Presidential Address by the Bishop of Liverpool Diocesan Synod November 6 th 2010

Transcription

1 Presidential Address by the Bishop of Liverpool Diocesan Synod November 6 th 2010 Anybody baptised, confirmed and ordained in the Church of England in the last 30 years has entered into the membership of a church where the Governing Synod has declared that there is no theological objection to the Ordination of Women. The Ordination of Women to the Presbyterate and the Episcopate is a cultural and doctrinal issue which the Anglican Church has lived with for half of my life. Not that I have always subscribed to that doctrine. I remember as a Reader in my 20 s arguing against it on the biblical grounds of headship. But in the debate I came up against two points which caused me to reconsider my position. Firstly, the meaning of headship. In 1 Corinthians 11 Paul writes, The husband is head of his wife, and God is the head of Christ. I came to see that headship could not mean that God was elevated over Christ or that Christ was subordinate to God for, as we believe, he is fully God and equal to the Father in the Trinity. Headship could not therefore signify status either in the relationship of God to Christ or in the relationship of man to woman. The exegesis of this Pauline passage about headship and its clear theological implication outshone the expositions of the letter Paul wrote to Timothy which it seemed to me spoke into a particular cultural and social context. Furthermore as a member of an historic evangelical missionary society, the Scripture Union, I could not but recognise the leadership of women in the mission field. To deny to women the status of leader on the basis of these verses contradicted the historic role of women in the overseas mission field where from Gladys Aylward to Helen Rosavere women have exercised extraordinary and courageous leadership to great evangelistic effect. When after ministry as a Reader I was called to Ordination I then found myself having to swear not only canonical obedience to the Bishop but also allegiance to a female minister namely the Queen as Supreme Governor and Defender of the Faith. I could not see how I could object to 1

2 accepting the authority of a woman Bishop when in responding to the call to serve as a priest in the Church of God I was swearing allegiance to the Queen, a woman minister. Many of you will already have heard of my continuing journey towards the acceptance of and now full support for women in the Episcopate. For a fuller exposition please look at the sermon that I preached on the 10 th Anniversary of the Ordination of Women to the priesthood. The ministry of a Bishop is to feed the Body of Christ. That is the consistent theme in the service of Consecration in the Book of Common Prayer. Who first fed the Body of Christ? It was a woman. If a woman can feed the Body of Christ in the flesh why can a woman not feed the Body of Christ in the Spirit? Although I recognise that this interpretation does not feature within traditional Catholic and Evangelical Anglicanism I wonder whether the elevation of Mary has not obscured the truth that she was the first female minister of Christ in the Gospels. The point has certainly been recognised by some Roman Catholic theologians. As Bishop and teacher of the faith I have over the twelve years shared my theological reflections with the Diocese and in this Synod. In this area as in others I have also shared with you my own learning as I have studied the Scriptures and listened to others. I love the Diocese of Liverpool for many reasons not least its unity and its desire to go on learning as disciples of Christ and to maintain that unity of spirit in the bond of peace. I have been encouraged by the way you, my sisters and brothers in Christ, have received what I have sought to teach in that spirit of unity. Recently I licensed Tony Oulton as Priest in Charge of St. Luke s Southport. It was a glorious service that concluded with Benediction offered by Bishop Martyn, Assistant Bishop in the Diocese. Benediction, by the way, is the most evangelical of services with its undiluted veneration of Jesus. In my sermon I spoke about the importance of the Catholic tradition to the Church of England. Copies are available on the Diocesan website. I said that I would honour the traditional Catholic tradition in this Diocese which I have always sought to do in, for example, taking delight to priest curates in the traditional Catholic parishes of St. James Haydock, St. John s Tuebrook and St. Agnes and St. Pancras. 2

3 However, I hesitate to use words like honour for they imply somehow that the Catholic tradition is no longer part of us and has to be treated differently. As we find the way through the decision to ordain women to the Episcopate I want us as a Diocese to do so as one body with the three traditions of the Church of England, Catholic, Evangelical and Liberal, plaited into our common life. I know that there will be moments of tension but our communion is not something we achieve or make or merit; it is a gift, a grace of God. When by grace we find ourselves in Christ, whether we like it or not, whether we like them or not, we are in Christ with everybody else who is by God s grace in Christ too. Through controversy our mission may from time to time be undermined, our ministry may be manacled, our friendship fractured but our communion cannot be destroyed or qualified because it is a given, it is given by God in Christ. That is why I have never really understood the concept of impaired communion. Impaired friendship, yes. But not impaired communion for that is something that is totally and completely given by God which we cannot amend or qualify. When you are in Christ you are part of the body of which everybody else is part you are in Communion. I know that there are some priests and parishes who cannot in all conscience receive ministry from a woman priest or Bishop. We are all affected by such a conviction. Yet that is something we contain within Christ. It cannot affect our communion for we are all baptised into Christ by the grace of God. I want the Diocese to know that should this Synod ever propose such a move then it would be a blessing for me to ask for example the Bishop of Blackburn to confirm, ordain and engage with me in the oversight of the appointment of priests to parishes that could not accept a ministry of a woman Bishop. Notice please, not just a tolerable event but a blessing. I hope too that I might continue to serve such parishes liturgically through the Ministry of the Word and that they will still grace the Cathedral and Bishop s Lodge with their presence for we would be the poorer by their absence. 3

