I am very interested in Lizzie Taylor’s of reflection which resonates quite strongly with my own experience of the ways that conservative evangelical expressions of Anglicanism discriminate against women. In my case it was not a particular parish where I was on the end of discriminatory treatment, but rather a church-related organisation – then called the Church Missionary Society, now the Church Mission Society. What however I have come to feel over the years is that the ways and forms in which such sexism takes place could well be described as forms of abuse, because they seek to undermine the… Read more »
If you can make me a facebook friend (I am pretty obvious on facebook and regularly post – most recently on today Gospel reading John 21) I will send you a facebook Messenger message and through that my ‘proper’ email.
I’m really really sorry to hear of your experience and that of Lizzie. I agree that at root this is a safeguarding issue, and sadly not one which is simply historic. The approach you outline as a strategy is worth a try as long as you are prepared for very firm push back, delaying tactics and disappointment. You will almost certainly be accused of ‘weaponising’ safeguarding, which seems to be the most popular silencing technique of the moment. What counts as ‘safeguarding’ in the CofE, where children are not involved, can be quite arbitrary and apparently open to a very… Read more »
For many , there is no such thing as adult safeguarding, or at most it is restricted to vulnerable adults. I doubt Clare would consider herself a ‘vulnerable adult’, although at the time of her abuse she may have felt herself temporarily vulnerable. Disclaimer – I participated in the YSA (Youth Service Abroad) scheme n the mid 1970’s, teaching in Kenya, which was organised by CMS. I did find it strange that some of the young women in my year were placed in private white boarding schools in the Kenyan highlands. To be fair, I seem to remember all the… Read more »
Last edited 19 days ago by Nigel Goodwin
Kate Keates
21 days ago
When Jesus was crucified just one, just John, of his Disciples was there, Of the twelve men he had spent most of the last year (or three years depending on one’s view) with, only one was with Him through His most difficult time. Even supposed-saints are appalling at supporting someone through oppression.
The biblical record may have been short on wider detail.
It was not an age of investigative journalism and the writers of the gospel accounts were not Reuters or the BBC.
Since the writers of the Gospels are drawn from the Disciples it would be a surprise if they failed to record their own presence at the crucifixion. It really does make them look bad.
Scholarship would suggest rather strongly that the disciples did not themselves write the gospels; the writing occurred a little later.
I think we should give the the disciples a break.
In any case the gospels are not merely biographies.
The evidence that Jesus forgave the Disciples (including Peter who outright denied his connection to Jesus) underpins our confidence that we too will be forgiven.
Surely one of the big changes in New Testament scholarship over the last 60 years has been the recognition precisely that the Gospels. Certainly when i was a student decades ago we were told that Gospels were a unique genre but Richard Burridge and others blew that out of the water. Burridge himself – rather ironically given his liberal tendencies – received the papal medal from Benedict VI, i think the first Anglican to do so. And in a different way Richard Bauckham’s lifetime’s work has backed this up.
…..the recognition precisely that the Gospels were what? Your first sentence doesn’t make sense.
Kyle Johansen
21 days ago
Surely, Lizzie Taylor would have been tipped off. Y the website not saying it supported the novelty of woman ordinations? Since it was so secretive about it (other than its teachings, it’s practice and its affiliations.) Or does Lizzie Taylor not think that parishes which support women’s ordinations should have to be public about that? Surely, whatever your theological convictions, it should be clear that insisting that your theological opponents should do something *regarding your priority* that you’re not willing to do yourself is double-dealing and failing to love your neighbour as yourself. Churches taking the historical view of the… Read more »
I struggle to untangle this. Not sure whether it is worth the struggle. Most ‘male only’ institutions used to be very explicit about it.
We can love those with whom we disagree, without having to agree with them, or failing to try to persuade them of the error of their ways.
The most appalling part was about daughters being told they need to submit to their husbands. Maybe they were also told to be ‘meek and mild’, which is completely unscriptural.
Ruairidh
21 days ago
Thanks for the articles from Susannah Clark. I’ve missed her comments on this site since she withdrew. In fact, I was wondering as I skimmed through some of the previous threads, what Clark’s voice might have added to the conversation. I’ve attached a link to a resource from the Anglican Church of Canada titled, Pastoral Liturgies for Journeys of Gender Affirmation and Transition. (link below) Here is an opener said by a deacon in in said rite: “All humans are made in God’s image whether we recognize ourselves in our bodies as female, male, or intersex; whether we are transgender,… Read more »
Janet Fife
21 days ago
Like most of those on TA, I imagine, I have always looked to Susannah Clark for gentle and balanced commentary, so of course I heartily applaud her plea for kindness and tolerance. My difficulty with her blog – and this surprises me – is that the kindness appears to be a little one-sided. Naturally she wants us to be kind and tolerant to trans women (and trans men, I assume), and so we should be. But I looked for, and didn’t see, a suggestion that we ought also to be kind to women who have been traumatised or assaulted by… Read more »
Serious question, Janet: if women ‘are not to be defined by what she calls their “bits”‘, but what should they be defined, so called ‘gender identity’? Is there some sort of innate female identity?
The legal position, as recently confirmed by the Supreme Court, is that a woman is a biological female – that she has female genitalia and XX chromosomes. I think this is sensible, and it’s what has always been understood (at least, the XX chromosomes part has been understood since DNA was discovered last century). Of course there are variations, such as intersex people, and chromosome expressions are not always straightforward. And there are ‘masculine’ women and ‘feminine’ men. But in my view there isn’t such a thing as an innate female identity. There are as many ways of being male… Read more »
At a quick glance, it is not the BMA itself, it is certain doctors within the BMA, or the union.
Whatever, the headline is misleading, and I am becoming weary of all this misrepresentation. Of course doctors and the courts understand there are some for whom ‘biological sex’ may not be binary. Most lay people (non medical) understand this too.
As Nigel says below, the statement was made by a group of resident doctors and doesn’t represent the views of the whole BMA or of doctors in general. A number of doctors have already dissented from it.
“The legal position, as recently confirmed by the Supreme Court, is that a woman is a biological female – that she has female genitalia and XX chromosomes. I think this is sensible, and it’s what has always been understood (at least, the XX chromosomes part has been understood since DNA was discovered last century).“
That is not the legal position. That is only in the Equality Act 2010. In other legislation such as the Human Rights Act there is no such reductive, anti-science (as stated by the BMA) definition.
With regard to the case of intersex, often cited as to why sex is not binary, such mutations do occur (I use the word in the sense of evolutionary biology) but they occur in less than 0.02 per cent of the population (excluding Klinefelter and Turner syndromes which are not true intersex, as the former are always male, and the latter always female, and which anyway only raises chromosomal deviation to 1.7 per cent of the population). The play on these conditions and chromosomal oddities does not prove sex is for the most part binary, any more than tossing a… Read more »
A former contributor to TA the late Reverend Professor Stanley Monkhouse who had taught anatomy at Trinity College Dublin said that being intersex was far more common than most people, including doctors recognised. He said that this was often discovered at post mortem examination and thus hardly ever revealed to the deceased’s family; for what would be the point. I hope that Stan is not spinning in his grave but I think that I paraphrase him correctly in saying that he thought that things were far from as binary as the Church liked to think they were.
Any numbers you can recall? I see terms like ‘far more common’, ‘usually’, ‘most’ etc. which could mean anything. One person’s 0.01% is another person’s 1%. For example, I can believe that most people think it is 0.01% when in reality it is ten times as frequent, 0.1%. But that is still very small. Being a scientist, one frustrating aspect of these debates is the lack of hard facts and evidence. Published scientific papers in reputable medical journals, not the results of some statistical survey ‘do you feel male or female today, have you ever thought you might be trans?’… Read more »
You will always have rare medical anomalies and true intersex conditions are vanishingly rare. Discussion of sex and gender should be rational, justifiable and evidence based. Margaret McCartney and Susan Bewley put it well in their recent editorial in the BMJ: “Sex (male and female) is determined by gametes at conception with phenotype influenced by chromosomes, hormones and reproductive organs. A few people are found to have one of a small number of clinically recognized variations in sex development (VSDs) after expert investigation. These individuals nonetheless have a sex, either male or female. Gender, by contrast, is a mutable social… Read more »
There are two and only two sexes. That doesn’t mean each individual animal can be unambiguously classified as either one or the other. Some are both (hermaphroditic snails for example) and some might possibly be neither.If you’ve discovered a third (or fourth, fifth) sex then I’d love to hear about it.
Janet, I think one has to be careful here and study exactly what the court did say, and especially what the court did not say. But before I make this post I want to say I have read your post above, and agree about the need to balance benefits and harms to different groups with nuance and care. To make sure we understand and are using the same terms, “sex” is determined by the shape of somebody’s genital organs (both internal and external), although chromosomes and hormone flows are also relevant for a deeper investigation. But there is a second… Read more »
So if you go to the doctor can s/he tell from a physical examination if you are gay or straight? Or bi? If not, then how do we define gay men if asking them has been ruled out?
