The Day after THAT Day

Courtesy of ENS

Before I say anything, a point of clarification - I am in favour of women being consecrated as bishops. Being both male and Anglo catholic are fearful things to be at the moment.

Very bright and insightful people have already written many good and worthy words in the light of the failure of the General Synod to pass the draft legislation that would have paved the way for the consecration of women as bishops. It passed through in the Houses of clergy and bishops, but fell in the House of laity. It is also fair to say that some foolish and baseless words have also been written too that would suggest that somehow God has failed and that the Church of England is now utterly dead. The writers of those words do not know God, I would suggest. 

I am one who feels sadness that this process didn't conclude as it ought. However, it didn't happen as many might have hoped (me included), and we are now left with some choices. Do we crumble as a church? Do we become unbalanced in the understandable reaction of regarding all women in ministry as living martyrs? Yesterday ended and today's day broke. My church is still standing stone on stone and the living work of God's mission seems, here at least, to have survived the night.

This all feels to me like a vast-scale Bishop's Advisory Panel (selection conference) where laity are either approved or otherwise for training for ordained ministry. Some of the words I have heard are the words I have heard from those who have either 'passed' or 'failed' that process. There is a real sense, which frustrates me in either case, that where the process is  for one's cause that it is of God and blessed by the Spirit. When it fails to back my cause, it is flawed and weak and characteristic of human ineptitude. In the case of BAPs, whole churches full of people might believe a candidate to be called for ordained ministry only to be told by three good folk that they are not. That is earth-shatteringly bad for them as this is for women in ministry today  - but much the same, it seems to me. Do we therefore focus on the the process, or do we re-focus on what God may just have said to us through its outworking?

What saddened me yesterday almost as much as the result was the stream of consciousness, often through Twitter, that poured forth into the public domain. I read some appalling things among the other heartfelt pleas. High in rhetoric and pathos, low on prayer and theology - some things were said that could have turned my resolute heart against the cause. Given that votes were in the hands of brothers and sister Christians, all present in the light of their own consciences, words like "stench" being applied to a possible No, or that if a room full of humans out of many millions make a flawed choice, that an entire church would be seen to be dying. I read more that lacked grace yesterday than I did in a long time. And that before the result. 

This debate in recent years had become tainted by those (some) who would fight for a cause at all costs, few-holds barred. Compromise was non-negotiable, seeking to create an inverse of the present. The present is unacceptable to many, and rightly so, but could we in all conscience create its equal and opposite sibling? These and many questions will now have to be re-imagined, and perhaps even more radically than before. 

For now, we are left with a strange sense of numb, in the light of Sunday's gospel which, perhaps even cruelly, refers to such agony being but 'the birth pangs' (a uniquely female experience). I think it is fair to say that a 'No' was a considerable shock to all sides, which now leaves questions. In the middle of those questions is God, however. Why did the verdict go this way? What would God have the church do before this can pass through? Are there lessons and what are they? We are, I am quite sure, being asked by God to consider embracing diversity and difference, but for all those years of campaign and energy to not have been utterly wasted, the church (and me too as part of it) have now to consider what today must bring now - for it is the tomorrow that none of us expected. 

And I concede that all of this is very easy for me to say (but take heart, women will be bishops long before I will be) ...

Women Bishops, Synod and Froth

I love women, me. I love women because they are sort of like blokes but different and they can do all the same stuff. A woman is like a man, only different. It is also fair to say that I love men too. I love men because they are sort of like ladies but different and can do all the same stuff and that. A man is like a woman, but with fewer glands. It's like we are the same, just a little different, init.

If you hadn't heard, didn't care, or were in the real world, you may not have heard that the famous veteran of the Jerusalem Wars, General Synod, is talking about none less that women bishops. It seems that the church is one of the few places where equality is laughed at like a dirty joke in a vestry, where mammaries are anti-mitre devices and that it is seriously believed, by even some people with more than an 'O' Level in woodcraft, that the God of the whole Universe would give a rat's behind about gender when dishing out shepherd jobs. 

Oh no. God has us to do that for him, for we are flawed and broken. 

Facebook, a whole array of internets and Twitter are now the playground of the "We Should" and "We Shouldn't" brigades. There will be name calling, there will be acrimony, there will be point scoring, there will be more froth than a branch of Starbucks. Perhaps less prayer than any of that, but much wordsmithery. 

