When will Bishops let ordinary churchgoers have a say about equality for women in the Church?
All my adult life I’ve been an active ‘member’ of the Church of England, an ordinary churchgoer, one of the hundreds of thousands of people who attend church every Sunday, and volunteer, giving up our time and resources for our churches, communities and the wider Church, in various demanding roles. I want to explain why I feel so affronted and concerned by a statement put out by the House of Bishops last week.
That statement was a formal response to the report of the Church of England’s Independent Reviewer (who handles concerns about the arrangements introduced in 2014 that allow churches to limit women’s roles) regarding the appointment of a diocesan bishop who does not ordain women as priests.
The statement reads as the latest in a long line of institutional dodges and brush-offs on this subject. It acknowledges the importance of the concerns raised with the Independent Reviewer, and says the House of Bishops recognises the need for further reflection and action. But it is clear that the House has no ambition to work towards becoming a Church that treats women and men equally, nor is it willing to consult with, or respect, the opinions and beliefs of the vast majority of ordinary churchgoers like me, who see that the 2014 arrangements have failed and would like to see equality. We who sustain the church, who are the largest part of the church, are quite simply ignored.
This is not meant to be confrontational, but just factually to describe how it comes across. From our perspective, it seems almost as though you can hear the bishops sighing, as they write the statement. “Let’s go on saying we’re reflecting and considering people’s concerns, as we have been doing for decades, but let’s not recognise or actually act on the real harm that this discrimination is causing to all women in the Church, and to the Church’s mission. And let’s not listen to any ordinary churchgoers. Their lives and views are relatively unimportant to us – they’ll just have to recognise that we bishops call the shots, not them.” This attitude may sound incredible to worshippers, but years of enquiring and learning have brought many to the conclusion that it reflects truth.
Although I have worshipped, donated and volunteered in the Church for 45 years, for three decades of that I had no idea that clergy could ‘quietly’ and deliberately prevent women from having leadership roles in their churches, and not inform their congregations, or even their church’s leadership councils (their PCCs). They’re simply allowed to get away with it by those who should be overseeing their ministry.
My own experience was this. Fifteen years ago I was a PCC member, and my husband was an ordinand. We had been attending our church in Tunbridge Wells for nine years before we then discovered that our Vicar, Associate Vicar and Curate believed in and quietly applied their Male Headship understanding, that men should be the leaders and women should submit to them and be subject to men’s authority, both in church and in marriage.
When we were choosing a church to attend with our children, this one had seemed, from all its external signalling, to be a mainstream, middle of the road Church of England church. There was absolutely no indication at all that women were viewed and treated in this way by its leaders. I had committed myself and ran children’s groups on Sundays and in the holidays year after year, and my husband and I had been asked for and had given substantial funds to help re-build the church centre. But the clergy did not inform us and the wider congregation about their policies and practices, knowing in their hearts that many would leave and move to a church where men and women minister equally alongside each other (as is the case in 95% of Church of England churches).
Other members of the PCC had been equally in the dark and were also troubled when they learned of our clergy’s views and involvement in para-church organisations which actively worked to further this agenda (e.g. Reform, the Church Society, Cornhill, Gospel Partnerships). Furthermore, we discovered that, without our knowledge or consent, our teenage daughters had been on the receiving end of teaching in the church youth groups that girls and women should submit to men, including in marriage. We left that church. It was a disturbing and upsetting experience, for us and for our teenage children.
Since then, I and others have campaigned for transparency about churches’ policies on limiting women’s roles. Male Headship (‘Complementarian’) and Male Only Priesthood (‘Traditionalist’) clergy generally avoid actively informing their congregations about their views. Meanwhile, bishops don’t require them to state the position on their websites, though they could do so. Because of recent scrutiny, a minority have started to say something about it, but they have chosen to use obscure technical church language that most churchgoers will not understand has any reference to women, or which even subtly implies the exact opposite of their position. These clergymen are some of the Church of England’s best communicators, and sadly they’re cloaking their actions, and misleading their flocks – ‘nothing to see here’.