When you stop defining women by their biological sex you end up either with no definition at all or with the sort of female stereotypes that Janet complains about above and which people on this site usually find quite problematic.
I also found the general drift confusing, in line with your comments. A woman who is ‘trans’ and has male plumbing, and wants to use the loo — is the idea that other women oughtn’t to be concerned? She speaks about urinals and male perverts. I don’t see the analogy. There aren’t urinals in women’s bathrooms. Presumably a woman with male plumbing entering a bathroom uses a stall. But it wouldn’t be up to me, a man, to judge whether women ought to find this acceptable or not. I know my wife wouldn’t. And then we get into sports and… Read more »
And if you had a black daughter who loved swimming and you saw on TV that all the top women swimmers were white, would you feel that white women should be banned from swimming?
The analogy with white/black completely falls down under analysis. Might as well talk about east Africans v. west Africans, but that breaks down too.
Every sport has a cultural background. Indian men are good at cricket, not so good at marathons. Chinese men seem pretty good at snooker last time I looked.
One of the things which breaks down under analysis is comparative numbers.
Kate, the issue in sport is that at puberty males develop bony and muscular structures more powerful than those of equivalent females. Is it fair for an athlete who has gone through puberty as a male to compete against women who haven’t? This is a matter of physical strength, not of race or culture. We have seen absurd examples of males who compete as men in sports and, failing to win, decide they are female and compete the next year against women. That is simply unfair, and in contact sports actually dangerous for the women.
Well said. There is also no such thing as a typically male brain.
One other practical thing – when the NHS puts out pleas for cervical cancer smears, do they include trans men to attend? It is a bit of a farce, for the sake of a very small minority, encouraged by trans activists who do not necessarily help the cause of genuine trans people.
Erm, what is so hard recording whether someone has a cervix or not and inviting them, and only them? A substantial number of women have hysterectomies and for them being invited to a cervical smear is triggering. Sex – however it is defined – is the wrong basis to use for cervical smears.
I have no cervix, having had a hysterectomy, but I find it rather odd that anyone should think I would be “triggered” by being included in some NHS drive on smear tests. I have no ovaries either but if a test for ovarian cancer were developed ( a very good thing) I’d not be triggered by being invited for one of those either. The NHS makes much more egregious clerical errors.
“But I looked for, and didn’t see, a suggestion that we ought also to be kind to women who have been traumatised or assaulted by men posing as trans women in order to enter what used to be women-only spaces”
A friend told me of one of her woman friends who was recently shocked an upset by a man undressing in a female changing room. They looked just like any other man, but identified as trans. They really were traumatised by that.
Is that “I am trans” or even “gender fluid” allowed to be a reason for this?
Has anyone suggested being anything other than kind to victims of assault, regardless of the perpetrator? Incidentally, is there any evidence that assaults by “men posing as trans women in order to enter what used to be women-only spaces” have happened more than a handful of times (a handful would be bad enough but there must surely be a question of proportionality)? Compared with, say, men going into women-only spaces to assault someone without bothering to claim to be trans, or indeed with transphobes harassing cis women because they look too masculine. Just this week I had to sit down… Read more »
Regarding any crime, male-to-females had a significantly increased risk for crime compared to female controls (aHR 6.6; 95% CI 4.1–10.8) but not compared to males (aHR 0.8; 95% CI 0.5–1.2). This indicates that they retained a male pattern regarding criminality. The same was true regarding violent crime. By contrast, female-to-males had higher crime rates than female controls (aHR 4.1; 95% CI 2.5–6.9) but did not differ from male controls. This indicates a shift to a male pattern regarding criminality and that sex reassignment is coupled to increased crime rate in female-to-males. The same was true regarding violent crime. Dhejne C,… Read more »
Jo, I’m sorry your wife is having a difficult time.
I think what I said above is clear enough, and I see no need to add to. it.
Tony Bellows
20 days ago
“Trans people have female brains”. Really? I’d like to see some hard scientific evidence. Neuroimaging of human brains shows that while some features are more common in the brains of women and others are more common in the brains of men, the vast majority of people have a highly individual mix of both. Neuroscientist Gina Rippon notes: “The idea of the male brain and the female brain suggests that each is a characteristically homogenous thing and that whoever has got a male brain, say, will have the same kind of aptitudes, preferences and personalities as everyone else with that ‘type’ of brain.… Read more »
You are using the argument pushed against gay men and lesbians 50 years ago. We still don’t know why some people are gay but we do recognise that it is part of their physical being. We don’t expect gay men and lesbians to prove it.
And yet, despite all the evidence that transness is physical, it’s acceptable to demand medical proof.
I am not saying it is not part of their physical being at all. All I am saying is that it cannot be identified in their brains. There are many other factors which influence human behaviour, some cultural and some biological. I do think autism exists, and I do think gay and lesbian people exist. But in neither case are there any solid markers even though both groups are almost certainly primarily biological. But gay and lesbian are very distinct from trans categories. Just look at the protests from many lesbians against the erasure of same sex spaces where they… Read more »
How can trans be physical when you have “gender fluid” as one of the gender ideology categories supported by Stonewall?
Gender fluid: A person whose gender is not static and changes throughout their life. This could be on a daily/weekly/monthly basis and will be different for everyone.
Gay people are gay. Lesbians are lesbians. But male one day, female the next, like putting on clothes? Are you saying there is a physical basis for this? It’s as likely as transubstantiation.
A gay gene has never been discovered and in fact research on identical twins refutes the idea of a genetic cause. Homosexuality is much more likely to be connected to traumatic experiences in very early childhood such as lack of bonding with the father and same sex peer group.
A straight gene hasn’t been discovered either, that’s not how genetics work, and no, the trauma in early childhood thing has been debunked so, so many times. Hoe many reparative therapies outfit will have to collapse and admit they were lying all along for people to give up on this?
Sorry, William, do your own research. You asserted something. You back it up with evidence (and not ‘Christian research’). Not evidence of trauma due to gender nonconformity, mind you, that’s well researched. Trauma causing homosexuality.
Oh William, that dangerous old crap again about my emotional attraction to men rather than women is due to traumatic experiences in early childhood – give me a break.
Many of these low quality studies don’t control for sexual orientation or psychiatric comorbidities. Astonishingly, some of the earliest studies included people who were already on a medical pathway towards transition. Arguments along these lines are wrongheaded attempts to provide a universalising biological basis for an individual subjective state.
Gareth
20 days ago
It’s quite amazing to see that things like Gospel Partnerships are being cited as nefarious things when actually they are a great example of how evangelicals have committed to work together across denominational lines for the good of the gospel. Gospel partnerships encourage churches to work together in evangelism (there’s a new passion for life mission coming up next year) and training people for gospel ministry (including women’s ministry). Christ is honoured by that work. It’s discouraging to see two things one from WATCH and one from within the comments. Firstly WATCH effectively want to make complementarian beliefs illegal by… Read more »
Hello Gareth, I agree with you that the conservative evangelical churches do great work at explaining the gospel clearly. That’s why it’s so unexpected and troubling to see them not honouring the settlement terms that were agreed in 2014, and being underhand with their churchgoers about their policies and practices relating to women and girls. I don’t think anyone wants to compel others to share their views. Just to end people forcing their views on others, which is what’s happening now. The CofE has a range of views on remarriage of divorcees, adult vs infant baptism, gifts of the spirit,… Read more »
“If General Synod votes to bring an end to the provision, those who want male vicars and bishops can still seek them.” Wouldn’t such discrimination then be illegal? Isn’t it the existence of that provision that provides protection against the terms of the Equality Act? My understanding is that if a parish has not passed a resolution then suitably-qualified candidates of either sex should be considered, regardless of the views of the patron or the bishop on the matter, and to discriminate against one sex (or the other) would potentially be unlawful (HoB Declaration on the Ministry of Bishops and… Read more »
A friend of mine who is a retired bishop commented to me a while back that the formal provision provided by things like the Five Guiding Principles, and the Resolutions only relates to ordained people, and ordained women. So they allow for the refusal to accept women priests and women bishops and the sacramental ministry that they exercise – which is of course the primary interest of those at the Anglo-Catholic end of the spectrum. But there is nothing (it was suggested to me) that permits discrimination on the grounds of sex between lay men and lay women exercising ministries… Read more »
Hi Simon, Yes, I see where you are coming from, if the choices were top down, as it were, but I meant bottom up. Parishioners could simply choose to attend churches with male vicars, and clergy could similarly choose to minister in dioceses with male diocesan bishops. It may require them to be flexible, and move from time to time, but if it’s that important to them they might wish to do so. It’s worth noting here that most of the clergy who oppose equality for women in ministry are of an age that they actively chose to be ordained… Read more »
So conservative evangelicals would be like itinerant churchgoers without a church to call home and the consciences of clergy who hold to a complementarian view wouldn’t be protected. Forgive me for saying that doesn’t sound particularly appetising. That obviously can’t be argued in good faith to be conductive to mutual flourishing. It doesn’t bode well for coming to an agreement on LLF if we rip up agreements in just shy of a decade after they were made. The CEEC should take note of this. A settlement isn’t guaranteed to settle disagreement on sexuality. A negotiated split is probably more sensible… Read more »
