Westminster Faith Debates Women Bishops event - Review

“Women Bishops – what difference does it make?” This was the question asked by the Westminster Faith Debates event at St. James’ Piccadilly last night and discussed by a multi-faith panel. The podcast will soon be available on their website.

The free event was jointly chaired by prominent sociologist of religion Professor Linda Woodhead from Lancaster University who is also Director of Westminster Faith Debates and Adam Dinham of Goldsmiths who is Director of the Faiths and Civil Society Unit. They introduced the event before Katharine Jefferts Schori the Presiding Bishop of the Episocpal Church of the United States gave her key note address.

She has been a bishop since 2006 and spoke of the gifts that women bring to the episcopate. In doing this she went back to the familiar Genesis 1: 28- 31 and spoke about how it illustrated we were made to share. She outlined her understanding of the role of a bishop was to listen and guide those they had authority over.

A key theme she developed was the diversity of both men and women and how a variety of bishops were able to show the “otherness of God” because not all were white, male and Oxbridge educated. Bishops represent a variety of roles and experiences and are able to follow Jesus model of being engaged in “true conversation” with others through spending time with them. She argued that this is easier for those who are socially located in the right place, and that was often women.

She was the first speaker to argue that women and men are needed who can lead from below and from the margins in order to bring voice to and action against injustices and oppressive practices.

The next panellist was Lucy Winkett Rector of St James’. She made the point it is not a given that it will make any difference because it depends upon (i) how women use the role and (ii) the number of bishops who are women. She argued it is not enough for women to be women they need to be signs and midwives for new reflections using their “ungovernable energy”.

The first non-Christian speaker was Saleah Islam the Director of the Muslim Cultural Heritage Centre who has had a leadership role for the last two decades in the centre which works with Sunni’s (and those of all faiths and none). She spoke of how fear of change is an issue in all faiths but they are working hard to challenge patriarchal non-Islamic practices. By this one presumes they meant practices such as FGM which it needs to be underlined are also non-Christian practices (because they are not just practiced by Islamic communities).

Next came Hilary Cotton who is chair of WATCH (Women and the Church). She held up the iconic tea towel many of us own which says “A women’s role is in the house…..the House of Bishops”. She told us the organisations new strapline is “Just getting started”. In terms of how it would make a difference she said only if we move on from paternalism. Her final test would be how does it help women in their everyday lives and can it succeed against the vested interests in the CofE?

Something else she bought up which was developed by LauraJanner-Klausner (Senior Rabbi to the Movement for Reform Judaism) was the issue of inclusive language. This perhaps reflects the different priorities of those who have grown through different waves of feminism.

One of the most interesting speakers on the panel was Helene Mobius who is the Pagan Federation Prison Ministry Manager. She also looked at language but at the way in which words which were intended to be good have been demonised and continue to be demonised. She focused on crone and witch as terms which originally meant elder and wise but have been used to condemn and commit violence against women. For generations pagans have had to defend themselves against false accusations. She also spoke about the way in which we have to move beyond divides between men and women and on to a more symbiotic approach.

There was a first question time at this point and Woodhead asked if they thought it would change liturgy, for instance introducing menopause liturgy. Mobius explained that this was already seen as a right of passage within paganism whilst Cotton explained such liturgies were being written in the 1980’s. Schori also said that some groups already develop local rituals. For me I this summed up a lot of what was going on in this debate. There was an underlying differences in approaches and understandings between those located in late modernity who took a more institutional approach and those who took a more post-modern difference based view of the world.

It was clear though that most of the speakers were routed in way or another in second wave feminism. There was one exception and that was Kate Bottley, who in addition to being CofE vicar and FE Chaplain is a contributor to Channel Four programme Gogglebox.

She was a welcome breath of fresh air and burst into life when a question was asked about whether women will morph into men. She spoke of the way in which she has had to fight to hold on to her own identity keeping her long hair, makeup and high heels. What was being said here wasn’t about appearance exclusively; it reflected the desire of third wave feminists to be able to keep their femininity and authenticity. Lucy Winkett pointed out that in understanding the difference between women and approaches it was important to grasp the generational differences which existed. She said perhaps the most important thing of the evening, “women can be diverse but it is difficult if you have to unify to come from a position of exclusion. They now need to be allowed to fragment.”

Other questions touched on how to achieve wider inclusion and the two track system the CofE has introduced with the headship bishop. Then there was the second half of the panel discussion.

Nissa Basbaum is the Dean of the Diocese of Kootenay in British Columbia, Canada. She spoke of the Canadian experience and the way in which in some ways women bishops had been a bit of a non-issue except because bishops are elected rather than chosen in the way the British system works it became easier for women to be excluded whilst appearing to be inclusive. This was echoed by Schori talking of the American situation.

Bharti Tailor was up next she is Executive Director of the Hindu Forum of Europe. She spoke of the balance in her religion between masculine and feminine and of the systematic exclusion of Hinduism which appears to exist in the UK. She said it was easier for women to gain access but then they had to make sure they kept access.

Then it was Kate Bottley who said it as it was after talking about her childhood and finding herself automatically excluded from doing well in pissing competitions. She argued that women could now go for it and weren’t excluded and could be obedient to their calls whatever they were. But she made the point that it wouldn’t make a lot of difference outside of the church because many people don’t even know what a bishop is. What was really exciting about Bottley’s approach is that it was based in engaging with real people in a missional way which wasn’t academic or poncey it was simply real. I want to be clear here I am not knocking academia or fresh expressions but Bottley’s voice is fresh clear and she really gets real people not through research but through simply living it.

The final panellist was Janner-Klausner who sang from Psalm 23 with the gender altered. She explained the impact of a women’s voice and said women bishop’s is about silencing gender segregation which is also a part of some branches of Judaism. After outlining what 40 years of women rabbi’s in Reform Judaism has achieved she ended by getting us to sing together another extract of the Psalm she began with.

There was then another question session. In this session there was reference to other marginalised groups and other churches, (specifically the Catholic Church) and the role of the media. Within the answers the Rabbi made the point we need to keep an eye on the counter movement of fundamentalism and the need for diversity to include those who find change difficulty.

My overall view of this debate was it was interesting and useful but in some ways limited due to time. It did not touch on the impact of this decision in moving towards and away from working with other denominations. Although I understand that this may be because of how this was part of the debate running up to the vote which they wanted to avoid. I would certainly recommend these debates to people as a great way to hear really good speakers engage in what is truly a public space.

I was most disturbed it did continue to look at gender in binary terms and take traditional views of male and female as a given. Listening to the debate it highlighted to me how we need to include the voices of T and gender queer people in discussions like this rather than marginalising them to debates on sexuality.  

Karl was unsuccessful in being able to ask his question, because of they ran out of time to take more questions. The question he wanted to ask was, “When he started to go through gender reassignment he went through a (mercifully short!) phase of trying to be hyper masculine before realising that wasn’t really him and he was bing a prat. Eventually, he worked out there’s no one way to be a guy. So he wondered will having women bishops bring more freedom for men, as well as women, to be themselves and where do gender non-conforming people fit into the picture? (He did get his picture taken with Bishop Schori though which he was very happy about).