Despite being a national institution, the Church of England is legally permitted to discriminate against its ordained female clergy in a number of ways, a phenomenon that is at odds with wider societal values in England. It is argued that this makes the gender values of this institution’s representatives worthy of examination. This article explores the gender attitudes of theologically conservative male clergy and the psychological processes that shape these attitudes. In order to do so, semi-structured interviews were conducted with fourteen evangelical priests in one diocese within the Church of England. A thematic narrative analysis was employed to interpret the data using descriptive, focused, and pattern coding. Three themes in particular emerged from the data, namely: “Theological parallel between the Church and the family”, “Created order of male headship and female submission”, and “Separation between Church and society”. The content of these themes reveals significant overlap with the contents of system justification theory, and so this was used to interpret the themes further. In light of this it is concluded that a perceived loss of social privilege and control shape participants’ traditionalist gender values.
Despite the introduction of female bishops, women do not hold offices on equal terms with men in the Church of England, where conservative evangelical male clergy often reject the validity of women’s ordination. This article explores the gender values of such clergy, investigating how they are expressed and the factors that shape them. Data is drawn from semi-structured interviews and is interpreted with thematic narrative analysis. The themes were analyzed with theories on postfeminism, engaged orthodoxy and group schism. It is argued that participants’ gender values are best understood as postfeminist and that the wider evangelical tradition, as well as a perceived change in Anglican identity with the onset of women’s ordination, shape their postfeminism. Moreover, whilst evangelical gender values possess the potential to foster greater gender equality within the Church of England, gender differentiation limits this possibility, a limitation that could be addressed by increasing participants’ engagement beyond the Church.
Although the Church of England (CofE) agreed to admit women to its most senior ordained offices as bishops in 2014, they are still not afforded the same opportunities for professional progression as men. This article identifies and explores factors that contribute to such inequality. It draws on semistructured interviews with 41 male priests from theologically conservative traditions within the CofE, interpreting the data with a thematic narrative analysis. Utilizing literature from social and spiritual capital, this article establishes that these forms of capital are necessary for informing the habitus required for obtaining senior positions in the CofE before arguing that such resources are frequently denied to women by those interviewed. The analysis develops understanding of spiritual capital and institutional work, demonstrating that the former functions in a manner akin to cultural capital within religious institutions and that the latter is not always purposive in its capacity for effecting institutional change. It also articulates the theory of irresolute equality reform to describe the way in which different institutional goals can limit their ability for equality reform. The article then outlines changes that could be made in clergy training and in the selection procedures for senior appointments to address gender inequality within the CofE.
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