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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: What has Rowan done this time?
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
The problem isn't that you have two different beliefs. It's that you have two different churches. You simply cannot have a church in which half of the church doesn't recognise the other half's bishops, the other half's priests, the other half's eucharists. If two people cannot recognise each other's eucharists or cannot recognise each other's bishops then how can they be part of the same church?
Trying to be inclusive and accomodating is praiseworthy. Let's not suppose it isn't. People can travel together and value different things. They can travel together for different reasons. I admire Rowan's attempt to get people to do so. But when it comes down to it they can't travel together if one of them refuses to recognise the other person's car as a car.
[ 24. June 2010, 20:47: Message edited by: Dafyd ]
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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Ender's Shadow
Shipmate
# 2272
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Augustine the Aleut:
This is simply one of these historical anomalies. The priesting of women would not have passed synod as easily without provision for dissenters, and it likely would not have been approved by the Commons without strong provisions. It was theoretically unworkable then, but was accepted by proponents as a way of getting their objective, sort of, and by dissenters as a way of keeping their objective, sort of. While ecclesiologically illogical, it did respect the principle of two integrities, which everyone said they liked at the time-- one would like to assume that they were honest.
If there had been a sell-by date, it would not have likely gone through. Proponents at the time did not insist on an expiry date or a fixed term, and this is the logical outcome.
At this point, the majority decides if they will honour obligations they would rather not have made/accepted, or if they won't. Either both sides will suffer, or one will, with the other triumphing. +++Rowan, as is often his lot these days, is trying to square the circle.
Indeed this is the point - a promise was made at the time of the vote for the ordination of women to the priesthood that the opponents' beliefs would be respected within the CofE. All the opponents of Women Bishops are asking for is that promise to be acted upon - and amazingly enough my church seems to be trying to do so. Now on the whole I don't trust politicians - either those with dog collars or those without - so it is a pleasant surprise to see some actually trying to live up to a promise that was made. It can well be argued that it shouldn't have been made - that Synod should have accepted another failed vote instead. But it didn't. It made a promise, and on that basis the OOW went ahead. So quit snivelling about what's in the past and work with what has been promised - or alternatively never, ever, make a promise to anyone again, because we know that your word is valueless because you are happy to call for others' promises to be ignored when they are inconvenient. ![[Projectile]](graemlins/puke2.gif)
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Test everything. Hold on to the good.
Please don't refer to me as 'Ender' - the whole point of Ender's Shadow is that he isn't Ender.
Posts: 5018 | From: Manchester, England | Registered: Feb 2002
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:
So quit snivelling about what's in the past and work with what has been promised - or alternatively never, ever, make a promise to anyone again, because we know that your word is valueless because you are happy to call for others' promises to be ignored when they are inconvenient.
That's a problem.
If the bunch of people in power twenty years earlier made a really, really bad and stupid decision, now acknowledged to be so by the bunch of people in power now, should they be held to the earlier butt-clenching wrong legislation for time immemorial, or should they grit their teeth and overturn it?
Successive UK councils and parliaments don't seem to have a problem here. Successive synods don't seem to have had a problem, either.
Why's this different?
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Forward the New Republic
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Ender's Shadow
Shipmate
# 2272
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
quote:
Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:
So quit snivelling about what's in the past and work with what has been promised - or alternatively never, ever, make a promise to anyone again, because we know that your word is valueless because you are happy to call for others' promises to be ignored when they are inconvenient.
That's a problem.
If the bunch of people in power twenty years earlier made a really, really bad and stupid decision, now acknowledged to be so by the bunch of people in power now, should they be held to the earlier butt-clenching wrong legislation for time immemorial, or should they grit their teeth and overturn it?
Successive UK councils and parliaments don't seem to have a problem here. Successive synods don't seem to have had a problem, either.
Why's this different?
Because the parallel is with a treaty between nations or marriage vows, not the decisions of a parliament. The deal was explicitly made to the sceptics that the minority view would have a continuing role in the CofE. On that basis people built their lives and worked out their commitment to the CofE in all sorts of ways. One clear example of this is those who are opposed to the OOW who were willing to go ahead and be ordained after the vote; they committed themselves to the CofE because of the promise. And there are still people being trained on that basis. If you now change the rules, you are morally obliged to fully compensate them for your breach of promise. The level of payment should be the equivalent of a full stipend and vicarage till retirement and a full pension afterwards - not the half hearted compensation package offered first time round. And of course all those laity who were foolish enough to trust the promise have a right to the return of all the money they've given to the church since then. That's the only appropriate response to this mess if you want to reverse the promise; anything less and I will treat you as a promise breaker...
The bible is a story of God's covenants with people; if the church is unable to model living out covenants, then it's a failure, and its ministers deserve the disdain that so many non-Christians have for them.
In that context this latest initiative is admirable IMHO.
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Test everything. Hold on to the good.
Please don't refer to me as 'Ender' - the whole point of Ender's Shadow is that he isn't Ender.
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
The problem isn't that you have two different beliefs. It's that you have two different churches. You simply cannot have a church in which half of the church doesn't recognise the other half's bishops, the other half's priests, the other half's eucharists. If two people cannot recognise each other's eucharists or cannot recognise each other's bishops then how can they be part of the same church?
