This week’s meeting of General Synod is being dominated by a debate that does not actually appear on the agenda. A year ago synod passed a motion calling for the legislation that will make it possible for women to be bishops in the Church of England. Included in that motion was a request to the drafting committee to bring its proposals to the synod meeting this February. For a Âvariety of reasons, it has failed to do so.
Instead, the Bishop of Manchester, chair of the steering committee, on Monday gave synod a summary of what it had been doing for the past year. With over 300 written submissions to consider, and with the option of synod members to make oral submissions as well, it clearly had its work cut out. No one can accuse it of slacking.
But what should have been a more straightforward process, coming at the end of a 35-year debate, has turned into a tortuous marathon, with requests for every conceivable type of provision for the minority of people in the church who still do not accept that women can ”“ or should ”“ exercise episcopal ministry.
I always find it interesting that the one’s who complain the most about pastoral responses to a “troglodytic” minority who just won’t get with the program, are in turn those most taken to pastoral responses for the “progressive” minority.
Oh well.
Hmmm, I detect a degree of frustration by this liberal writer.
Well, too bad. There are many opposed to the introduction of women bishops into the Church of England and it is not law yet. By God’s grace, it never will be.
Pray for our brothers and sisters in England who seek to wake up their fellows to the creeping tide of liberalism, that they may be diligent and persuasive.