photo © 2007 Southbanksteve | more info (via: Wylio)I am absolutely furious this morning with Rowan Williams and with the Church of England. I don't trust myself right now to write anything about the power abuses and the blatant injustices within the organisation I work for. (Read Andrew Brown). So I just want to concentrate on the phrase about bishops being the "focus for unity"
Apparently a Bishop can only be appointed if they can be a “focus of unity” in the diocese. But how many objectors does it take to stop a bishop? And who decides? Are there any priests who could carry the whole of a diocese with them before appointment? And suppose a bishop loses the support of his diocese – should he then resign? (I can’t possibly imagine Rowan thinks that for one moment, not at present!)
“Focus for unity” may appear to be a reasonable phrase, but in fact it is meaningless; it allows the blocking of anyone as a bishop because someone doesn’t like the look of them, with no definition of who is and isn’t acceptable. All rather like the Anglican Covenant, the offence is in upsetting someone else, not in any objective and predefined behaviour.
Given that “offence” is the basis of the blocking, then perhaps we will see no more Conservative Evangelical or Anglo Catholic bishops. We can certainly be assured that if the Women Bishops legislation gets through General Synod then it will be utterly useless - because surely there will be one parish in each diocese who would claim that a woman would not be a "focus for unity".
Or perhaps we can be sensible and decide that “focus of unity” is not a job description for the bishop, but for the diocese; that it is incumbent upon all of us in a diocese to gather round and support our bishops, which doesn’t mean unthinking obedience, whether we agree with them or not.
Of all the rotten excuses for discrimination that I have heard this is by far the worst. It guarantees the status quo and the grounds for discriminating is "someone doesn't like your face".
Jesus is our "focus for unity", not the bishops! No wonder we are suffering power abuses if the Bishops have decided to put themselves in the place of God.
14 comments:
What a sad commentary on the state of the preferment system that it can descend to such measures to actively pursue a discriminatory policy, which has caused candidates like Jeffrey John and Nick Holtom from being appointed.
It's time we adopted the system in use in USEC of elections for Bishops, whether suffragan or diocesan.
Now, Lesley, don't hold back: tell us what you really think.
Actually, reading Thinking Anglicans and Pluralist this morning brought back to me some words spoken by my bishop, who said (and I do hope I'm recalling his words correctly), "Bishops can't actually DO anything. They have no real power to get things done and can only achieve lasting results by persuasion. Except in one way; they can STOP things."
Brilliant piece on the bishops - as you say, Jesus is the only one capable of being a 'focus for unity', which are just weasel words in the context the CofE hierarchy apparently use them. Colin Slee's last word has really triggered a tsunami reaction among Anglicans worldwide - with good reason. Drop the Covenant, Roll on the appointment of women bishops and hey, while you are about it, recognise the ministry of the laity like the Episcopalians!
Laura Sykes
These are the facts as I see them and experience them and hear about from others
Our church is being run, too often, by a network of people who are either pompus and believe thier own hype or are too scared of their reputation to stand up and do good. the ameturishness and bullying that goes on in so many diocese is appaling and it is no surprise that it happens at the top! This will be tollerated as long as secrecy continues (Confidentiality agreements to suppress scandal) and the people in the pew refuse to think the unthinkable.
It is essential to the work of the church that we stand alongside people like Johns who are determined for the truth to come out. Bullies do not thrive in the open unless we allow them to. Wake up!
Blimey, what a mess. Again.
The situation, rather than your blog piece that is.
If events occurred in the manner the dear late Dean describes then that is truly a disgrace, but 2 things occur to me:
1- We need to be careful about accepting one source's reflections on a meeting as a completely accurate report (& that goes for ++R's recollection of events too of course). As I know from experience, people experience the same events in very different ways sometimes, and come away with very different impressions of events.
2- "Focus of unity" has always been part of the job description, imperfect as that focus will always be. But there are always going to be particular 'red rag' issues that will really mess up unity at a particular time in the life of the church, and homosexuality is currently one of them.
