Fathers in God?

By Colin Podmore

This volume sets out, in a non-polemic way, the understanding of priestly and episcopal ministry from the biblical, historical and theological viewpoints of those who defend a traditional view of priesthood as male, while being fully a part of the Church of England.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Canterbury Press
• Release date: Nov 2, 2015
• ISBN: 9781848258280

Book preview

Fathers in God?

Fathers in God?

Resources for Reflection on Women in the Episcopate

Edited by

Colin Podmore

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Copyright in this volume © Forward in Faith, 2015

All scriptural quotations are from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1946, 1952 and 1971 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

First published in 2015 by the Canterbury Press Norwich

(a publishing imprint of Hymns Ancient & Modern Limited,

a registered charity)

St Mary’s Works, St Mary’s Plain,

Norwich, Norfolk, NR3 3BH

www.canterburypress.co.uk

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, Canterbury Press

The opinions expressed in this book are those of the authors and not necessarily those of Canterbury Press

British Library Cataloguing in Publication data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978 1 84825 826 6

Typeset by Regent Typesetting, London

Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd

Contents

Acknowledgements

Foreword by the Rt Revd Dr Christopher Cocksworth, Bishop of Coventry

Introduction by Colin Podmore

Part One: Prospect and Retrospect (2015)

In Love and Charity with your Neighbour Martin Warner

Feminism in a Post-Feminist Age Emma Forward

Catholic Contributions to the Theological Debate, 2004–06 Colin Podmore

Part Two: Women Bishops in the Church of England? (2004)

Presentation to the General Synod Geoffrey Rowell

Arguments from a Catholic Anglican Perspective

1. Mission

2. Scripture and tradition

3. The maleness of Christ

4. The ecumenical objection

5. The problem of sacramental assurance

6. The inability of a woman bishop to be a focus of unity

Forward in Faith’s Submission to the Rochester Commission on the Theology of the Ordination of Women to the Episcopate, 17 October 2001

Part Three: Consecrated Women? A Contribution to the Women Bishops Debate (2004)

Jonathan Baker (ed.)

Women Bishops: A Theological Enquiry

1. Introduction

2. The Breadth of the Task

3. The Fatherhood of God

4. Incarnation and Headship

5. Bridegroom and Bride

6. Priesthood and Sacrifice

7. Ministry in the Early Church

8 . The Episcopate and the Church of England

9. Some Commonplace Arguments

10. Conclusion

Some Papers Submitted to the Working Party

1. The Bishop as Bridegroom of His Church: A Roman Catholic Contribution Aidan Nicholls, OP

2. The Gender and Number of Bishops John Hunwicke

3. Fatherhood, Headship and Tradition Geoffrey Kirk

Appendices

Membership of the Working Party

Those who gave evidence to the Working Party

Bibliography

Part Four: The Mission of Bishops in the Mystery of the Church (2006)

The Mission of Bishops in the Mystery of the Church: Reflections on the Question of Ordaining Women to Episcopal Office in the Church of England by Walter Kasper

Acknowledgements

Extracts from the Report of Proceedings of the General Synod of the Church of England (copyright © The Archbishops’ Council) are included in this volume with permission.

Women Bishops in the Church of England? A report of the House of Bishops’ Working Party on Women in the Episcopate (GS 1557) (London: Church House Publishing, 2004) is copyright © The Archbishops’ Council. Paragraphs 5.2.5 to 5.2.29 are included in this volume with permission.

‘The Mission of Bishops in the Mystery of the Church’ was previously published on the website of the Holy See and also in Resources for Reflection on the Subject of Women Bishops in the Church of England (GS Misc 827) (London: General Synod, 2006) and Women in the Episcopate? An Anglican–Roman Catholic Dialogue: Reflections on Cardinal Walter Kasper’s address to the Bishops of the Church of England on 5th June 2006: The Mission of Bishops in the Mystery of the Church: Reflections on the question of ordaining women to episcopal office in the Church of England (GS Misc 885) (London: General Synod, 2008). The address is included in this volume by kind permission of Cardinal Kasper.

Foreword

THE RT REVD DR CHRISTOPHER COCKSWORTH Bishop of Coventry

Throughout its history, before and after the Reformation, the English Church has arrived at new settlements. Periods of disagreement, dissension and sometimes even bloodshed have been – by one form or another – resolved and peace has come. The debates and decisions that opened the way to the ordination and consecration of women as bishops in the Church of England may not have resulted in the violence that disfigured the Church in the past, but many on every side of the argument felt violated by them. The procedures and processes of committees and synods did not just touch on fundamental areas of theology. They penetrated to the centre of personal identity.

