Blatant Sexism in the Church

[violetwellies]

I'm not a regular god botherer, but tend to go to a fair few church run kids activities locally. So when a delightful almost 88 year old (talking about imminent birthdays with DS) started to tell me about my new minister it was genuine news to me.
Apparently we were without a celebrant for so long as one parish would not vote for a woman.
The poor woman was so angry she was nearly crying, she said we could have found a female celebrant immediately, but we have waited years for a man.
How is this legal?

It's legal because anyone with any sense will have abandoned them and their stupid, backward ways.

Find a better church.

Assuming it's a Christian church, how is that a surprise? The religion and the bible are chock-full of explicit sexism.

Ever read the Bible? It kicks off with Eve being a "helpmate" and being made from a man's rib….and then it goes downhill. Why on earth anyone should be surprised at religious sexism is beyond me.

Okay, not them, but the legality of it, does the Church get a free ride?

Within the CofE they can write a parish profile and 'wanted' list which can say that they are more Anglo-catholic (and therefore usually fine with a female), middle of the road (similar) or evangelical (more likely to be less than happy with a woman vicar).

If they are purely basing their rejections on the sex of the applicant, then no, I don't think they can legally do this, however, the synod agreed that no parish would have to take a female priest if they didn't want one (iirc, this might have changed since they got female bishops)

Yes, they can do this. There are only a handful of High Church places that want it, and it would make sense if they were unyoked from joint benefices and team parishes.

They will however continue to exist, because of their role as a safe haven for homosexuals. When other wings of the church get over their homophobia, perhaps all will move on together rather better.

Right now, it remains fraught.

If you are a C of E parish priest (and I believe this applies more broadly to other Christian denominations and other religions) you are not considered an employee in law - the legal position is that you are a post-holder or office-holder who receives a stipend, not a salary. You don't have a contract because the duties of a spiritual minister are considered incompatible with forming a contract with a terrestrial employer - you are considered a minister of God, not of the Church. Therefore if individual parishes choose to call male priests only to the office of vicar/rector, that's legal because it is not a contractual relationship and so is not governed by employment law.

The only area where you could get possibly some traction on this issue is in ecclesiastical law, i.e. the C of E could say that all of its congregations must allow men and women to celebrate. However part of the deal of getting women ordained at all was that individual parishes would be able to opt out of having women priests if they wanted. Women priests couldn't have happened without this fudge. However, it is far from ideal.

I think that normal employment law applies to other Church workers e.g. admin staff.

That's really interesting Fair.

Really interesting post, Fair

Who was voting though - church officials or the parishioners?

Jimmy Carter: losing my religion for equality. an article from a Christian viewpoint doing the current rounds on a lot of muslim womens Facebook groups. It just articulates so well how concerned people within those faiths feel at religious customs and law concerning women.

Three parishes got to vote (we share the vicar), presumably regular churchgoers, but as I'm not a regular - strictly hatches matches as despatches. I'm not completely sure.
It appears that one parish effectively vetoed all the women applicants.
Thanks Fair, now I understand how this was possible it seems even more unreasonable as the one parish does not reflect the views of the majority of parishioners.

Yeah if there's a group of parishes that are linked together as a team parish or a united benefice it's really not OK for one church to hold up an appointment in this way. But they do it because they can.

I think it is relatively unusual for parishes which have radically different views on the ordination of women to be grouped together in this way - I'm not surprised it has caused bad feeling between parishes.

If you're somewhere where it's hard to recruit priests (i.e. outside the south east) it can take years to appoint a priest and stuff like this just makes it harder.

Feminism and Christianity are really similar in a lot of ways. You both want the sex industry made illegal, right?

Ignoring the gf.

Op....this is how powerful the church is, why it is a big deal that there are unelected bishops in the house of lords and all that shit. I'm always sorry for the indoctrinated women who are directly affected.

MSP and feminist Rhoda Grant and Christian Richard Lucas were on the same side on a debate on sexwork.

Richard Lucas has written some really vile things about homosexuals

Is this the Anglican church? If so the parish can sign up to a specific rubric that means they won't appoint a female vicar. I can't remember what it's called - Rule C or something. Lots of Anglo-Catholic 'Forward in Faith' churches do this, plus presumably some evangelicals.

It's perfectly legal, as well as the employment point Fair Phyllis mentioned there's an allowance in the Equality Act (I think) for religious sex discrimination.

Fortunately the people who feel the strongest on this are generally quite elderly, so I think it will become rarer and rarer.

An old friend of mine is married to a woman who's a vicar, and they were recently looking for a parish (she was leaving the army where she'd been a padre) - there were lots of places that wouldn't accept her, and there was nothing they could do about it. In the end they've found a lovely position, back where my friend grew up.

We had a long chat about it once, his opinion is that the church won't have much choice soon - congregations and vicars are dying off, the money is short (many vicars are themselves retired from other professions and so don't need the stipend to live, which is lucky because the stipend is small).