Female Bishops In The Future of the C of E?

As you might have guessed, I’ve been following developments, both grievous and joyous, in the Episcopal Church in the weeks following General Convention 2006.

News today: the Mother Church’s “General Synod approved the concept of women bishops as ‘theologically justified’ by 288 votes to 119.”

BBC NEWS | UK | Church backs female bishops move

Of course, the traditional wing has very strong objections, citing the concept as unBiblical. This wing has close ties to the conservative “Global South,” the area mostly under the influence or control of Nigeria’s Bishop Akinola. Actually, the American traditionalists are believed to be sending a lot of financial support to their allies in the Global South, according to an analysis that came out a while ago, “Follow the Money.”

This move by the British General Synod will be welcomed by the progressives in Canada, the US, and other places like New Zealand that also approve female bishops.

I can’t speak to the issues with any degree of scholarly analysis, only from the heart. And I’m happy with this development, because it shows that a solid majority of British bishops support the idea of having women colleagues.

The irony, of course, is that the minority will continue to have the “whip-hand,” especially if as suggested by Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canturbury and titular head of the Anglican Church in England, that there could be some sort of two-tier Covenant option to keep the traditionalists and progressives held together in tension. What if, in the years it will take for this Covenant to be created by ecclesiastic legislation (which can only be done at specified, infrequent convocations), more national
Anglican churches find that there is a majority view in favor of female bishops or gay clergy?

Currently, there are  a total of 38 national Anglican churches “in communion” with Canterbury; 14 of them have female bishops. In the coming years, how many more? Although there seems to be a very committed, almost fundamentalist faction in the Anglican universe, and some areas will always be more conservative than others, is it really only a matter of time that more will come to see the concept of female bishops, at least, as “theologically justified?” And if so, what about the big open secret in the British
church – that gay clergy are a very large subset of the total number of British clergy and bishops, although they are in the “non-confessional” closet at the moment?

Closeted or not, 22 of those national Anglican churches describe their relationship with the US Episcopalian church as “broken, or impaired” because of the majority’s affirmation of Gene V. Robinson’s elevation to the episcopate. Apparently Bishop +Gene’s sexuality will probably always be the first thing they think of, rather than his work or the love the people of the Diocese of New Hampshire have for him. Meanwhile, in those 22 church bodies… how many of the clergy are deep in that ecclesiastical closet?
No telling, because in some countries (most notably, Nigeria) it’s still a crime to be gay.

More stories, resources, and blog entries:

Guardian Unlimited: Synod backs concept of women bishops

NY Daily News: Episcopalians On The Breach

Seattle Times: Episcopal Church’s new head is ready

Newark Diocese adds 2 more bishop candidates

Wayne Besen: Anything But Straight

++Rowan Cantuar: The Body’s Grace

Married sex has, in principle, an openness to the more tangible goals of producing children; its “justification” is more concrete than what I’ve been suggesting as the inner logic and process of the sexual relation itself. If we can set the movement of sexual desire within this larger purpose, we can perhaps more easily accommodate the embarrassment and insecurity of desire: it’s all in a good cause, and a good cause that can be visibly and plainly evaluated in its usefulness and success.

Same-sex love annoyingly poses the question of what the meaning of desire is in itself, not considered as instrumental to some other process (the peopling of the world); and this immediately brings us up against the possibility not only of pain and humiliation without any clear payoff’, but – just as worryingly – of non-functional joy: or, to put it less starkly, joy whose material “production” is an embodied person aware of grace. It puts the question which is also raised for some kinds of moralist by the existence
of the clitoris in women; something whose function is joy. lf the creator were quite so instrumentalist in “his” attitude to sexuality, these hints of prodigality and redundancy in the way the whole thing works might cause us to worry about whether he was, after all, in full rational control of it. But if God made us for joy… ?

A very helpful but long comment from Father Jake Stops The World:

 Well, what I see here might be seen as a matter of Gods…

In our Communion we have people worshiping two different Gods…

One of them is pure love, and cares for all His creation. His message applies to everybody, and He would not deny His salvation to those who have never heard of Him, but still have followed His commandments.

