Pity the ambitious women priests of the Church of England. Every time they take another step towards becoming bishops, their opponents seem to trip them up.
Earlier this year, the General Synod agreed in principle to ordain women bishops, and aspiring lady bishops in the C of E must have thought that their time had come at last. This week, however, it has emerged that a new alliance of evangelicals and traditionalists believes they can still stop women from exercising episcopal authority. They claim that last week’s Synod elections have given them sufficient blocking power within the Church of England’s governing body. Whether they are right remains to be seen.
What is certain, however, is that the squabbles over women clergy are far from over. The evangelicals and the traditionalists now have an urgent motivation to keep as many like-minded believers as possible within their Communion, what with the Vatican’s latest efforts to woo disgruntled Anglicans beginning to bear fruit. This week, Bishop John Broadbent of Fulham announced that he would be crossing the Tiber, and many others are expected to follow. The already fissiparous Church of England is beginning to tear itself apart.
Ambitious people should not be allowed to become bishops.
Is this still being debated? I don’t want to sound snarky, but it’s time for people to wake up and smell the coffee. It’s going to happen. The CofE is Protestant and Protestants ordain women. All we are witnessing now are delaying tactics. Stay if you can handle W/O or go if you can’t. But STOP whining. Those who don’t like it know where the three exits are located.
Ad Orientem (#2) I think it is a pretty silly comment to say that “Protestants ordain women.” There are some Protestants who ordain women and some that do not. As a reformed and evangelical Anglican who is much more Protestant than Catholic or anything else I see clearly that Scripture does not allow for women to be in the position of a pastor over men. Many other Protestant pastors, whom I respect and who have large and growing followings, like John Piper, John MacArthur and Mark Driscoll also teach very strongly that women should not be pastors over men. The only Protestants with much vibrancy who ordain female pastors are the pentecostal/charismatics but most of those churches and denominations have some other serious theological deficiencies like the prosperity gospel.
MattJP,
Ad Orientem is aware that most protestant groups don’t ordain women, and he is also aware that most Anglicans don’t – these issues have come up on previous threads.
Ad Orientem has given the distinct impression that he wants protestants to ordain women – he can probably best explain the reason for that himself.
Regardless, consecration of women bishops in CofE is unlikely to go ahead. Its not impossible by any means, but unlikely: The liberals would have to achieve higher votes in each house of General Synod in 2012 than this measure has ever received before.
But that is no reason to be complacent. Many orthodox Anglicans in CofE, evangelical, traditional and anglo-catholic, are gearing up for a fight and it is an important one – this is an opportunity not just to defeat the measure for women bishops, but also to witness to the rest of CofE about their tolerance of liberal apostasy. Pray for everyone there, that the Holy Spirit will uplift them, protect them and guide them.
Actually, the people pushing for women bishops are the liberal catholics such as Affirming Catholicism, the monster child of Rowan Williams, Jeffrey John and Frank Griswold which has spun off into multiple heresies. Liberal Catholics, just like the RC church has, and don’t tell me it doesn’t, they are just keeping a low profile under the current Pope. It is also the fratricidal Affirming Catholics who have put the boot into the real Anglo-Catholics and tried to eject them by making sure no provision is made for them. They tend to lurk in cathedrals as they have absolutely no chance of building parishes with their strange views and of course in academia. Their father, Rowan Williams is stuffing as many as he can into vacant sees in the CofE while he can; you can see this by their record, invariably they were taught by him. Thus Rowan Williams seeks to infect and take over the Church of England with his parasitic spawn.
Affirming Catholicism also seek not only women bishops but gay bishops and gay blessings, but they are being quite cunning about that. Stage 1 get liberal women, and perhaps lesbian women appointed as bishopsl Stage 2, put the commitments to gay bishops back onto the website, and go hell for leather for it.
The reality is that if they had been less murderous about it with the A-C’s that they would have had a better chance of getting the majority they need to get the legislation through. But the probability is that they will have brought splits and the division of elsewhere to the CofE long before this comes up for discussion given the foolish way Rowan Williams is dealing with everything, including the upcoming Primates Meeting. A fool is a man, who notwithstanding the repeated evidence, proceeds to make the same mistakes over and over and over and over again.
[blockquote]Regardless, consecration of women bishops in CofE is unlikely to go ahead. Its not impossible by any means, but unlikely: [/blockquote]
What? Talk about whistling past the graveyard. In the face of trajectory of the CofE over the past decades to think the whole progressive bandwagon is going to stop here, is delusional. It’s going to happen.
[blockquote]Liberal Catholics, just like the RC church has, and don’t tell me it doesn’t, they are just keeping a low profile under the current Pope.[/blockquote]
We’ve loads of them unfortunately, though they have been waging a not so subtle campaign of sabotage ever since he ascended the Chair of Peter. Just wait until next month when the new translations for the Missal go into effect. It will get worse, however: Tu es Petrus, et super hanc petram aedificabo Ecclesiam meam; et portae inferi non praevalebunt adversum eam.
TridentineVirginian,
No, it is the liberals in the CofE who are whistling past the graveyard and have been for some time. Their usual tactic is to confidently proclaim that victory is assured, and the credulous or uninformed just believe them. Hence why I was surprised that this article acknowledges the very significant obstacles they face in getting the measure for women bishops passed.
I am not saying the measure won’t get up, of course. I am not God. But the odds are against it: In order to succeed, the measure has to get higher majorities in each of three Houses of Synod than it has ever achieved in the past. If it fails in just one of those houses, it is history. Start the whole process again.
Now of course it WILL succeed if no-one in CofE fights it. That is where the departure of some FiFUK bishops and clergy to Rome may actually assist the fight against the measure, because most of those departing were not really interested in being part of a team. The measure will only be defeated by a group effort, that includes all orthodox Anglicans – evangelicals, anglo-catholics, traditionalists, whatever. Fortunately, that seems to be happening.