The move towards having female Bishops in the Church of England means that in the fullness of time we are likely to have female Bishops sitting in the House of Lords. I see from a report in yesterday’s edition of The Times that the Canon Steward at Westminster Abbey, Jane Hedges, says that she has picked up from parliamentarians that there would be strong support for women bishops.
Having a woman sat on the Bishops’ Bench would be unprecedented, but having a female cleric in the House would not. We already have one. Baroness Richardson of Calow was the first woman President of the Methodist Conference in 1992-93. She was raised to the peerage in 1998.
That the C of E decides to join the rest of the modern age, and how parliament and the country should be so pleased with with them for this magnanimous gesture is ridiculous.
No matter how pleasant they may be, or how much I might agree with them, I don’t want fairy-worshippers having a defacto say in the running of the country.
I’m all in favour of more women becoming Bishops, but is it really appropriate to have one religious group automatically be given the privilege of seats in government in today’s multi-cultural, often non-religious society?
Happy New Year, Lord Norton,
Surely the good Canon Steward should have said she has picked up from some parliamentarians instead of assuming all parliamentarians are in favour of women bishops?
Howridiculous.
The Bishops are the one aspect of the present House of Lords I’m not comfortable with. I’d have no objection to people such as Baroness Richardson of Calow or Lord Harries of Pentregarth sitting in the Lords along with representatives of other faiths, but that should be via channels such as the House of Lords Appointments Commission. Surely the presence of the Bishops is strengthening the hands of those seeking a fully-elected house?
If bishops didn’t receive automatic seats in the Lords, would there be anything to bar a serving bishop from being granted a life peerage?
Thanks for the responses. As readers who read one of my original posts on the blog may recall, I am a Methodist and so am used to women clerics and for me it is not an issue. On Anglican Bishops sitting ex officio (rather than, as with Baroness Richardson, sitting by reason of individual merit), Troika21 and Clare raise separate issues: Troika21 objects to their presence and Clare questions why it is only Anglican Bishops who sit ex officio. On the latter point, this has been considered on a number of occasions, including by the Wakeham Commission, which wished to see other faiths have members in the House. The problem with extending the ranks of the Lords Spiritual beyond the Established Church is, in part, practical. The Anglican Church has an established hierarchy, so it is easy to determine who shall sit. The Roman Catholic Church also has a hierarchy, but its Bishops are precluded from sitting in Parliament by their own church. Though there are leading lay members of the Catholic faith in the Lords, there are thus no Roman Catholic clerics. Other faiths often have no equivalent hierarchy. The Methodist Church, for example, selects a President of the Methodist Conference on an annual basis. Some faiths, such as the Quakers, have a flat hierarchy. It is thus difficult to create the basis for membership equivalent to that of the Anglican Church. What happens in practice is that clerics, or leading lay members, of other faiths are selected on their individual merits. The House has members drawn fron a wide range of religions (Anglican, Roman Catholic, Jewish, Methodist, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, among others), as well as of none (there is a humanist association in the House), though none sit in a representative capacity; though neither, for that matter, do the Lords Spiritual – the Bishops sit ex officio but their writs of summons are personal. They speak only for themselves and not formally in a representative capacity. It would be interesting to hear if anyone has any proposals for a more formalised structure to enable clerics of other faiths to sit in the House.
On the stance of Troika21, there is a debate as to whether there should be members of any faith sitting ex officio in the House. The Lords Spiritual sit by virtue of the Anglican Church being the Established Church. The case for their service in the House was once justified in debate by one of their number on the grounds that, as they are drawn from different dioceses, they have a particular appreciation of different parts of the country – agricultural poverty, inner-city problems and the like. They are the closest the House has to ‘constituency’ members. They can certainly be valuable contributors to debate. Against that, there is the practical point that they are not the best attenders – they have their day jobs – and the more fundamental point of principle as to whether clerics should sit ex officio. It will be interesting to know the views of readers.
Howridiculous: Not necessarily, as she said she detected that there was strong support, not unanimous support.
Lord Norton –
My stance is more broad than simply being against the Bishops; I would oppose all arguments that any group should gain a permanent seat in the Lords. Its not like anyone would allow the Arab Horse Society its own seat, would they? So why the Church?
Myself, being one of those ‘New Atheists’ the Bishops do draw my ire; although I was raised a Methodist for a few early years.