Except we can and we do and we are. So?
And not just Anglicans. We're all members of the true Church, God's Church, the heavenly Bride of Christ. But the Catholics don't recognise the Protestants and the Orthodox don't recognise the Catholics and half of them don't recognise each other, and no-one much recognises the Copts and there are thousands of little independent churches pretty much in communion with nobody. But that's how the Church is, that is the place we live in, that is what God's Church actually looks like on Earth.
And the other sense of "church", the local assembly of the faithful, where God's Word is preached and the Sacraments celebrated, each of them is for better or worse a flawed image of the eternal Church made concrete in one place and time.
The stuff between those two, between the local church and the universal Church, denominations, provinces, national churches, "churches" as human institutions, organisations, the bureaucratic churches, the churches of archdioceses and archdeacons and archimandrites, those struggle along as best they can and they are all divided, human, diverse, complicated, political.
The "Church of England" or the "Church of Scotland" or even the "Church of Rome" are not the essence of the Church, they are connexions of local churches, means to an end, service organisations that facilitate the local churches in being Church (or ought to)
And yes they have all sorts of disagreement within them. As the Bishop of Liverpool said a few months ago, no-one thought to make pacifism a church-breaking issue, or usury - but we have lived with disagreement on those things within our churches for centuries.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by LutheranChik:
Speaking as a Lutheran, I wonder what this rightwing retrenchment means for Anglican-Lutheran relations on the Continent and elsewhere, since most of the Euro-Lutherans I can think of ordain women.
But there isn't a "rightwing retrenchment". The vast majority of the Church of England, including the majority of evangelicals, are happy to live with ordained women. All that's going on is some of the majority trying hard not to piss off the minority.
And it is a minority, a small minority, and overwhelmingly Anglo-Catholic. And please don't fall for their branding themselves as "traditionalists". As an evangelical I think I am much more squarely in the traditions of the Church of England than they are.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
In this diocese we have more protests from the fundamentalist evangelical group than the Anglo-Catholic churches, many of which do have women priests (some don't, some are members of FiF, but many aren't).
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
ES - I appreciate that you feel this at a visceral level, and that if a single-measure option on women bishops goes through, you'll feel betrayed.
I still think you're wrong, and not just because countries have wars and married people divorce.
Explicitly put, it was wrong to compromise twenty years ago and it's still wrong now. Admitting women to the episcopate - where they should have always been and where they were at the very start of Christianity - does not deprive anyone, anywhere, of their living. That's just hyperbole.
The Advisory Committee have come up with a solution that WATCH will take, despite their reservations. If the archbishops wanted their proposal to be scrutinised properly, they should have submitted it to them, not circumvented the process.
Synod - with the urgings of the Holy Spirit - will decide what to do.
What makes us look ridiculous in the eyes of non-Christians is not the lack of compensation for dissenters, but the lack of women bishops.
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Ender's Shadow
Shipmate
# 2272
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:
If you now change the rules, you are morally obliged to fully compensate them for your breach of promise. The level of payment should be the equivalent of a full stipend and vicarage till retirement and a full pension afterwards - not the half hearted compensation package offered first time round.
To follow through on this logic a little bit: given that we are going to pay them and give them somewhere to live, we might as well get some work out of them. So let's give them access to some church buildings, and give them bishops so that they are able to operate with authority. And these bishops will be proper Anglicans - just not part of the province of Canterbury... and so we end up with a 'third province' - which is what many FIF people want. IMHO it's the optimum solution to this mess.
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Test everything. Hold on to the good.
Please don't refer to me as 'Ender' - the whole point of Ender's Shadow is that he isn't Ender.
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Ender's Shadow
Shipmate
# 2272
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Posted
OK - optimum is not the right word, perhaps 'least worst' ![[Waterworks]](graemlins/bawling.gif)
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Test everything. Hold on to the good.
Please don't refer to me as 'Ender' - the whole point of Ender's Shadow is that he isn't Ender.
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:
To follow through on this logic a little bit: given that we are going to pay them and give them somewhere to live, we might as well get some work out of them. So let's give them access to some church buildings, and give them bishops so that they are able to operate with authority. And these bishops will be proper Anglicans
They can do that now, and will be able to do that in the future. All you're saying here is that women can't be proper Anglican bishops, and that's wrong.
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Forward the New Republic
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Explicitly put, it was wrong to compromise twenty years ago and it's still wrong now.
But even if it was, it is also wrong to go back on a commitment made twenty years ago. You have to argue that the compromise was not just mistaken, ill-advised or cowardly, but that it was so completely immoral that it would be better to break the pledges that were made than it would be to keep them. I do think that there can be such promises, but this isn't one of them.
The Church of England took the step of ordaining women explicitly on the basis that this was an issue on which Christians could disagree and that there would still be a full place in the Church for people on both sides. It didn't please everybody, it clearly stored up difficulties for the future, but it was a bargain struck in good faith with the intent of perserving the unity and fellowship of the Church while allowing both sides to follow their consciences. It may have been a mistake to make the commitment, but it wasn't a sin.
