Jane Shaw, first woman presbyter-in-charge in the Church of Pakistan
(Photo: (c)CMS)
With women making up not only the majority of worshippers but also now the greater part of the ordained within the Church of England, what is the outlook for women in mission?
For the first time ever, numbers of ordained women have overtaken those for men. Latest ordination figures released by the Church of England indicate that of the 478 ordained, 244 are female.
Some of these women combine ordination with international mission service through CMS, so we spoke to three of them to find out their views on the future for women in mission.
Backgrounder
Women in mission
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Jane Shaw is the first woman Presbyter-in-Charge in the Church of Pakistan, and combines priestly duties with being a health management adviser to United Christian Hospital in Lahore. Pat Nickson is an outstanding CMS mission partner who has worked in health in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Congo and is now back in the UK. Joanna Udal works as a Bishop’s Chaplain with the Church in Sudan.
All three believe being a mission partner in holy orders increases appreciation by local people of the potential for ministry by women. For Jane Shaw, the scope of women’s ordained ministry in Pakistan is still very constrained by cultural assumptions. “Outside hospital or school ministry, a woman still has to be married to go visiting, and preaching to a mixed audience is very rare.”
Pat Nickson: 'still a way to go'
(Photo: (c)CMS)
Based on her observations of Congo, Pat Nickson thinks there’s still a long way to go. It needs to be combined with “much more thought in the area of innovative training for women who are tied to home or work and cannot find space or money for training.”
Sudan is developing in interestingly new ways. Joanna Udal observes, “Since the peace agreement, women’s participation in political life in Southern Sudan has been promoted to try to achieve a minimum of 25 per cent of positions. This also helps to encourage the participation of women in all areas of life, including the Church.”
None report encountering difficulties as a mission partner due to their calling. There can be issues with male colleagues. Pat Nickson observes that “there are always lay and ordained men who put a female ordained person in the category in which they might expect their spouse to be in.” Jane Shaw tells how one priest in a national conference said he had come opposed to women’s ministry, and had been “converted” by seeing a woman actually presiding and offering the sacrament.”
Joanna Udal: women take active leadership in Sudan
(Photo: (c)CMS)
Joanna Udal is in no doubt that there is a role for women in mission to encourage local women to consider a priestly calling. “It has given visible and moral support to Sudanese women here. There is often excitement when I visit a new parish or location for the first time.”
Jane Shaw, however, is more circumspect. “I hope I have lent support and encouragement to the body of women who are already pressing for the opening of ordained ministry to women. But my influence is still limited by my lack of fluency in the local language, which is only slowly improving.”
One of the issues that stands out from the 2006 Church of England statistics is that a fair proportion of women being ordained go into non-paid posts, while the numbers appointed to senior posts such as Archdeacon or Cathedral Dean is few.
Is this true of the Church in the places where Pat, Jane and Joanna work? “Very true,” says Pat Nickson. “There are only a handful of women priests. I was the first, joint with a colleague. My colleague has a middle level post on the provincial theological college, but has not had as much parish experience as I have, does not get around as I do, and has no diocesan post. To some extent this depends on personalities, but the Church in Congo will take a long time to go forward.”
For Jane Shaw the issue doesn’t arise. Apart from two women ordained deacon five years ago (which caused a storm and an embargo) “there are no ordained women in the Church of Pakistan – apart from me.”
For Joanna Udal the situation in Sudan seems much more hopeful. “Women have only been ordained in Sudan since 2000. However there is already one woman appointed Cathedral Dean and at least one as Archdeacon. This is perhaps helped by the active leadership role women have long held here within the Mothers’ Union. Women are also allowed to become bishops but that has not yet happened.”
BACKGROUNDER
: Women in mission
"Increasingly, I see Jesus as the breaker of rules and boundaries" says Jane Shaw, CMS mission partner in the Church of Pakistan.
In many ways the story of women’s ordination in the Anglican Communion is a bit like that. It began with someone breaking the rules. Deaconess Florence Li Tim Oi found herself ministering to the congregation at Morrison Chapel Macau, cut off from the outside world by the Japanese invasion.
With the tiny congregation lacking Eucharistic ministry it prompted RO Hall, Bishop of Hong Kong, to ordain Florence priest. When the word got out some years later it caused an ecclesiastical earthquake. There was no precedent for Hall’s action and he was roundly criticized. To keep the peace Florence voluntarily gave up priestly ministry and disappeared into obscurity.
Even so a boundary had been crossed and there was no going back. Hall’s successor as Bishop of Hong Kong, Gilbert Baker, took up the cause. At his behest the First Anglican Consultative Council declared there were “no theological objections” to women being ordained priest. Later that year Baker ordained Jane Hwang and Joyce Bennett (a CMS missionary) as priests for Hong Kong.
Today very few Anglican Churches worldwide do not ordain women. The Church of England followed suit, voting for women priests in 1992. Now almost a decade and a half on, the scale of the change heralded by that vote is breathtaking.