The Women Bishops Debate: Debunking a few myths

We’re hearing a lot of pretty strong claims made about the whole women-bishop-debate in the Church of England.

The secular media reports, and the comments from the bishops, are overwhelmingly annoyed that the measure to admit women to the episcopate failed—unsurprisingly, since both the media and the bishops were strongly in favour. Views of those who oppose women bishops tend to be buried right at the bottom of articles—this a pretty representative one. To read the articles and the weight given to the two side’s views, you could quite easily forget that over a third of the “normal” members of the CofE’s General Synod opposed the measure.

With so much one-sided bombardment masquerading as unbiased reportage or balanced reflection, it’s worth digging a little deeper into the arguments being used. One of the favourite tactics (which we’re all prone to) is to present one’s own views as immutable, obvious truths; and then mis-represent the other side’s views, preferably adding a pejorative description such as “old-fashioned” or “obscure” (or, if all else fails, “sexist” or “bigoted”).

A second is more subtle. It is to imply something about the other side by comparative omission. This looks like this: “Let’s compare my family’s Christmas with your family’s Christmas. In my family’s house, Christmas is fun and everyone is happy.” Subtext: in your family’s house, Christmas is boring and everyone’s miserable.

So, here are a few myths doing the rounds that could do with being debunked:

• Women have much to offer the church in ministry, so you must support women bishops.

This is implication by comparative omission: “We think women can do ministry, our subtext is that you don’t”. Go to any conservative evangelical church and you’ll find godly women doing all sorts of wonderful ministry, in line with their biblical beliefs about male headship in the church.

• When you experience women ministering, then you change your mind about women bishops.

This may be true for people whose objections are experiential (“I just can’t imagine receiving bread and wine from a woman”). But for those whose objections are theological, experience does not change truth. If as a Christian I don’t feel God loves me, it doesn’t change the wonderful reality that He does (1 John 4 v 9-11). This logic is like someone saying: “I disagreed with radical Islam until I went to a funeral presided over by a fundamentalist imam who was a lovely, softly-spoken, polite chap. So I’ve become a radical Muslim”.

• If men and women are equal in God's sight, they must be allowed to do the same things.

If this is true, then men and women aren’t equal in God’s sight, since He made women able to become pregnant and give birth, and men not. God does not equate value with role. And people don't really equates value with role either. No one thinks an unemployed person’s life is worth less than a doctor’s, simply because one has a “more important” function in society. In fact, the Bible teaches what deep down we know to be true: men and women are made in God’s image, equal in value (Genesis 1 v 27), and different in roles in some areas of life (eg: Ephesians 5 v 25-28).

• If women are against women bishops, they are being dominated by men.

Essentially, the point seems to be: you must be a bit of a mousy, pathetic kind of woman if you don’t support your own gender’s “right” to the episcopate. It’s actually quite offensive. Again, go to any conservative evangelical church, speak to women there, and then see if they are pathetic, mousy, never-say-boo-to-anyone kind of women.

• Male headship is an obscure concept.

So, in wider society, is the Trinity, atonement, and judgment day. As, for that matter, is God.

• Women did all the jobs men did in the early Church, but then in the first century they were banned because society was sexist.

You’ll find this argument here. But how do we know what the early church did? Through the letters of the apostles to that church. And in those letters we find that some roles are for men (including the authority over a church—1 Timothy 2 v 12), and others for women (including giving birth—1 Timothy 2 v 15).

• We must reflect the concerns of the society we serve.

The Bible says this is a fallen world, which has rejected God and so is based on futile thinking (Romans 1 v 21). Why would a society’s current opinions be a good basis for deciding how to structure God’s church?

• This will hamper the Church's mission to Britain.

The church’s mission is to go and make disciples, teaching them to obey everything the Lord Jesus has commanded in Scripture (Matthew 28 v 18-20). If we are convinced that Scripture teaches that women are equal in value but different in role, and not created to have the head role in marriage or the church, then that’s a command of the Lord Jesus, to be obeyed whether it’s popular and comprehensible or not.

In fact, the statistics (by the way, here's an interesting Daily Telegraph article which quotes Tim’s analysis) show that in the CofE, the growing congregations are the conservative evangelical ones; the shrinking ones are the liberal ones. It would appear that living under the authority of Scripture when it comes to male headship has not adversely affected the gospel mission of gospel churches. It’s worth remembering this, too, whenever we’re told that the “vast majority” of people in the pews are strongly in favour of women bishops.

• Opposition to women bishops is divisive.

If you have a united status quo, and someone decides to change it, they are being divisive. People who say “Actually, we quite like the status quo, can we keep it the same?” are not being divisive. That’s not to say the status quo must never change; but it’s those who want to change it at the price of division who bear the responsibility to justify the division, not those who wish to maintain it.

None of this is to say that there are not people on both sides of the debate who are seeking honestly and humbly to apply God’s all-sufficient word in the Bible to the Church of England in 2012. It's not the case that if you support women bishops, you can’t be a Christian.

But it is striking how little the Bible is quoted, carefully and in context, by supporters of women bishops—see, for instance, this live blog of the speeches made in support and opposition in General Synod. It’s a caricature, but a pretty accurate one, to say that one side wants to allow God’s word to shape the church as it proclaims repentance to society; the other wants to allow society to shape the church as it proclaims repentance to God.

Just a thought ... Here’s one motion for General Synod which would keep the debate on track: no one is allowed to speak if they don’t begin with “The Bible says…” and don’t include the word “but” in the same sentence. There’d still be a debate—but it would be a biblical one, not an increasingly myth-based one.

(Posted by Phil Grout)