Some are saying that the Church of England should consecrate women bishops because otherwise the World Outside will see the denomination as unequal, backwards and irrelevant.
Yet the Methodists, bless them, have had full equality for women for ages and are a tiny denomination - especially in the UK. The Episcopal Church in the States has full equality for people of all genders and several sexual inclinations, and is rapidly declining. Yet the Catholic Church, which has no female deacons even, and which in the West will only allow married men to be priests if they have been pre-approved by the Anglicans, is large and still growing. Most Pentacostal churches wouldn't dream of female headship and yet as an overall movement Pentecostalism is growing rapidly.
It seems to me the logic is wrong here. The Church of England should not consecrate women bishops because it's worried what the World thinks. It should consecrate women bishops because that is the right thing to do.
"What would Jesus have done?" is usually a good question to ask when faced with an ethical problem. The problem in this instance is that he did the wrong thing.
ReplyDeleteThe security word is Disea - is that a disease of short duration? Perhaps cut short by sudden death?
What would Henry VIII have done?
ReplyDeleteCB - the problem is that people have different answers to that very question - although many would expand it to "what would Jesus have done if he lived in a society where having female leaders wandering around the place would be even remotely sensible?"
ReplyDeleteMr Grumpy - killed a load of Protestants and then, because he was on the via media, killed a load of Catholics. And a couple of wives. And a load of people from Yorkshire. Horrible man that he was.
Oh dear, doesn't sound much like the right thing, does it? Not unless you object to people from Yorkshire quite strongly. There again if the old brute hadn't started his own church it wouldn't now be able to vote on having women bishops. So perhaps it was worth sacrificing some Yorkshire folk after all.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me the problem with your reply to CB is that it rather suggests (a) his watch was fast and he should have turned up 2,000 years later or (b) he programmed the SatNav wrong and he really meant to come among the Beaker Folk - who would naturally have been quite happy for him to wander round with a dozen female Archdruids. Sort of a deincarnation process going on in your question, if you see what I mean.
Personally I find tradition, revelation or authority are rarely good reasons not to allow something, especially when that thing causes no harm (other than "offence") to other sentient beings (I don't care about viruses)
ReplyDeleteSteve - I think genuine revelation would be a very good reason - but you will rightly ask how does one assess "genuine", and that's a long old topic and the days are short. Tradition is lovely and without inventing it how could I justify so many of our Beaker ceremonies? While authority is always to be feared and viewed with suspicion. Except mine, of course.
ReplyDeleteMr G - in the sense you describe there was arguably never a "right time" for Our Lord to come. Only a "time", called "Today". Had the Second Person of the Trinity been manifested in 11th Century Wales, all his disciples would have been called Llewellyn or Idris or something. Had the Word been made flesh in the world of the Amazons, would all priests have to remove one breast to enable the shooting of arrows? I recognise the universality of the Incarnation within the particularity of that incarnation. There was only one, there could only be one, and it was when it was. In my opinion we cannot claim the particularity of the Lord's gender without needing an extremely reason not to believe that all bishops and priests should be circumcised or, at the very least, of Judean descent. How could one justify a red-haired priest, a bishop without a beard, or a deacon called "Jeremy" otherwise?
Btw Mr G - it is never worth sacrificing Yorkshire folk.
ReplyDeleteA very sensible thought, but one that is unlikely to see the light of day at General Synod this week. Bad thing, hitting below the belt, apparently, to link female ministry with decline, even if all the statistics say it is true.
ReplyDeleteI should point out that correlation is not causation.
ReplyDeleteIs the more traditional theology (in other ways) of the non-woman-ordaining denominations the key factor?
I think it all went to pot when they stopped using ex Jews and Greeks as priests. Tradition? Hmmmph!
ReplyDeleteTradition is as tradition does - whatever that means??????
ReplyDeleteYes, correlation is not causation, but it does imply that something is going on. Many people would call this the 'scientific method' - if two factors appear to be linked, either one causes the other, or there is a third factor causing both of them. That factor might be, as you say, the appeal of traditional theology; it might also be the non-appeal of female ministry, especially to men. It might be the failure of male leadership within the church, or the perception that a future female leadership will be no better.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, synod will do a lot of 'rearranging the deckchairs' this week and in July, when it really ought ot be asking itself some rather more fundamental questions.