid out in the bible. As such that their language of ‘equality but difference’ within monogamous relationships are more moderate than previous opponents of female ordination because their opposition focuses on the episcopate and are thus apparently less controversial, with many of their parishes having female deacons with no desire for promotion. This is an example of coexistence and conversion at the same time.

This contrasts with other denominations that say that their communion is with Canterbury (and by implication the vernacular English Language bible and its reformation though disagreeing about subsequent history). Their theologies have historically been to support the UK state (with the exception of the Church of Scotland whose allegiance is to the Crown) and to provide healing and ministry to support errors in the system by ministering to the entire population, something which Anglicanism in the post war period has started to develop itself. An annecdotal example I know of is the developing of medications to raise a woman’s height to reduce death in childbirth to support families. This supports the notions of the Royal Society and the Enlightenment but because such efforts are self supporting or using resources from their churches from overseas can be seen as secretive against the established church unless there is conversion to their denomination or tacit recognition of its benefits. Yet for many female relatives of Anglican clergy or Anglicans this saw ministry as a way of serving when the priesthood was closed prior to the creation of female deacons in the 1980[10]s and ‘priests’ in 1994. A glib comment that highlights conflict is that after the 1992 Walsingham protest against women’s ordination, how many of those men married female deacons who had a ‘reading 9’ experience[11]? From that one could deduce that the latest Rev programme could be a way of redressing the balance of the clergy for returning servicemen. Thus the peace dividend of the 1990s might be repeated in the second half of this decade as troops return from Afghanistan.

How this occurs is from my perspective and upon reflection the concept of the state (and possibly the crown) reinforcing and complementing in coexistence the established church in coexistence and how they pick up on each other. Thus after the first Gulf War and the end of the Cold War there was a Conservative victory at the General Election that the opposition was thought to have won. Said Labour manifesto had an undertaking for a constitutional convention, Bill of Rights and devolution in part in accordance with the pressure group Charter 88. With its failure a new perspective or project took hold of the body politic to reform it and it was championed from within the church to ‘save the Queen’ after 1992 which in some ways was deemed an annus horibilus. In my view it sought to convert but not to coexist as it was out to reform Labour away from Marxism and towards Christian Socialism. However its failing was that it did not seek to work with other parties but subdue them which denied the country a constitutional convention when it held a majority in the lower legislature in 1997. This in turn left a country dependant on its politicians when the monarchy was at its lowest in 1997. Whether this was the need for a diplomatic rapproachment with Islam and containment of its extremists. How that was strategised and developed is an example of coexistence and conversion. The influence of feminism on the church may actually have helped restrict conflict but at the expense of sound economics (which was failing following stock market runs in said year of 1992).

To analyse whether there has been conflict, conversion and coexistence, I return to the course text. In it Mumm starts her chapter by saying that:

“In this case study, conflict does not involve physical force or threats of violence, here conflict has been expressed verbally, symbolically and in writing. It has arisen from a mutually held conviction that those who hold the opposing view are in a state of fundamental error, which risks serious damage to the church involved.

The other major theme of the chapter is coexistence, where opposing viewpoints jostle uneasily within the same faith group. In the case of some denominations, de facto segregation of the two parties has been a visible and continuing source of unease.

Conversion is applicable only as a change of view within a tradition, although the decision to ordain women in the Church of England did provoke a small number of clergy and laity to join the Roman Catholic Church; and example of what John Woolfe describes elsewhere as a ‘change of allegiance between sub traditions (intro pg. 7)”

From this and in analysing the prose above I would say that the controversies of the Established church have produced conflict in terms of rhetoric, conversion between opinions about women’s ordination and coexistence between both. How long that is sustained is open to question following the General Synods vote in favour of women bishops.


Word Count: 2562

Bibliography

Wolffe, John, ed. Religion in History Conflict, Conversion and Coexistence (Manchester / Open, 2004)

Chidester, Christianity, A Global History

Study Guide 4 ‘The Death of Christian Britain’ specifically readings 8 and 9.


[1] Profile, Anglican Bishop of Fulham Radio 4 Saturday 17/07/10
[2] An interesting sub question would be had the new BBC series Rev been broadcast instead in the 1990s would women’s ordination have been slowed?
[3] Figure 1, pg 194, chapter 7 Mumm Susan in Woolfe, Religion in History, Conflict, Conversion and Coexistence.
[4] Op cit Pg. 193
[5] Pg. 191 Religion in History Ch. 7 Mumm, Susan
[6] Pgs. 248-9 Woolfe, Religion in History, Conflict, Conversion, Coexistence.
[7] (The Archbishops Commission, 1936 quoted in Woolf 1938 p.288)
[8] MUmm, Ch.7 pg. 209 in Woolfe Ed. Religion in History
[9] www.womensordination.org

[10] Figure 5 Photo of ordaining women deacons by Then Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Robert Runcie
Pg. 208 Mumm, Ch7 In Woolfe Religion in History (Manchester, 2004)
[11] Hiwever that is wahat texts such as Reading 9 are for in a free society to educate and persuade in a reasoned debate.