I disagree that it’s problematic for people to have different beliefs on leadership of churches. I also don’t think it’s problematic for churches to have a position on this. People should be able to practice their faith according to their convictions on this. Plenty of women are also in agreement with this position. Implying that all women hold to an egalitarian position isn’t true. Interestingly you mention gifts of the spirit and how they are exercised. That’s a good example we can’t be cessationalist and charismatic simultaneously. Our churches make a judgement call and if people want to worship differently… Read more »
I think the issue is how much diversity can be permitted in a Church for a Church to be a Church ( rather than a loose federation of congregations). I remember reading sometime back an academic article arguing that anglican comprehensiveness ( an important facet of Anglicanism according to Stephen Neill in a widely known now dated overview of Anglicanism) has now become pluralism. That resonates with my experience ( b 1949). The C of E I grew up in had “traditions”, catholic, evangelical and broad ,but there was substantial overlap and they seemed emphases on something that looked recognizably… Read more »
Gareth, I think it is not Lizzie that is dismantling the settlement. She is challenging, simultaneously, the bishops of Ebbsfleet & Maidstone and coattailers for their hasty mission creep under this pretext, plus their moral mirror images for their delaying mission evasion in (for example in a related issue) sidelining the obvious routes of the doctrinal commission and canon B2 (where Andrew Watson is right in trying to get it back on the road). Training a certain class to stand down their intellect in the name of empire (oops I mean leadership) (as Martyn Percy commented) and what they got “put… Read more »
Since I am clearly one of the intended recipients of Gareth’s critique let me justify my suggestion that it would be appropriate to draw on ‘safeguarding’ to respond to some forms and aspects of sexist discrimination in the life of the Church. A while back I was talking informally to a person who works in the area of safeguarding about my experience of being discriminated against by CMS as a married woman missionary. I wasn’t trying to make a point – just speaking in an informal conversation about what I had been on the receiving end of. She commented back to… Read more »
Nigel Aston
20 days ago
Lizzie’s interesting article assumes that women church goers in the C of E speak as one in favour of putting aside the 2014 5GPs and the ‘bonds of peace’ of which it spoke. That is surely a huge generalisation. Some do, some don’t, as on any issue, and divergent views are to be respected within the ‘big tent’ that is the C of E. And that includes conservative divergent views. PS Can more commentators on this site try and write positively and charitably about the way in which Bishops North and Warner exercise their episcopal office? It would make a… Read more »
This is a much bigger issue than LLF as it affects just over 50% of the population. I don’t know why it shouldn’t receive 2/3rds support in Synod to resolve this issue as it’s not a theological one. My wife and daughter are both excellent teachers, my mum was a great teacher and my sister a brilliant professor no less. Women can and do teach! Mary and Joseph were not complementarians! Maybe the Bishops should review their priorities and sort out this mess rather than creating a new one.
I have followed with a detached interest posts on Bishop North, or just + North, as is usually the way he is referred to. Often, there is a grudging recognition that he is very gifted, and that seems to annoy people even more. ‘ I would agree with his argument if it wasn’t. him.’ Is the sort of thing. As it happens I think he made a mistake in declining Pope Benedict’s Ordinariate offer, but that is just my view , and I respect that he disagrees,but I fear, at least on TA it will be a war of attrition… Read more »
As he is unmarried there would have been little or no point in Philip North transferring to the ordinariate as he could have become a normal RC priest. As former CofE priest who had transferred to RC he would have enjoyed full career prospects, & could even have made it to Cardinal, just like Newman & Manning.
The Ordinariate wasn’t set up solely for married former Anglicans. Some single clergy defected. Perhaps some remained thinking the CofE provided better career prospects.
I don’t see it as axiomatic that “religious freedom” can be a justification for exemption from the law of the land. At the very least specific claims to “believe in” something illegal should be examined.
Hello Nigel, Just to clarify, I never said that women churchgoers speak as one, and it is incorrect to suggest that. I was making a generalisation about the overwhelming majority: 95% of churches/churchgoers support men and women ministering equally side by side. In the remaining 5% of churches which we are told are signed up by their PCCs to Male Headship/Male-Only Priesthood practices, it’s not clear that a majority of women in those churches even know about the PCCs policy, let alone support it. Possibly only a small percentage of women in those churches actually support the policy, as opposed… Read more »
Ruairidh
20 days ago
Just back from Choral eucharist at our Cathedral. Two things from this morning here that I think have some relevance to issues addressed re: the Susannah Clark articles. Today we are commemorating Red Dress Sunday remembering murdered and missing Aboriginal girls, women and two spirit people. I have attached links for my European friends who may not be familiar with this Aboriginal peoples initiative. The Cathedral is also promoting fund raising in tandem with Anglican Church of Canada Foundation, for a programme titled, Say Yes to Youth Justice. The aim is to help build safer, healthier more inclusive communities for… Read more »
Kate, I am sorry you feel this way. I am travelling in Europe for three weeks and had decided to abstain from TA in that time to focus on other things, otherwise I would have supported some of your comments here. Sadly there is a lot of comment by people not quite understanding a complex set of issues, such as the difference between intersex (the physical shape of one’s body being between male and female) and transgender (when one’s body does not match what you believe to be true about yourself), or even the difference between sex and gender. Sadly… Read more »
Simon, I’m not sure Kate, if she’s still reading this thread, is going to feel as supported by your response as you hope she will. You write, ‘Sadly there is a lot of comment by people not quite understanding a complex set of issues, such as the difference between intersex (the physical shape of one’s body being between male and female) and transgender (when one’s body does not match what you believe to be true about yourself).’ That distinction is the established one and the one I would use myself but it’s not what Kate believes. I remember this clearly… Read more »
Thanks you for the Monkhouse link. It gives a few more facts and figures. I speak for myself, but maybe for all on TA, when I say we should all be supportive of trans people, just as we are supportive of all humans, and indeed I feel that everybody on TA and most Christian congregations are. It is sad when Kate says she feels unsupported. I think almost all of us on TA understand it is complex and nuanced, although there may be people outside of TA who are less mature and educated. I also agree with Jane Chapman that… Read more »
Jane Charman
19 days ago
The drawback to Susannah’s desire for a Working Group appears to be that the majority of transgender people don’t want one. Christina Beardsley’s 2021 letter to the Bishop of London sums up the position well: ‘… my own view is that to convene such a working party suggests that trans people are a problem for the Church of England or that there is some uncertainty about their status as members of the Body of Christ. Given the Church of England’s policy and practice in relation to trans people, I see no such problem or uncertainty …’ That position has been… Read more »
I cannot imagine any church being unwelcome to any human being, it is completely against the gospel. Maybe you mean something more specific?
Maybe there could be a statement from CoE with a long list of all the types of human being which it welcomes, or maybe just say ‘all’, and move on. 5 minute job. They could even cut and paste the Methodist statement.
I can give an example if it helps. You don’t need imagination. A married lesbian couple were told by a local church that they were not welcome and that people like that should go to the church down the road as they would fit in better. No doubt they justified it by saying the Bible disapproves of gay and lesbian relationships. It happens I’m afraid and there seems little action to stop it.
What it says and what happens when the rubber hits the road in this case were different. I guess we all have that capacity and find out where our real boundaries are when we are pushed. I hope things have moved on but wouldn’t want to go there myself and test it out. I personally have been on the end of this too often to go there again. I value my wellness too much to get into something I don’t need to revisit
I think its easy to think we are open and welcoming in slogans and mission statements. When real people come in and show what that means it can reveal it might not be so. Glad you have a church which is a loving and inclusive community. All of this is about people and real lives. I think we lose sight of this sometimes which is sad.
I can imagine it might happen, I should not have been so absolute! But was the issue the fact that they were individually lesbians, or were in a committed relationship? Or was the problem that they were expressing their relationship outside of marriage?
I still find it very strange and outside of the Gospel. Even if you think being lesbian is a position of sin (which I don’t), sinners should still be welcome.
What kind of church was it? Anglican, RC, or something else?
The issue was both. They didn’t want ‘people like that’ and they were not welcome. It was CofE and they were very direct and upfront about it. I’m not sure if that is a good thing or not but at least they didn’t play at being nice and gossip until the couple left. I find it beyond sad that it is thought to be okay to treat people like this and think it is okay. I’m sure there are other examples out there but I know this from the people involved so it is not third party speculation. Fortunately they… Read more »
I was told just for having a helpful practical suggestion about sacred amplification (by one of the prominent busybodies though not by the amplification pastor and not by clergy) that I should find a different church. They (I’m not saying where) are affiliated to Church Society, YWAM, Bethel Redding, HTB and “Focus” (all at once). Their congregation have gone down from 200 to 50.
J Beeson
18 days ago
I am genuinely surprised by the anger that complementarian/traditionalist clergy incite in commentators like Lizzie Taylor. She says that their beliefs are ‘morally repugnant’, their theology ‘repellent or troubling’ and their presence ‘morally unjust and untrue to the Gospel’.
