Plans were announced last night to appoint a new bishop in the Church of England who will specifically believe that women are subordinate to men to minister to, encourage and represent those in the Church of England who believe this, ie that men have been given headship over women by God, to be true. (This isn’t a joke, this is real).
This had been planned for some time and was part of the deal whereby that church agreed to open the Episcopate to candidates who happen to be female.
It rather neatly proves some of the terrible things I was saying about the Church of England earlier in the week to be true.
On this occasion, I take no pleasure in being right.
The following questions arising from the misogyny of a “headship” bishop should now be raised:
- To Members of Parliament: Are you really comfortable with 1 million children being educated every day by an organisation with these values?
- To candidates in the next election: Will you support the disestablishment of the Church of England because organisations which behave in this way should have no privileged place in parliament?
- To the Archbishop of Canterbury: Do you realise that this makes you personally look like a misogynist too as suffragan appointments are always personal to the bishop involved?
- In the General Synod of the Church of England: …. and if people ask for a bishop with racist views to represent them, will we do that too?
- To the BBC: Why are you not covering this story as a major news item?
- To those who serve in Church House, Westminster: Why do progressive changes to the Church of England have to go through years of debate at General Synod and regressive ones don’t?
- To Primates around the communion: Why is this novelty and abuse of the episcopate acceptable when the appointment of a man who happened to be gay was so unacceptable?
- To the Prime Minister at Prime Minister’s Question Time: Does the Prime Minister share the concerns of many in this country that the Church of England is institutionalising misogyny.
- To the silent Church of England Bishops who believe themselves to be liberal: How do you sleep?
- To the first woman to be consecrated as bishop in the Church of England: Was it worth it on these terms?
Thank you. This is quite chilling. Not so much the appointment of a bishop to oversee a dwindling rump of ‘headship evangelicals’ but the commission to recruit more and foster vocations from this constituency. And yet LGBT clergy are seen as ‘tainted’. Jesus wept.
“dwindling rump of ‘headship evangelicals’
You wish. If any section of the CofE is growing, it’s HTB, which is open to women clergy, and the other Evangelicals, who aren’t. Other than cathedral congregations, probably accumulating disaffected traditional music lovers whose previous churches have faded beyond being able to put on the show any more, or who have brought their worship into line with the culture of society, noone else is growing consistently. Remember that the quoted 1% rate of decline implies that we’re mostly simply dying off.
“LGBT clergy are seen as ‘tainted’”
No – from a conservative perspective they are seen as sinful if they are in a sexual relationship outside heterosexual marriage. That doesn’t render them ‘tainted’ – as the Catholic v Donatist debate determined, the validity of sacraments is not a function of the worth of the person; however the idea that God will BLESS the ministry of those deliberately living in sin is not generally endorsed in theology. To expect the opponents of LGBT practice to contribute to their ministry is not realistic; that dioceses presently do shows that they get away popular ignorance and unwillingness to rock the boat.
But the lepers are healed.
The lame dance.
The dead are raised.
“But the lepers are healed.
The lame dance.
The dead are raised.”
Where? Where? I see mostly harmless clerics chasing after the latest secular political campaign in a desperate attempt to appear relevant but instead just looking like idiots.
The primary duty of the church is to ‘make disciples’. The result of that will be “freedom for the prisoners… recovery of sight for the blind,
set[ting the oppressed free”, but these are the fruit of conversion and discipleship, starting from repentance, i.e. choosing to go God’s way.
But it’s so much more fun to have everyone speak well of you…
Well said, well said.
My response was to Kelvin’s original post, not the immediately preceding comment.
Hopefully, the first woman bishop will not be sycophantic, and will have great courage.
Those whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad. Is it time for the SEC to take over the CofE?
I somehow missed this debate – probably too busy working to “put on a show” in our little church the other day – but I have to say this comment, Eamonn, seems the most sensible so far…
Long past the time.
But Penelope, conservative evangelicals are not a ‘dwindling rump’ in the Church of England. That is why provision, rightly or wrongly, is being made. Churches with links to Reform tend to be very vibrant.
I think so-called ‘headship evangelicals’ punch above their weight.
Really? Evidence please. Given that they are estimated to be 10% of the church, but have ZERO bishops, the opposite is probably the case. The system of synodical government elections also under-represents them: it gives all clergy and laity representatives on Deanery Synod where every parish gets at least one vote whilst the large parishes don’t get the large number that their attendance would suggest.
They have as many bishops as the rest of us: ‘Christ is not divided’. Having a bishop suited to each constituency is fissiparous; it is neither catholic, nor apostolic.