But back to the statement by the House of Bishops last week. This was a formal response to a Reviewer’s report regarding the appointment of diocesan bishops who do not ordain women as priests.
Since 1993 ‘flying bishops’, who reject equality for women in ministry, have been funded and are ministering in the Church of England - providing ‘protection,’ as it was described, for the group of clergymen who do not accept the ordination of women priests or their full role within the church. And since 2014, when women were first permitted to be bishops, such bishops have given ‘extended episcopal oversight’ for those men who do not fully accept women priests.
But since 2014 no diocesan bishops, the lead bishops, had been appointed who did not ordain women priests or accept communion from them – as they would have had oversight of all female clergy in their dioceses, and it seemed impossible that such a deep conflict could be workable. That was the case until January 2023, when suddenly, out of the blue, came a carefully-managed announcement of a fait accompli, that the Rt Revd Philip North was to be a diocesan, the Diocesan Bishop of Blackburn. This was setting an historic precedent. North has been a long-term leader of clergy groups who promote male-only priesthood. I understand that he does not ordain women priests or receive communion from female priests. But he has been given the role of ‘overseeing’ them in their ministry. Women in that situation, and their congregations in egalitarian churches, have not been given any reciprocal rights to have a bishop who does fully support women’s ministry. This is institutional sexism on a large scale.
In light of this, in April 2023, WATCH (the charity Women and the Church) made a referral to the Church’s Independent Reviewer raising a number of concerns about North’s appointment, focussed on process and principle. First, the appointment had been rushed through – with an early appointment window miraculously opened up; a diocesan consultation period of only ten days; flawed consultation methods; and the Chair of the Vacancy in See Committee having a conflict of interest. Secondly, there had been no action on the recommendations on how the appointment would affect women in the diocese and beyond, both ordained and in our congregations. Thirdly, this was a precedent-setting act, that could presage dioceses across the whole Church receiving the same treatment. There was no known consultation of national stakeholders. Even the National Association of Deans of Women’s Ministry (NADAWM) was not consulted. They felt so snubbed that they put out a press release effectively saying so.
On top of this, North had actually sought a diocesan post before, in 2017, in the diocese of Sheffield, but withdrew from the appointment. He had effectively been refused by concerned clergy in that diocese, who could not see how a man who doesn’t fully affirm female priests could reasonably be appointed to lead and care for female priests. When the attempt to install him as Diocesan Bishop of Sheffield failed, it resulted in another report by the Independent Reviewer (the Mawer report), which recommended that work should be done to assess the impact on female clergy before any further attempt to appoint a diocesan bishop who does not ordain women was made. Incredibly that work was never done, and the appointment in Blackburn went ahead without it. Presumably to avoid another fiasco like Sheffield, North’s appointment was firmly managed from behind the scenes. They went ahead and gave him his wish, regardless of the consequences for women and for the Church.
You might now feel this is typical of the Church of England – that the recommendations of two independent reports – in 2017 and years on in 2024 – should be ignored and bypassed. The House of Bishops’ current formal statement still gives no timetable for the undone work to be done, no substantive outcomes are required, and no consideration is allowed for the calls for a full review of the 2014 arrangements, in spite of the growing concern about its abuse and failure. The impression their statement gives is that this is some kind of abstract theoretical thing, that has no impact on people’s lives. Not so.
Not only are female clergy in the Church putting up with discrimination and the sexism it legitimises, but we churchgoers are affected, and our children and young people are too. What troubles and exasperates me about the House of Bishops’ formal response is not only that it continues the charade that there’s nothing wrong with the arrangements, and that women should be able to flourish in a context of discrimination, but there is no mention at all of the affect on lay people, the main body of the Church, us churchgoers.
When my husband and I discovered that our church ‘quietly’ limited women’s opportunities and roles, we felt used, exploited, and we lost trust and respect for our clergy. My own eyes were opened as to how my vicar really regarded me. Any attempt I might make at theological debate with him, on the creation narrative or historical context of St Paul’s letters, would be pointless. Whatever my academic or other credentials, ultimately he would not really engage with my theological opinions because I am a woman.
