I thought it was bad at Synod*, but this is amazing:



*At Synod, after we voted down my proposed amendments to a motion about abortion, Archbishop Peter Jensen asked Archdeacon Narelle Jarrett to pray (because she had wanted to say something in the debate but he ruled an end to it before she got time!) and she actually prayed, thank you God that the debate went the way it did. (and not just once. she made that point a number of times in her prayer.)

the great women debate
On Tuesday afternoon we finally got to debate Rev Chris Albany's motion that had been deferred from last year's synod - last year it was shunted to the back of the agenda, and so there was barely a chance to deal with it properly, long story, but anyway it ended up getting priority this year.

The motion was thus:
Synod notes that -
a) within both the Anglican Church of Australia and the wider Anglican Communion there is a diversity of practice in regard to the ordination of women, and
b) Synods of this Diocese have consistently voted not to permit the ordination of women as priests, based on the understanding that whilst scripture encourages the ministry of women, it denies the eldership of women in the congregation.

However, Synod also notes that there is another understanding of scripture held by a small but significant minority within the diocese. This understanding holds that scripture supports and endorses women being involved in all aspects of the life and ministry of God's people including eldership of the congregation and so in Anglican Polity being ordained as priests and Bishops. Synod therefore asks the Archbishop to explore ways in which these different views can be creatively lived out in the life and practice of the diocese.

Last year Robert Tong moved a very cheeky amendment, which would have made the motion:
Synod notes that -
a) within both the Anglican Church of Australia and the wider Anglican Communion there is a diversity of practice in regard to the ordination of women, and
b) Synods of this Diocese have consistently voted not to permit the ordination of women as priests.

Synod therefore asks the General Synod to explore ways in which these different views can be creatively lived out in the life and practice of the Anglican Church of Australia.

Seriously, just re-reading this makes me quite angry - it's basically completely refusing our argument that we are a minority within Sydney, BUT THEN STEALING OUR ARGUMENT to ask for Sydney to get special consideration as a minority within Australia. (General Synod = national 'parliament' of the Ang church)

Anyway, this year we were meant to debate both the motion and the amendment. But Robert Tong dropped his amendment, explaining that it had been part of a pre-General Synod strategy of his last time and was irrelevant this time. Anyway at least that simplified things.

The people who spoke in favour of the motion made some very good points, and as far as I know they weren't all the 'usual suspects'. Chris Albany got to kick it off, and made all the points I would've made if I'd given a speech. I'm not sure if I should've stood up anyway and tried to have my say.

The argument against the motion that hurt me the most was spoken by a woman who said that the synod had to focus on the priorities of Mission and Connect09. She said, 'When will no be accepted?' That makes me angry because this IS an important matter; and her question implied that we are not part of the Synod, but an outside group that Synod can say 'no' to.

Also interesting was Rev George Atkinson from Concord and Burwood who was quite emotional as he said that he'd gone home upset on Monday night 'because for the first time in my life I believed I was a liberal!' He thought that PJ had implied in his opening address that supporters of women's ordination, like supporters of homosexuals, were liberals (aka The Enemy Of The Truth). That was interesting because it showed that things aren't as simple as that - clearly there aren't liberals vs evangelicals, there are people like Rev Atkinson who are at various places in between etc. PJ took it upon himself to clarify that he didn't think supporters of women's ordination were necessarily liberals, they just had their facts wrong (!!)

the rather ordinary (sort of) women debate
Deaconess Margaret Rodgers also had a motion up to be taken if Rev Albany's failed to pass (which it did). She explained that she believed it was an important motion because during the debate last year about Rev Albany's motion, there was *nothing* positive said about women's ministry generally, and lots negative said about it. But she doesn't support women's ordination. So her motion was:

Synod acknowledges and gives thanks to God for the creative and God-honouring ministry of women in the Diocese of Sydney at this time and over many years, including lay women in parishes, licensed lay workers, pastoral workers, clergy wives, chaplains and ordained deacons.