As the Church edged towards a new settlement in 2014, the air seemed to clear and the atmosphere changed. A set of principles emerged, like the structures of a building in which most of the contenders seemed content to dwell. Disagreements remained but relationships began to heal and hope returned. Those opposed to each other theologically committed themselves to each other relationally, determined not just to tolerate each other but to serve their ‘mutual flourishing’. Those who would not be able to receive the ministry of women ordained as bishops would acknowledge that the Church of England is ‘fully and unequivocally committed’ to such ministry, a ministry that deserves ‘respect and canonical obedience’. At the same time, though living within a Church that ‘had reached a clear decision on the matter’, those with ‘theological convictions’ against it were, nonetheless, declared to ‘continue to be within the spectrum of teaching and tradition of the Anglican Communion’. They were promised, without ‘limit of time’, the provision not only to exist but to thrive. It was a remarkable achievement proving the determination of Christians to ‘bear with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace’ (Ephesians 4.2-3).

Why then this book? Why rake up the arguments of the past? Will it not open up old wounds on both sides and risk the reconciliation that the settlement gained?

Undoubtedly Fathers in God will be uncomfortable reading for many of us. It will rekindle feelings that we would rather avoid. Some will be reminded of the strong sense of rejection that the debates caused deep within them. Others – those for whom the arguments of this book make obvious sense – will wonder why they did not prevail. Some will question whether the arguments should belong in the spectrum of Anglican teaching after all. Still others will question whether the settlement will ever work in practice or whether the predictions made in earlier stages of the debate will prove accurate, that a church that tries to hold such opposing views together will cease to be a Church in any recognisable sense of the word.

It is not for me to defend the decision to publish this collection of material but I can say why I have agreed to a write a Foreword to a book that is critical of beliefs that I hold and positions that I have taken. I do so because I am grateful for the generous invitation of its editor, Colin Podmore – an invitation given in the knowledge that I would agree neither with the main conclusions set out in the book nor with some of the premises on which they are based. The respect with which I hold Colin and the generosity of his invitation to me reflect something of the respect with which I came to hold the Catholic Group in Synod during the debates, and the generosity I sensed among many of them to find a way through the impasse in which the Church of England had found itself. They were often unfairly dismissed as traditionalists opposed to change in principle, or were condemned as promoters of injustice and purveyors of discrimination.

The material in Part II and III of the book has a certain rawness about it and an air of polemic. That is inevitable. They are documents of their time, and they were times when arguments were made with force by every side. Taken together, though, they constitute a carefully argued theological case that reveals the reasons why some people remain opposed to the priestly ministry of women and, even more so, to their episcopal ministry, reasons rooted in the doctrine of God. Part IV describes the ecumenical context in which the decision to ordain women as priests and bishops took place, and the likely ruptures in wider relationships with some other Churches that many in the Church of England felt unable to allow. Part I contains more recent essays that speak into the present situation and reaffirm the commitment of the traditional Catholic portion of the Church to contribute to the life of the whole Church of England and, through it, to the Church Catholic throughout the world.

It is important for everyone in the Church of England, whatever their position on the ordination of women, to understand the views presented in Parts II and III, to identify their theological assumptions and to engage with them responsibly. It is also incumbent on the whole Church of England to rebuild the relationships that the Church of Rome warned in Part IV would become more strained if we were to take the decision that we have taken. It is necessary for the well being of the whole Church that we take our part in discerning the reception of the Church of England’s action not only within our Communion but among all the Churches. To that end, I suggest that wherever we find ourselves in the life of the Church, we might be ready to stand with Martin Warner in his suggestion in Part I that the Church of England’s settlement offers a ‘welcome space’ for the Universal Church in which the coherence of differing views on the ordination of women, and the capacity for those who hold them to be held together, may be observed and tested in a credible ecclesial environment. It is a space, stretched almost unbearably by dialectic, which I remain glad to inhabit. It is a space which, even though it may not always enable the resolution of differences, nonetheless has something to teach all the Churches about the reconciliation of relationships in the love of Christ, the Lord of the Church, whose body we share and whose Father we are bold to call, for ever and ever, ‘Our Father’. I hope that this book will serve that space and that prayer.

+ CHRISTOPHER COVENTRY

July 2015

Introduction

COLIN PODMORE

Fatherhood

Every bishop is the chief pastor of all that are within his diocese, as well laity as clergy, and their father in God.