I tried to reach out beyond our church to find out more about the situation for women in other churches: they experience the same. I sought help from our local bishops, but they did nothing. I wrote to both archbishops, sent a discussion paper to TRIG (a relevant central Church working group), kept trying to use all the ‘right’ channels. People acknowledged the problem, but no one in a senior role wanted to do anything about it.
I joined WATCH, the successor to MOW, the campaigning group that worked for the ordination of women to the priesthood. Through that I discovered that what we experienced in Tunbridge Wells was actually going on right across England, in potentially over 500 other churches, some of them being the largest churches in our major cities. There was almost no transparency with churchgoers about Resolutions that their PCCs had passed to limit women’s ministries, and some churches were excluding or limiting women opportunities without PCCs even discussing and passing Resolutions at all.
We now realise that countless women and men are trusting and serving in churches and under vicars and bishops without being aware of their hidden views and activities excluding women from leadership roles, preferment, and certain ministries. The lack of openness about all this seems to stem from the fact that clergy fear that if they knew, their congregations and parishioners would find their ‘theology’ repellent or troubling, and might move to other churches.
Data shows that the overwhelming majority of ordinary churchgoers would like to see women and men treated equally. They view the idea of keeping women down and under the authority of men as morally repugnant and potentially dangerous. It is well evidenced that understandings of male privilege over women are drivers of violence against women and girls. It is therefore reasonable to view it as unsafe.
WATCH members have also found that the arrangements that allow clergy to exclude women are being abused. Resolutions, once passed, are not mentioned and so effectively kept secret, and this leads on to them not being regularly or openly reviewed. Parishes are not properly or even minimally consulted when clergy try to get Resolutions passed or reviewed by PCCs. At least two flying bishops have issued unofficial guidance saying that a minuted decision would do[1], when in fact consultation of the wider church community about this was one of the terms of the arrangements. Women’s vocations to ordained ministry are also being dampened, deflected and not cross-referred to egalitarian churches for support, as they should be.
I, colleagues at WATCH, General Synod members and others keep flagging these things up, writing letters and getting questions tabled at General Synod. Individual leaders acknowledge the problem, but no one appears motivated to work to resolve it. A decade on, people are still simply brushed off by bishops, national and diocesan staff, time and time again – a classic institutional response.
It's dreadful to see female clergy discriminated against in our Church, but ordinary churchgoers are also being affected. We need to be listened to, included and respected too. Not only is the situation morally unjust and untrue to the Gospel, it also now seems exploitative of us as churchgoers. Women make up about two thirds of churchgoers, and yet we are a minoritised majority. Those of us who have become aware of what is going on feel the unspoken contract is broken. Why should we give our time, money and loyalty, doing voluntary work under the supervision of those employed by the Church, if our theological and moral convictions are not listened to? We are asking to be treated honestly, for women to be treated fairly, and for our children not to be taught that women should submit to men without our knowledge or consent. How could bishops think it is right to deny us a hearing on that?
It’s not appropriate for the House of Bishops unilaterally to decide for the wider Church that the current system should continue in perpetuity. This is a decision for the whole church, for ordinary churchgoers to have a say, for our General Synod representatives to have a vote, along with our clergy – the clergy on the ground, not just bishops.
Telling women ever more loudly that we must flourish despite discrimination is becoming truly oppressive. Church women do not deserve to be treated like this. Very many of us are not happy about it. And our voices are being heard.
[1] A recent guidance document says “It should be noted that, if the PCC is happy with the resolution, reviewing it need entail no more than a PCC discussion resulting in a minuted decision that the PCC sees no need to take a fresh vote on the resolution.” (from guidance on Passing a Resolution under the House of Bishops’ Declaration, Bishop of Ebbsfleet, 2023). This guidance cleverly contradicts an important term agreed by all in the 2014 settlement: the Guidance, GS Misc 1077 says that “It is good practice…for the PCC to enable members of the wider church community to submit views before any meeting at which a resolution is to be considered.” Para 7. The bishop is literally inviting PCCs to ignore the requirement to seek congregational/parish views on this when reviewing the Resolution.