Why? Because we are flawed and broken. 

I am in favour of all God's children doing what God calls them to do. I don't think God discriminates on the basis of gender, because such a God as that would surely have to discriminate on the basis of far more important matters like worthiness - and I'd still be peddling my woven wares in a warehouse. There is no argument (except for the words of one human man from a few decades back) against it. 

What I am not in favour of is seeing my beloved church turning into a torch-and-pitchfork organisation in the public glare of the all the world. I shall pray that the debate is dignified, that the Interweb output is steeped in humility on all sides, and that the world will see that Christians can be people of the grace they purport to have received from God. 

... and that anyone with a career-builder's heart in the middle of that debate, from either camp, may be consumed by pestilence. 

Is There Anybody There?

Today is a day when the Yes folk lock swords with the No folk, the Archbishop frets, and the Synod votes on an issue.

I agree with the 'what is the point' camp, and I have sympathy with the 'will it really make any difference camp'. I am firmly in the 'Church of England has dealt with worse than this camp' and the 'I imagine that we will see next year' camp. 

I am looking for the 'So what' camp so I can join.

I feel like I might be the only person in the whole wide world who holds this view. I couldn't care less about the Covenant. I don't see it making the slightest jot of difference to us in the end because when people choose to, they will behave according to their consciences whether a piece of paper is there or not.

I do not regard it as an issue worthy of the froth and hype that it has recieved, and do not regard it as having the potency or valency that both camps ascribe unto it. 

What is worthy of froth and hype is how we as church meet the world where it is. What is worthy of froth and hype is drawing alongside people in greatest need. What is worthy of froth and hype is how we bring life to a Gospel that is suffocating under placards. Dancing like elves around an apparition is not good church. Loving and talking is, not finger-pointing slogan-yelling campaign-propagating issue-bashing. Let's all sit down, calm down, and get on with the business of loving neighbour as selves. 

General Synod or Specific Synod

Before I start, I just wanted to share this picture - it made me smile (it is from a General Synod gathering)

'Jesus was crucified like this, fool - not tazered on the leg!'

~~~~

There is much prattle around at the moment surrounding the General Synod elections that loom ominously like the leaden skies above my bonce at this very moment. Read Les's Bog for an amusing take on the campaigns of those who seek election. As she beat me to it, I thought I would address this seriously, so hold on to your toupees!

During the course of this week, I have met with many people in various pastoral encounters. Some were draawing to the end of their life, some wanted me to baptise their children, others were grieving the loss of a loved one, others will shortly be married or their marriage blessed. Some were children. One was a little boy with ants in his pants but a mind like a razor; another was four and new to school; yet another was having a hard time. I met many people by chance wandering through life as I do - and then I wondered what they would all make of the questions that those who seek election to the General Synod place as key to their electioneering. 

They wouldn't give a toss, me thinks. 

This Synod is rallying polarised interests; do you do or do you don't be-Mitre a woman? do you do or do you don't do Common Tenure (eh?); do you do or do you don't do Anglican Covenant (say what?); do you do or do you don't do gays (excuse me?), and so on. The candidates seem (with a couple of notable exceptions) to be from one of two camps - rabid traditional (in its hijacked form) or rabid evangelical [exc Mark Chapman, my friend, who couldn't do rabid even with shaving foam]. In short - one end or the other in terms of candidate vying on matters to one end or the other.

This is tickety-boo if you are on the inside of the church - and let's face it, in a world of such need for the love of loving people, that really isn't enough of us. Yes, they are all matters that matter and they should all be attended to - but where is the rest of it. I would have been happy if just one candidate stood up and said

'...all I want is to preserve the spiritual interests of little Johnny, old Mrs Miggins and the bloke who comes to church every week but doesn't know why...' 

There seems very little 'general' about Synod these days - rather, we see a rallying cry for specifics. The fact is, those who seek to stand on such bodies are arguably the worst people to be on those bodies [I lean on the word 'arguably' as many good people are on the GS]. We are missing whole days, months and years, and when we have ironed out the fine detail, our churches will be emtpy, our faith the sport of eccentrics, and the country not being ministered to by those called by God to do so (in other words, all the baptised) - but hey, all our redundant priests will know their terms of service, and our empty collapsing churches can have whatever bishop they want.