In England as in Wales, the overwhelming majority of members of the Anglican church support the consecration of women as bishops, and by the same proportion as the general public - nearly three to one.
Almost all the existing bishops support this, a majority of clergy support it, and a majority of lay representatives in the General Synod support it.
I was horrified when by just four votes the "Stop the world, God wants us to get off" tendancy managed to get a blocking third in one of the three houses of the General Synod to stop the proposal, which needed a two-thirds majority in all three chambers. Thus creating the unfair but understandable impression for the general public that the Church of England is a bunch of dinosaurs left over from the last millenium and with nothing useful to say about this one.
So I welcome the long overdue decision by the Church in Wales to consecrate women as bishops and I hope the Church of England will do the same in the near future.
When the original debate about whether to ordain women as priests took place I can remember that there were strong and sincere arguments put forward by both sides. One of relatively few areas of common ground - indeed, it was used as an argument by the opponents of change - was that the ordination of women priests would make inevitable the eventual consecration of women bishops. I have to confess myself absolutely astonished that thirty years later it hasn't happened.
And while I could respect those who argued against the ordination of women even while I disagreed with them, there is no possible shred of inellectual coherence in the idea that God would call women to be priests but not bishops.
0 comments:
Post a Comment