This National Conference was held in St John's Waterloo on Saturday 20 April 2024.

These are my notes from the day... You can find out more about WATCH and view each address here

The first keynote speaker was Bishop Rose Hudson-Wilkin. Bishop Rose began by explaining that when she was asked why she stuck around in a church that treated her (and women generally) like a 2nd class citizen? She would answer: ‘Because I know who called me.’

Bishop Rose went on to talk about her understand of Jesus as one who showed no partiality, who also shows us that grief and hope are not mutually exclusive. She then read the The caged bird, by Maya Angelou, it was so beautiful, please do look it up. Bishop Rose said; ‘I do not wish to hold on to the righteous rage that I sometimes feel - because our souls need to sing of freedom.’ 

She highlighted that although the five Guiding Principles start by declaring the church to be ‘unequivocally committed to all orders of ministry being open to women’ they go on to undermine the truth of this statement by the exceptions they outline afterwards. 

Bishop Rose drew a parallel with other discrimination saying ‘It is not what they have (or have not) done to our bodies, but what they have done to our minds that is more serious - to make us believe that we have no choice.’

She then shared a second poem, which was equally powerful: We wear the mask by Paul Laurence Dunbar, which is also well worth a read. Bishop Rose talked about her experiences of being described negatively by people (often men) that she encountered. She urged us not to use the negative language that others call us… but only what Christ calls us: ‘fearfully and wonderfully made’. She also counselled us not to go to places where we knew we would not be welcome, places where we would be humiliated – but rather to shake the dust from our feet.

Bishop Rose finished by exhorting us to ‘Be proud of who you are!’ ❤️

The next speaker, Theo Hobson, talked about the new aim of WATCH: namely to revisit the declaration of the five guiding principles, for sake of church unity. He described the term ‘Mutual flourishing’ as an obvious contradiction and an injustice. However also cautioned of the danger of appearing to rely on ‘secular’ language of rights, rather than scripture and theology.

[NB. I highlighted during the Q&A that human rights and equality legislation have Christian origins… I wondered if perhaps we need to remember and re-claim the theology of these?]

Theo described the five Guiding Principles as bad theology and bad ecclesiology. He noted that the average 'nice' Christian liberal says ‘don’t go there’, ‘it doesn’t matter too much’, ‘after all traditionalist are fading away, aren’t they? However, the reality is that rather than fading away, young men are being ordained specifically to further entrench their position.

The Church needs unity: yet what we are left with is two mutually exclusive integrities: Either the church is ‘unequivocally committed to all orders of ministry being open to women’ or we continue to allow some parts of our church to teach that the ministry of women should be limited. These perspectives are not logically compatible. Any woman’s authority and identity (be she priest or bishop) is undermined. Theo wondered why no-one had spoken up about or challenged this contradiction: was the Emperor wearing no clothes?

Theo believes that unity matters: and it worries him that some Traditionalist and Evangelicals don’t seem to believe in or care about the unity or integrity of the church. For many it seems that personal integrity is more important. He noted that Catholic Traditionalist oppose the full equality of Women because they hold to the potential/theoretical unity with Roman Catholic Church. Although he asked why this potential future unity was more important than the actual current unity of Anglican Church. For evangelicals, the complementarian model found from their reading of scripture is key. Unity with Christ is most important, while the unity of the Church seems of less importance.

The five Guiding Principles do not promote unity of Church of England. They point to the Anglican communion as their raison d'etre for sake of the communion's unity. Theo suggested that we were the only province which has such a low opinion of itself and of the value of its own unity.

As a former student of Cuddesdon Theological College, I was delighted that Rev’d Professor Mark Chapman spoke next. He began in a similar vein to Theo, describing the five Guiding Principles as ‘theological nonsense!’ (He then talked us through them in detail, highlighting where they became contradictory and conflicting!)

Mark went on to explain the role that Parliament had played in 1992-93, enshrining the protection of conservative traditionalist (those opposing the ordination of women) in quasi law (in a manner not dissimilar to the protection of the Prayer Book earlier): After the 1992 synod vote, traditionalists in parliament weighed in, concerned about the protection of people and parishes who could not countenance the ministry of women (not believing original safeguards went far enough). Tony Benn was one of the few politicians to speak in favour of women’s full equality – pointing out that conservative/traditionalists seemed to be overlooking the discrimination that women had suffered for many centuries.

Honest church: Naomi Nixon explained that this initiative comes from the Student Christian Movement, and has recently partnered with WATCH to help churches identify and communicate where they are on the Ministry of Women and the ministry of individuals who identify as LBGTQ+  This is important because silence is complicity. And if a church web site says nothing, then people have to draw their own conclusions.

The Toolkit is great for conservative churches as well as progressive communities, and for churches that are only just beginning to think about these things. It helps church communities simply to be honest and transparent, whatever they believe, think and teach.

Do take a look at this brilliant and FREE resource, right here…

One of the final speakers was Guy Hewitt, the Director of Racial Justice in the Church of England. Guy began by explaining that he equated the phrase ‘mutual flourishing’ with the language of ‘separate but equal’ which was used by white supremacists advocating for segregation in North America. Drawing on the metaphor used by a previous speaker, he asked us: “If the Emperor is naked: if the five guiding principles are unjust, untrue, and unsafe? Are we/you bold enough to call them out?”

He challenged us to see gender in continuity with all other areas of discrimination and injustice and commended us to pray for the changes we want to see. And so I wrote this prayer:

Creator God, I pray 

that the Church of England may become a church 

that celebrates the diversity 

and champions the unfettered equality 

of all her children. 

In Jesus' name, Amen.