A Church of England with women bishops will force more and more people to leave, a leading traditionalist has controversially forecast.
After the departure of Anglo-Catholics, the next group to have to go could be the conservative evangelicals.
The grim picture of a future church lacking the historic Anglican qualities of tolerance, inclusiveness and comprehensiveness is painted by Canon Nicholas Turner of the Bradford diocese in the Advent issue of NewsRound, the Bradford diocesan magazine.
In a hard-hitting think-piece headed Part of what we mean by Unity, Canon Turner, 58, commenting on Pope Benedict’s offer to Anglicans of a “personal ordinariate,” says the approach from “the first among bishops…must not be ignored”.
Well, I agree with some other observers (like Dr Peter Groves, liberal vicar of St Mary Magdalen, Oxford) that with the Apostolic Constitution the Pope has called Anglo-Papalists’ bluff. When women bishops come in, it will separate the real ones from the gays playing at it. A lot of them will stay and grumble, then slink on over to the ‘Affirming Catholicism’ thingy that Dr Williams endorses (the WO people back the gay thing so the gays owe them one): ‘I would have gone last Tuesday week had not my secret lover objected.’
Playing the tolerance, inclusiveness and comprehensiveness argument is weak for Anglo-Catholics. A Catholicism that’s just a tolerated opinion is not Catholicism but dressed-up Protestantism.
My guess is the Evos won’t leave unless General Synod makes the C of E unitarian.