Contested identities and schisms in groups: Opposing the ordination of women as priests in the Church of England

Schisms constitute a common characteristic of human groups. Nevertheless, t hey have been neglected by social psychology, mainly because social psychol ogical theories either dismiss group consensus or else depict groups as mon olithic. This study proposes a social psychological approach to schism whic h integrates recent developments of self-categorization theory (SCT) with w ork on category argumentation. According to SCT, shared group identificatio n leads to a process by which members should reach agreement. However, it i s suggested that where members construe the positions of others as fundamen tally altering group identity, then consensus is impossible. The corollary of assuming that groups will be consensual is that lack of consensus indica tes the existence of different groups. This idea is examined through an ana lysis of a video and booklet produced for a rally organized by Forward in F aith, an organization opposed to the ordination of women as priests within the Church of England. It is shown that the existence of women priests is c onstrued as changing the essence of the Church both on a structural level ( by dividing it from the rest of the Christian community arid turning it int o a seer) and doctrinally. Such changes are seen as threatening the very ex istence of the Church of England and therefore demanding all out opposition . However, it is also shown that the decision of whether opponents tight th e changes from inside the Church or by splitting from it depends upon the p erception of whether they will be accorded the opportunity to advance their position from within. Thus schism is associated with both a perceived 'cha nge of essence' and also with 'lack of voice'.