• 10 questions arising from the misogyny of a “headship” bishop

    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:

    1. To Members of Parliament: Are you really comfortable with 1 million children being educated every day by an organisation with these values?
    2. 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?
    3. 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?
    4. 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?
    5. To the BBC: Why are you not covering this story as a major news item?
    6. 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?
    7. 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?
    8. 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.
    9. To the silent Church of England Bishops who believe themselves to be liberal: How do you sleep?
    10. To the first woman to be consecrated as bishop in the Church of England: Was it worth it on these terms?

     

5 responses to “The Convent”

  1.  Avatar
    Anonymous

    I really enjoyed the programme, looking forward to the next part.

    Couldn’t help grinning all the way through though thinking of you and a certain remark about convents and nuns from last year!

  2. Mark Avatar
    Mark

    “wish more people did it”
    I tried to post a comment here, but it disappeared…

    anyway, I just said, be careful, because I’m scared I may get “itchy feet” again and want to reexamine looking at monastic life.

    I was disappointed by how rude two of the people were, but the sincerity of the lady who had been hurt by her family and was “afraid of God” was amazing stuff.

  3.  Avatar
    Anonymous

    Monastic Life
    I thought about monastic life at one point. However, when I went to a monastery to consider it more thoroughly I was stricken with a plague of boils and ended up being told to flee by a doctor. Notwithstanding my hesitation about the possibility of God meddling any more with humanity than by God’s becoming incarnate, there was no arguing with a plague of boils and I never went back.

  4. Mark Avatar
    Mark

    Hey, but I never got boils! And as I was saying to Fr Philip last week it was that very experience in the monastery that has left a mark on the rest of my life. I simply don’t want to play along with materialism to the same extent anymore…

  5. Moyra Avatar
    Moyra

    It was certainly interesting watching from an insider’s point of view…

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