The thing that's changed in the last decade isn't the morality of either position - it's the balance of power. I can't see that the pro-OOW faction in the Church (which includes me) is remotely justified in breaking a commitment to the opposite side when the only thing that has changed is that we don't need their cooperation to get our way any more. We've agreed that a good Anglican can be on either side of this debate. Let's stick to that.
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
The problem isn't that you have two different beliefs. It's that you have two different churches. You simply cannot have a church in which half of the church doesn't recognise the other half's bishops, the other half's priests, the other half's eucharists. If two people cannot recognise each other's eucharists or cannot recognise each other's bishops then how can they be part of the same church?
Except we can and we do and we are. So?
In the sense of Church in which the Roman Catholics and the Eastern Orthodox and the Southern Baptists and the Quakers and the Anglican Communion (all of it) are all part of the same church I would absolutely agree with you.
There is no reason why FiF can't carry on recognising a church with women bishops as part of the Church (unless they think that a church without proper bishops isn't part of the Church at all). And vice versa.
quote:
And the other sense of "church", the local assembly of the faithful, where God's Word is preached and the Sacraments celebrated, each of them is for better or worse a flawed image of the eternal Church made concrete in one place and time.
Well, yes. But here we get more tricky. Suppose the CofE parish celebrate Mass with a modern bit of business replacing the creed and singing hymns from the Wild Goose worship book at 11.00am; and suppose that The Kingdom of God in Power Ministries (Apostolic) celebrate at 3.00pm in the same building; it's not obvious that they're two parts of the same local assembly of the faithful.
Part of the reason is that they think that their differences in worship and organisation reflect something important. They see each other's services as profoundly lacking - much as they might recognise each other as part of the Church.
The Church of Scotland and the Church of England are indeed both bodies united by profound ongoing disagreements. But they're different bodies. And that's because the things that they disagree on - bishops, presbyters, etc - are simply not things that they can disagree on and remain part of the same body. That doesn't mean that they're more important than just war/pacifism or the inerrancy of the Bible or whether social justice is more capitalist or socialist in shape - all the other things that Christians can disagree on. I'm pretty sure that compared to the other things they're almost trivial. It's just that they are the differences that define which institution is which.
Women bishops may or may not be an important difference. People can hold different sides of it and be part of the same institution for as long as it's a purely theoretical matter. However, it is a difference that, once there are women bishops, divides those who differ over it into different institutions. Not because it's impossible to be in charity with each other; but because it's impossible to be part of the same institution.
Up to a point: it may still be possible to have a joint administration and a joint Synodical government just so long as the bishops have no role in administration qua bishop. But I can't see that really being workable - and while FiF might be able to go along with it (I'm not sure) I doubt Reform could.
(*) If the CofE parish has a Taize service at 6.00pm or a BCP at 9.00am that doesn't make them different assemblies as such.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by la vie en rouge:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
It is only fair to offer alternative jurisdiction to those who do not accept women as bishops. Not to so is exclusive and intolerant.
Just out of interest, if I were to change the word "women" to "homosexuals" in this sentence, would you still agree with it?
Homosexuals are already barred from ordination in the C of E and it is a communion-breaking issue.
I think you might want to rephrase that as it couldn't be more inaccurate if you tried.
How is it inaccurate,. The C of E House of Bishops Issues in Human Sexuality is the standard - all ordinands are asked to sign up to it before they even go to a BAP.
Large parts of the Communion do not accept homosexual bishops or priests, or lay people even.
The fact that people lie about their sexuality is a different matter.
As far as I'm aware, ordinands aren't asked to "sign up" to anything. I certainly wasn't, and I was ordained the year after Issues (only ever intended as an interim document) was published.
The official CofE line is that practising homosexuals may not be ordained. In reality, we might say that "very few CofE bishops will publicly admit to having ordained practising homosexuals" (though, thank God, a brave few do).
Things have moved on since you were ordained. A friend of mine showed me the paperwork before her BAP towards the end of last year. Among the suff she had to sign was a statement on the lines of, 'You will be expected to live you life in accord with the standard outlined in Issues in Human Sexuality....'
Re - 'practicing' homosexuals, that is assuming there is such an ontological being as 'a homosexual' as opposed to 'people who sometimes have sexual relations with people of their own gender'.
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Posts: 23198 | From: Bristol | Registered: Oct 2001
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Admitting women to the episcopate - where they should have always been and where they were at the very start of Christianity
What dodgy history book have you been reading?
The Bible?
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Forward the New Republic
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
<snip>
The Church of England took the step of ordaining women explicitly on the basis that this was an issue on which Christians could disagree and that there would still be a full place in the Church for people on both sides. It didn't please everybody, it clearly stored up difficulties for the future, but it was a bargain struck in good faith with the intent of perserving the unity and fellowship of the Church while allowing both sides to follow their consciences. It may have been a mistake to make the commitment, but it wasn't a sin.
<snip>
I have said earlier on this thread that we had in all fairness and honour to make provision for those who disagreed with women priests who were then in the Church of England, and need to continue to do so for as long as those people are practising priests.