The vast majority of Christians (and indeed followers of the other Abrahamic faiths) around the world belong to denominations that ordain only men. Is the ‘Catholic Church’ ‘morally repugnant’? Is the theology of Orthodox Jews ‘repellent’? Are the Eastern Orthodox churches ‘untrue to the gospel’?
I only recently discovered what the term complementarian means. Let’s be fair. Men are the authoritative interpreters of scripture and theology, and have decided that scripture and theology dictates than only men can become priests.
Unfortunately as a boomer too many female friends of my parents had done amazing things in the war (ATA pilots, Polish survivors of Soviet Gulag, etc), & post war (racing cars, ballooning across Atlantic). As a result I have never been able take seriously those who make a secular or religious case for women “knowing their [inferior] place”.
What a glamorous lot of women you knew! I’m a boomer too, and grew up among female missionaries like Elisabeth Eliot, who travelled with her toddler to live among the remote South American tribe who had killed her husband and 4 others. All of these women ‘gave talks’ in church and out of it on a regular basis. But they weren’t allowed to ‘preach’, except to the ‘heathen’ in far-off countries.
Since when? Women have minds, as do men, and as believers have the guidance and wisdom of the Holy Spirit. So they too can be, and are authoritative interpreters of scripture and theology. If men declare that only men can do something, that sounds rather like a biased and very one sided opinion.
If all Christians are priests, then there is a lot to get angry about, not just women priests. And yes, a gospel that restores the equal relationship between men and women is being true to the gospel. Other Abrahamic faiths can do as they please!
Sadly talk of equality all too often reaches the stage of the proclamation in Animal Farm about all pigs being equal but some pigs being more equal than others . And it is a fair bet that in the COf E it will be the male pigs who are the more equal ones.
Well, Yes…but in ecumenical/interreligious relationships, you make an effort to couch things in the gentlest terms possible (lest the relationships break down before they’ve begun).
But such relationships have generally been seen “nice but not essential”. If Romans won’t give sinful me Anglican me communion, I find it regrettable. But if other Anglican won’t give me communion, that’s a CRISIS!
Anglican Priest
17 days ago
Someone reading TA at this point would conclude that the Gospel of Jesus Christ, His Body the Church, the character of Christian faith and life — it is primarily about sexual desiring. One woman left out of anger/hurt at not having her position unequivocally accepted. You will be relieved that I am leaving as well. What I read here now is such a thinned-out account of what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ, to proclaim the saving Gospel, to belong to a coherent account of the Church. It is becoming just boring and repetitive: something for those… Read more »
Being trans has nothing to do with sexual desire. Being gay, lesbian or bisexual can be linked to sexual desire but, just as for het folk, sex is a relatively minor part of the attraction that leads to loving someone and wanting to build a life with them. Maybe thinking everything is about sex (a fairly standard conservative problem) is why you keep missing the point so badly?
I applaud your distinction. For me the issue is not primarily about ‘desire’. It’s about justice and equity for women and sexual minorities. It’s about justice both within the church where the gospel ought to be read from the perspective of the marginalized and the oppressed and justice in the wider society where religious beliefs in the public sphere can contribute either to oppression or liberation. I like the ‘pink smoke’ demonstration taking place in Rome ( link below). My motivation for commenting here as been to be, at least in some small way, in solidarity with women and members… Read more »
i think you confusing a number of separate issues and simply wrong about others. Conservatives don’t think everything is about sex, they think everything is about mission, but in a sexualised society it is necessary to talk about sex and some of the confusion that surrounds it. It can’t be avoided and LLF is just the latest example. Red lines have to be drawn to stop these issues being discussed in the church over and over again. They will be, but not by evangelicals.
But maybe it’s not about “desire” but about inclusion, and loving acceptance of the “other” which seems to have been quite important to Jesus?
John Davies
16 days ago
If I may throw my tuppence worth into the discussion, I fully support Lizzie Taylor in her argument, as well as Susanna, Kaye and Janet. The ‘headship is male’ dogma is not only exclusive, prejudiced and mysoganistic, it is also grossly unfair to probably the majority of men, by imposing on them roles and behaviour expectations which they neither want nor are suited for. Some forty years ago, Rev Jim Smith and his ‘Manhunt’ programme openly characterised the majority of Christian men as ‘wets’ or ‘wimps’, stereotypes which were unattractive to non-believing males. That, of course, presupposed what image was… Read more »
All Gas and Gaiters was sympathetic and really quite accurate. I remember it from when I was a child, but it was many many years later that I discovered the accuracy of one of its basic premises.
The vicar in Dad’s Army is indeed an “odd” stereotype — but bizarrely he was played by an actor who became a member of the General Synod.
I don;t remember All Gas and Gaiters very well, I just remember the main actor was a bit strange. I don’t think we will see it repeated, although I have watched re runs of ‘In sickness and health’ and ‘steptoe and son’. The former got a bit much, and I don’t view repeat episodes any more. The latter is just sad.
Oh Brother was another one. Overall the depiction of clergy is that they are rather abnormal and full of ‘personality’. Maybe it is true! Maybe just what it takes to make an entertaining sitcom.
Depends who you regard as the main actor in AG&G. I’d say Derek Nimmo (bishop’s chaplain) because he appealed to my age. But also starring William Mervyn (the bishop), Robertson Hare (the archdeacon), and John Baron (the dean), all of whom are pretty well-known too. Derek Nimmo then went on to star in Oh Brother! AG&G was subsequently remade for Radio 4, and is still rebroadcast from time to time on 4 Extra, though Derek Nimmo left the cast and was replaced by Jonathan Cecil.
Indeed, although I would suggest that for ‘those of a certain age’ at the time of the original broadcasts, Robertson Hare, was rather more than ‘pretty well-known’, but was famous as one of the finest farceurs and character actors of the interwar period (that golden age of character acting), whether on stage or screen. I have seen him in a number of droll films of the 1930s in the many hours I have wasted at the NFT/BFI, holding his own alongside the likes of Edward Everett Horton or Jessie Matthews. “Calamity!”
I agree, all the actors were good, I just watched an episode on youtube. My point is that these stereotypes are not a great advertisement for the church, ref John Davies and his reference to ‘wets’ and ‘wimps’. Yes. they were sympathetic, but if realistic it is truly horrific! Naive young curate, never kissed a girl, world weary bishop, calvinist dean, randy archdeacon. Yes, maybe it is realistic! add in the coronation service, and there we have the CoE.
There was another, less well-remembered, Church sitcom in those years, “Bless me Father” with Arthur Lowe (better known as Captain Mainwaring) as a Roman Catholic parish priest. I remember one episode involving the dedication of a large bell by the bishop who afterwards said “Thank God that’s over!” Humour was gentler then. Everything discussed here so far is in stark contrast to the unabashed no holds-barred Irish humour of ‘Father Ted’.
Ah, Father Ted! Mrs Doyle was my hero with her unshakeable belief that the world would only be redeemed through endless cups of tea.
But for a more realistic take on parish life in today’s C of E, has anything come close to Rev? The final episode when Fr Adam broke into his closed parish church with the faithful few and sung the Exsultet as an act of defiance and hope was heart breaking yet uplifting.
Oh Brother! Saturday afternoon wrestling on TV was what real Christian men were into, along with the occasional whipping apparently. Frowned upon now though. But 50 years ago one was a reaction to the other.
You are quite right about wrestling, back in the day. I am reliably informed that it was particularly watched by women, Christian or non Christian I could not say. My favourites from those days was The Untouchables, or maybe Quatermass. No recollection of whipping, but then maybe I didn’t go to the right school.
I am very interested in Lizzie Taylor’s of reflection which resonates quite strongly with my own experience of the ways that conservative evangelical expressions of Anglicanism discriminate against women. In my case it was not a particular parish where I was on the end of discriminatory treatment, but rather a church-related organisation – then called the Church Missionary Society, now the Church Mission Society. What however I have come to feel over the years is that the ways and forms in which such sexism takes place could well be described as forms of abuse, because they seek to undermine the… Read more »
Hi Clare, Yes, that would be good. What is the best way to get in touch with you?
If you can make me a facebook friend (I am pretty obvious on facebook and regularly post – most recently on today Gospel reading John 21) I will send you a facebook Messenger message and through that my ‘proper’ email.
I’m really really sorry to hear of your experience and that of Lizzie. I agree that at root this is a safeguarding issue, and sadly not one which is simply historic. The approach you outline as a strategy is worth a try as long as you are prepared for very firm push back, delaying tactics and disappointment. You will almost certainly be accused of ‘weaponising’ safeguarding, which seems to be the most popular silencing technique of the moment. What counts as ‘safeguarding’ in the CofE, where children are not involved, can be quite arbitrary and apparently open to a very… Read more »
For many , there is no such thing as adult safeguarding, or at most it is restricted to vulnerable adults. I doubt Clare would consider herself a ‘vulnerable adult’, although at the time of her abuse she may have felt herself temporarily vulnerable. Disclaimer – I participated in the YSA (Youth Service Abroad) scheme n the mid 1970’s, teaching in Kenya, which was organised by CMS. I did find it strange that some of the young women in my year were placed in private white boarding schools in the Kenyan highlands. To be fair, I seem to remember all the… Read more »
When Jesus was crucified just one, just John, of his Disciples was there, Of the twelve men he had spent most of the last year (or three years depending on one’s view) with, only one was with Him through His most difficult time. Even supposed-saints are appalling at supporting someone through oppression.
