What is in Kelvin's Head?

10 questions arising from the misogyny of a “headship” bishop

05/12/2014
Plans were announced last night to appoint a new bishop in the Church of England who will specifically believe that women are subordinate to men to minister to, encourage and represent those in the Church of England who believe this, ie that men have been given headship over women by God, to be true. (This isn’t a joke, this is real).

This had been planned for some time and was part of the deal whereby that church agreed to open the Episcopate to candidates who happen to be female.

It rather neatly proves some of the terrible things I was saying about the Church of England earlier in the week to be true.

On this occasion, I take no pleasure in being right.

The following questions arising from the misogyny of a “headship” bishop should now be raised:
1. To Members of Parliament: Are you really comfortable with 1 million children being educated every day by an organisation with these values?
2. To candidates in the next election: Will you support the disestablishment of the Church of England because organisations which behave in this way should have no privileged place in parliament?
3. To the Archbishop of Canterbury: Do you realise that this makes you personally look like a misogynist too as suffragan appointments are always personal to the bishop involved?
4. In the General Synod of the Church of England: …. and if people ask for a bishop with racist views to represent them, will we do that too?
5. To the BBC: Why are you not covering this story as a major news item?
6. To those who serve in Church House, Westminster: Why do progressive changes to the Church of England have to go through years of debate at General Synod and regressive ones don’t?
7. To Primates around the communion: Why is this novelty and abuse of the episcopate acceptable when the appointment of a man who happened to be gay was so unacceptable?
8. To the Prime Minister at Prime Minister’s Question Time: Does the Prime Minister share the concerns of many in this country that the Church of England is institutionalising misogyny.
9. To the silent Church of England Bishops who believe themselves to be liberal: How do you sleep?
10. To the first woman to be consecrated as bishop in the Church of England: Was it worth it on these terms?
bishops, Church of England, headship, mysogyny

9 responses to “Turning Up and Being Counted”

Lesley-Ann craddock

26/11/2022

Thank you Kelvin
What a read, I really enjoyed it, all of it. You have touched on the 3 things that I too have been wrestling with.
Liturgy , turning up to be counted, and being open and real with our peers and counterparts.
Hmmm I wonder if those aspects of being church in this post pandemic implosion of society will somehow be a catalyst to become braver clergy and have proper discussions about what matters to Gods church in its own context. Can we be diverse and not divided, can we lock into our heritage and yet be able to change too. Can Branson pickle save us. X

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Christine McIntosh

26/11/2022

Great stuff, Kelvin!

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Robert MacDonald

26/11/2022

Good points well made. We find some church members, who organise a community lunch on a Wednesday, then regularly say ‘we won’t make it on Sunday’. Seems the wrong way round – attendance on a Sunday should come first.

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Peggy Brewer

26/11/2022

Reading this made my day and contributes to my celebration of the season! Thank you!

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Calum Wyllie

27/11/2022

Reading this, I feel like it could have been written about me. I couldn’t have been more deeply involved with my church (felt deeply rooted in the weekly liturgy, sat on the PCC, led on diversity and inclusion, set up online streaming for the first time during lockdown), yet I haven’t been back in two years. There is definitely an element of that link of continuity having been broken, and it’s up to me to make the effort to reforge it again. But the anger is also real, and hard to pin down. When somewhere no longer feels like home, when you feel excluded (even when that person was responsible for leading on inclusion!), how do you find the courage to return? When the link with spirituality feels more present in other places (even when I used to absolutely value liturgy, the Eucharist, the community), how do you find a way forward? Too much thinking, and not enough getting on and doing, perhaps…

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Meg Rosenfeld

27/11/2022

Wow–this article is not only thought-provoking, and, to someone who’s a church-goer, extremely easy to identify with, but also entertaining and therefore all the more memorable. As one whose parish church (in San Francisco’s notorious Haight Ashbury neighborhood) nowadays gets about 15 people in the congregation on a “good” day, I do often wonder whether we’re ever going to bounce back from this expletive-deleted pandemic. Personally, I have no choice: I am, on the aforementioned good day, 50% of the alto section, and on other days, 100% thereof. All you folks out there don’t know what you’re missing–except, of course, those of you who are watching on your home computers.

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Father Ron Smith

27/11/2022

Well said, Kelvin Perhaps we clergy don’t stress enough the fact that the Host at our worship is not the clergy, but the Incarnate Son of God; who empowers us to the extent that we are willing to be empowered for daily life and work. I still think of that lovely phrase “Turn towards HIM and be radiant”. What a thrill!

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Kennedy fraser

28/11/2022

Yes,I still wonder if we have counted all those spiritual communions

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John Davies

01/12/2022

My church (suburban, evangelical Anglican in Birmingham, UK) took a long time to really recover from the lockdown and subsequent fears, but seems to be close to its pre-shutdown numbers again. What my wife and I noticed was that for quite some time the congregation was largely made up of its elderly members – ie those who are not perhaps so nifty with the electronic gadgetry of our age and, also, those who most wanted company. Younger families took a lot longer to return, but are now coming out of the woodwork again.
One interesting point is that my old church reported a big increase in deaf people watching their zoom or youtube services, because one of the congregation provided signage at the front. Their new found audience felt greatly enabled to join in when they may otherwise never have done so. Is this something worth thinking more about?

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