Without wishing to invoke Godwin’s law (and thus bring the debate to an end)…one could argue that “certain political parties in Germany in the 1930s also tended to very vibrant”
Time for me to leave the C of E if this goes through
hear hear! Important questions indeed.
“To Primates around the communion: Why is this novelty and abuse of the episcopate acceptable when the appointment of a man who happened to be gay was so unacceptable?”
Um, my Primate is the Rt Rev Katharine Jefferts Schori, and ergo, “n/a”.
@ Liam: “Churches with links to Reform tend to be very vibrant.”
Well, I think the crowd calling to free Barabbas and, re Jesus, “Crucify him! Crucify him!” was “very vibrant”. However…
see my comment above in regard to certain former German political parties. Krystalnacht and book burnign were also “very vibrant”. This didn’t make them right
Liam didn’t say that evangelical’s numerical presence made their views right. He just corrected Ms Cowell Doe’s inaccurate statement that numbers are dwindling.
Comment is free, but facts are sacred 🙂
Not to put too fine a point on it, but she is the MOST Reverend Katharine Jefferts-Schori.
This is the price that liberals have to pay for being allowed to stay in the CofE when they started to campaign for women’s ordination. At the time it was claimed that there was no intention of delegitimising the traditional views, and on that basis liberals were allowed to stay. The fact that having achieved their objective they are now complaining about being expected to show the same attitude shows that their earlier claims were less than… heart felt.
Let’s be clear: anyone in favour of gay clergy being allowed to be in sexual relationships and who are ‘one clauser’ – the people who proposed no provision for the opponents of women’s consecration – need to leave the CofE because they are hypocrites; demanding toleration for their beliefs but resisting toleration of others. In the interim I’m arguing: https://b66423.wordpress.com/2014/10/12/give-anything-to-the-church-of-england-as-is-just-say-no/
Most of the people campaigning against the injustices inflicted by the church on women and gay people today are not the same ones who started doing it 40 or 50 years ago, so why should they be bound by the views of their predecessors? Besides, what you’re asking them to tolerate is intolerance itself. You cannot have a church that, on the one hand, says women and fully capable of undertaking any role to which they are called in the church, while at the same time seeking out the consecration and appointment of someone who believes that a women should not say a word in church ever. THAT is the hypocrisy here.
Indeed Jo, as you point out, the position is ‘hypocrisy’, or at least incoherent. However it is what the church is committed to doing as a result of the vote that passed the consecration of women. However the logic I offer DOES apply to that, because if the conservatives had required liberals to conform to their views 50 years ago or leave, which is what you are requiring, you’d have been out of the CofE. Instead you have benefited from their liberalism – you should do likewise.
Whilst this point is largely insignificant as far as the women’s consecration is concerned, it fires back into life when applied to the gay issue. The church is, despite the obfuscation of those who like to pretend otherwise, totally clear that gay sexual practice is not acceptable in the long term. That people have chosen to be ordained into the church despite that, and continue in membership despite that, means this: that they have the same right to expect the rest of the church to change to the extent that they are willing to tolerate the opponents of women’s consecration. There can be no doubt that women’s consecration is a new belief. To impose it as a requirement for membership of the church is thus a schismatic act, best characterised as spitting in the face of the Pope and the Ecumenical Patriarch. And please don’t play the ‘justice’ card: that’s no basis for a theological argument when we are all under mercy not justice.
Whilst the conservatives have bullied into silence on the women’s issue, it’s their turn now to treat the proponents of gay sex equally. It is clear that Jesus is not necessarily tolerant: in the letters to the churches in Revelation is He is unambiguously critical of those who tolerate certain beliefs; it is our task to be His disciples, to do as He commands. Given the record of most dioceses over the years, to provide financial support to them is to become complicit in their toleration; enough is enough.
Conservatives did and do require liberals to conform to their views – that precisely why BAPs in the Church of England still rigorously enforce “Issues in human sexuality” as (effectively) a doctrinal standard. Women are not being ordained because conservatives are tolerant of liberal views but because liberal views came to outnumber conservative ones in synod. Had conservatives been able to achieve a majority in opposition then we would not have seen women ordained, and we would certainly not have seen a special suffragan Bishop appointed who would be allowed to ordain women, and we do not see one appointed who will be able to be married to someone of the same sex.
As for playing the “justice card”, are you for real? You’re using God’s mercy as an excuse to promote and sustain unjust oppression?
” BAPs in the Church of England still rigorously enforce “Issues in human sexuality”
We obviously live in different universes, or else liberals are, as recommended by Giles Fraser, lying to get through the BAPs.
Is this post a joke?