Thus begins Canon C 18, which defines the nature and role of diocesan bishops in the understanding of the Church of England. It remains unamended by the legislation which has permitted the ordination of women to the episcopate in the Church of England. Behind this definition of a bishop as a ‘father in God’ lies the 1662 Ordinal (one of the ‘historic formularies’ in which ‘in particular’ the Church of England’s doctrine ‘is to be found’¹). In that Ordinal, as in its post-Reformation predecessors and in the Common Worship Ordination Services (approved by the General Synod as recently as 2005), the ordaining bishop is addressed as ‘Reverend Father in God’.²

This classical Anglican understanding of the bishop as a ‘father in God’ can be traced back in the Church Catholic to the teaching of St Ignatius of Antioch at the very beginning of the second century. According to St Ignatius, the bishop is the representative and image of the divine Father – a ‘type of the Father’ (To the Trallians, 3). Thus, his fatherhood is related to the fatherhood of God – the Father from whom, according to the Letter to the Ephesians, ‘every fatherhood in heaven and on earth is named’ (Ephesians 3.14–15).³

One of the many issues posed by the ordination of women to the episcopate, therefore, is that of whether a woman can be a father in God – or any sort of father. Are fathers and mothers interchangeable? Is fatherhood no different from motherhood? Is the fact that Christ taught us to call God our Father, rather than our Mother, of no significance? These are just some of the questions that the present publication seeks to address in providing an account of the theological reasons why Anglo-Catholics are unable to receive the ministry of women ordained to the episcopate.

Reception

Providing such an account honours the third of the ‘five guiding principles’ which underpin the House of Bishops’ Declaration on the Ministry of Bishops and Priests, which states:

The Church of England acknowledges that its own clear decision on ministry and gender is set within a broader process of discernment within the Anglican Communion and the whole Church of God.⁴

This echoes The Episcopal Ministry Act of Synod 1993, which spoke of a process of ‘discernment in the wider Church of the rightness or otherwise of the Church of England’s decision to ordain women to the priesthood’. The theological term for such a process of discernment is ‘reception’.⁵ Resolution III.2 of the 1998 Lambeth Conference, in calling upon the churches of the Anglican Communion ‘to uphold the principle of Open Reception as it relates to the ordination of women to the priesthood’, noted that ‘reception is a long and spiritual process’.⁶

There is no reason to believe that the ordination of women to the episcopate in the Church of England will bring to an end debate about the rightness or otherwise of such ordinations. The process of ‘reception’ will continue until there is a consensus for or against, both within the Church of England and within the universal Church. This volume is our contribution to the debate that seems likely to continue for many years to come as part of this ‘process of reception’.

This volume

Forward in Faith is committed to the catholic faith as the Church of England received it, and to proclaiming it afresh in this generation. We uphold catholic order and the catholic doctrine of the sacraments, and in particular the threefold ministry in historic succession which the Church of England inherited. We long for the visible unity of Christ’s Church, and especially for communion between the Church of England and the rest of the Western Church. It is for these reasons that we are unable in conscience to accept the ordination of women to the priesthood and episcopate.

This book offers not only to our own members but also to the Church of England as a whole and to the wider Church a definitive account of the theological reasons why we do not believe that women can be bishops and fathers in God. We hope that its publication will encourage those who have not considered the theological issues before to think through them, and those whose reflection on them lies in the past to think through them afresh.

The book begins, in Part One, with three new essays, by Martin Warner, Emma Forward and Colin Podmore. At the heart of Part Two is the section of the 2004 Rochester Report Women Bishops in the Church of England? which summarizes catholic arguments against the ordination of women to the episcopate. It is prefaced with an address in which Bishop Geoffrey Rowell presented it to the General Synod, and Forward in Faith’s submission to the Rochester Commission is appended. Part Three consists of the theological report from Consecrated Women?, the report of Forward in Faith’s shadow working party, established at the suggestion of the then Archbishop of Canterbury, which was also published in 2004, together with papers submitted to the working party.⁷ It is remarkable that, a decade after it was published, only three sentences in this 100-page report require editorial qualification. The book concludes, in Part Four, with Cardinal Walter Kasper’s important 2006 address to the bishops of the Church of England, ‘The Mission of Bishops in the Mystery of the Church’.

Notes

1 Canons of the Church of England, Canon A 5.

2 The retention of the relational term ‘Father’ was a deliberate decision of the Liturgical Commission and the synodical Revision Committee. See the Commentary by the Liturgical Commission in Common Worship: Ordination Services. Study Edition (London: Church House Publishing, 2007), p. 125. Cf. Ordination Services: Report of the Revision Committee (GS 1535Y) (London: General Synod, 2005), p. 14.

3 Patria is normally translated as ‘family’ here, but the NRSV notes that ‘fatherhood’ is the actual meaning of the Greek word, while the ESV gives ‘fatherhood’ as an alternative translation. Cf. p. 194 below.

