Here is a slightly different angle on some of this. I have been involved with the theological education process for nineteen years. There is nothing infallible about MinDiv or ACCM as it was. Sometimes they put into the process candidates who, on exposure to the whole business of ministerial formation, prove to be unsuited to the calling and for whom it should be said, at some stage in that process, that someone somewhere got it wrong.

But could you get colleges to stop the juggernaut that is training? Only with the very greatest difficulty. I understand that selection was, is, and always has been, selection to training not to ordination. I never regarded ordination as automatic or as a right. The discernment process at the end ought to be as rigorous as that at the beginning. In a system that is working well the answer at start and finish ought normally to be the same - these people should be ordained. But it is important for that question to be asked.

I recall conducting a viva examination in practical theology with the head of practical theology in one college. The student in question was not just poorly prepared, he (and it was a he) was a potential pastoral nightmare. When he left the room a profound silence descended. We hardly dared look at each other. Finally we agreed that he had to be a fail, even though we both knew that this would mean he could not be ordained that summer, and that this would cause my colleague endless trouble with his colleagues. He was ordained. And I still think we were right to fail him.

'a vocation rather than a job':  Yes, I understand that, and I realize that the view that English parish clergy are not 'employed' has been upheld in a (no longer very recent) court case.  The 'one stipend per household' idea which has been mentioned in this thread is an application of the principle which I'd call extreme, if it weren't in reality merely opportunistic.

Jeremy refers to the 'uneven playing field', and I acknowledge that he has a point.  It's hard to see this being addressed fairly until we're clear, and English law is clear, that a clergy appointment is an employment relationship between the Church of England as employer and a cleric as employee.

But can this be achieved?  Many clergy whom I'd take seriously are insistent that they work for God and not for an employer.  Their sentiment buttresses the status quo.  At a time when most of the advantages of medieval arrangements have gone (e.g. fewer clergy have the 'job security' which a freehold offers, because bishops are appointing clergy as priests in charge and not inducting them to benefices;  e.g. almost no clergy have quasi-independent income streams from glebes or suchlike), we're left with only the disadvantages of that ramshackle system (e.g. excessive power in bishops' hands, which I admit has always been a difficulty).

And the clergy are scandalously underpaid.  OK, I know they didn't follow their vocation for the money;  and I know that tied accommodation is of value, and ought to be taken into account.  But if a vicar were earning the same as (let's say) a high-school teacher with the same years of higher education and the same length of service, and paying a fair proportion of net salary in rent (say 25%), we wouldn't accuse that vicar of avarice.  My point here is that we could pay the clergy a lot more and still not be making them rich.

But I understand that the value of the Church's endowments has dropped with the global financial crisis, so that drastic measures are needed to pay pensions, never mind improving conditions for those who are not superannuated;  and, except in isolated cases, incomes of parishes are not trending upwards in the way which would be needed in order to support a serious improvement to pay.

I'm sure we could have a separate thread on these gender issues, but just to keep these comments in context, there is a difference between professional life in many fields, and being ordained - in that stipendiary parish jobs come with tied houses and an ideal requirement to live in a particular place. Even where this can be relaxed, it does not diminish the expectation of presence.

A clergy couple serving in different parishes or places can be expected to be in two places at once.

We also belong to an organisation which says it puts a high premium on family life and which recognises that ordained ministry is a vocation rather than a job.

Though there are proper questions to be asked about christian commitment on the part of couples - like others, prone to self-deception about the real motives (if we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves) - there are also serious questions which the organisation has to face. And the same is true, to get back to the topic of this thread, about the commitment of the organisation to those it recommends for training and then for ordination.

As one half of a 'clergy couple' who has talked with many others in the same situation I am afraid I have heard a lot of horror stories, and encountered some myself. Much of it is the result of a failure to understand the implications of what is being said or applied. Certainly in the bad old days when we were both being ordained a year apart my wife's diocese in discussion suggested they would be pleaed to ordain both of us, but would only pay me (despite the fact I was the incomer - perhaps because I was a year ahead.) We declined the generous offer. Fortunately I was a Southwark ordinand and the much enlightened bishop agreed to take us both on as if Southwark sponsored provided that suitable posts could be found. Best endeavours were made, and we both received full stipends.

In all my conversations with others I cannot remember anyone expecting to receive two jobs as of right, and all understood the tensions it causes. (Most would understand the jocular comment to me of a retired bishop and veteran supporter of the ordination of women - that couples were 'a b****y nuisance.') Sadly what is clear is that many couples are told entirely different reasons why they cannot both be paid, but the result is the same. Statistics will tell you though whether it is the husband or wife that usually loses out. A simple analysis of the number of clergy couples where one or other is an SSM (spouse supported minister!) and which sex most often gets paid is telling. Hmmm. Still guessing?

As for us, we are both fully paid in Hereford diocese. Sarah applied for a suitable post having been NSM after my move here (and three children), and got it in a competitive process. I am aware we are a rarity (and very grateful for it).

The other thing I've come across is where a diocese (or more accurately a bishop) says they will only pay one stipend per household, on the grounds that the stipend is 'an allowance for living'. Which would be OK if it were consistently applied thus removing stipend differentials and also (arguably) not paying a stipend into a household where the non-clergy spouse is already earning a substantial income. But it is not, it is only used as justification for expecting one member of a couple both ordained to work unpaid.

