Justifying Gender Inequality in the Church of England

Abstract

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.