If the argument was put forward that they represent are a Lords version of a constituency, then might I suggest that the Lords Spiritual be replaced by a lottery of Town Mayors. That could be a way forward.
Jonathan: On your final question, if Bishops did not sit ex officio then there would be nothing to prevent them being granted life peerages on their individual merits. Robert Eames, the Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland (1986-2006) was raised to the peerage in 2006. As you touch upon, there are also various Bishops who, following their retirement, have been given life peerages.
Troika21: I recognise your point is about people sitting by reason of the office they hold rather than being elevated on the basis of their individual merit. Apart from the Lords Spiritual, there are only two other members who sit ex officio (the Earl Marshal and the Lord Great Chamberlain). There is certainly a debate to be had about members sitting ex officio and whether one should move instead to a system where all members are appointed directly on their individual merit. On your point about mayors, we do have several members of the House who have led, and in some cases continue to lead, councils. They are appointed on their own merits.
CORRECTION to my previous response: I meant to put 1995 as the year that Archbishop Eames was elevated to the peerage. Putting 2006 rather undermines the point I wanted to make – namely that he was elevated on individual merit while still in office.
Indeed elevation to a peerage in 2006 would have made for a rather short term…
Lord Norton, I find myself agreeing more with the first commenter than with the others. The arguments for and against religious groups sitting are well known and well argued and I see no particular merit in the context of the British House of Lords for disbanding the Lords Spiritual, nor especially for keeping them, and hence have no strong opinions on that aspect of it.
Nonetheless, in the year 2008 is it really wise and prudent to have a public debate about nonsense like whether feminism actually happened and whether women are deserving of rank so closely linked with our government? The answers are yes and yes respectively and the argument is good and closed by now. It might well have been sensible to invite the doddery old muffins of the church to take their sexist little faff into a quiet corner until they learnt how to deal with the basic realities of the modern world.
I admit to waiting to see the responses before putting in my tuppence worth. McDuff probably clomes closest to my views with his/her last sentence, above. Lord Norton, I’m sure you had no intention for this to ever be a gender issue.
I respect the current set-up of the HoL but if there was ever to be further change then I would remove the Lords Spiritual before tackling the merits of appointed v. elected peers.
The notion of representation of all the faiths is plainly silly – do you really want a few Jedi’s to be elevated, the 4th largest ‘religion’ supported in the 2001 census?
McDuff: Though I may express it in somewhat different terms, I have some sympathy with your concluding observation, as may be apparent from my post. Ladytizzy: On your last point, this reinforces my earlier observation about the problems of providing for members of different faiths to sit ex officio. Whether we have any member of the House who declared themselves a Jedi in the last census I don’t know; somehow I doubt it, but I wouldn’t rule it out.
Topically, what none of you have mentioned is that the Vatican City State has decided to disassociate itself from Italian law on the basis that there are too many laws and that they conflict with church principles.
I feel sure that the Lords Spiritual would like to do the same. At best, all that they may achieve is to voice their concerns in the house or through the media. It gives a moral dimension to our politics outside of a personal faith.
My grandson was christened recently and I found myself resenting the fact that the Vicar was a woman. To accept a dislike is to deny the higher self something I will not do. So on occasions like this I become very introspective questioning why I have the dislike.
The principle that women should have equal opportunity to men, both physically and spiritually is important to me. However somewhere in my id is a thought; am I looking at a true equal a hairy woman?
If I were looking at one that has removed certain body hair would I be looking at a victim of sexual exploitation? I feel very strongly that women collectively are lamentable in protecting their genders sexuality and that this is the root cause of many of societies shortcomings.
What should our female Parliamentarians make of this spiritually, hair today gone tomorrow? Maybe the opposite should apply purely in the interests of equality. If one recollects the story of Samson and Delilah then contemporary women are truly the weaker sex.
Ref: Vatican divorces from Italian law
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7807501.stm
Letting your hair down
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6251239.stm
@Senex:
To deal with the question of hirsuteness: today, men and women shave and pluck, and the issue is more to do with fashion than gender. This has been discussed widely, across the world. This link provides one example, from 2007: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/2126822.cms
Religions have a lot to say about hair, for some reason, eg:
Translation of Sahih Bukhari, Book 72:
Volume 7, Book 72, Number 779:
Narrated Abu Huraira :
I heard the Prophet saying. “Five practices are characteristics of the Fitra: circumcision, shaving the pubic hair, cutting the moustaches short, clipping the nails, and depilating the hair of the armpits.”
http://www.usc.edu/schools/college/crcc/engagement/resources/texts/muslim/hadith/bukhari/072.sbt.html#007.072.780
Have I assuaged you that women have, in the least, the same abilities to Google as men?
