Tuesday, July 08, 2008

The Women Bishops Debate: Much Vexation without Representation

http://ugleyvicar.blogspot.com/2008/07/women-bishops-debate-much-vexation.html

[The Ugley Vicar] 8 Jul 2008--Late on Monday evening, the General Synod of the Church of England voted to take away my bishop. Not only mine, of course — they voted to take away all the Provincial Episcopal Visitors from the parishes which have enjoyed their ministry in the last few years.

That is something the Synod has the privilege and the power to do. And in many people’s eyes it has struck one of the last necessary blows for human dignity, comparable (according to recent interviewees) to the end of slavery or racial discrimination.

They may, of course be right. But then again, they may not. Certainly great swathes of the church across time and space have thought so. Indeed, very substantial numbers currently in the Church of England think that way also.

And this is why the decision by the General Synod is problematic, for despite clear warnings in the Bishop of Manchester’s report that such a decision would plunge the Church of England into “a period of uncertainty and turbulence”, the Synod has taken the Church down a path which will leave it, again according to the Manchester Report,“possibly be more cohesive ... undoubtedly ... less theologically diverse” and almost certainly smaller.

What, then, is to be done?

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