The biblical record may have been short on wider detail.
It was not an age of investigative journalism and the writers of the gospel accounts were not Reuters or the BBC.
Since the writers of the Gospels are drawn from the Disciples it would be a surprise if they failed to record their own presence at the crucifixion. It really does make them look bad.
Scholarship would suggest rather strongly that the disciples did not themselves write the gospels; the writing occurred a little later.
I think we should give the the disciples a break.
In any case the gospels are not merely biographies.
The evidence that Jesus forgave the Disciples (including Peter who outright denied his connection to Jesus) underpins our confidence that we too will be forgiven.
I am not very clear that our confidence in God’s forgiveness is relevant to this particular discussion.
Surely one of the big changes in New Testament scholarship over the last 60 years has been the recognition precisely that the Gospels. Certainly when i was a student decades ago we were told that Gospels were a unique genre but Richard Burridge and others blew that out of the water. Burridge himself – rather ironically given his liberal tendencies – received the papal medal from Benedict VI, i think the first Anglican to do so. And in a different way Richard Bauckham’s lifetime’s work has backed this up.
…..the recognition precisely that the Gospels were what? Your first sentence doesn’t make sense.
Surely, Lizzie Taylor would have been tipped off. Y the website not saying it supported the novelty of woman ordinations? Since it was so secretive about it (other than its teachings, it’s practice and its affiliations.) Or does Lizzie Taylor not think that parishes which support women’s ordinations should have to be public about that? Surely, whatever your theological convictions, it should be clear that insisting that your theological opponents should do something *regarding your priority* that you’re not willing to do yourself is double-dealing and failing to love your neighbour as yourself. Churches taking the historical view of the… Read more »
I struggle to untangle this. Not sure whether it is worth the struggle. Most ‘male only’ institutions used to be very explicit about it.
We can love those with whom we disagree, without having to agree with them, or failing to try to persuade them of the error of their ways.
The most appalling part was about daughters being told they need to submit to their husbands. Maybe they were also told to be ‘meek and mild’, which is completely unscriptural.
Thanks for the articles from Susannah Clark. I’ve missed her comments on this site since she withdrew. In fact, I was wondering as I skimmed through some of the previous threads, what Clark’s voice might have added to the conversation. I’ve attached a link to a resource from the Anglican Church of Canada titled, Pastoral Liturgies for Journeys of Gender Affirmation and Transition. (link below) Here is an opener said by a deacon in in said rite: “All humans are made in God’s image whether we recognize ourselves in our bodies as female, male, or intersex; whether we are transgender,… Read more »
Like most of those on TA, I imagine, I have always looked to Susannah Clark for gentle and balanced commentary, so of course I heartily applaud her plea for kindness and tolerance. My difficulty with her blog – and this surprises me – is that the kindness appears to be a little one-sided. Naturally she wants us to be kind and tolerant to trans women (and trans men, I assume), and so we should be. But I looked for, and didn’t see, a suggestion that we ought also to be kind to women who have been traumatised or assaulted by… Read more »
Serious question, Janet: if women ‘are not to be defined by what she calls their “bits”‘, but what should they be defined, so called ‘gender identity’? Is there some sort of innate female identity?
The legal position, as recently confirmed by the Supreme Court, is that a woman is a biological female – that she has female genitalia and XX chromosomes. I think this is sensible, and it’s what has always been understood (at least, the XX chromosomes part has been understood since DNA was discovered last century). Of course there are variations, such as intersex people, and chromosome expressions are not always straightforward. And there are ‘masculine’ women and ‘feminine’ men. But in my view there isn’t such a thing as an innate female identity. There are as many ways of being male… Read more »
The BMA don’t agree with your idea of sex.
https://www.thenational.scot/news/25124186.doctors-slam-supreme-court-ruling-scientifically-illiterate/?ref=yahoo
Believing the doctors on something medical makes sense to me
At a quick glance, it is not the BMA itself, it is certain doctors within the BMA, or the union.
Whatever, the headline is misleading, and I am becoming weary of all this misrepresentation. Of course doctors and the courts understand there are some for whom ‘biological sex’ may not be binary. Most lay people (non medical) understand this too.
Very rare though. Tossing a coin can come down on the edge, but that does not make the general rule of 50:50 heads or tails largely invalid!
I have been commenting on the rareness repeatedly. Nice to have an expert giving the actial probabilities.
As Nigel says below, the statement was made by a group of resident doctors and doesn’t represent the views of the whole BMA or of doctors in general. A number of doctors have already dissented from it.
“The legal position, as recently confirmed by the Supreme Court, is that a woman is a biological female – that she has female genitalia and XX chromosomes. I think this is sensible, and it’s what has always been understood (at least, the XX chromosomes part has been understood since DNA was discovered last century).“
That is not the legal position. That is only in the Equality Act 2010. In other legislation such as the Human Rights Act there is no such reductive, anti-science (as stated by the BMA) definition.
With regard to the case of intersex, often cited as to why sex is not binary, such mutations do occur (I use the word in the sense of evolutionary biology) but they occur in less than 0.02 per cent of the population (excluding Klinefelter and Turner syndromes which are not true intersex, as the former are always male, and the latter always female, and which anyway only raises chromosomal deviation to 1.7 per cent of the population). The play on these conditions and chromosomal oddities does not prove sex is for the most part binary, any more than tossing a… Read more »
A former contributor to TA the late Reverend Professor Stanley Monkhouse who had taught anatomy at Trinity College Dublin said that being intersex was far more common than most people, including doctors recognised. He said that this was often discovered at post mortem examination and thus hardly ever revealed to the deceased’s family; for what would be the point. I hope that Stan is not spinning in his grave but I think that I paraphrase him correctly in saying that he thought that things were far from as binary as the Church liked to think they were.
Any numbers you can recall? I see terms like ‘far more common’, ‘usually’, ‘most’ etc. which could mean anything. One person’s 0.01% is another person’s 1%. For example, I can believe that most people think it is 0.01% when in reality it is ten times as frequent, 0.1%. But that is still very small. Being a scientist, one frustrating aspect of these debates is the lack of hard facts and evidence. Published scientific papers in reputable medical journals, not the results of some statistical survey ‘do you feel male or female today, have you ever thought you might be trans?’… Read more »
You will always have rare medical anomalies and true intersex conditions are vanishingly rare. Discussion of sex and gender should be rational, justifiable and evidence based. Margaret McCartney and Susan Bewley put it well in their recent editorial in the BMJ: “Sex (male and female) is determined by gametes at conception with phenotype influenced by chromosomes, hormones and reproductive organs. A few people are found to have one of a small number of clinically recognized variations in sex development (VSDs) after expert investigation. These individuals nonetheless have a sex, either male or female. Gender, by contrast, is a mutable social… Read more »
Indeed. For most intersex people across history, they would have had no idea, unless post-mortems revealed something unusual. And we aren’t going to get numbers on this – how could we? Wrote a thing about it (as a historian), https://mistakinghistories.uk/2025/05/02/what-is-a-woman-common-sense-in-history/
There are two and only two sexes. That doesn’t mean each individual animal can be unambiguously classified as either one or the other. Some are both (hermaphroditic snails for example) and some might possibly be neither.If you’ve discovered a third (or fourth, fifth) sex then I’d love to hear about it.
There is a good paper by Leonard Sax to that effect.
Janet, I think one has to be careful here and study exactly what the court did say, and especially what the court did not say. But before I make this post I want to say I have read your post above, and agree about the need to balance benefits and harms to different groups with nuance and care. To make sure we understand and are using the same terms, “sex” is determined by the shape of somebody’s genital organs (both internal and external), although chromosomes and hormone flows are also relevant for a deeper investigation. But there is a second… Read more »
Thank you Simon, I agree with all you have said above.
So if you go to the doctor can s/he tell from a physical examination if you are gay or straight? Or bi? If not, then how do we define gay men if asking them has been ruled out?
That is absolutely nothing to do with the court’s decision.
Perhaps labelling other people is not the way forward.
Too often people are labelled in order to diminish them….even within the Christian traditions!
When you stop defining women by their biological sex you end up either with no definition at all or with the sort of female stereotypes that Janet complains about above and which people on this site usually find quite problematic.
I also found the general drift confusing, in line with your comments. A woman who is ‘trans’ and has male plumbing, and wants to use the loo — is the idea that other women oughtn’t to be concerned? She speaks about urinals and male perverts. I don’t see the analogy. There aren’t urinals in women’s bathrooms. Presumably a woman with male plumbing entering a bathroom uses a stall. But it wouldn’t be up to me, a man, to judge whether women ought to find this acceptable or not. I know my wife wouldn’t. And then we get into sports and… Read more »
And if you had a black daughter who loved swimming and you saw on TV that all the top women swimmers were white, would you feel that white women should be banned from swimming?