But ,.. should we equally be making provision for those people who have chosen to be ordained into the Church of England with the view that women should not be ordained, when they knew they were choosing to join a church that had voted that women were now a fully practising part of the church? The letter that was signed when this came up for discussion a couple of years back with 1500 signatories, iirc, about a third of those signatories were retired clergy, a third practising and a third recently ordained.
It seems to me to be a bit disingenuous to protest against women priests being considered as bishops, when women as fully ordained members of the church was something those ordained or in training since 1994 should have been fully aware of when the decision to be considered for ordination was made. The issue as to whether women should become bishops has been around for quite some time, and actually was implicit when the vote to allow women priests was made.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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Organ Builder
Shipmate
# 12478
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Posted
As an American I've been following this with some curiosity and interest, but with a clear understanding it really isn't any of my business. General Synod will do whatever it is going to do, and I'll follow its results in the same way.
BUT--I do have one question that I haven't seen anyone address yet. Supposing that the Archbishops manage to get their amendment passed, what happens when a woman becomes Archbishop of Canterbury or York? Won't that basically stir up the whole thing again?
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How desperately difficult it is to be honest with oneself. It is much easier to be honest with other people.--E.F. Benson
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Ender's Shadow
Shipmate
# 2272
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
But ,.. should we equally be making provision for those people who have chosen to be ordained into the Church of England with the view that women should not be ordained, when they knew they were choosing to join a church that had voted that women were now a fully practising part of the church?
Absolutely we should - the commitment made at the time of the 1992 vote was that there would be a continuing place for those opposed to OOW, and that includes ordaining those amongst them who feel a call the priesthood. The deal was not 'you are now a group who will become extinct but we'll let you hang around under special provisions' but 'you are a group who has every right to continue within the CofE.' On that basis men who are opposed to OOW went forward and were accepted for ordination. Now they are being threatened with marginalisation / being forced out despite the promises made in 1992 to get the legislation through then. Let's be clear - this is a test of whether we can trust the church to do what it says it will do, or are we to treat all clerics as politicians happy to junk promises when they no longer need the votes to do what they want to do.
Posts: 5018 | From: Manchester, England | Registered: Feb 2002
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Dave Marshall
Shipmate
# 7533
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:
the commitment made at the time of the 1992 vote was that there would be a continuing place for those opposed to OOW, and that includes ordaining those amongst them who feel a call the priesthood.
Do you have a reference for this? I can't see anything along these lines in the Priests (Ordination of Women) Measure 1993.
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Thurible
Shipmate
# 3206
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Posted
I think it was in 'Bonds of Peace', the House of Bishops' document that accompanied the Episcopal Ministry Act of Synod, 1993, but I can't find a copy online and don't seem to be able to find it on the bookshelves to check.
Thurible
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"I've been baptised not lobotomised."
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Dave Marshall
Shipmate
# 7533
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
it is a difference that, once there are women bishops, divides those who differ over it into different institutions. Not because it's impossible to be in charity with each other; but because it's impossible to be part of the same institution.
So the question for Synod is not about the theological or ecclesiological rights and wrongs of women bishops. It is simply what kind of institution the Church of England wants to be. One that as an organisation decides women are less bishopable than men, or that in this respect reflects the norms of the society in which it operates.
The Archbishops' intervention seems to me an appeal to an abstract notion of Church that is divorced from the reality of this particular Church. If the abstraction doesn't fit, shouldn't it be discarded as irrelevant in this context?
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Thurible:
I think it was in 'Bonds of Peace', the House of Bishops' document that accompanied the Episcopal Ministry Act of Synod, 1993, but I can't find a copy online and don't seem to be able to find it on the bookshelves to check.
Thurible
Nor can I but some notes I have make it obvious that a promise would be broken if alternative episcopal provision is not secured.
‘…there are no time limits…in the [1993 Priests: Ordination of Women Measure]…and we see that the safeguards will be there and in perpetuity or for as long as they are required.’ [Professor McClean answering questions before the Ecclesiastical Committee of Parliament, 1993]
‘…those who dissent from, as well as those who assent to the ordination of women to the priesthood and episcopate are both loyal Anglicans.’ [Resolution III.2 of the Lambeth Conference 1998; re-affirmed by the General Synod, 10th July 2006]
Bonds of Peace, the supporting document to the Act, says this: Those who for a variety of reasons cannot conscientiously accept that women may be ordained priests will continue to hold a legitimate and recognised position within the Church of England. There should be no marginalisation of anyone on the basis of their attitude towards the ordination of women to the priesthood. Nor should those who cannot accept the ordination of women seek to marginalise themselves by withdrawing from the life and government of the Church except in those matters where conscientious convictions are directly at stake
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
But I am not arguing that people who were in the church should be marginalised - I have been in churches that have made provisions internally to support those anti-OOW in the congregation at the time (by the provision of a service with a a guaranteed male priest). What I am querying is those who have come forward since. And I can't see anything in the quotations given by leo other than reassurance for those already here for as long as they required that support and those provisions.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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Dave Marshall
Shipmate
# 7533
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Posted
I'm guessing the relevant paragraph is this one from the Episcopal Ministry Act of Synod 1993:
quote:
Except as provided by the Measure and this Act no person or body shall discriminate against candidates either for ordination or for appointment to senior office in the Church of England on the grounds of their view or positions about the ordination of women to the priesthood.
