Which, WATCH, is Which?

Again, I tend to take notice of what's happening in the CofE. The independent reviewer Sir Philip Mawer recently made a report on the +Philip North affair in Sheffield describing the "traditional" wing of the CofE as being a "minority. The organisation known as Women And The  CHurch (WATCH) have taken umbrage at this.

Referring to those who are opposed to the ordination of women as the minority not only suggests that they are numerically few. It also invokes the language of minority rights. For example, Mawer says the ‘key issue for those in the minority was whether their position would continue to be recognised and honoured in the Church.’ He also highlights that ‘pastoral and sacramental provision for the minority’ needs to be made. But this is a fundamental misunderstanding of what it means to be a minority group. The opponents of women’s ordination are now numerically few but they are not – in the sense that it is used to protect civil or collective rights – a minority. To be a minority in this sense has nothing to do with the number of people in a group. It is about the locus of power and privilege. 

In every other section of our society women are considered a minority group because, both historically and currently, they do not have the same opportunities as men and do not have an equal share of the power and privileges afforded to them. Although the Right Revd Philip North belongs to a small vestige of people opposed to the ordination of women, he still belongs to the hegemonic majority. That is to say, he belongs to a group of people who for two millennia have held the dominant viewpoint and had the power to enforce it. It is a viewpoint that still has repercussions for women and their vocations today.

The question here is, "Which minority is Sir Philip talking about?" He may indeed mean the simple fact that the majority of the CofE accepts women clergy. This is a simple numerological fact: the bigger share is the majority, the smaller the minority. But WATCH complain that that word "minority" is a sociologically loaded term.

Looking back at history, this is perfectly understandable. Women have indeed been regarded as inferior for far too long. Medieval ideas have seen women regarded as the cause of the Fall and lesser as a result of it rather than seeing the blame appropriately on all mankind. The notion of "headship" in the Bible sees women submitting to their husbands which has gone from being the notion of opposite sexes in relationship to effectively a master-slave relationship and even owner-chattel relationship. In the U.K., the spectre of Mrs Pankhurst still haunts our sociology and, it has to remembered that rape within marriage was only criminalised in 1991! Women indeed have had to struggle for acceptance as doctors, lawyers and politicians whilst being under pressure to conform to the gender stereotype of "the little woman at home". That is still very much the case considering that it is still the expectation that a woman will give up her career to become a mother and raise a family. Society still puts that pressure on both sexes to fulfil a gender stereotype.

It is a false equivalence that gender is the same as sex. It is gender that is the social construct, not sex. This means that there is always going to be a difference between men and women and about how they fulfil roles in Society. We go back to yesterday's false equivalence of being and doing.

WATCH rightly regard the fight for women to fulfil roles as a struggle for a minority ideology to become a majority and thus a socially acceptable rule. Thus they see in their opponents - those who believe women cannot be priests - as denying that ideology on the basis of their previous societal power and privilege. They are the ones that have had to fight for acceptance; they are the ones who hold the social definition of minority.

The trouble is that their opponents FiF and SSWSH (Happy Feast Day, BTW) are in the minority and hold a minority ideology which is not the same as WATCH. It is an ideology which is simply incompatible with how WATCH see their theology. In the ACC, we have reached our clear decision and it is a decision that will not be reversed because it is the Catholic Faith that we have decided to preserve - a faith of ikons rather than roles, being rather than doing. This is why many people see us as being monolithic in our Faith rather than fluid, but then we are trying to be part of the Church as a whole rather than a series of accidents of history. If FiF and SSWSH have the same theology as we do (and that's difficult to say because they are happy to remain part of the CofE) then it is a manifestly different theology from WATCH.

If WATCH regard this theology as being unacceptable for the CofE to hold, then they must campaign to have it extirpated but, in so doing, they will purge the CofE of members. They cannot force people to subscribe to their ecclesiology but will label them with the words "sexist" and "bigot" behind their backs until they are seen as unacceptable. This is effectively a form of bullying, and bullying is a form of persecution. It is the persecuted few who are then become a minority in the social definition of the term. Is bullying the bullies a case of two wrongs making a right?

This raises two options for WATCH:

1) that FiF and SSWSH have an objectively unacceptable theological position in the CofE.

2) that FiF and SSWSH have an objectively acceptable theological position in the CofE.

Clearly objectively unacceptable theological positions must not be allowed to thrive in the CofE, as they would not in any church. In this case, there should be absolutely no provision at all for FiF and SSWSH and holders of the opinion that women can't be priests should be encouraged to leave the CofE or "put up and shut up".

However, objectively acceptable ones must be allowed to thrive under the Five Guiding Principles. This would include members of FiF being given fair chance to any position within the CofE as much as anyone else. If not (and the +North affair seems to make this clear that there cannot be an FiF Diocesan Bishop), then FiF ought to be given their Third Province so that they can thrive. This would be a schism in all but name.

The problem is that 1) and 2) are antitheses and it is difficult for me to see a third logical possibility. Perhaps there is one and I would be interested to know. If there isn't then one of these statements is right and the other wrong. Thus I ask the question, "Which, WATCH, is which?"