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Jobs for the Boys? - Women who became Priests

Fashion for the cathedral aisle

JOBS FOR THE BOYS?
Women who became priests
By Liz and Andrew Barr
Hodder& Stoughton. 262 pages. £7.99
ISBN 0340 78534 9

An effective cover design and title can instantly convey the contents of a book: and that is the case with Jobs for the Boys? The cover pictures a robed woman at an altar, lifting the cup. In 1992 the General Synod of the Church of England voted to admit women to the ordained priesthood.

This book interviews 12 women who have been ordained as priest since that momentous vote. Readers who believe Christ to be the great and final Priest who did away with the need for an earthly priesthood, or who object to the notion of kneeling at an altar to receive the 'host', or who reject a sacramental view of 'the Mass' as conveying divine grace will find aspects of this book problematic. This, it seems, is the key issue of women's ordination according to this book. It is not a matter of whether women should preach, but whether they can 'raise the host'.

Wheeling and dealing

So much for the cover - the title is equally effective. The Established Church provides an extraordinary range of job opportunities, as shown by the titles of the women interviewed: three canons, three curates, one vice provost, two rural deans, one rector, one member of Archbishops' Springboard, one squadron leader, two priests-in-charge, one vicar. And that's the tip of the iceberg (read Anthony Trollope's Barchester Chronicles to glimpse the wheeling and dealing which has in the past accompanied episcopal job distribution). Rather than standing back and asking whether the whole edifice of 'jobs for the boys' is really a biblical approach to church life, this book gives the impression that some women have viewed this as an equal opportunities issue and joined in the scramble.

Rather than asking whether or not it is biblical (or even culturally appropriate) for anyone to parade up a cathedral aisle in ornate, expensive and heavy robes, the authors find it wonderful that a young couple can now take turns: 'One day you may see Kenny, fully robed in a golden cope, solemn and splendid, leading the procession down the aisle, while Bridget turns up at the end of the service in jeans, holding a toddler with one hand and wheeling a pushchair with the other. The following week it will be Bridget in the finery and the procession, and Kenny with the kids.' (217)

Ignoring the Bible

Obviously the women who have become priests have done so in utter sincerity (one of my dearest friends among them) and many minister effectively in a variety of spheres. But it is disheartening to read a whole book on episcopal job distribution with no questions raised as to what the Bible has to say about leadership in the church. There seems to be no concept of a local church seeing a need for ministry and then looking among members and to the Lord for a member qualified and called to serve - instead we see the brown paper envelopes with job offers and promotions sent out by the ecclesiastical hierarchy (which is itself ultimately controlled by our political hierarchy).

We have to test all things by Scripture. I got the uneasy feeling reading this book that to ask the authors what God's inspired Word says about ministry would be regarded as over-the-top, inappropriate, even alien. At that point I could not help remembering God's searing indictment of religiosity in another time and place: 'Though Ephraim built many altars for sin offerings, these have become altars for sinning. I wrote for them the many things of my law, but they regarded them as something alien' (Hosea 8.12).

Sharon James, Leamington Spa