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?
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