The Church of England working group on women bishops yesterday announced that it will be making four proposals to General Synod in a month’s time:

http://www.churchofengland.org/media-centre/news/2013/05/house-of-bishops-statements-on-women-in-the-episcopate-and-on-safeguarding.aspx

It is not yet clear to our team when those proposals and the details of their suggested implementation will become available.

The Together4ward team are grateful for the opportunity we have had to contribute to the working group’s discussions on Christian unity in light of the diversity of opinion that exists regarding the issue of gender and suggested changes to Anglican church order.

We recognise that some have felt real surprise to discover that there are those of us who understand the Bible to teach a distinction in gender roles regarding church order. We welcome those who, even though they disagree with our theological understanding, have acknowledged that this was the position articulated by the church Fathers and the Anglican Reformers, and that until 20 years ago this was the theological understanding reflected in Anglican polity and church structures since Augustine.

In our unofficial discussions with representatives of women’s ministry groups, we are very pleased to have found substantial agreement regarding possible ways forward. In particular, we were pleased to be able to engage with the creative thinking and research of leading female presbyter Lis Goddard, further exploration of which we supported and endorsed publicly in our official contribution to the Synod working group.

While we were disappointed that some of these creative solutions were ruled out by pre-commitments made by the working group at an early stage, we would like to thank them for giving our representative an opportunity to contribute to their discussions. When the detail of the four proposals announced yesterday is released, and we have had time to reflect carefully, we hope to make a fuller statement.

Meanwhile, we continue to encourage parties on all sides to pray for Christian unity at this time, and to that end we encourage the use of the following collect published by Church Society:

Almighty and everlasting God,
ruler of all things in heaven and on earth,
mercifully hear the prayers of your people.
In the wake of the vote in General Synod,
grant comfort to those who are sorrowful,
rest to those who are weary,
and clarity to those who are confused.
Give to each of us, heavenly Father,
a heartfelt repentance for our sins,
a renewed spirit of grace and love towards our Christian brothers and sisters,
and a shared commitment to seek your will, revealed in your holy Word.
Above all, gracious Lord, help us fix our hearts where true joys are to be found,
in Jesus Christ our Saviour, who died for us and rose again,
for we ask all these things in his name, Amen.

On the 4th-6th February, the General Synod women bishops working group consulted with representatives from various parties to hear their perspectives and views on developing a way forward for legislation to introduce women bishops:

• On the 8th February, William Fittall summarised some initial thoughts about that meeting, and invited contributions from Synod members and others to input into the next phase of developing legislation. His note is available here: http://churchofengland.org/media/1665705/gs%20misc%201042%20-%20wie%20update.pdf
• In light of this, Church Society and the Together4ward team undertook a listening exercise to gather opinions and suggestions from the Conservative Evangelical community. There was a great response to the EV News item particularly from Church Society members, who got in touch through emails, phone calls, face to face, etc. The EV News item is available here: http://evangelicals.org/news.asp?id=1583
• We are very excited to have engendered such a positive discussion, and very excited by some of the very creative thinking that has been taking place. Church Society and Together4ward have collated much of this feedback, and today emailed it through to the working group as requested. We are very grateful to the working group for seeking to hear opinions, and for their desire to undertake the discussion in a transparent manner. As such, we are making our contribution available online: http://together4ward.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/cs-and-t4w-working-out-how-to-work-together.pdf

Action you can take:

1. Please pray for the working group as they seek to collate, listen to, and process the various contributions that will have been made to their discussion over the last weeks. Please pray for them as they undertake the difficult task of deciding the next step.
2. Please pray for the wider church, for a conciliatory tone and catholic spirit as we continue to work out how to work together despite our disagreements over this issue.
3. Please pray for the wider world, that as the church models how to disagree well, expressing unity through charity, that this would draw people to Christ (John 17:21).
4. Please do contribute. If you have an idea for a way forward there’s still time to get it in if you email the working group today (see the instructions on page 1 of William Fittall’s note, above).

As an aid, do continue to make use of Church Society’s collect published especially for these times:

Almighty and everlasting God,
ruler of all things in heaven and on earth,
mercifully hear the prayers of your people.
In the wake of the vote in General Synod,
grant comfort to those who are sorrowful,
rest to those who are weary,
and clarity to those who are confused.
Give to each of us, heavenly Father,
a heartfelt repentance for our sins,
a renewed spirit of grace and love towards our Christian brothers and sisters,
and a shared commitment to seek your will, revealed in your holy Word.
Above all, gracious Lord, help us fix our hearts where true joys are to be found,
in Jesus Christ our Saviour, who died for us and rose again,
for we ask all these things in his name, Amen.

On Monday 4^th February, the women bishops working group meets with interested parties to discuss a way forward for faithful Anglicans in the CofE who have different views on the Bible’s teaching regarding gender roles.

Back in November 2012, the Together4ward campaign was set up for three reasons:

1. To encourage understanding of the different positions by all sides.
2. To encourage, and hopefully model, a different tone to the whole debate.
3. To encourage a ‘no’ vote on the women bishop’s measure as it stood before Synod.

In light of the ‘no’ vote in Synod, and in light of the hurt and pain experienced by many, back in November we put out a simple statement and a collect for use in churches.

Since then we have been meeting behind the scenes and working hard in various ways to bridge divides and build relationships of trust among those who have disagreed for a long time. As the Synod working group meet to discuss how the church can move forward, we would like to encourage the church to pray for them, to promote a generous and gracious tone to the discussions that happen outside, and to help foster increasing understanding and empathy.

In the spirit of those aims, we are doing the following:

1. Making public our ethical guidelines for social media that we developed for our campaign and its supporters back in November 2012.
2. Making public our “Thank you” project, an initiative of Church Society Director Lee Gatiss to encourage unity, support those who voted ‘no’, and promote good will across different traditions.