Women Bishops in the Church of England - sigh

I had a couple of people ask me if the Church of England’s decision last week to not allow women to be elected as bishops has any impact on The Episcopal Church.  The short answer is no.  The Episcopal Church is completely independent from the Church of England in our polity (political structure).  We make decisions for our Church at the General Convention held every 3 years.  The Church of England makes decisions for their Church at their General Council held every 3 years.  While both groups claim fidelity to the Anglican Communion, their General Council’s decisions do not impact any of the independent churches that share a common ancestry with the Anglican Church.

A bit of history – The Episcopal Church’s General Convention voted to allow for the ordination of women at the 1976 General Convention.  At that time, a long theological debate about whether or not to limit the ordination of women to only deacons or priests had taken place.  The ultimate conclusion, after much study and discernment, was that denying women to be ordained as bishops was contrary to our theology of ordination as a whole.  If a person is called to ministry and the community affirms it, then that person should be allowed to exercise his or her ministry with all the gifts and talents that God has bestowed, which may include the pastoral, administrative and leadership skills needed to be a bishop.  Yet it took until 1989 for a women to become a bishop, when Barbara Harris of Massachusetts was elected – 13 years later!  However, only 17 years later, Katharine Jefferts Shori was elected as Presiding Bishop, the most senior position in The Episcopal Church. Currently there are only about 6 women bishops, most of whom are Suffergan bishops (rather than a Diocesan Bishop – it is like a vice-Bishop).  If you think of it in terms of civil polity, women have had the right to vote since 1920, but a woman has yet to be elected President.

In the Church of England, they did not allow women to be ordained as priests until 1994, and they chose to deny women from being ordained to the episcopacy.  Now, 18 years later, the fact that only 6 votes in the lay order denied women in the Church of England access to exercise fully their ministry is very frustrating.  If they follow their current structure, another vote would have to wait until 2015.  There is some movement to try to have a vote earlier, but it still must be done in a proper way in order for it to be considered “legal.”  The opponents to women’s ordination as bishops have said they want language in their Canons (laws) that allows for churches who do not want the pastoral oversight of a woman to be able to invite a male bishop to perform pastoral duties (Confirmations, Receptions, Reaffirmations etc).  It is both rude and illegal, according to both our Canons and the Church of England’s, for another bishop to exercise ministry in a diocese without permission from the Diocesan Bishop.  There are pros and cons to having such language in the Canon, but it may placate the very vocal minority.

This whole situation breaks my heart mostly because it demonstrates to the secular world that the Church is completely out of touch with modern points of view on gender equality. I do believe the Church should never be reactionary to societal values for the sake of being relevant.  Yet I do believe our God-given gift of reason has allowed us to reconcile biblical understand of gender roles with modern points of view.  I will pray for the Church of England and my sisters in Christ who feel so abused by the Church they love.