4 I have met and I will be meeting again with those in the traditional Catholic tradition to discern a way through the decision about women in the Episcopate so that we allow as little as possible to inhibit our working together in the Mission of God. On the same basis I am equally happy to meet with those from other traditions who may have principled objections to the proposed way forward. I know that there is disappointment in some quarters that I voted for none of the amendments in the last session of the General Synod and therefore want to take this opportunity to explain why in particular I stood to speak and to vote against the amendments by the Archbishops. I say this to you for as I understand my Episcopal calling I see myself as accountable to you. The Archbishops amendment was defeated even though no Diocesan Bishop who indicated their intention to vote against was called to speak. That was in my view a regrettable omission because the Synod did not get to hear from any Diocesan Bishop the reason why they opposed the Archiepiscopal amendment. 24 Bishops voted for the amendment but the fact that 15 Bishops, a large number of them Diocesans, were not persuaded revealed a fault line both in the process and in the substance of the amendment. The Archbishops did not consult with the Bishops over the detail of their amendment which meant that it came to the General Synod without the Episcopal consultation necessary to shape it or to secure its safe passage into the motion. On the face of it the amendment looked uncontroversial. It was only when it was unpacked that you soon saw why a similar amendment had failed to gain the backing of the Revision Committee. The wording was: The Episcopal Ministry referred to in subsections (1), (3) and (5) shall be exercisable by virtue of this section and shall not divest the Bishop of the Diocese of any of his or her functions. The Archbishops were gracious in telling the Synod that voting for the amendment was not a test of loyalty. Many of us who are loyal Anglicans were glad to hear that because just as in a Diocesan Synod people are reluctant to vote against their Diocesan Bishop so in the General 4

5 Synod people are reluctant to vote against the Archbishops. The Archbishops sensitively bear the onerous burden of seeking to hold together the whole church. But the problem with the Archbishops amendment was that if the ministry of the nominated Bishop was not by license from the Diocesan Bishop then you would have two separate jurisdictions within the one Diocesan boundary. Creating two jurisdictions which are exercised by virtue of two different sources of licensing within the one single Diocesan boundary would end up with two competing oversights in the one Diocese. My friends, as we all know in this Synod there are tough choices ahead of us over the deployment of fewer stipendiary clergy, pastoral re-organisation and in tightening economic circumstances over the Parish Share. My anxiety with the amendment was that this would create and institutionalise a tension which would serve us badly as we confront the difficult decisions of the future. Out of my 16 years as a Bishop I took the view that this amendment would not help us for it would sow seeds of time consuming tension in which we would all lose out. I am clear in my own mind that a Diocese needs clear lines of jurisdiction and accountability for it to move forward in the Mission of God. As you know the General Synod has remitted the debate to the Dioceses and where each Bishop with his Synod needs to formulate a scheme within the Code of Practice which affirms both those who can and those who cannot receive the ministry of a woman Bishop. In parenthesis I would like to note here that the authority of a priest and a Bishop is given at Ordination. You will recall the words accompanying the Giving of the Bible after the Ordination Prayer: Receive this book, as a sign of the authority given you this day. This happens in both the Ordination of the Priest by a Bishop and a Bishop by the Archbishop. 5

6 Therefore, the authority to minister is given at Ordination. What is given at a licensing is not the authority but the license to exercise that given authority in a certain place. A Code of Practice and Diocesan Schemes should in my view differentiate that given authority from the proper principle of accountability. In my discussions both with those who cannot accept the ordination of women to the Episcopate and with those who are strongly in favour I want to explore a number of ideas to see whether in them there may be the foundations of a pathway through our differences. In all of this I am determined that the Church of England in the Diocese of Liverpool will continue to embrace Catholic, Evangelical and Liberal traditions. These three are vital to our mission as a church for the nation. The fact that I did not vote for any of the amendments should not be interpreted as a lack of commitment on my part to embrace the diversity of traditions within the Church of England. On the contrary, all that I have stood for with you in the Diocese of Liverpool over the last 12 years has I hope been characterised by this biblical desire, to maintain the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. Baptism marks our entrance into the Body of Christ, into the priesthood of all believers and into the ministry that belongs to every member. There is no gender differential that can bar any person from immersion into this communion. The understanding that only men can be ordained to the priesthood is a received custom from which position the Church of England believes it is now right to move forward in order to embrace women not only in the presbyterate but also in the Episcopate both as a focus of unity in the church and as a sign of the oneness of the human family before God. The year ahead will test our trust in one another. As we travel let us walk in the shoes of those who differ from us so that trust will follow in our footsteps. The Bishop of Liverpool 6