I am in Oxford for the annual College of Bishops of the Church of England. Not exactly a pleasure, but a necessity. I like the people, but the issues don't get any easier. (A bit like life, really.)
The conundrum we face has to do with how to get the General Synod to agree on the admission of women to the episcopate (enable them to become bishops). As I have said before, we are being asked to square a circle and no outcome is guaranteed to succeed. In fact, every option before us might either work or not.
What is clear to me, however, is that if women are to be admitted to the episcopate, they must be fully bishops on the same basis as male bishops. A bishop is a bishop is a bishop. How to get there is the problem. At least, how to get there while providing opponents with security within the church.
The arguments have been well rehearsed, so I am not going to go into them again here. However, the bishops are wrestling with this with integrity and great seriousness. In the end, we will have to come to a conclusion and then put it to the General Synod in November and see what happens. At least we will have a decision. In the meantime, let no one cast aspersions on the seriousness with which the bishops are trying to address these issues for the sake of the church… which is there for the sake not of the church, but of the world.
This business can easily tend to dominate one's mental horizons. It is vital, therefore, to keep this stuff in perspective. Tomorrow is 9/11 – 11th September in English terms. The world is fraught with conflicts and tensions – and not all revolving around religion. The Church is called to model reconciliation to the wider world – evidence of who and how God is – and our debates need to recognise this. Bishops of any type will get us nowhere if the world we are called to serve is left to go to hell in a handcart because of our internal conflicts.
It seems to me that we have a rubicon to cross. Once crossed, the world might look a little different. We'll have to see whether it is crossable this time.
(And if recent silence seems suspicious or curious, it is simply because a burglary saw me without a computer, the replacement caused problems, then our IT system had serious 'issues'. Now I am away, I seem to be able to get back on track. More anon…)
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Nick Baines's Blog 
September 10, 2012 at 10:29 pm
Somehow, as a woman, I find the whole woman bishop issue far less complicated. It’s about when to allow it rather than whether to. I am glad to read of the seriousness in which the debate is taking place, but let’s not over complicate this and miss the wood for the trees. It is time to be courageous and not fear the future.
September 10, 2012 at 10:38 pm
Clairathite, that is precisely the issue. It is not about whether, but how. I’m afraid it comes down not to principle, but how to get the synodical arithmetic to work. Ironically, the House of Bishops is the only House that is almost certain to vote for the Measure. That’s why it is complicated!
September 10, 2012 at 11:00 pm
Hi Nick, Thank you for emphasising the seriousness with which the Bishops are wrestling with this issue. We will be praying very hard for you all during your deliberations and having wrestled with this legislation for some considerable time now, I don’t envy you at all. Here on the ground I confess that it feels rather demoralising to hear that legislation is being drafted with the synodical arithmetic in mind rather than the principles, even given the need to be pragmatic. Given that, as you say, every option before us might either work out or not, perhaps now is the time to be bold and simply vote for the one you discern is likely to prove the most spiritually and ecclesiologically healthy option in the long run? I would dearly love to have Women Bishops in the near future, but most of the options we are now faced with make me want to run far far away in the opposite direction.
September 10, 2012 at 11:07 pm
Lyndsay, thank you. I know this is a hard thing to ask, but you need to ask what would guide your thinking and your vote if you were here – trying to square the circle that, if not identified according to arithmetic and an understanding of tactics and behaviours, will fail somewhere. We want to get this through – but how? It isn’t either obvious or just a matter of principle. However, in the end, we will all have to vote on something and see what the outcome is. But it won’t be for want of the bishops trying to get it through with principles and theological coherence intact.
September 10, 2012 at 11:07 pm
Thanks for pinpointing the ‘complication’. It is perhaps worth bearing in mind that the current status quo is damaging. It is not simply neutral. It negatively impacts women in the wider world as well as in the Church of England, and deprives both men and women of the potential of gifted, female, spiritual leaders. Where there is a will, or a big enough why, a how can and must be found. Keep up the good work…
September 10, 2012 at 11:09 pm
Claireathite, exactly! But you still have to make decisions about legal wording and getting votes.
September 11, 2012 at 12:49 am
If I was there? Wow, now there’s a thought to make my Bishop to turn a shade paler (wry smile). But as a woman, not a position I’m likely to find myself in anytime soon! Thank you for the challenge Nick, if I don’t put down my thoughts on that here it is not because I don’t have any, its because there rather strong & probably not helpfully aired right now in a public forum. It’s also too easy to do from the safety of my home, but I’m not hearing the conversations and debates that you are. I do seriously wonder how far squaring a circle is an exercise in futility in the first place, (just as the phrase two integrities is an oxymoron). I’m certainly with Claireathite regarding the untold damage this is causing to women, and yes you do have to make decisions about legal wordings. But how people choose to vote is in the end their own responsibility. There may be paths we don’t want to travel down – even if they garnered all the votes available.
The Road Not Taken
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Robert Frost
September 11, 2012 at 1:20 am
wow Nick “the College of Bishops of the Church of England” what a gig that sounds! I too don’t envy you the task you all face. I was reading the options that are available on the Church of England website and started to get a headache, so I dread to think how you’ll be feeling by the end of it.