Jeremy,

It does seem extreme that a diocese stated that it will not ever appoint both clergy spouses!     Though I suppose it might be reasonable that a diocese say it can't guarantee to offer a post to the ordained spouse of a newly appointed clergyperson..

It was the same in my professional life; whenever I moved for work we had to discuss and agree whether my wife would be prepared to risk leaving her employment and look for opp.s in the new location... or we wouldn't move..  For some friends of ours it was the wife who was the chief earner and the husband the "trailing spouse".   I guess that this outcome is just a part of the cost of commitment to each other.  After all, the chance that two suitable posts occur simultaneously in the same area is low and, I imagine, you would want a diocese to look for the most suitable candidate for other vacancies rather than favour a local clergy spouse over other applicants? 

ps I do worry about us getting too heavily committed to the "liberal" discourse on Human Rights when discussing these sorts of issues.  Our ultimate arbiter is God's truth.  If we get too caught up in the liberal "rights" discourse, rather than arguing for truth, we may well attract (or even provide justification for) even more intrusive legislative interference in the religious sphere.  This government seems to believe that religious freedom should be relegated to the purely personal sphere - ie governments have the right to regulate all aspects of religious organisations.  The idea that religious organisations should be free to act as corporate expressions of the religious beliefs (and religious rights) of their members seems to have been lost.

Sam - You misunderstand the source of my disgust. I am not asking for special treatment for couples in minstry. If there are not jobs adjacent or near then that is how it is: couples have to work out a way of making the available jobs work for them.

What disgusts me is the uneven playing field - being told that, as a matter of principle, the gift that is two people who happen to be married to each other and are both ordained WILL not be employed in the same diocese. The discrimination that means that both are not paid properly. The lack of flexibility with regard to working arrangements. The church of england is still miles behind almost any other significant employer in this regard.

When I read that eleven ordinands might fail to get a title post I thought how glad I'd be if only eleven people completing qualifications in my profession (the academic profession) failed to gain employment.  But at that time I held my peace, although I knew liddon's theory that the 'worst' ordinands would be kept out of the parishes was nonsensical.

But now Jeremy is voicing discontent about clerical married couples finding difficulty getting employment which is coordinated to the degree they would like.  In the same diocese, for example.

I have to tell him about what we academics jokingly call the 'two-body problem'.  In brief, a university will usually only employ two married (or living-together) people if it has a need right then for exactly the work which each of them does, and if each one is the best applicant, in an open process, for the job he/she wants.  In very rare cases, more often in the USA than Britain, a university will offer a 'spousal hire':  this can occasionally work, but in my experience it is more typical for the 'trailing spouse' to encounter some resentment from colleagues on whom he or she has been inflicted.

So I'm sorry to hear it if a 'senior member of diocesan staff' back in 1988 laid it on a bit thick for Jeremy;  but I think he ought to start thinking about the needs of congregations first.  The 'two body problem' is a real problem, and there's nothing unjust about the fact that it's the married couple's problem, not an employer's.  

I think you are absolutely right Mark. And it was that encouragement - which I have heard said was, in one case, because "they might get pregnant at some point, which is structurally sexist.

As for the way the Church of England has treated married couples both of whom had a vication to stipendiary ministry - don't get me started!

I remember going to a meeting in a northern diocese in 1988 when all the couples who were married and ordained were invited. Of couse at that stage it was male priests and, newly-ordained, female deacons. We thought it was going to be a supprt event to encourage usin this new venture that we were all undertaking together. Instead we had a lengthy presentation by a senior member of the diocesan staff who explained to us that it was a bid thing that we should minister anywhere near each other - and to explain that there was no prospect of the diocese using us fully.

In another diocese, some years later,  my wife was about to be te first person to hold a part-time stipendiary post. This was stopped less than a week before the planned licencing, because the financial people in that diocese were frightened it would create a precedent.

There are still dioceses where two people who happen to be married to each other face financial penalties simply because God has chosen to call both of them to the ministry. Other clergy are married to doctors or lawyers or teachers or whatever - no one EVER suggests that their stipend is not needed and that they should work for nothing.

It makes me sick.

Just to clarify - I think the figures show that more women have gone into part-time posts and non-stipendiary ones than men. There is some anecdotal suggestion that this is so with married couples, both of whom are priests.

The reasons for this include may include various factors including age and willingness to move, which 'the church' might see as justifiable reasons - or at least as rational reasons - for the difference.

None of this is surprising.

The suggestion I picked up was that of male and female ordinands in essentially the same position, the female ordinands were more likely to be guided towards the NSM route - which is what shocked me - take away all the excuses ... and in the context of a discussion on unplaced curates too.

Mark - the only surprising thing about the guiding of women more than men down the NSM route is that you are surprised about this; it has been the case ever since 1987.

It would be nice to hope that it was happening less than heretofore, but then the Church of England is still a structurally sexist institution, and has places where the prejudice aginst women is still also very really felt in the attitudes of its members (this is not me having a go at those who for reasons of principle cannot accept women's ordination - simply a statement of fact that that is what those attitudes do to the church as a whole).

I think those sexist attitudes, which sometimes have a very ugly face, are covertly permitted by the "two integrities" we currently live with. And the bias towards encouraging women into NS ministry is a kind of unhapy consequence. How good it would have been, and how much more theologically coherent, if we had simply consecrated a woman in 1994: then she could have been part of the ordaining episcopal sucession of presbyters thereafter. We still have a long way to go.