'Women Bishops ’, or the lack of them, have been much discussed in both Ireland and England of late. Many in the Church of Ireland had expected the usual “translation” to Meath and Kildare in January, which would have left an episcopal vacancy that could have given us our first woman bishop and offered an example to our English neighbours. So we lead this issue with a reflection on women’s leadership in the church by Bishop John Neill, who led the Lambeth ’88 debate in this area.
Human sexuality remains a crucial issue. With further General Synod debate on the agenda for May, it cannot be ignored, however much ink it has absorbed already. Having considered it from three different angles in our last issue, we now offer Sandra Pragnell’s disciplined consideration of the key biblical texts in the light of 21st century biological and sociological understandings. Debates in this area have tended to generate more heat than light, so Rob Clements’ plea that we consider the truth of our emotions and our bodily existence as well as “pure reason” is a timely one.
The variety of our ideas about God and how to understand his Word for us today is a challenge to our unity in Christ and gospel love for one another. As James Dunn pointed out long ago, there is both unity and diversity within the New Testament. Jean Mayland in her article “After the Covenant” urges that we make room for diversity according to culture, customs and convictions within our unity as Anglican churches.
In the area of care and conduct of clergy, Maurice Elliott and Maria Jansson offer much matter for reflection – these areas also being on the agenda for May’s General Synod. And opportunely, in view of recent conflict in Belfast, our Book Review section opens with a consideration of Johnston McMaster’s recent title “Overcoming Violence”.
Contents
Women and leadership in ministry in the Church of Ireland
Some years ago during the Eucharist in a typical suburban parish in Manchester, a female churchwarden completing her year in office received a presentation. To my amazement she was described as having achieved something unique – she had actually been “the first female churchwarden in peacetime!” Following the debacle last year in the Church of England culminating in the failure to open the episcopate to women, one cannot but speculate whether there is a significant difference between our two islands in attitudes in general towards women in leadership. To enquire a little further into this issue may point to some key issues that have to be taken into account in considering the scope for, and the development of, female leadership in the church.
‘Those texts’ and the sanctity of life: a contribution to the human sexuality debate
The gospel and practice of Jesus is radically inclusive. In his life and teaching he models the acceptance and affirmation of outcasts. He says nothing about homosexuality. Yet the Church’s attitude to homosexuality, in its traditional understanding, appears exclusive and homophobic, contrary to the kingdom values we profess to uphold. Christian gay men and lesbians have been described as “exiles: banished from the family, from the church, and from creation.”
Finding truth in the emotions: class, tradition, and human sexuality
My wife recently accused me of being emotionally repressed. When I protested she asked me what emotion I was currently experiencing. I told her that our conversation had made me feel “funny”. “Funny” she informed me, is not an emotion. Of course she’s correct, “funny” is not an emotion. Her cutting but generously intended observation forced me to consider my own relationship with the emotional or affective sphere. Our daughter is currently being introduced to an emotions chart. When I was small the only emotions I articulated were “happy”, “sad”, and possibly “hungry” (which I’ve also been informed isn’t an emotion).
In their survey of the history of personal identity, The Rise and Fall of Soul and Self, Raymond Martin and John Barresi are surprisingly gloomy in their assessment of certain aspects of philosophical engagement with the subject. In one sense the notion of “self” represents for them an attempt on the part of humanity to elevate itself above the rest of the natural world. That said, they do recognise the crucial role played by the Christian tradition in shaping much of what can only be properly understood as an “expression of concern with the self and its ability to endure”. In consequence, whilst it is implicit that such a sense of “self” can often lapse into selfishness and an unhealthy level of introspection, it is affirmed that only on the basis of such self-hood do human beings develop a capacity to relate, a propensity to love, an ability to communicate or even a desire to worship.
Moral identity develops when what is perceived as a “good” determines the details of one’s life and commitments. However, more is required of us than personal ethics, notions of the good need to be translated into organisational as well as personal behaviour. Paul Ricoeur wrote that the good life is one lived “with and for others in just institutions”. His definition spans the spectrum between personal goodness and institutional engagement. If faith is limited to personal piety and integrity and remains detached from the broader ethical questions of the institutions to which we belong, it will recede into that privatised domesticated realm of societal irrelevance. We will then have little to say in a society that is experiencing an almost cathartic crisis of trust in organisational behaviour.
After the covenant – can we get on with being Anglicans?
Like Topsy, the Anglican Communion “just growed”. The history of what came to be known as Anglicanism began with Henry V111 who broke with the Church of Rome in the 1530s. Although he had made the break and named himself as “supreme head on earth” of the Church in England, he resisted associating the English church with the continental Protestant Reformation. It remained Catholic in worship and ritual. When his son Edward VI came to the throne he wished the Church to become more Protestant. Two new Prayer Books were prepared by Thomas Cranmer and his committee - those of 1549 and 1552. These gradually moved to a more protestant type of worship especially for the Holy Communion.
“If stones could speake
Then London’s prayse should sounde
Who built this Church
And cittie from the ground.”
The words of inscription on the foundation stone of St Columb’s Cathedral in Derry resonate with almost 400 years of history of the city’s oldest building. It is the first church of its kind built after the Reformation and has the rare distinction of having been dedicated both as a cathedral and as a parish church, on the same day in 1634, the building work having taken place between 1628 and 1633.
