Our 'Inclusive' Church

Lots of people these days talk about the Anglican Church being 'inclusive'. The term sounds very nice, but it's actually unhelpfully imprecise. Clearly Anglicans - like any group - are not fundamentally inclusive of anything and everything; that would be a nonsense. No mainline denomination or organisation will want to proclaim that it is proudly inclusive of people who are indifferent about sexual abuse, who are racist, who are exploitative, etc, etc. There are always boundaries and even when some would want to loosen up some official positions, implicit lines remain - or new ones are drawn.

So, if someone says that the Anglican Church is an 'inclusive' church, what they probably mean is that it doesn't draw boundaries in places where some other churches do, or even in places where it has done in the past. I think a simple, clarifying question to ask someone who makes such a statement is, 'Inclusive of what?'

An interesting test-case comes around the question of ordaining women to the priesthood, or consecrating women to the episcopate. This is a huge issue in the Anglican Church at the moment. There are conservative members who feel that the traditional and historic position of the church captures the plain teaching of the Bible and therefore, they are uncomfortable seeing women enter into every level of church leadership. And then there are those who feel that the Church's reluctance to ordain and consecrate women is really just part of its outdated cultural baggage and that the key passages in the Bible can be quite reasonably interpreted in such ways as to remove all impediments to women serving in any position in the church. In fact, some go further and say that in today's culture, the gospel demands equal opportunity for women in the church's orders of ministry. My point right now is not to argue for one position or the other, but rather to ask what it means for a church to be inclusive when there are different views on this issue.

The Archbishop of Canterbury Designate, Bp Justin Welby, holds a progressive view on the issue itself and thinks that women should be able to serve in any capacity in the church. However, he is also of the view that members who think differently to him shouldn't be marginalised. He has spoken of his great respect for those people who hold a more conservative position and he has acknowledged and encouraged their faithful and fruitful ministries. In short, Welby's idea of Anglican inclusiveness is that all ought to be equally included irrespective of their convictions at this particular controversial point. His view is not "we are an inclusive church, therefore if you don't apply that inclusivity to the question of women in ministry, you're not welcome".

This is similar to the official view current in Melbourne and in the rest of Australia. Most Australian dioceses have approved the consecration of female bishops, but the bishops have also agreed to a protocol for alternative oversight for those who can't in good conscience accept the episcopal ministry of a woman. Now, many people complain about the workability of this protocol and wonder if policies coming from it could ever be practically implemented, but the very fact that such a protocol exists makes an important statement to both conservatives and the church as a whole. It says that even if your views are not mainstream, the church does not want to eject you but would rather find ways to accommodate you and your ministry.

Of course, the real test for this 'inclusive' approach comes when we try to decide for which doctrines we will allow differences of opinion and for which ones we won't. If we fully include members with different views around the ordination and consecration of women, what about things like homosexual practice, infant baptism, vestments, the infallibility of Scripture, eschatology, soul sleep, the uniqueness of Christ, justification by faith alone, liturgical practice, the nature of the sacraments... Some might look at a quick list like that and have a strong and immediate view on some of the doctrines. Perhaps justification by faith is absolutely not-negotiable and soul sleep is a matter of indifference. But what are the criteria? Who applies them? And who decides what the criteria are and who applies them?

We can be an inclusive church and there is something good and even necessary about that. But if we're going to stand for anything at all - and if we're going to stand together for anything at all - there's also a whole other level of complexity that we cannot avoid.