Living at the Edge: Sacrament and Solidarity in Leadership

Living at the Edge: Sacrament and Solidarity in Leadership. By Penny Jamieson, Bishop of Dunedin. London: Mowbray, 1997. L11.99 (paper).

Bishops are under particular scrutiny these days, the kindly act of the bishop in Elephant Man notwithstanding. The British press has noticed recently that they tend to live in palaces and hang out in the, House of Lords, and appear to have little to do with the suffering poor. In the US bishops command high salaries and prestige, and preside at the head of complex hierarchical organizations. I have often wondered how these bishops reconcile their position with that of Christ's injunction to poverty, servanthood and hospitality. I have wondered, too, how they reflected on their life-long carefully prepared careers; have they not read of Peter the fisherman's sudden conversion in mid-life? Moreover, as a member of a small struggling Episcopal church far from the centers of power, I have seen devout churchmen and women become disillusioned with the Church at large. There is power and glory and beautiful liturgy in these churches but at what expense one often wonders.

Now a woman who found herself suddenly thrust into the episcopacy tries to face these questions honestly and openly. Bishop Penelope Jamieson of Dunedin in Aotearoa/New Zealand, (or Bishop Penny as she is known in Australasia) is the first woman diocesan bishop in the world's Anglican Communion. Her book, Living on the E(ige, begins and ends with a meditation on power, set in one of the most remote dioceses in the world. Bishop Penny differs from other bishops; she says that for most of her male colleagues becoming a bishop was within the realms of possibility-for her it was beyond the bounds of imagination. Moreover, although she was always theo logically inclined--and once felt called to be a nun-priesthood was not a career path embarked upon in early adulthood, but a mid-life call, sustained against considerable opposition. And she herself experiences a measure of hostility ,-nd rejection even as bishop-the Maori syood, within the New Zealand Church, for example, is less enthusiastic about women's ordination, and some resent the rapidity with which a woman has been able to rise in the ranks. And across the Tasman in Sydney Anglican churchmen do not recognize the legitimacy of her orders.

From this context Bishop Penny speaks bluntly of the Church's long entangled history with power, and of the fascination so many express when a woman crosses the boundary into previously male strongholds of' power. She holds up Christianity's "built-in critique and protection against . . . power" in the Jesus who himself was "so hard on institutional religion." She begins her reflection as a struggle to mesh the inner and outer aspects of her own existential state in the years following her sudden consecration, all the while grappling with the paradox that "God's power is most properly manifest in Gods weakness."

Her reflections and search for answers have taken her deep into the postmodern debate and critique of institutions and meta-stories. And it is against the Foucaultian suspicion of all institutional power, as well as the profoundly felt Christian paradoxes concerning power, that she attempts to forge a justification and a reason for her role.

While admitting the dangers of power she argues that some measure of power is needed to sustain vision and community against the alternativefragmentation-and she goes on to state that the "challenge of all men and women who claim sion, relationship and support from God is to relinquish ownership and con rol of God." Although vely much a feminist, Bishop Penny is remarkably clear that the feminist vision falters at the point where the need is felt to re-define in feminist terms the God who is "always more mystery, more power, more vulnerability than is humanly conceivable." And while she articulates the Church's defense of power-dispersed relational authority, flowing from the people to the center-she is keenly aware of the gap between the "rhetoric and the reality," and of her role in living in this uncomfortable space. One senses in this dialogue both delight and loneliness, satisfaction and continuing frustration

Power is not the only object of the Bishops reflections; she delves into all aspects of life as a bishop-caring, discerning, guiding, exhorting and leading. And entwined through the narrative is an examination of the subtleties of feminist and gender dynamics. She laments that young women now entering the ministry are able to do so without understanding the cost, and are thus more easily co-opted into patriarchal structures. She faces openly the temptations of the oppressed on assuming power-to abandon the struggle and take her place with the powerful in oppressing others. And she takes note of how far one woman bishop extends as a token for gender inclusion, thus removing the necessity for including women in a wide variety of roles, from further bishops to cathedral singers. Her long diversion on pastoral care as the heart of ministry is also a deliberation on women-women are socialized to care, she argues, but may also be more readily exploited and thrust into destructive relationships.