The analogy with white/black completely falls down under analysis. Might as well talk about east Africans v. west Africans, but that breaks down too.
Every sport has a cultural background. Indian men are good at cricket, not so good at marathons. Chinese men seem pretty good at snooker last time I looked.
One of the things which breaks down under analysis is comparative numbers.
I don’t respond to false analogies that go off the specifics at hand.
Kate, the issue in sport is that at puberty males develop bony and muscular structures more powerful than those of equivalent females. Is it fair for an athlete who has gone through puberty as a male to compete against women who haven’t? This is a matter of physical strength, not of race or culture. We have seen absurd examples of males who compete as men in sports and, failing to win, decide they are female and compete the next year against women. That is simply unfair, and in contact sports actually dangerous for the women.
Well said. There is also no such thing as a typically male brain.
One other practical thing – when the NHS puts out pleas for cervical cancer smears, do they include trans men to attend? It is a bit of a farce, for the sake of a very small minority, encouraged by trans activists who do not necessarily help the cause of genuine trans people.
Erm, what is so hard recording whether someone has a cervix or not and inviting them, and only them? A substantial number of women have hysterectomies and for them being invited to a cervical smear is triggering. Sex – however it is defined – is the wrong basis to use for cervical smears.
I have no cervix, having had a hysterectomy, but I find it rather odd that anyone should think I would be “triggered” by being included in some NHS drive on smear tests. I have no ovaries either but if a test for ovarian cancer were developed ( a very good thing) I’d not be triggered by being invited for one of those either. The NHS makes much more egregious clerical errors.
“But I looked for, and didn’t see, a suggestion that we ought also to be kind to women who have been traumatised or assaulted by men posing as trans women in order to enter what used to be women-only spaces”
A friend told me of one of her woman friends who was recently shocked an upset by a man undressing in a female changing room. They looked just like any other man, but identified as trans. They really were traumatised by that.
Is that “I am trans” or even “gender fluid” allowed to be a reason for this?
It has been of late in some places, but hopefully that will change now.
Has anyone suggested being anything other than kind to victims of assault, regardless of the perpetrator? Incidentally, is there any evidence that assaults by “men posing as trans women in order to enter what used to be women-only spaces” have happened more than a handful of times (a handful would be bad enough but there must surely be a question of proportionality)? Compared with, say, men going into women-only spaces to assault someone without bothering to claim to be trans, or indeed with transphobes harassing cis women because they look too masculine. Just this week I had to sit down… Read more »
Regarding any crime, male-to-females had a significantly increased risk for crime compared to female controls (aHR 6.6; 95% CI 4.1–10.8) but not compared to males (aHR 0.8; 95% CI 0.5–1.2). This indicates that they retained a male pattern regarding criminality. The same was true regarding violent crime. By contrast, female-to-males had higher crime rates than female controls (aHR 4.1; 95% CI 2.5–6.9) but did not differ from male controls. This indicates a shift to a male pattern regarding criminality and that sex reassignment is coupled to increased crime rate in female-to-males. The same was true regarding violent crime. Dhejne C,… Read more »
I’m sure that was a reply to something but it has nothing to do with my post.
Jo, I’m sorry your wife is having a difficult time.
I think what I said above is clear enough, and I see no need to add to. it.
“Trans people have female brains”. Really? I’d like to see some hard scientific evidence. Neuroimaging of human brains shows that while some features are more common in the brains of women and others are more common in the brains of men, the vast majority of people have a highly individual mix of both. Neuroscientist Gina Rippon notes: “The idea of the male brain and the female brain suggests that each is a characteristically homogenous thing and that whoever has got a male brain, say, will have the same kind of aptitudes, preferences and personalities as everyone else with that ‘type’ of brain.… Read more »
You are using the argument pushed against gay men and lesbians 50 years ago. We still don’t know why some people are gay but we do recognise that it is part of their physical being. We don’t expect gay men and lesbians to prove it.
And yet, despite all the evidence that transness is physical, it’s acceptable to demand medical proof.
I am not saying it is not part of their physical being at all. All I am saying is that it cannot be identified in their brains. There are many other factors which influence human behaviour, some cultural and some biological. I do think autism exists, and I do think gay and lesbian people exist. But in neither case are there any solid markers even though both groups are almost certainly primarily biological. But gay and lesbian are very distinct from trans categories. Just look at the protests from many lesbians against the erasure of same sex spaces where they… Read more »
How can trans be physical when you have “gender fluid” as one of the gender ideology categories supported by Stonewall?
Gender fluid: A person whose gender is not static and changes throughout their life. This could be on a daily/weekly/monthly basis and will be different for everyone.
Gay people are gay. Lesbians are lesbians. But male one day, female the next, like putting on clothes? Are you saying there is a physical basis for this? It’s as likely as transubstantiation.
Kate, erotic arousal is quite observable, and to believe someone when they say they’re gay does not fly in the face of material reality.
A gay gene has never been discovered and in fact research on identical twins refutes the idea of a genetic cause. Homosexuality is much more likely to be connected to traumatic experiences in very early childhood such as lack of bonding with the father and same sex peer group.
A straight gene hasn’t been discovered either, that’s not how genetics work, and no, the trauma in early childhood thing has been debunked so, so many times. Hoe many reparative therapies outfit will have to collapse and admit they were lying all along for people to give up on this?
Can you tell me how it has been debunked? I would be interested to know the research you are citing.
Sorry, William, do your own research. You asserted something. You back it up with evidence (and not ‘Christian research’). Not evidence of trauma due to gender nonconformity, mind you, that’s well researched. Trauma causing homosexuality.
Oh William, that dangerous old crap again about my emotional attraction to men rather than women is due to traumatic experiences in early childhood – give me a break.
Many of these low quality studies don’t control for sexual orientation or psychiatric comorbidities. Astonishingly, some of the earliest studies included people who were already on a medical pathway towards transition. Arguments along these lines are wrongheaded attempts to provide a universalising biological basis for an individual subjective state.
It’s quite amazing to see that things like Gospel Partnerships are being cited as nefarious things when actually they are a great example of how evangelicals have committed to work together across denominational lines for the good of the gospel. Gospel partnerships encourage churches to work together in evangelism (there’s a new passion for life mission coming up next year) and training people for gospel ministry (including women’s ministry). Christ is honoured by that work. It’s discouraging to see two things one from WATCH and one from within the comments. Firstly WATCH effectively want to make complementarian beliefs illegal by… Read more »
Hello Gareth, I agree with you that the conservative evangelical churches do great work at explaining the gospel clearly. That’s why it’s so unexpected and troubling to see them not honouring the settlement terms that were agreed in 2014, and being underhand with their churchgoers about their policies and practices relating to women and girls. I don’t think anyone wants to compel others to share their views. Just to end people forcing their views on others, which is what’s happening now. The CofE has a range of views on remarriage of divorcees, adult vs infant baptism, gifts of the spirit,… Read more »
“If General Synod votes to bring an end to the provision, those who want male vicars and bishops can still seek them.” Wouldn’t such discrimination then be illegal? Isn’t it the existence of that provision that provides protection against the terms of the Equality Act? My understanding is that if a parish has not passed a resolution then suitably-qualified candidates of either sex should be considered, regardless of the views of the patron or the bishop on the matter, and to discriminate against one sex (or the other) would potentially be unlawful (HoB Declaration on the Ministry of Bishops and… Read more »
A friend of mine who is a retired bishop commented to me a while back that the formal provision provided by things like the Five Guiding Principles, and the Resolutions only relates to ordained people, and ordained women. So they allow for the refusal to accept women priests and women bishops and the sacramental ministry that they exercise – which is of course the primary interest of those at the Anglo-Catholic end of the spectrum. But there is nothing (it was suggested to me) that permits discrimination on the grounds of sex between lay men and lay women exercising ministries… Read more »
I think that’s quite probably correct.