4 House of Bishops’ Declaration on the Ministry of Bishops and Priests, para. 5.

5 For further reading, see Being in Communion (GS Misc 418) (London: General Synod, 1993); P. Avis (ed.), Seeking the Truth of Change in the Church: Reception, Communion and the Ordination of Women (London: T & T Clark, 2004); R. T. Greenacre (ed. C. J. Podmore), Part of the One Church? The Ordination of Women and Anglican Identity (Norwich: Canterbury Press, 2015).

6 The Official Report of the Lambeth Conference 1998 (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Morehouse, 1999), p. 394.

7 J. Baker (ed.), Consecrated Women? A Contribution to the Women Bishops Debate (Norwich: Canterbury Press, 2004).

Part One: Prospect and Retrospect (2015)

In Love and Charity with your Neighbour

Martin Warner

Feminism in a Post-Feminist Age

Emma Forward

Catholic Contributions to the Theological Debate, 2004–06

Colin Podmore

In Love and Charity with your Neighbour

MARTIN WARNER

Introduction: Living in historic times

Following the decision by the Church of England to ordain women to the episcopate, York Minster witnessed within the span of eight days across January and February 2015 the episcopal ordination and consecration of Libby Lane as Bishop of Stockport and of Philip North, a traditionalist catholic, as Bishop of Burnley. Both were present at both occasions, for which the Minster was full to capacity. This merging of two events, out of conflict and into a single timespan, was an important landmark statement, thoughtfully and skilfully shaped by John Sentamu, Archbishop of York, in order to illustrate what it means to live in love and charity, keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus.

Women will now enter the College and House of Bishops (the ‘College’ refers to all diocesan and suffragan bishops; most suffragans are not members of the synodical House), with considerable support from across the Church of England. They face the same challenges as their male colleagues when it comes to exercising jurisdiction within a household of faith that is committed to living under the same roof but with particular dispensations in its sacramental life. Memorable though the events in York Minster were, they do not, sadly, guarantee a future free from clamour.

Trust demands shape and depth in order to be the seedbed in which love and charity grow and bear fruit. It is with the intention of setting some clear and spacious boundaries that the House of Bishops has made a formal Declaration on the Ministry of Bishops and Priests. This Declaration is a bit like the Declarations made in America in 1776 and in France in 1789. They stated more than an opinion: they were the pledge of a way to live. A Declaration by the House of Bishops is that sort of pledge. It is an instrument that cannot be changed without wider reference to the Church of England. It is a self-binding document that outlines how bishops will exercise their ministry in the task of building trust in God and in each other as we enter this new era of our life.

At the heart of the Declaration is the statement of five guiding principles. The five principles are:

Now that legislation has been passed to enable women to become bishops the Church of England is fully and unequivocally committed to all orders of ministry being open equally to all, without reference to gender, and holds that those whom it has duly ordained and appointed to office are the true and lawful holders of the office which they occupy and thus deserve due respect and canonical obedience;

Anyone who ministers within the Church of England must be prepared to acknowledge that the Church of England has reached a clear decision on the matter;

Since it continues to share the historic episcopate with other Churches, including the Roman Catholic Church, the Orthodox Church and those provinces of the Anglican Communion which continue to ordain only men as priests or bishops, the Church of England acknowledges that its own clear decision on ministry and gender is set within a broader process of discernment within the Anglican Communion and the whole Church of God;

Since those within the Church of England who, on grounds of theological conviction, are unable to receive the ministry of women bishops or priests continue to be within the spectrum of teaching and tradition of the Anglican Communion, [and] the Church of England remains committed to enabling them to flourish within its life and structures; and

Pastoral and sacramental provision for the minority within the Church of England will be made without specifying a limit of time and in a way that maintains the highest possible degree of communion and contributes to mutual flourishing across the whole Church of England.⁸

These principles do not have the status of the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion or of the Catechism, for example. They do, however, act as common signposts that point all of us alike to areas of serious theological conviction and challenge.

In this chapter, I want to explore some of the implications of these principles for traditionalist catholics and how we use them to shape our future life and contribution within the Church of England. Every member of the traditionalist constituency has a part to play in living to the full our discipleship within this household of faith.

As Christians we respond to the question of gender and ordination at a variety of levels: spiritual, doctrinal, ecclesiological, cultural. The issue of gender is not, therefore, simply one of ecclesiastical, General Synod politics: it is about holy housekeeping for here and hereafter. It touches on the sacramental life that fundamentally shapes and nourishes our character as Christians. It determines how we live in charity within this household of faith, the extent of our cheerfulness at being here, relating to Christians with whom we suffer the pain of separation, and the tough stuff of intentional evangelism and service to the world that we have to address with renewed urgency