Trust me, as a lay person it depresses me immensely to hear that the HoB are the only House certain to vote for female Bishops, especially as the House of Laity ion the Deanery Synods are so overwhelmingly in support of female Bishops…which poses a whole other set of questions/discussions as to how “in touch” some of our elected lay repesentatives actually are with those who actually voted them in!
I think Claire in post 5 has got it absolutely spot on regarding the wider impact this will have on the ongoing mission of the Cof E, but I am not sure that a “how” is going to be at all easy to find that will be acceptable to those implacably opposed, while genuinely convincing the supporters tof the measure that it really does mean episcopacy on fully equal terms.
I truly hope there will be both a will and a way, but it is not going to be at all easy I imagine. Like Claire I believe a “can ” must somehow, in some way, be found.
September 11, 2012 at 9:06 am
I’m sorry to read about your break in. It’s a horrible feeling to come home to something like that.
September 11, 2012 at 9:09 am
Hope you’re surviving the experience!
A simple question: why should security be provided for opponents within the church? When push came to shove, Jesus told his disciples, “Tough: you’re either with me or you’re not. Want to leave? Fine.” … OK, that’s a bit of a paraphrase, but that’s essentially what he said when people found his teaching too hard to swallow. No messing around trying to keep everyone on board. Maybe it’s about time the C of E started making like its Lord?
September 11, 2012 at 9:18 am
I don’t envy the house of Bishops their task, but i cannot but think they brought this on themselves and are now faced with trying to get this through we all know the problems both sides trying to protect their firmly held positions. I pray that you all have the courage to make what might be a difficult decision. Perhaps the Bishops will have to make a choice that means that you cannot get this through at this time but that if you really believe this is the way forward you all must say that this is theologically right and make a decision based on that belief. Sadly we cannot always hold differing sides in tension. The synod of Whitby had to take a decision that chose one side over another.
September 11, 2012 at 11:39 am
Will anything “make all the difference”? Or is every minute moral judgement present in those practical concerns about marshalling votes?
I pray you find the best path possible, accepting that the best may be the enemy of the good.
September 11, 2012 at 3:41 pm
Although technically still an Anglican, I’ve never understood why the Church of England is so divided over this issue. It even presented itself when we were in the process of finding a new priest-in-charge for our parish church. Since all the nonconformist causes in the village had closed, the parish church welcomed Christians of all traditions and none, quite rightly. Those of us from Baptist, Methodist, Salvation Army and Quaker backgrounds couldn’t believe our ears when we heard people, including women, objecting to women ministers in the Church. I understand the Catholic and Anglo-Catholic position, but I can’t agree with it on Biblical, theological, or pastoral grounds. In the Acts of the Apostles we read that after the Resurrection Mary the Mother of Jesus and the Bethany group of women operated as apostles. Before his death, Jesus obviously wanted to protect his disciples, especially the women, whose role in their families was paramount at that time. After his resurrection, that changes, and although a male disciple is chosen to replace Judas, he is chosen by the drawing of lots, not by Jesus. On the other hand, Jesus chooses a woman to be the first to see his risen body and to tell the disciples. Anyone following a strict interpretation of the New Testament should therefore support the drawing of lots to continue the apostolic succession! As a Church historian, the Act of Toleration (1689) ended the expulsion of nonconformists. It may have taken more than three hundred years for us to be able to return to the fold of the state church, and many of us would like it disestablished, as in Wales, to complete this process of reconciliation. The acceptance of women into full ministry in the Church will help heal these wounds. Other than this, Jesus also valued male ministers who chose not to marry, and accepted that homosexual men were unable to marry, but could still have a ministry. Yet we have a prime-minister who can force us to marry homosexual partners in church, but cannot appoint women bishops. Why should we conform to such a state of affairs?!
September 11, 2012 at 5:26 pm
I find it hard to see a question which is about the recognising the full humanity and equality of women as simply an ‘internal conflict’. I look to the House of Bishops to give us a moral lead which acknowledges that discrimination against women is wrong, an insult to the many women whose vocations have been denied or limited down the ages.
The fact that some people have sincerely held beliefs that such discrimination against women is not wrong does not change the reality. The question of women bishops is not just an internal debate about church leadership, it is a reflection of our position on human rights and the global status of women.
September 11, 2012 at 6:06 pm
Yes! And Whst a great shame that the atheist and wonderful Michael Foot did not become Prime Minister. While he would have exercised any powers over the Church of England with great care and on advice I’m sure his predilection would have roused many more to disestablishment views.
September 11, 2012 at 9:59 pm
I agree broadly with the post above but would go one step further and remove all Bishops – they add no value only cost. They detract from mission and from fostering innovation and living support for all mankind.
September 13, 2012 at 10:06 pm
What if the first woman bishop was to be ordained as bishop of a broad fresh expression movement having been neither priest nor deacon but for her managment and leadership experience called to oversea the fresh and the new ! What If we called the second woman bishop arch bishop Canterbury and the third York! What if the holy spirit looked at this and said it was good ….. Who is god calling , single, female , tattooed, able but having the best of god bi sexual tri unity at the core of her identity! God is emo and this new bishop will be wise called from a nursing home and she who follows her will be called from a 6th form college ! God is therefore she will be , do not be subs to architecture robes finance or tradition let the spirit of liberation set you free !