The Sexism Women Continue to Face in the Church of England

Published originally on ViaMedia.News

At Christmas parties this year, the chances are that someone will start talking to you about the dire national census results for the Church of England, which show that less than 50% of people in the UK now identify as Christians. If, like me, you are ‘in the Church’ in some capacity – perhaps a minister or a Churchwarden – they’ll want your take on it. Why don’t people go to Church anymore? How can people sit down to turkey and all the trimmings without first spending an hour in a chilly ancient building singing ‘O Come all ye faithful’?

These are good questions. And there are many possible answers. On the positive side, perhaps our Christian values have become so embedded in our culture that we no longer need to be stirred up from the pulpit. Or, on the negative side, perhaps we are put off by a Church that can’t seem to make up its mind about gay marriage. Quite often, however, there’ll be one person at the party who starts going on about the female vicar of their local village church and how everything has gone downhill since she arrived.

So I want to give a big shout out for that female vicar, and all the other female vicars and leaders in our Church. Do you have any idea how hard they work, how often they feel unvalued and what they have to put up with?

Usually, the said female vicar has made some kind of change which is, of course, what all new vicars do. Maybe she has asked the Choir to occasionally sing a hymn that was written less than a hundred years ago. Maybe she has introduced an all-age service on the first Sunday of the month – for the two or three children who hardly ever come. She might even have succeeded in growing a congregation of families who now annoy ‘the regulars’ because they don’t sit still and make too much noise. The reason she is doing these things, of course, is a desperate attempt to build a wider congregation than the handful of septuagenarians and octogenarians she has inherited. A male vicar who did this would also be annoying to the indigenous congregation, but a female vicar gets it in the neck because she is a woman. Somehow, it’s simply because she is a woman that she is doing these things. Which is, of course, pure sexism – or unconscious bias, at the very least.

But sexism is still sadly par for the course in the Church of England. In 2014, with great fanfare, women were finally allowed to be bishops as well as priests. But, in almost complete silence, provisions were then made so that parishes who didn’t accept female vicars and bishops could avoid their ministry. And this situation remains.

So our vicar, who simply happens to be a woman, just has to put up with this. If she was ordained since 2014 she will have had to sign on the dotted line to say that she accepts that the Church both recognises her as a priest, but also recognises that some, including her colleagues and maybe even her bishop, don’t recognise she is a priest – and that is how the Church intends things to be indefinitely. This means that there may be a church in the next village where she could not cover a Sunday service because that church’s bishop isn’t confident she can consecrate the sacraments validly. And there may be a church in the nearby town, where she could not lead a service because that parish believes that women should not preach to mixed congregations.

Our woman vicar will be working six days a week, sometimes looking after about six or seven churches and often not being paid a penny. More women are ordained later in life than men and they tend to get directed towards leading small churches or groups of small churches – often without a salary. Men tend to get ordained earlier and end up in paid posts leading bigger churches in more urban environments. One clergy colleague once explained to me why this made sense by saying, ‘Men are generally more dynamic than women and should therefore lead the bigger churches.’ Again, pure sexism.

Earlier this month, Rev Rob Munro was appointed Bishop of Ebbsfleet to provide episcopal ministry to churches who do not accept female vicars and female bishops, although this purpose was cloaked in church jargon so that any ordinary person might have struggled to understand. The Church said that Munro ‘will have a special national ministry to parishes of a complementarian evangelical theology across England… [who] are unable to receive the priestly or episcopal ministry of women,’ which is fairly clear. But Munro, in his interview with The Church Times, simply talked about his ministry being for ‘resolution churches.’ Neither explained what complementarian theology is – the understanding that God created men to lead and women to submit in the Church and in marriage. Even the word ‘complementarian,’ which is now being used to replace what was previously referred to as ‘male headship,’ is misleading because it suggests equal balance and fairness, rather than one sex having authority and control over the other.

Of course, neither I nor most of my colleagues in the Church of England agree with this theology but we feel under great pressure not to debate the matter, certainly not publicly. As Chair of Women and the Church (WATCH), a national campaign group for gender equality in the Church, I want to help us lift the lid on the ongoing sexism and discrimination that women, both ordained and lay, experience in the Church and help to change the culture. One of the things that we are asking for is that every church should have a statement in clear English about any limits it puts on women’s ministry in a logical and visible place on its website. This way, ordinary churchgoers can easily be aware of this matter. Munro says he doesn’t believe this should be required – he says it’s up to churches to say whatever they think is important on their websites. But, despite claiming that their theology on women’s ministry is so important they need a special bishop to look after them, churches who limit women’s ministry are mostly saying nothing on their websites or saying something in incomprehensible language on a page deeply buried within it.

This isn’t about naming and shaming, it’s about being honest on a matter that ordinary Anglicans care about deeply. We have all worked hard to bring discrimination to an end in the secular world but, thanks to exemptions that the Church has under The Equality Act 2010, it can go on discriminating legally. Many people want to be members of churches who say no to this and feel angry when they find out, sometimes after years of support including financial donations, that their church limits women’s ministry. Furthermore, it’s not just a theological matter – these beliefs result in practices that impact women’s opportunities in the Church and their well-being.

The Student Christian Movement recently launched a campaign called #honestchurch seeking churches to be clear on their websites regarding their theology about LGBTQ+ people. Their CEO, Naomi Nixon, was featured last week on Via Media. And we join with SCM in seeking equal clarity about women.

So, when you go to Church this Christmas, and I hope you will, please spare a thought for your hardworking vicar. And, if that vicar is female, please tell her she’s doing a great job, a job she has every right to do. If you are ‘in the Church,’ please make sure you know where your Church stands on all this and who your bishop is and what their position is. Not to be a nuisance, but for the long-term good of our Church.

After all I can’t believe that, if we brought an end to discrimination in the Church of England, this would not have something of an impact on those dire statistics.