Fiona Gibson on the Women Bishops debate

Many of you will remember Fiona Gibson as an extremely capable Oakhill placement student at St James' a couple of years ago. Now serving a curacy in Bedford, she kindly agreed to let me post her comments about the Women Bishop's debate from her facebook page on this blog.

Over to Fiona...

Right, I wasn't planning to post anything on the women bishops vote yesterday; lots of ink (real and virtual) has already been spilled on it already. But since some of you have very thoughtfully asked me what I think/feel, I'll attempt to draw some thoughts together. It'll be a long post - I don't mind if you can't face reading it all! But if you can, here goes:

1. People yesterday weren't all necessarily voting against women bishops per se. They were voting against this particular way of bringing in women bishops. It didn't give strong enough protection for those who, in all conscience as a matter of faith, can't accept that women can/should be bishops. Up to now the CofE has been a church of 'two integrities' where we recognise it's possible to hold with integrity, on Biblical grounds, (hence the term 'two integrities') both the view that women should exercise public ministry and leadership in the church, and that they should not. The fear was that the wording of this particular motion didn't preserve that any more: it was creating a church of 'one integrity', and imposing that. That doesn't feel like a godly way of doing things.

2. Several of those who voted against yesterday's measure are in fact in favour of women bishops and will vote in favour when a different piece of legislation, which honours and safeguards those who hold the opposite view, can be debated. Several of those who are not in favour of women bishops will likewise vote in favour when their very real and deeply held concerns have been addressed. As one website put it, the debate is not now over whether we have women bishops in the CofE, but how we have them. Those of us in favour of women bishops, who have come to that view on Biblical grounds, want to have them in a way that honours those on both sides, builds up the church, and brings glory to God.

3. Those who cannot in conscience accept women bishops are not sexist or misogynist. For them it's a matter of what the Bible teaches about the roles of men and women in public ministry. Men and women are 100% equal before God - equally loved, equally valued, equally saved by grace, by the same faith in the same Lord Jesus. But men and women have different (complementary) roles within the church. This is no more demeaning to women than it is demeaning to men to say they can't give birth. Men and women have different but equally needed and valued roles to play. (My complementarian brothers and sisters, I hope I've given a good account of your view? If not, I apologise).

4. I would rather take even longer than the 12 years this has already been talked about to make sure we get it right. I acknowledge that for some gifted and godly women this will mean they will be too near to retirement age by the time the measure is passed (assuming it is) to be made a bishop. That is sad, and I am sure that the church is the poorer in many ways for them not exercising that ministry. But something this big is worth taking our time over. In God's timing, another 5 years really isn't a long time.

5. We actually now have a chance to do something very exciting. We can show grace and love to one another in the wake of this result, acknowledging that real and deep hurt will be being felt by many women at the moment. We can commit to work and pray together to find a way in which we can have women bishops, which honours all and glorifies God. We can show that it is possible to disagree fundamentally on an issue, but love and honour one another deeply at the same time. We can all commit to offering the best possible solution, which gives the most we can, rather than the least we can grudgingly get away with. We can demonstrate that, in the body of Christ, we care as much about the manner of how we do things as whether we do them. And, as I've written on someone else's wall, we can continue to contend together for the sake of the gospel whatever our view of women's roles in public ministry.

Here endeth the sermon!

Rev'd Fiona Gibson, 22 Nov 2012