My reading is that while this ostensibly supports Ender's Shadow's claim, it in fact requires that all involved including those putting themselves forward for ordination not discriminate against anyone who believes women can be priests (eg. a woman seeking ordination). Or that they may be considered for higher office (eg. bishop). Which I would have thought in practice meant that anyone ordained after the Act, whatever their private thoughts, has at least implicitly agreed not to discriminate in public against women priests or their appointment to higher office.
Only those ordained prior to the Act would seem to have reasonable grounds for complaint and therefore special provision.
[ 26. June 2010, 00:31: Message edited by: Dave Marshall ]
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Ender's Shadow
Shipmate
# 2272
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
I'm guessing the relevant paragraph is this one from the Episcopal Ministry Act of Synod 1993:
quote:
Except as provided by the Measure and this Act no person or body shall discriminate against candidates either for ordination or for appointment to senior office in the Church of England on the grounds of their view or positions about the ordination of women to the priesthood.
My reading is that while this ostensibly supports Ender's Shadow's claim, it in fact requires that all involved including those putting themselves forward for ordination not discriminate against anyone who believes women can be priests (eg. a woman seeking ordination). Or that they may be considered for higher office (eg. bishop). Which I would have thought in practice meant that anyone ordained after the Act, whatever their private thoughts, has at least implicitly agreed not to discriminate in public against women priests or their appointment to higher office.
Only those ordained prior to the Act would seem to have reasonable grounds for complaint and therefore special provision.
I suspect you are totally ignoring the content of 'the Measure and this Act' in your analysis, which is where the ways in which ordination candidates and anyone else CAN discriminate.
But my understanding is far more political; in the course of the debate before the vote to enable OOW, very generous promises were made by the proponents of the move to ensure that they got the votes they needed to get the legislation through. The bottom line there was 'there will be equal treatment for both integrities', and it was only on those promises were the votes necessary obtained. Now the proponents want to renege on the explicit promises made to the waverers to get their votes, because they don't need those votes anymore. Whilst such behaviour may be routine in politics, it's occurrence in the church is deeply objectionable. And if it is followed through on, then it becomes impossible to take any promise from any bishop seriously in the future. I suspect I may be dismissed as a naive innocent; if so I need to abandon hope about the CofE.
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Dave Marshall
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# 7533
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:
I suspect you are totally ignoring the content of 'the Measure and this Act' in your analysis
Not as far as I'm aware.
quote:
which is where the ways in which ordination candidates and anyone else CAN discriminate.
I've linked to the Act. Here's the Measure. Explain how my analysis is wrong (it may well be, but I can't see it).
quote:
in the course of the debate before the vote to enable OOW, very generous promises were made by the proponents of the move to ensure that they got the votes they needed to get the legislation through.
The bottom line is what got written into the Measure and the Act. For better or worse, that's the definitive expression of what was agreed.
quote:
Whilst such behaviour may be routine in politics, it's occurrence in the church is deeply objectionable.
Come on. Are you seriously suggesting, with your unsupported claims and hearsay justifications, that you're not engaging in precisely the same kind of politics?
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Augustine the Aleut
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# 1472
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
I'm guessing the relevant paragraph is this one from the Episcopal Ministry Act of Synod 1993:
quote:
Except as provided by the Measure and this Act no person or body shall discriminate against candidates either for ordination or for appointment to senior office in the Church of England on the grounds of their view or positions about the ordination of women to the priesthood.
My reading is that while this ostensibly supports Ender's Shadow's claim, it in fact requires that all involved including those putting themselves forward for ordination not discriminate against anyone who believes women can be priests (eg. a woman seeking ordination). Or that they may be considered for higher office (eg. bishop). Which I would have thought in practice meant that anyone ordained after the Act, whatever their private thoughts, has at least implicitly agreed not to discriminate in public against women priests or their appointment to higher office.
Only those ordained prior to the Act would seem to have reasonable grounds for complaint and therefore special provision.
I have twice drawn up little flow charts to follow Dave Marshall's logic, but it still escapes me. I don't think that the section says what he believes it to say. It appears to me that discrimination is forbidden against others on the grounds of their opinions on the priesting of women rather than to the women themselves, which leaves a bit of a loophole. The distinction is subtle, but it is there in the text.
It goes back to what I fear was the reality of the time, which was that both factions were busily crossing their fingers as they earnestly described their respect and trust for the opposing faction. The intent of the text was for a perpetual provision, but the intent of the drafters was anything but.
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Fifi
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# 8151
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Posted
The point about the permanence or otherwise of the 1993 arrangements is best answered by Hansard for 29 October, 1993 at Column 1089, where the Second Church Estates Commissioner said:
' . . . Clause 3 enables a parochial church council to pass either or both of the resolutions set out in schedule 1. These are, first, under resolution A, that the parochial church council would not accept a woman to preside at or celebrate Holy Communion or pronounce the absolution in the parish--those acts that are specifically reserved to the ministry - and, secondly, under resolution B, that the council "would not accept a woman as the incumbent or priest-in-charge of the benefice or as a team vicar for the benefice.