The other is a manichaeistic one, who acts like a chess master. He has created human beings already knowing they will sin and be condemned to hell.

One of them had revealed Himself to some men in the desert. Through these men, He has shown a pathway that leads to His revelation contained in Jesus.

The other has chosen only those men, and later, only the elected. The rest is already condemned.

One of them inspired different people to write books about their perceptions of Him, leaving His innermost principles and His promise of salvation to them. But His word is still revealed to us, through the action of His Holy Spirit. Revelation is not strictly closed. It evolves with the Church.

The other has psychographed a series of books, and doesn’t care for contradictions or misunderstandings in His writings. For Him, differences in ethical and social concepts are not relevant either. He commits people to follow those books strictly and literally. The Holy Spirit is limited to extactic manifestations only.

One of them is still talking to us. We praise Him through new discoveries and advances on science, art and technology. He is happy for us having a deeper and wider knowledge of social and ethical issues.

The other says that anything science discovers that apparently is against His scripture is something heretic and therefore, should be completely ignored and ridicularized.

One of them is beyond logic. So, we believe in Him.

The other has a very twisted logic. Because of that, He needs to scare us, so we will keep believing in Him.

One of them understands that we have to deepen our knowledge on Him through varied theological studies.

The other makes us remain attached only to clobber passages and limited perceptions. We aren’t allowed to research more.

One of them, for reasons we still do not know, has allowed people to have several sexualities. But for Him, much more important than that is that those people live their sexualities in committed, loyal and long-term relationships.

The other likes to act as an asmodeus. He permits people to be gay, just to make them feel they are something filthy. He approves disgusting treatments in order to change someone’s sex desire, that, at the end, don’t work anyway.

One of them commits us to fight against misery, pain, prejudice and social inequality.

The other says that everything that looks like socialist, homophile and humanitarian is part of a revisionist agenda, that tries to menace the Christian world.

One of them allows a wide range of talk and discussions on several subjects related to Christianity.

The other is encapsulated to “isms”: Augustianisms, Pelagianisms, Nestorianisms, Tomisms, Arminianisms, Calvinisms…

One of them says: “love them anyway”.

The other says: “you are a cancer and must be extinguished”.

One of them does not mind being called “mother”.

The other, however, is very outraged with this assumption. Because for this God, women are just “inferior beings”.

One of them has been manifested through Jesus Christ, who commanded us to love God beyond everything and people around us as ourselves.

The other has stimulated (and still stimulates) wars, murders, slavery and prejudice.

This is a mere difference of Gods. Some have chosen one of them. The others have chosen (or were obliged to chose) the other. – Luis Coehlo (website)

 Nice. Anyway, more blogiana on the topic of women bishops in the Church of England:
staring into the distance::as far as our eyes can see

apprentice on the way: Could Jane Hedges be one of England’s first female bishops?
Ruth Gledhill’s Times Online blog: General Synod Day Two

There will be more on this from other blogs in the days to come, of course.

Speaking only for myself, my answer to traditionalists who cite Biblical chapter and verse on the role (or non-role) of women in the Church: how do we know that Jesus DIDN’T appoint or rely on a female religious leader? How do we know whether a woman wasn’t leading one of the earliest churches as a priestess, but her name was suppressed or changed in the texts? How do we know whether there was a significant fraction of people who disagreed with the Pauline assertions that women should be seen, but silent in the
churches, and were shouted down and silenced? Wealthy women certainly were financing the early Church, so possibly they were leading it as well. This might have been ruthlessly put down by the faction that eventually had the last Scriptural word, so to speak.

We don’t know for sure. This is why I can’t ever become a fundamentalist, because I don’t believe that Scripture can possibly be inerrant with we mere humans messing with it through the millennia.  Also, unlike fundamentalists, I figure that if they can ignore the Old Testament passages enjoining us to kill disobedient sons or to keep slaves, I can ignore the passages that tell us that homosexuals are eeeeeevul.

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