Synod also gives thanks for the numbers of women training and preparing for ministry through Moore College with the support of the Anglican Deaconess Institution Sydney Limited (ADISL) as well as Mary Andrews College, Youthworks College and the Department of Ministry Training and Development.

Synod further requests parish leaders to encourage many other mature and gifted women members to undertake theological and ministry training to enhance their contribution to the ministry of the Gospel throughout the Diocese and beyond.

It looked like this was going to pass with no debate, until a small, older woman stood up to move an amendment. She argued that the motion was a token one, because such a motion would never be made about men - and that it meant nothing whatsoever for us to pass it. So she wanted to amend it to replace 'women' with 'women and men' throughout.

I thought that was a great idea actually - it really highlighted how ridiculous it is to think that passing a motion like that makes any difference in what really is an environment that quickly turns against women's ministry - as Deaconess Rodgers herself admitted in her comments about last year's debate.

The amusing thing was there was then debate about if her amendment was made, whether to change "clergy wives" to "clergy partners" or "clergy spouses"! Philip Jensen (the archbishop's brother, and dean of St Andrews Cathedral) gave a speech decrying the word 'partners' in favour of 'husbands and wives'. It was quite hilarious in a way but clearly somewhat homophobic.

the general gist of anti-women debate
Actually a scary thing about this Synod is how it is so thoroughly shaped by a kind of masculinity - it's complex and hard to explain briefly but it has struck me in all kinds of ways, even for example the way they talk about church planting - someone actually mentioned yesterday that all the talk of church planting (the key 'mission' strategy) privileges the much-vaunted 'entrepreneurial' skills required for that. And I would add that such skills are all about a 'masculine' and colonialist quest to penetrate virgin territory, be the adventurer, etc (it's really not hard to see this - Mark Driscoll spells it out. Look him up on youtube, but it's very scary and actually sickening so I'm not going to go into it)

These skills and personality are then privileged over those required for actually church growth - required even if you do believe in church planting. Skills which might even involve relating to people (gasp). It's interesting how this whole mission plan is so vague on what it actually means to connect with the community - for me that's because Mission and even Christianity for them so often seems to be reduced to 'believing xyz and getting more people to believe that' without really looking at how that changes our lives, what it really MEANS. (we progressive types can also overlook that stuff sometimes).

... and we're not giving up
So we lost our motion, but we're not giving up. If anyone reading this is free monday night and wants to lend a hand, comment here and I'll be in touch.

This year I'm a 'parish rep' (i.e. official member) for the first time at the Sydney Anglican diocese's Synod (like a regional, once-yearly parliament - the whole thing is conducted in a way quite similar to normal parliament in fact). Someone suggested I'll need something useful to do while I'm there, otherwise I'll go crazy, so I'm going to semi-live blog the thing. 'Semi' because I'll probably post after each session and tidy up posts rather than doing that really boring-to-read thing where people write the first thing that comes into their heads etc.

Synod is held at the Wesley centre in Pitt St from 3.15 to about 9 each evening (Mon, Tues, Wed this week and Mon, Tues next week).

The main feature of last night was Archbishop Peter Jensen (PJ)'s opening address. I'm kind of wishing I'd paid more attention now so that I could write a really cutting critique, but it was too painful and I had to distract myself. Seriously it was quite awful for those of us who feel marginalised within the Sydney Synod, because it was basically a strong assertion of his style of Anglicanism, and a major theme was that Sydney Anglicans have to save the world/church/city from liberalism (ZOMG! TEH LIBERALS!) Anyway you can download a PDF of the talk. Or read about it on the diocese's synod website.

Over the course of the evening (not just in PJ's talk) there was a lot of talk about immorality as well, and I wondered what people think that means. A lot of the time Christian jargon was thrown around without much reflection on what the terms meant, and I am a little suspicious that 'immorality' is for many people linked closely with 'teh gays', although that's not said.

Okay well I could grumble about last night some more but I'd better get on with my work. One more highlight from the diocese website - a poll about what you'd do if women's ordination came to sydney!

OH and in other news, Squib has posted my 'sing a song' story, reminiscing about the song 'leader of the pack'. check it, yo.