Both this and clause 4, which relates to cathedrals, are continuing provisions without limit of time - built-in, permanent parochial safeguards.'
Either the provision is permanent, or Michael Alison was lying to the House of Commons. Take your pick.
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A.Pilgrim
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# 15044
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Fifi:
I don't know why the link I provided above doesn't work,
[technical tangent]
It's probably because the web address included for the link includes a trailing right-hand parenthesis.
[/techical tangent]
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Dafyd
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# 5549
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Posted
The provisions set up when women became priests were workable just so long as women were only priests. They don't envisage women becoming priests. I can't see how you can have two integrities in the same church with women bishops. That leads to no integrities.
For example, confirmation. Can somebody who has been confirmed by a woman bishop receive communion in a congregation that doesn't recognise women bishops? If yes, then the congregation do recognise women bishops. If no, what happens? Does the congregation exclude them from communion as unconfirmed in perpetuity? That should be unacceptable to them. On the other hand, it will be unacceptable to the rest of the church - who do recognise the bishop who confirmed them - to confirm them again.
It's in the very word 'integrity'. Something has 'integrity' if it is a whole, complete, with nothing lacking. A part of a whole is not an integrity.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Eliab
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# 9153
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
For example, confirmation. Can somebody who has been confirmed by a woman bishop receive communion in a congregation that doesn't recognise women bishops?
But (i) confirmation isn't a prerequisite for communion; and (ii) why would anyone need to know how anyone else was confirmed?
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
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Grammatica
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# 13248
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
For example, confirmation. Can somebody who has been confirmed by a woman bishop receive communion in a congregation that doesn't recognise women bishops?
But (i) confirmation isn't a prerequisite for communion; and (ii) why would anyone need to know how anyone else was confirmed?
Maybe so. But a priest who has been ordained by a woman bishop (in the US) has to be re-ordained before he can function as a priest in the Church of England, because the C of E does not recognize Holy Orders if they were conferred by a woman. I would think the whole point of co-ordinate jurisdiction is that a segment of the C of E does not recognize any priestly or episcopal act whatever if it has been performed by a woman, or if a woman has been involved anywhere along the chain (involved in the ordination of a male priest, for example). The same would apply to confirmations, and I assume infants would have to be conditionally re-baptized if it were suspected that a woman had somehow been involved with the ordination of the priest who performed the baptism, or the priest who later became a bishop who then ordained the priest who performed the baptism, and so on.
Posts: 1058 | From: where the lemon trees blosson | Registered: Dec 2007
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Dafyd
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# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
But (i) confirmation isn't a prerequisite for communion; and (ii) why would anyone need to know how anyone else was confirmed?
I believe it still is in many traditionalist catholic churches. If it doesn't matter, what is confirmation for exactly? Is it nothing more than a rite to signal to teenagers that they can stop coming to church now?
If a church thinks it matters at all whether a person was confirmed, then it obviously matters to them whether the person was actually confirmed by someone they think able to confirm people, or only what they consider pretend confirmed.
quote:
I don't see the need for conditional confirmation either since confirmation is merely the add on of baptism - though the RCC and orthodox see that differently.
I think that those of us with a catholic understanding of the sacraments would see that differently as well.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
Going back to the comment about crossing fingers behind their backs ...
When the vote was agreed, maybe those who felt women priests should be acceptable in the Church of England but also agreed provision should be made felt that provision would gradually fade away as those entering the church did so in the full knowledge that this was a church where women were fully practising priests, is that crossing fingers?
Certainly, from what I have experienced amongst lay congregations, many of those who weren't happy to see women ordained priests now accept them. The church that provided a service with a guaranteed male priest, ten years later after swingeing cuts in clergy numbers had to go back and say, sorry we may not be able to guarantee a man presiding, will this be a problem? We will tell you in advance who will be here. It was no longer an issue for that congregation.
My parents, at the other end of the country, were very scathing at the thought of women priests, much rude comment about priestesses, now have a woman vicar and are fine about it.
Is it crossing fingers for people entering the Church of England now, which is a church that ordains women, to go in saying that women cannot be priests and we need provision to continue for us?
There always being a place can be read two ways - that those anti-OOW priests and laity already within the church would always be incorporated or that the church was prepared to provide two streams. But if you have a group insisting that we should have two streams within a church that agreed to ordain women after much prayer, thought and more prayer, and came to a consensus, can you see that this can be seen as divisive?
It feels as if those who are against the ordination of women are trying to convince the CofE that they were wrong voting this through and therefore we should undo that vote. Which is negating much good work done by those women ordained, and those congregations who have accepted women ...
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
I believe it still is in many traditionalist catholic churches. If it doesn't matter, what is confirmation for exactly?
I thought the Catholics routinely had First Communion before confirmation, and that the Church of England had relatively recently (re-)learned the practice from them.
