By David Banting
Bad practice needs attention, but does not in itself warrant doing away with the practice. In the spare, elegant precision of Latin, the principle is Abusus non tollit usum. Good debate tries to see the other side of an argument and engage with it at its best and avoid elements of ‘crooked thinking’ such as confusing ‘all’ and ‘some’ or using emotive language. We in the Church also do well to learn to argue well, let alone disagree well.
The Five Guiding Principles (5GP) and the commitment to Mutual Flourishing were the hard-won agreement that laid the foundation for the Women Bishops Settlement in 2014/15. After a ‘series of wretchedly ill- tempered debates’ in the years 2005-12, a new mood emerged in General Synod of a willingness to trust and to work together.
Conservatives, Catholics and Evangelicals alike, accepted that the provisions and promises made for their theological integrity and Biblical convictions were adequate and would be upheld for “as long as they were necessary”. Catholics were looking for “sacramental assurance” and Evangelicals for “oversight assurance”, and both believed that they would be respected and honoured as “loyal Anglicans” (Lambeth Conference 1998) operating “within the spectrum of Anglican teaching”. Importantly, conservatives accepted that the mind of the Church was to embrace the decision and development of women in all three orders of ministry.
However, after ten years of living with this settlement, a concerted campaign to abolish the 5GP and ask the Church to break its promises has been launched by Women and the Church (WATCH). After the hard work of striving to “win the peace” (and there are plenty of good examples to more than match the exceptions), it has become clear that not all are committed to Mutual Flourishing.
The minorities created by the decision find they again have to explain and even defend their conscience and integrity. Despite being lumbered with the negative description of being “those who cannot accept the priestly or episcopal ministry of women”, and in both 2014/15 and again in 2022/23 not being given the opportunity to describe their position positively, conservative Evangelicals will continue to offer themselves and their ministry to the Church. This author humbly offers an apology for ways or times when we have failed to give due respect or acceptance (in the spirit of Romans 15.7), but wants to in quiet confidence maintain the integrity, coherence and good spirit of the complementarian understanding and exercise of ministry.
Complementarians basically look for mutual respect for their “equal and different” position – a distinctive understanding of how the ministry of men and women, as in marriage, works out in a gloriously complementary partnership of equals. Their roles and vocations are equal and different, not identical and interchangeable. Vive la difference! Vive la compagnie.
In the debates over ordination and consecration, conservative evangelicals were initially known as ‘headship evangelicals’. The language of headship is explicitly there in marriage (1 Corinthians 11.3, Ephesians 5.23, also 1 Peter 3.1 & 5-7) and implicitly paralleled in the household of faith (1 Timothy 3.4-5, Titus 2.2-6), but always defined, shaped and controlled by the example and under the authority of Christ the Head of the Church.
The debates suggested that oversight was a better focus than headship for ministry in the Church, and complementarian seemed a better way to describe the theology. However, the association between the human family and family of the Church is significant for complementarians in their understanding of Biblical obedience. Among the OT prophets the marriage relationship often supplies the language for God’s relationship with his people, which is taken up by Jesus in the gospels and later by the apostles. The Bible ends with the marriage feast of the Lamb and the Church, the Bride. Complementarians conclude that nothing should be done in the household of faith that would confuse the pattern of marriage and family in the home.
So they understand that it is Biblically appropriate for oversight in the Church to be in the hands of a man (in Anglican polity, that is incumbency in the local church and episcopacy in the wider Church), while ministry teams should appropriately express a complementary and visible partnership between men and women.
The debates that concluded in 1992 (presbyteral ordination) and2014(episcopalconsecration) helped conservative Evangelicals to clarify and ‘warm up’ their understanding and presentation of their convictions. For example, the process highlighted that their concern was not primarily focused on ordination, but on appropriate oversight.
The original Statement of Reform in 1993 did not mention ordination, only headship or oversight. It was Michael Baughen, the then Bishop of Chester, who persuaded enough Evangelicals in 1992 that the line for the principle of ‘male headship’ was not the priesthood, but the episcopate.
So the 1992 conclusion focused on Catholic conscience and due provision, while evangelical concerns became more prominent in the 2014 settlement. Hence, the recognition in the House of Bishops’ Declaration in 2014 (GS Misc 1076, para 30) that “the presence in the College of Bishops of at least one (sic!) Bishop of complementarian theological convictions, to represent, advocate and teach the position, was required to maintain the necessary level of trust”. That was the seedbed for the appointment of Rod Thomas as the Bishop of Maidstone (2015-22) and his successor Rob Munro as the Bishop of Ebbsfleet in 2023. By extension they share oversight of currently 153 Resolution Parishes and about 100 more clergy personally across the whole country (as well as being invited to be Assistant Bishops in already 15 dioceses) – a constituency that the Archbishop recognised was comparable to a medium-sized diocese, and a workload that the Dioceses Commission in its reviews of 2018 and 2022 flagged up as a cause for serious concern.
Bishop Rod Thomas’ seven years were both pioneering (his five-year Review in 2020 is still available) and warmly commended in a Survey conducted formally at the Archbishop’s request among both the College of Bishops and the ‘Maidstone constituency’. This survey, co-ordinated by the Bishop at Lambeth Emma Ineson, initiated the Appointment Process for the succession of the SeeofMaidstone(whichironically became Ebbsfleet). That process reviewed the Role Description and Person Specification, and commissioned a new independent Theological Paper on the foundation, need and value of this post. The post was duly reviewed and reaffirmed to be important and strategic in the Church, and Bishop Rob Munro has been gratefully received to embody and advocate for the continuing recognition, respect and provision for complementarians.
In 2018 Resolution Parishes averaged just over 200 on their Electoral Rolls and were certainly recognised as ‘pulling their weight’ in the Church’s mission, notably in evangelical work among children and young people. They were prepared to live with the commitment to Mutual Flourishing and serve in the structures of the Church where invited. They want the Women Bishops Settlement to work for all as intended.
That is why in early 2017 there was dismay among conservative Evangelicals when the traditional Catholic Philip North was appointed to the See of Sheffield only to feel he had to withdraw his acceptance of the nomination (as he had in 2012 from the Suffragan See of Whitby), because there was such an outcry against his theological position, despite the testimony of the women clergy of Burnley (where he was Bishop) to their appreciation of his care and arrangements for them. From 2023 he has been Diocesan Bishop of Blackburn, but again that appointment has recently been challenged. Both reviews subsequently not only ‘cleared’ Bishop North’s suitability but also vindicated the due process of the appointment.
In over 30 years since 1992 there has been only one complementarian Bishop appointed and that was to a Suffragan See in Chichester diocese and only one complementarian Archdeacon. Bishops Rod and Rob are Suffragans to Canterbury and counted as PEVs. It is highly unlikely that a complementarian will ever be appointed to become a Diocesan Bishop.
By contrast between 25 per cent and 35 per cent of all priests and Bishops are women, and the numbers are growing. The Standing Commission for the 5GP has recently been tasked by the HoB to review the Principles and especially their outworking, not just for conservatives who experience a glass ceiling, but for the many women in ministry who experience forms of discrimination. The leading conservative network Church Society commends prayer for all to navigate discussions “in a way that leads to flourishing for complementarians as well as women”.
Complementarian Evangelicals do not particularly seek preferment, and are certainly not spoiling for a fight. They wish to get on with the mission of the Church “to win the nation for Christ”, largely at the coalface of the local parish, and as a means to this end to pioneer, establish and build healthy local churches. They will find it hard to see why an outright challenge to revoke the 5GP is timely, strategic or desirable at this time.
David Banting was Vicar of St Peter’s Harold Wood 1998-2018.