I hate the fact that that is the case. I would love to see gay men and women valued equally by the church in the way that I'm sure God does. But we're being blind to the facts if we think that appointing a gay man as bishop (even a man as gifted and talented as I know JJ to be) is not going to cause serious rifts (far beyond those caused by other issues) when it comes to unity at the moment. Soon may that time come to an end, but we ain't there yet when it comes to winning over hearts and minds to accept homosexuality.
The problem is "Focus of Unity" can be horribly abused. Best to ditch it methinks...
rev org
and if those who would suppport gay people if only it was a little easier to do so, less likely to cause arguments and more likely to be successful.... if they just got up and did it, they'd stop being the silent majority that actually allows the status quo to continue.
I'm getting seriously tired of all this liberal hand-wringing. Right-on opinions without the courage the back them up is worse than useless.
Erika
For me (and I can only speak for me, not being a member of the house of bishops) I try to be as much of a focus of unity as possible of course, because who wants to go around stirring up strife? However, I have to watch within myself the gnawing desire to for peace at any price, real or pretended. If I want to be a focus of unity I have to be accountable to the people I am trying to unite (who? how?), including those who are on the margins, left and right. This cuts every way, most painfully. As some commenters have helpfully pointed out all of us who serve in episcopal ministry have to cope with our own purple haze.
Perhaps "focus for unity" is a functional emergent output from anyone's ministry, that has to emerge from the quality of our relationships with the people around us, rather than something any of us can impose by diktat from the Peacock Throne.
Well, yes, Lesley, in view of the news in the scoop that Andrew Brown of the Guardian brought out, well, yes. I have to agree with you.
By the way, for Bishop Alan Wilson: I know well the gnawing feeling that one should sacrifice tons for unity (hey, you would be surprised how much this in my own world involves and affects me in real problems, but I assure you, it does); the Germans have a very useful word for this:
Harmoniebedarf
Where it's prnounced "harmony-be-darf", where 'harmony' is pronounced in the English way, 'be' as in 'bed', the 'a' in 'darf' as in 'carp'. Composed of two German words, "Harmonie" obviously meaning the English word "harmony" as in consensus agreement, and "bedarf" here as in "need".
Harmoniebedarf can grow to become an all-consuming anxious need.
Mmmm... re-reading my post it is a bit of a rant!!!
I watched a film last night - 'Made In Dagenham' - it was about 187 women machinists who worked for Ford in the late 1960s and turned a discriminatory organisation into one that offered equality. The whole time I watched it my heart bled for the Church of England - it isn't just women we discriminate against - it is gay people and divorced people and probably people of colour and people from working classes. And the way we do it is so sly - we call sexism 'legitimate theological difference', we discriminate against gay people or people with divorced wives by saying they have to be 'the focus for unity'.
And then we dress it all up and say we are obeying Christ's call for us to be one, therefore we mustn't upset anyone. It is as if, as an organisation, we are morbidly codependent.
Alan,
Isn't the real problem that the systematic exclusion of one group of people for the sake of unity is a contradiction in itself?
A genuine attempt to unite would be precisely the opposite and would, as you say, include people at the margins of left and right.
Thanks, Tim for German. The things is, you can only be a source of unity with someone you connect with. (Disconnection = disunity) If you treat any group of people as though they were in themselves the problem, you disconnect radically from them. What kind of focus for what sort of unity is a homophobic bishop (if such a thing has ever exsted) with gay people? This all leads to the fatal result that the only way you can have unity with one group is to treat some other group as subhuman or nonexistent. The result is not unity but anarchy and a situaton where the bullies seem unstoppable. They never wanted unity in the first place. the problem is similar in form to the old political chestnut about how you deal with fascists in a democracy.
Opps, our comments crossed in the ether, Erika! yes I agree entirely, for the reason you give.
http://www.future-shape-of-church.org/?e=13
"Lesley rightly points out that the whole idea of Focus of Unity is problematic. Theologically the Church of England is far too diverse, as are expectations of personality and character. The candidate from the working background, been in a few nasty fights, said the wrong thing in public, mishandled spiritual experiences, spoken the words of satan, with strange marital arrangements and a confused theology of legalism just won’t do any more.
A pity he was the first Pope. Sancte Petre Ora pro nobis."
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