Confirmation certainly isn't required at my local church. My wife has never been confirmed (not in the Bible as she reads it) and takes communion (and is on the PCC and has even run the confirmation class). The only time I've ever had any enquiry made about my confirmation status was when I applied for Reader training.
quote:
If a church thinks it matters at all whether a person was confirmed, then it obviously matters to them whether the person was actually confirmed by someone they think able to confirm people, or only what they consider pretend confirmed.
That's easily fixable. The rules should say that as for as any ministry requiring confirmation is concerned, a confirmation by any Anglican, Catholic, Methodist, Orthodox ... whoever else we'd like to be friends with ... minister duly authorised will do. And that anyone who doubts whether they were properly confirmed can be conditionally re-done. That doesn't mean that I have to believe that your confirmation is valid, or you have to believe that mine is. We don't need to think about each other's, or anyone else's, confirmation at all. As far as our priests are concerned, we could both be reasonably confident that they followed the official rules: OK, so some people might doubt that being confirmed by a woman counts, but we already have the situation where Anglicans are allowed to doubt that some Anglican priestly orders are valid, so we can live with that. If we allow conditional confirmation for pastoral reasons, (so that someone confirmed by a woman might be conditionally re-confirmed before being ordained by a man so as not to create a stumbling block for the faith of others) and approach the whole thing with humility and charity, this does not need to be a communion breaking issue. We could make it one, of course, and possibly will, but that doesn't mean that we have to.
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005
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Dafyd
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# 5549
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Posted
If we're prepared to ditch confirmation as having any ongoing significance I can see that problem being got round.
But conditional confirmation is right out. The RCs and the Orthodox can do conditional confirmation because they aren't pretending to be the same denomination as we are. If you're pretending to be the same church as someone else you can't conditionally redo their sacraments or question their sacraments. (You might ask how, in that case, we manage to be part of the same denomination now? That's a good question. How are we the same denomination now?)
In addition, one thing that would be unacceptable to any supporter of women's ordination is conditional redoing of anything the woman does. You can't have the woman ordaining priests and then a male bishop stepping in to conditionally reordain the male priests. You can't have the woman bishop confirming candidates and then a male bishop conditionally confirming them. That just defeats the whole point of ordaining bishops at all if you're then going to have a male bishop redoing everything that the woman bishop does just in case. Provision of conditional confirmation isn't something that a supporter of women's ordination can agree to.
[ 28. June 2010, 17:07: Message edited by: Dafyd ]
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
In addition, one thing that would be unacceptable to any supporter of women's ordination is conditional redoing of anything the woman does. You can't have the woman ordaining priests and then a male bishop stepping in to conditionally reordain the male priests. You can't have the woman bishop confirming candidates and then a male bishop conditionally confirming them. That just defeats the whole point of ordaining bishops at all if you're then going to have a male bishop redoing everything that the woman bishop does just in case.
Not anything a woman does. What I’m suggesting is that if you have some personal scruple about your confirmation, or a good pastoral reason to put its validity beyond (someone else’s) doubt, then you can fix it. If you are happy being confirmed by a properly authorised minister, then as far as eligibility for service in the CofE goes, it’s good for all purposes.
quote:
Provision of conditional confirmation isn't something that a supporter of women's ordination can agree to.
Eh? I’m a supporter of women’s ordination and I just suggested it.
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
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Horseman Bree
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# 5290
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Posted
OOW and women bishops have been in the picture for the Anglican Church of Canada for some years now.
We also have to function in a country in which SSMs are completely legal - not just the mere existence of gays, but full SSMs. Thus the church has to, eventually, come up with a realistic policy that deals with this situation.
Admittedly, a few parishioners and priests have mounted their high horses and marched off into the Southern Cone (sounds a bit science-fictiony, but, hey, we're Anglicans - unreality rules) But only a few.
And General Synod just voted to keep on talking about gay issues, responding to the youth delegates clear statement that discussion was essential.
What is there about the Church of England that makes it a good idea for us to remain in communion? And with which faction do we remain in communion once the split has been formalised?
Large bits of the Anglican Communion have been anathematising us for some time now. But we have to function in our own space, not their's. Why bother with people who can't even keep their own space tidy?
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It's Not That Simple
Posts: 5372 | From: more herring choker than bluenose | Registered: Dec 2003
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Sober Preacher's Kid
Presbymethegationalist
# 12699
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Horseman Bree:
We also have to function in a country in which SSMs are completely legal - not just the mere existence of gays, but full SSMs. Thus the church has to, eventually, come up with a realistic policy that deals with this situation.
Why? What is this imperative of which you speak?
The Roman Catholic Church, the United Church and the Anglican Church are the three churches in English Canada that have a presence in every city, town and village. The Roman Catholic position is well-known and the legal changes haven't changed its opinion. The United Church ordains GLBT clergy and will perform same-sex marriage. The law won't force churches to do anything.
I'm member of the United Church for many reasons, but since I agree with my church's positions on The Issue and Same-sex marriage I have little reason to go elsewhere.
Besides, I get to laugh when I compare our decision at General Council in 1988 to the Anglican situation today. Makes our debate look like a damp squib.
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NDP Federal Convention Ottawa 2018: A random assortment of Prots and Trots.
