A clarification on WATCH’s position regarding the Five Guiding Principles

Since WATCH’s Not Equal Yet Conference in March, there has been a lot of commentary in the media by those in favour of keeping legal discrimination against women; commentary that  frankly, if it was being made by women, would probably be described as ‘strident’ or ‘hysterical.’

So let’s be clear.  WATCH is not calling for the Five Guiding Principles to be ripped up.  We are simply calling for General Synod to review the arrangements and consider whether to set a date in the future when they should come to an end.  This end might, for example, mean deciding that beyond a certain point, the Church would no longer ordain men who don’t fully accept equality in ministry for women. No one would be forced to leave the Church. Whatever the original intentions regarding the permanency or expected obsolescence of the arrangements made in 2014, it is entirely valid for Synod to consider amending them and putting in a sunset clause - which would, of course, require a two thirds majority in each House.  Indeed the Declaration, GS Misc 1076, foresaw and provided for amendments: Clause 40 says ‘Adjustments may prove necessary in the light of experience…’

One complaint which has been made about WATCH’s position is that the legislation in 2014 would never have passed without the provisions, and nor would it have passed if a sunset clause had been included.  But we don’t actually know that, as it was never put to the test.  People say that legislation for female bishops was put forward in 2012 and failed, but that unsuccessful proposal also contained provisions for those who would not accept female bishops.  The implication is that the Five Guiding Principles unlocked resistance, but is that true?  The opposition in 2014 continued to be fierce and it is quite likely that, if a few extra votes flipped, then that was more about concern over the public embarrassment that was developing - about a national Church that still refused to allow women to become bishops.

Furthermore, it should always be remembered that the vote to allow the ordination of women as priests in 1992 passed through all three Houses by 2/3 majorities without providing the right for churches to have episcopal oversight by a bishop who does not ordain women, if they wanted this.  But then an Act of Synod was introduced the following year, after lobbying by those who had lost the vote, that gave churches this right and ‘flying bishops’ were introduced. People talk about WATCH doing a U-turn about the 2014 arrangements (after eleven years), but this was the U-turn of all U-turns - within one year.

When people criticise WATCH for calling for a review, they imply that all is working as agreed and no harm is being done by the current arrangements – so we are just being awkward.  But all is not working well and harm is being done – to both ordained and lay people. 

Of course, most churchgoers are in the dark as to whether their churches limit women’s ministries or not, because there is no requirement or drive for churches to be transparent about this.  Nonetheless, a church that limits women’s ministries can inhibit the vocations of lay women.  Also, people are understandably upset, if not angry, when they find out that their children are being taught in Youth Groups that God made men to lead and women to submit to their authority.  They are rightly concerned by how this teaching is so easily abused and contributes to a culture of toxic masculinity.  They can also feel defrauded when they learn they are not at an egalitarian church, often after many years, and after they have been contributing financially to support that ministry and labouring in its support.. 

One recent article criticising WATCH’s position is illustrated by a picture of a church with a sign that looks like a road sign outside it – a round red circle with a line crossed through a picture of a female priest – indicating this is a church that does not accept female priests.  If churches were actually required to signpost this clearly, I would doubt we would even be having this debate, as everyone would be calling for the arrangements to come to an end.  They can only really persist by covering them up so that congregations and wider parish communities are unaware of the situation.

People say that permitting discrimination against women is necessary to avoid some people leaving the Church.  But who would those people be?  Individuals would still be able to decide whether or not to receive communion from a female priest or whether to attend a church when a woman is preaching a sermon.  They just would not have the right to ‘flying’ bishops.

At the same time, we should be concerned about the number of people who feel they have had to leave the Church because of its sexism and exploitation of women?  People increasingly see the Church as greedy for women’s labour (indeed, what on earth would it do without us?) but unwilling to give women the dignity or protection of equality.

Then there’s the issue of criticising the appointment of the Rt Revd Philip North as a Diocesan bishop.  This is often portrayed as a personal vendetta, but it is not.  WATCH’s criticism would be the same for any man appointed as a Diocesan who does not ordain women and yet has to oversee female clergy. This is because those who do not accept the ordination of women can have a ‘flying’ bishop with matching theology but egalitarians do not have a reciprocal right to have a bishop who matches their theology. People constantly argue that Philip North is a very nice man and very supportive of women in his diocese and I am sure that is all true. But that is not the point. When your ministry as a priest is said to be recognised by your bishop but he will not receive communion from you or from a female bishop, then what does that really say? How can it be that a Bishop is happy to install a female priest in a parish and see her giving communion to her parishioners but will not receive the sacrament from her himself? We are told how much women in the two dioceses with Diocesan bishops who do not accept the ordination of women are happy and thriving. It may be that these bishops have gone out of their way to build good relationships with female clergy and that is good but, when it involves those women tacitly accepting that their bishops do not believe they should have been ordained, then there is a point when relationship building looks more like managing relationships for personal advantage.

On the Headship side of the debate, The Church Society seems so rattled by the idea of legal discrimination against women coming to an end, that it has recently been arguing that Headship churches are thriving and attracting the most children and youth.  This is disingenuous.  Are they saying that children and youth are coming to their churches because they have been openly teaching that women need to be under the authority of men?  Or is it because these churches have received huge amounts of funding so that they can have big staff teams?  It’s hard to argue the former given that virtually none of them say anything on their websites and in their communications about the limits they put on women’s ministries.  And the few who do cloak it in jargon that is obfuscating and can sometimes even imply that they are egalitarian.  An example is St Andrew’s the Great in Cambridge which says it has ‘oversight from the Bishop of Ebbsfleet as a resolution parish under the House of Bishops’ Declaration on the Ministry of Bishops and Priests’ – and people are expected to understand this means they won’t have a female vicar or allow women to be in authority over men.  There is a clearer statement of this Church’s position but I only stumbled across this by typing ‘Resolution’ into the search bar – then I discovered statements like this: ‘some women have… an unseemly desire to get the jobs with perceived clout.’  Whereas I would say ‘some women are called by God to use their God-given gifts of leadership, as many have been in the Bible in far more patriarchal times, and who are we to prohibit this?’

Finally, people say that WATCH should pipe down or we will disrupt the progress of those seeking for LGBT+ people to be treated equally and the arrangements regarding the Prayers of Love and Faith, which are shaping up to require even more flying bishops.  Quite the contrary, I would say that it seems an apposite time to be looking at the matter - before the Church starts creating another layer of scaffolding, giving individual clergy even more options to decide who is and is not an acceptable bishop.

There used to be a time when we were a Church with everyone in communion and people just had to get on with the bishops they were allocated. We need to start working our way back to this because, otherwise, in truth we are a fractured Church and we are just trying to do good PR (or cover up) so that we look as though we are still together.

Sometimes difficult decisions need to be made. Good leadership is about having the strength to help the Church make such decisions rather than to fudge things all the time. Women are two thirds of our congregations and frankly deserve to be treated equally with men. It is a matter of justice.  It is a matter of good theology.  It is a matter of safety.  Putting pressure on women to keep silent about injustice, because of fear of marginalisation or gaslighting, is an act of violence.  And, if we have any trust in the Gospel, we all know that ultimately justice will prevail – so let’s have an honest conversation and bring discrimination by sex to an end.