Hello Tiz:
Have you noticed the site now has a ‘notify me on follow up’ checkbox? Much better! We just need themselves to publish a short out of bounds message when they block posts so there is no inferred snub to the blogger. Getting there it seems!
Yes I see what you mean but surely your reference is about what men should do to differ from pagans?
This link from 1991 is more along the lines I mean:
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/625/who-decided-women-should-shave-their-legs-and-underarms
Christian female clerics outside of the Roman Catholic faith always leave me insecure. The way Rome dealt spiritually with the female priesthood was to make them into essentially Vestal Virgins by marrying them off to Christ and making them unavailable in the carnal sense.
In other Christian faiths female clerics are available. However, in my own mind I still want the concept of the Vestal Virgin to apply because purity is an essential ingredient of faith. So should the Anglican Church suggest to female clerics that they make themselves free of influences brought about by men that might distance them from god?
For ordinary women it is more complicated. I see waxing for instance a form of self-harm. Well certainly it hurts like hell so they tell me. Its all right for Julie Roberts to be a champion of hirsuteness but then she can afford the attention it brings here. Nevertheless she is an icon of female emancipation in these terms.
For most women the removal of hair is a nuisance but generally it is an expensive luxury that most could do without. Women seem to have become trapped in a mans view of their sexuality leaving little individuality. Its not restricted to women but applies to girls too and it must be a worry for responsible parents.
How are women going to rid them of what is essentially a consensual tyranny? Would they want to and should they? What is the psychology behind it?
If the Jedis are indeed the fourth largest religion, why shouldn’t it be represented? Are we committed to the principles of democratic representation as long as the people being represented are not too silly?
Indeed, really one could consider the stated adherents of the Jedi religion to simply be formalising an existing but oft-ignored demographic: people who think all religions are silly and who don’t think the credence given to a Bishop who claims to talk to God is justly earned. If there’s more of those than, say, Sikhs, should this not be duly acknowledged and represented? Absence of faith is not an absence of worth.
Hi Senex!
Since I view all religions as unneccessary my interest in a group of men in frocks deciding whether women can become bishops is decidedly thin. But you rather depart from this discussion when you introduce the term purity ‘as an essential ingredient of faith’. If that is what believe then would expand on that and fill me in on what are the other ingredients, from your point of view (pov)?
Your link reinforces my earlier comment that hair removal was, and remains, mainly due to fashion. Clerical male tonsures were a deliberate renunciation of ‘fashion’ though, as happens over time, ordinary men shave their heads these days for a number of aesthetic reasons. Perhaps female Anglican clerics should shave their heads if that would satisfy you. I doubt whether the aforesaid could give a monkey’s since gender demarcation is probably not too high on their agenda.
I am sorry, but I can’t take you seriously if you see waxing as a form of self-harm. I could go with nail-biting as a sign, or smoking. Since I am the employer of someone who self-harms by slicing herself up, I do find your comment a bit off.
Else, I enjoyed the wind-up.
Senex
how can you square this
which were I feeling charitable I would describe as romanticised claptrap with no grounding in anything recognisable as reality, and were I grumpy would mark as borderline misogyny, with this
especially with regard to such a petty nonsense as personal grooming.
It is not especially forward thinking to only want to get rid of the particular tyrannies you find personally aesthetically displeasing.
McDuff: I say, steady on. Methinks mentioning claptrap in the context of hair is really going a bit far.
Its of interest in a specially romanticised way that ancient Greek statues of people never seem to feature the furry stuff except on well groomed heads. Is it that they felt it was too close to the animal part of us, the lower self and that by depicting people without it they were promoting the higher self?
On this basis one could take the opposite viewpoint to the one I have suggested in that women who remove it are nearer to God and the higher self and that men are simply beastly. If they do this then they set themselves apart to be better than men? A view that many women would subscribe to but one that does not serve the interests of equality.