Posts: 7646 | From: Peterborough, Upper Canada | Registered: Jun 2007
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Horseman Bree
Shipmate
# 5290
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Posted
But the church is made up of members who have various views on these issues, whether those views agree with the church's one-time posittion or not.
In particular, the "youth delegates" to Synod were emphatic that GLBT issues be addressed
quote:
On the afternoon of June 10, delegates also passed resolution C010. The resolution proposed by youth delegates calls for General Synod to deplore any legislation calling for punishments for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender persons and their supporters and encourage partners in jurisdictions with such legislation to do the same.
The quote would seem to be obvious to a group that wants to connext with its young, but it isn't that obvious in Nigeria or Uganda. "Which side is the church on?" is a valid question.
And, once you have acknowleged the humanity of GLBTs, then you have to answer satisfactorily to those younger people as to why they should run away screaming from GLBTs, as Fredericton Diocese did three years ago. Again, a question to be answered.
"Just why is a loving relationship between two adults abominable?" is another question that needs an answer other than "We've never done that before".
I know the RCs have a set position. I'm not talking about them. They have enough issues already without telling the Anglicans what to think - and those issues will drive them down quite soon.
Debating and changing one's views may take the Anglicans down, although I doubt it. But we're not the Harper Conservatives and we are allowed to debate, unlike some of the other members of the Communion (see above).
Particularly when our other neighbours over at UCC have come up with a position opposite to the RC one.
It isn't the existence of the law that forces us to change. It is the existence of a younger generation that cannot see why the existence of GLBTs should be a problem to the church. That existence isn't a problem to them*. What's wrong with the church?
And they aren't going to take "because we used to say so" for an answer, any more than they would see why a Nigerian bishop might have power over them.
*even among evangelical youth in the US, according to Barna
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It's Not That Simple
Posts: 5372 | From: more herring choker than bluenose | Registered: Dec 2003
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Provision of conditional confirmation isn't something that a supporter of women's ordination can agree to.
Eh? I’m a supporter of women’s ordination and I just suggested it.
Ok - Provision of conditional confirmation isn't something that a supporter of women's ordination can agree to consistently in my opinion.
I appreciate that you're saying that not everything that the women does will be automatically shadowed by a man, but it seems to me that you're still conceding the principle that what she does can be redone if the opponents would like it to be. And that is leading to a situation where the woman is not really exercising the role of a bishop.
[ 30. June 2010, 14:06: Message edited by: Dafyd ]
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Sober Preacher's Kid
Presbymethegationalist
# 12699
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Horseman Bree:
Particularly when our other neighbours over at UCC have come up with a position opposite to the RC one.
It isn't the existence of the law that forces us to change. It is the existence of a younger generation that cannot see why the existence of GLBTs should be a problem to the church. That existence isn't a problem to them*. What's wrong with the church?
And they aren't going to take "because we used to say so" for an answer, any more than they would see why a Nigerian bishop might have power over them.
*even among evangelical youth in the US, according to Barna
There was a good article about this in the Observer two issues ago. A young twenty-something ordinand was speaking about his experience and views, particularly when so many new ministers these days are in their forties and fifties starting on second careers.
He's theologically conservative on things like the Trinity but liberal on gender and sexuality. He grew up in the church post-1988 like I did and to him the debate is settled.
I agreed completely with the article.
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NDP Federal Convention Ottawa 2018: A random assortment of Prots and Trots.
Posts: 7646 | From: Peterborough, Upper Canada | Registered: Jun 2007
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JoannaP
Shipmate
# 4493
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Posted
SPK,
Please could you post a link; you have not provided enough information for me to find the article.
Joanna
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"Freedom for the pike is death for the minnow." R. H. Tawney (quoted by Isaiah Berlin)
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." Benjamin Franklin
Posts: 1877 | From: England | Registered: May 2003
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Sober Preacher's Kid
Presbymethegationalist
# 12699
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Posted
It was in the United Church Observer, our house magazine. Unfortunately the article is not online at the moment. The Observer does want people to pay their share, it has to keep going (as it has since 1829).
Title: "My View: Ministers under 30", Taylor Croissant, United Church Observer April 2010.
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NDP Federal Convention Ottawa 2018: A random assortment of Prots and Trots.
Posts: 7646 | From: Peterborough, Upper Canada | Registered: Jun 2007
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JoannaP
Shipmate
# 4493
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Posted
SPK,
Thanks for that. I was being too parochial and assuming it was the British Sunday newspaper. ![[Hot and Hormonal]](icon_redface.gif)
Joanna
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"Freedom for the pike is death for the minnow." R. H. Tawney (quoted by Isaiah Berlin)
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." Benjamin Franklin
Posts: 1877 | From: England | Registered: May 2003
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Robert Armin
All licens'd fool
# 182
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Posted
"Taylor Croissant"???? He can't be straight - he sounds far too tasty!
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Keeping fit was an obsession with Fr Moity .... He did chin ups in the vestry, calisthenics in the pulpit, and had developed a series of Tai-Chi exercises to correspond with ritual movements of the Mass. The Antipope Robert Rankin
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