Last week’s Church of England Synod discussed the issue of how to look after those who will not accept a woman as their bishop. It didn’t deal with the issue of woman bishops, but merely this lesser issue of how to look after those who, after the decision to ordain woman as bishops has been made, hold out against their (woman) bishop. The Synod was beginning to consider whether they should be offered another bishop to report to, under a measure allowing for ‘transferred episcopal oversight’? (Should they? What do you think?)
According to my source (my vicar is a member of Synod), the Synod doesn’t know how to talk through the issue of women bishops directly, but the majority assumes that they are inevitable.
This is not the problem at all, however. The problem is that we do not know what a bishop is, and this is because we are so confused about authority. Being under authority is good for us, and it is a fundamental part of the good news of Jesus Christ. A bishop is quite simply our trainer and our disciplinarian, given to us by our Lord, to train, discipline, form and disciple us. He and his discipline is good news, central to the gospel and to our salvation. We are not left alone, but in Christ we are now to be shaped, moulded and loved, by the Church, the whole Church, the whole historical tradition and worldwide catholicity that is the body of Christ. This Church has authority over us for our sake, to bring us up and make Christians of us. But the Body of Christ is not a merely theoretical or amorphous authority that we choose to receive as we want, that we may choose the acceptable and discard the unacceptable parts of. It is a specific sets of authorities, and indeed one specific authority, one person, this bishop. The bishop was chosen, by Church, for you. You were chosen, by Christ, for the Church, for the world. The logic is exactly the same. We have to put up with you, and receive you gladly as the gift of Christ to us. So individually we don’t choose our bishop, our teacher, but they are imposed on us, by the Church. Of course we are under many authorities in the Church, but this one particular person, the bishop is all these authorities conveniently packaged in one person, whom you can ring and go and see. (In your church, the bishop is called the Moderator, or the Superintendant, or something similar).
The snag is that our (Church of England) bishops forget how to be under discipline. They forget how to take discipline themselves, and so they forget how to give discipline. They don’t know how to lead or disciple us. No one ever tells them that they are the discipline of Christ for us – and we seldom pray for them. A Church without real leaders and disciplinarians is as confused and unhappy as children without parental discipline. They don’t know where the boundaries are, and so are always pushing a bit further to se if they can find them. Each episode of childish misbehaviour is a question to their parents. Do you love me? Show me, grasp me more firmly. So with bishops, if our bishops don’t push back, and reprimand us, it may be because they love us too little. Let us pray for them, and whenever you see your bishop, remind him of who he is and what he has to say to Church.
