Dodgy bishops: can evangelicals obey?

This month I am looking at the apparently controversial idea that ministers in the Church of England should submit to their bishops.

Ministers in the Church of England have to take an oath of obedience to a bishop. It’s true. And this has been seen recently – even by some non-Anglican commentators in this very paper! — as such an obviously bad thing that all Anglican Evangelicals should now immediately become ex-Anglican Evangelicals. But is that really necessary?

Is it impossible to be faithful to Jesus while also submitting to a bishop? Some of them are dodgy, after all, whether in doctrine or lifestyle or discipline. And we can’t be comfortable with that. I’m certainly not.

Submitting to authorities

One might ask whether it is possible to be faithful to Jesus while submitting to any other authority. As a cub scout many years ago, I took an oath to do my duty to God and to the Queen. I like the Queen, and she seems to be a Christian, so that’s OK. But what if I don’t like the next monarch’s doctrine or lifestyle – should future cubs still submit to their authority? Likewise the government – do we submit to the laws of this land only when the people making them do, or only when we like them? Obviously we can only ever obey so far as the law of Christ allows. But am I free to disobey a traffic warden, if I don’t like the political party he votes for, or if she’s a Hindu, or if they are immoral?

Feudal loyalty?

Obviously no bishop should be a Hindu or live an immoral lifestyle. That’s not my point. But the oath taken by Church of England ministers is not an oath of personal feudal loyalty to obey whatever a bishop feels like commanding. I don’t pledge my allegiance to their personal peculiarities. It is an oath to pay ‘true and canonical obedience’ to the bishop, in ‘all things lawful and honest’. As a recent report from the Faith and Order Commission put it, the oath ‘does not mean a blanket agreement to follow every episcopal instruction, but to obey those instructions which the bishop is authorised to give under canon law’.

That canon law states that: ‘The doctrine of the Church of England is grounded in the Holy Scriptures, and in such teachings of the ancient Fathers and Councils of the Church as are agreeable to the said Scriptures. In particular such doctrine is to be found in the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, The Book of Common Prayer, and the Ordinal ’ (Canon A5). So ministers cannot be commanded to do anything at odds with that doctrinal or liturgical standard. Indeed, it is their duty, in all honesty, to disobey commands that would be contrary to Scripture. They do not have to obey any instructions which are lacking a basis in canon law.

Blind deference?

So it would be a grave misunderstanding of the nature of that oath to think it commits clergy to blind deference in the face of their bishop’s every doctrinal whim or request. They are there to police things, to make sure we obey the laws. So if they tell me to put their face on my parish newsletter, I can refuse (no canon gives them the right). If they tell me to perform same-sex weddings in my church, they have overstepped their authority and I must disobey. But I have bound myself to obey the law which says the doctrine of the church is Biblical, catholic (with a small c), and thoroughly Reformed (Canon A5). It is incumbent upon any Incumbent to ensure that no one (let alone a diocesan bishop) who would teach or act contrary to Scripture is allowed into their pulpit.

Bishop of Buckingham ‘irrelevant’

There was an employment dispute recently where a clergyman was refused a licence on the basis that he had entered a same-sex marriage. The bishop revoked his Permission to Officiate and refused to allow him a licence because this was contrary to the doctrine of the Church of England. The clergyman took this to court, and claimed that the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion were on his side because they say clergy can get married. He lost, because even a secular employment tribunal could see that this claim was utterly spurious, that the Church has a clear and consistent doctrine of marriage which excludes same-sex marriage, and that he had broken his oath of canonical obedience. It said that the Bishop of Buckingham’s pro-gay marriage defence of this man was ‘irrelevant’, and that there is a constitutional convention that the State cannot impose same-sex marriage on the Church.

‘Police bishops’

So, while we may not think the Church always acts as consistently as it ought to with regards to the doctrine of the Thirty-nine Articles and the oath of canonical obedience, it can do, has done, and should. Evangelicals don’t need to leave it, but call on the ‘police bishops’ to be better at spiritual safeguarding – which is what they are meant to be there for in the first place!