Hi Simon, Yes, I see where you are coming from, if the choices were top down, as it were, but I meant bottom up. Parishioners could simply choose to attend churches with male vicars, and clergy could similarly choose to minister in dioceses with male diocesan bishops. It may require them to be flexible, and move from time to time, but if it’s that important to them they might wish to do so. It’s worth noting here that most of the clergy who oppose equality for women in ministry are of an age that they actively chose to be ordained… Read more »
So conservative evangelicals would be like itinerant churchgoers without a church to call home and the consciences of clergy who hold to a complementarian view wouldn’t be protected. Forgive me for saying that doesn’t sound particularly appetising. That obviously can’t be argued in good faith to be conductive to mutual flourishing. It doesn’t bode well for coming to an agreement on LLF if we rip up agreements in just shy of a decade after they were made. The CEEC should take note of this. A settlement isn’t guaranteed to settle disagreement on sexuality. A negotiated split is probably more sensible… Read more »
I disagree that it’s problematic for people to have different beliefs on leadership of churches. I also don’t think it’s problematic for churches to have a position on this. People should be able to practice their faith according to their convictions on this. Plenty of women are also in agreement with this position. Implying that all women hold to an egalitarian position isn’t true. Interestingly you mention gifts of the spirit and how they are exercised. That’s a good example we can’t be cessationalist and charismatic simultaneously. Our churches make a judgement call and if people want to worship differently… Read more »
I think the issue is how much diversity can be permitted in a Church for a Church to be a Church ( rather than a loose federation of congregations). I remember reading sometime back an academic article arguing that anglican comprehensiveness ( an important facet of Anglicanism according to Stephen Neill in a widely known now dated overview of Anglicanism) has now become pluralism. That resonates with my experience ( b 1949). The C of E I grew up in had “traditions”, catholic, evangelical and broad ,but there was substantial overlap and they seemed emphases on something that looked recognizably… Read more »
Gareth, I think it is not Lizzie that is dismantling the settlement. She is challenging, simultaneously, the bishops of Ebbsfleet & Maidstone and coattailers for their hasty mission creep under this pretext, plus their moral mirror images for their delaying mission evasion in (for example in a related issue) sidelining the obvious routes of the doctrinal commission and canon B2 (where Andrew Watson is right in trying to get it back on the road). Training a certain class to stand down their intellect in the name of empire (oops I mean leadership) (as Martyn Percy commented) and what they got “put… Read more »
Since I am clearly one of the intended recipients of Gareth’s critique let me justify my suggestion that it would be appropriate to draw on ‘safeguarding’ to respond to some forms and aspects of sexist discrimination in the life of the Church. A while back I was talking informally to a person who works in the area of safeguarding about my experience of being discriminated against by CMS as a married woman missionary. I wasn’t trying to make a point – just speaking in an informal conversation about what I had been on the receiving end of. She commented back to… Read more »
Lizzie’s interesting article assumes that women church goers in the C of E speak as one in favour of putting aside the 2014 5GPs and the ‘bonds of peace’ of which it spoke. That is surely a huge generalisation. Some do, some don’t, as on any issue, and divergent views are to be respected within the ‘big tent’ that is the C of E. And that includes conservative divergent views. PS Can more commentators on this site try and write positively and charitably about the way in which Bishops North and Warner exercise their episcopal office? It would make a… Read more »
Essentially we are trying to balance
“I want to be free to discriminate”
Against
“I want to be free from discrimination”
This is a much bigger issue than LLF as it affects just over 50% of the population. I don’t know why it shouldn’t receive 2/3rds support in Synod to resolve this issue as it’s not a theological one. My wife and daughter are both excellent teachers, my mum was a great teacher and my sister a brilliant professor no less. Women can and do teach! Mary and Joseph were not complementarians! Maybe the Bishops should review their priorities and sort out this mess rather than creating a new one.
I have followed with a detached interest posts on Bishop North, or just + North, as is usually the way he is referred to. Often, there is a grudging recognition that he is very gifted, and that seems to annoy people even more. ‘ I would agree with his argument if it wasn’t. him.’ Is the sort of thing. As it happens I think he made a mistake in declining Pope Benedict’s Ordinariate offer, but that is just my view , and I respect that he disagrees,but I fear, at least on TA it will be a war of attrition… Read more »
As he is unmarried there would have been little or no point in Philip North transferring to the ordinariate as he could have become a normal RC priest. As former CofE priest who had transferred to RC he would have enjoyed full career prospects, & could even have made it to Cardinal, just like Newman & Manning.
Just to be clear, priests in the Ordinariate are normal RC priests.
The Ordinariate wasn’t set up solely for married former Anglicans. Some single clergy defected. Perhaps some remained thinking the CofE provided better career prospects.
I don’t see it as axiomatic that “religious freedom” can be a justification for exemption from the law of the land. At the very least specific claims to “believe in” something illegal should be examined.
Really? Shall we ask the Christians of Iran what they think about the relationship between religious freedom and the law of the land?
Hello Nigel, Just to clarify, I never said that women churchgoers speak as one, and it is incorrect to suggest that. I was making a generalisation about the overwhelming majority: 95% of churches/churchgoers support men and women ministering equally side by side. In the remaining 5% of churches which we are told are signed up by their PCCs to Male Headship/Male-Only Priesthood practices, it’s not clear that a majority of women in those churches even know about the PCCs policy, let alone support it. Possibly only a small percentage of women in those churches actually support the policy, as opposed… Read more »
Just back from Choral eucharist at our Cathedral. Two things from this morning here that I think have some relevance to issues addressed re: the Susannah Clark articles. Today we are commemorating Red Dress Sunday remembering murdered and missing Aboriginal girls, women and two spirit people. I have attached links for my European friends who may not be familiar with this Aboriginal peoples initiative. The Cathedral is also promoting fund raising in tandem with Anglican Church of Canada Foundation, for a programme titled, Say Yes to Youth Justice. The aim is to help build safer, healthier more inclusive communities for… Read more »
I am out of this thread.
Indeed, I am unsure whether I wish to be part of Thinking Anglicans anymore. Minorities ought to be supported in Christian spaces.
Kate, I am sorry you feel this way. I am travelling in Europe for three weeks and had decided to abstain from TA in that time to focus on other things, otherwise I would have supported some of your comments here. Sadly there is a lot of comment by people not quite understanding a complex set of issues, such as the difference between intersex (the physical shape of one’s body being between male and female) and transgender (when one’s body does not match what you believe to be true about yourself), or even the difference between sex and gender. Sadly… Read more »
Simon, I’m not sure Kate, if she’s still reading this thread, is going to feel as supported by your response as you hope she will. You write, ‘Sadly there is a lot of comment by people not quite understanding a complex set of issues, such as the difference between intersex (the physical shape of one’s body being between male and female) and transgender (when one’s body does not match what you believe to be true about yourself).’ That distinction is the established one and the one I would use myself but it’s not what Kate believes. I remember this clearly… Read more »
Thanks you for the Monkhouse link. It gives a few more facts and figures. I speak for myself, but maybe for all on TA, when I say we should all be supportive of trans people, just as we are supportive of all humans, and indeed I feel that everybody on TA and most Christian congregations are. It is sad when Kate says she feels unsupported. I think almost all of us on TA understand it is complex and nuanced, although there may be people outside of TA who are less mature and educated. I also agree with Jane Chapman that… Read more »
The drawback to Susannah’s desire for a Working Group appears to be that the majority of transgender people don’t want one. Christina Beardsley’s 2021 letter to the Bishop of London sums up the position well: ‘… my own view is that to convene such a working party suggests that trans people are a problem for the Church of England or that there is some uncertainty about their status as members of the Body of Christ. Given the Church of England’s policy and practice in relation to trans people, I see no such problem or uncertainty …’ That position has been… Read more »
I think the current situation requires at least a statement from the C of E; as the Methodists have done.
Who will compose such a statement; who will approve/ authorise it? Ex Cathedra from a recent visitor to Rome, or 40-odd Diocesan applications?
I am struggling to know what the reference to a recent visitor to Rome even means in this context
I assume s/he is referring to the Archbishop of York’s recent trip to Rome to attend the late Pope’s funeral.
Indeed; or any of those determined appropriate to represent the Church of England on that occasion.
I cannot imagine any church being unwelcome to any human being, it is completely against the gospel. Maybe you mean something more specific?
Maybe there could be a statement from CoE with a long list of all the types of human being which it welcomes, or maybe just say ‘all’, and move on. 5 minute job. They could even cut and paste the Methodist statement.
I can give an example if it helps. You don’t need imagination. A married lesbian couple were told by a local church that they were not welcome and that people like that should go to the church down the road as they would fit in better. No doubt they justified it by saying the Bible disapproves of gay and lesbian relationships. It happens I’m afraid and there seems little action to stop it.
Could you please name the church in question.
Yes I can – All Saints Mickleover Derby if that helps
The All Saints web site says
It doesn’t matter who you are or how you come. Church is for everyone!
We recognise we are none of us perfect and that we are all on a journey with the God who loves us.
What it says and what happens when the rubber hits the road in this case were different. I guess we all have that capacity and find out where our real boundaries are when we are pushed. I hope things have moved on but wouldn’t want to go there myself and test it out. I personally have been on the end of this too often to go there again. I value my wellness too much to get into something I don’t need to revisit
Very sensible! The hypocrisy is astonishing. Well, maybe not, hypocrisy is found everywhere.
At my own church in South London, there were gay/lesbian clergy and readers and nobody cared tuppence.
I think its easy to think we are open and welcoming in slogans and mission statements. When real people come in and show what that means it can reveal it might not be so. Glad you have a church which is a loving and inclusive community. All of this is about people and real lives. I think we lose sight of this sometimes which is sad.
I can imagine it might happen, I should not have been so absolute! But was the issue the fact that they were individually lesbians, or were in a committed relationship? Or was the problem that they were expressing their relationship outside of marriage?
I still find it very strange and outside of the Gospel. Even if you think being lesbian is a position of sin (which I don’t), sinners should still be welcome.
What kind of church was it? Anglican, RC, or something else?
Marise has said that they were married.
Sadly, the behaviour of churches too often falls ‘outside the gospel’.
The issue was both. They didn’t want ‘people like that’ and they were not welcome. It was CofE and they were very direct and upfront about it. I’m not sure if that is a good thing or not but at least they didn’t play at being nice and gossip until the couple left. I find it beyond sad that it is thought to be okay to treat people like this and think it is okay. I’m sure there are other examples out there but I know this from the people involved so it is not third party speculation. Fortunately they… Read more »
I was told just for having a helpful practical suggestion about sacred amplification (by one of the prominent busybodies though not by the amplification pastor and not by clergy) that I should find a different church. They (I’m not saying where) are affiliated to Church Society, YWAM, Bethel Redding, HTB and “Focus” (all at once). Their congregation have gone down from 200 to 50.
I am genuinely surprised by the anger that complementarian/traditionalist clergy incite in commentators like Lizzie Taylor. She says that their beliefs are ‘morally repugnant’, their theology ‘repellent or troubling’ and their presence ‘morally unjust and untrue to the Gospel’.
The vast majority of Christians (and indeed followers of the other Abrahamic faiths) around the world belong to denominations that ordain only men. Is the ‘Catholic Church’ ‘morally repugnant’? Is the theology of Orthodox Jews ‘repellent’? Are the Eastern Orthodox churches ‘untrue to the gospel’?
You may add Islam.
You might be less surprised if you had suffered discrimination on grounds of your sex.
I only recently discovered what the term complementarian means. Let’s be fair. Men are the authoritative interpreters of scripture and theology, and have decided that scripture and theology dictates than only men can become priests.
What could be simpler?
Simples indeed.
Unfortunately as a boomer too many female friends of my parents had done amazing things in the war (ATA pilots, Polish survivors of Soviet Gulag, etc), & post war (racing cars, ballooning across Atlantic). As a result I have never been able take seriously those who make a secular or religious case for women “knowing their [inferior] place”.
What a glamorous lot of women you knew! I’m a boomer too, and grew up among female missionaries like Elisabeth Eliot, who travelled with her toddler to live among the remote South American tribe who had killed her husband and 4 others. All of these women ‘gave talks’ in church and out of it on a regular basis. But they weren’t allowed to ‘preach’, except to the ‘heathen’ in far-off countries.
Since when? Women have minds, as do men, and as believers have the guidance and wisdom of the Holy Spirit. So they too can be, and are authoritative interpreters of scripture and theology. If men declare that only men can do something, that sounds rather like a biased and very one sided opinion.
Errrrrr – I thought my tone of sarcasm was obvious, but clearly not!
If all Christians are priests, then there is a lot to get angry about, not just women priests. And yes, a gospel that restores the equal relationship between men and women is being true to the gospel. Other Abrahamic faiths can do as they please!
Sadly talk of equality all too often reaches the stage of the proclamation in Animal Farm about all pigs being equal but some pigs being more equal than others . And it is a fair bet that in the COf E it will be the male pigs who are the more equal ones.
Male priests I think you mean. But the illustration still stands.
Well, Yes…but in ecumenical/interreligious relationships, you make an effort to couch things in the gentlest terms possible (lest the relationships break down before they’ve begun).
But such relationships have generally been seen “nice but not essential”. If Romans won’t give sinful me Anglican me communion, I find it regrettable. But if other Anglican won’t give me communion, that’s a CRISIS!
Someone reading TA at this point would conclude that the Gospel of Jesus Christ, His Body the Church, the character of Christian faith and life — it is primarily about sexual desiring. One woman left out of anger/hurt at not having her position unequivocally accepted. You will be relieved that I am leaving as well. What I read here now is such a thinned-out account of what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ, to proclaim the saving Gospel, to belong to a coherent account of the Church. It is becoming just boring and repetitive: something for those… Read more »
Being trans has nothing to do with sexual desire. Being gay, lesbian or bisexual can be linked to sexual desire but, just as for het folk, sex is a relatively minor part of the attraction that leads to loving someone and wanting to build a life with them. Maybe thinking everything is about sex (a fairly standard conservative problem) is why you keep missing the point so badly?
AP has made it fairly clear in his comment above that he doesn’t think everything is, or should be, about sex.
He made it fairly clear that he thinks being LGB and/or T is about sex.
He thinks those of us on TA place too much emphasis on sex.
I applaud your distinction. For me the issue is not primarily about ‘desire’. It’s about justice and equity for women and sexual minorities. It’s about justice both within the church where the gospel ought to be read from the perspective of the marginalized and the oppressed and justice in the wider society where religious beliefs in the public sphere can contribute either to oppression or liberation. I like the ‘pink smoke’ demonstration taking place in Rome ( link below). My motivation for commenting here as been to be, at least in some small way, in solidarity with women and members… Read more »
i think you confusing a number of separate issues and simply wrong about others. Conservatives don’t think everything is about sex, they think everything is about mission, but in a sexualised society it is necessary to talk about sex and some of the confusion that surrounds it. It can’t be avoided and LLF is just the latest example. Red lines have to be drawn to stop these issues being discussed in the church over and over again. They will be, but not by evangelicals.
But maybe it’s not about “desire” but about inclusion, and loving acceptance of the “other” which seems to have been quite important to Jesus?
If I may throw my tuppence worth into the discussion, I fully support Lizzie Taylor in her argument, as well as Susanna, Kaye and Janet. The ‘headship is male’ dogma is not only exclusive, prejudiced and mysoganistic, it is also grossly unfair to probably the majority of men, by imposing on them roles and behaviour expectations which they neither want nor are suited for. Some forty years ago, Rev Jim Smith and his ‘Manhunt’ programme openly characterised the majority of Christian men as ‘wets’ or ‘wimps’, stereotypes which were unattractive to non-believing males. That, of course, presupposed what image was… Read more »
Many old depictions of males in the church were cringewortjy. Remember all gas and gaiters ? Or dads army ?
All Gas and Gaiters was sympathetic and really quite accurate. I remember it from when I was a child, but it was many many years later that I discovered the accuracy of one of its basic premises.
The vicar in Dad’s Army is indeed an “odd” stereotype — but bizarrely he was played by an actor who became a member of the General Synod.
I don;t remember All Gas and Gaiters very well, I just remember the main actor was a bit strange. I don’t think we will see it repeated, although I have watched re runs of ‘In sickness and health’ and ‘steptoe and son’. The former got a bit much, and I don’t view repeat episodes any more. The latter is just sad.
Oh Brother was another one. Overall the depiction of clergy is that they are rather abnormal and full of ‘personality’. Maybe it is true! Maybe just what it takes to make an entertaining sitcom.
Several episodes of All Gas and Gaiters are available on YouTube.
Depends who you regard as the main actor in AG&G. I’d say Derek Nimmo (bishop’s chaplain) because he appealed to my age. But also starring William Mervyn (the bishop), Robertson Hare (the archdeacon), and John Baron (the dean), all of whom are pretty well-known too. Derek Nimmo then went on to star in Oh Brother! AG&G was subsequently remade for Radio 4, and is still rebroadcast from time to time on 4 Extra, though Derek Nimmo left the cast and was replaced by Jonathan Cecil.
Indeed, although I would suggest that for ‘those of a certain age’ at the time of the original broadcasts, Robertson Hare, was rather more than ‘pretty well-known’, but was famous as one of the finest farceurs and character actors of the interwar period (that golden age of character acting), whether on stage or screen. I have seen him in a number of droll films of the 1930s in the many hours I have wasted at the NFT/BFI, holding his own alongside the likes of Edward Everett Horton or Jessie Matthews. “Calamity!”
I agree, all the actors were good, I just watched an episode on youtube. My point is that these stereotypes are not a great advertisement for the church, ref John Davies and his reference to ‘wets’ and ‘wimps’. Yes. they were sympathetic, but if realistic it is truly horrific! Naive young curate, never kissed a girl, world weary bishop, calvinist dean, randy archdeacon. Yes, maybe it is realistic! add in the coronation service, and there we have the CoE.
I will watch a few more on youtube!
There was another, less well-remembered, Church sitcom in those years, “Bless me Father” with Arthur Lowe (better known as Captain Mainwaring) as a Roman Catholic parish priest. I remember one episode involving the dedication of a large bell by the bishop who afterwards said “Thank God that’s over!” Humour was gentler then. Everything discussed here so far is in stark contrast to the unabashed no holds-barred Irish humour of ‘Father Ted’.
Ah, Father Ted! Mrs Doyle was my hero with her unshakeable belief that the world would only be redeemed through endless cups of tea.
But for a more realistic take on parish life in today’s C of E, has anything come close to Rev? The final episode when Fr Adam broke into his closed parish church with the faithful few and sung the Exsultet as an act of defiance and hope was heart breaking yet uplifting.
Oh Brother! Saturday afternoon wrestling on TV was what real Christian men were into, along with the occasional whipping apparently. Frowned upon now though. But 50 years ago one was a reaction to the other.
You are quite right about wrestling, back in the day. I am reliably informed that it was particularly watched by women, Christian or non Christian I could not say. My favourites from those days was The Untouchables, or maybe Quatermass. No recollection of whipping, but then maybe I didn’t go to the right school.