Women Bishops in England!

And I aways thought the English loved tradition. Of course the current steps that may pave the way for women Bishops in the CoE is a natural progression since the ordination of women priests in 1992. Where this next step will lead is a polarizing question. I agree with the Pewster (see below) that one need only look across the pond at TEC to see where CoE is headed. Perhaps the Pewster will be proven wrong, after all, there might be the equivalent of Margaret Thatcher coming along in the ranks of the English Clergy who could become the Archbishop some day.

Among the great comments at StandFirm on the Church of England's decision is this from Rudy+,

"As you can gather from my #30 above, I support the ordination of women. I got in my car and drove to seminary 2 days after the vote of General Convention in 1976.

Of course, as any and every priest who has been ordained for any length of time knows, you frequently get in trouble in ministry not for what you do but how you do it.
And what really bugs me now is how I thought we were making an accomodation to allow women to minister in TEC as it was in 1976. I never dreamed that we’d be faced with feminist theology, and I never dreamed that Integrity would become so strong. I never dreamed that what was liberal in 1976 is now conservative (forget being moderate—it’s gone!). I never dreamed that the majority of bishops of TEC would vote in the most liberal candidate to become the XXVI Presiding Bishop. (The most liberal candidate for PB was elected neither in 1985 nor in 1997.) So I think we should definitely look at the question of what those who support women’s ordination want to bring in with it if and when that door is opened. In other words, not just what we have seen through the portholes so far, but in which direction the ship is pointed." Rudy+

[48] Posted by Rudy on 07-07-2008 at 07:17 PM

I see ice bergs from my porthole view.

And this intriguing one from the Underground Pewster,

"At last! We can test the hypothesis that W.O. sinks churches. Every experiment needs corroberation by an independant investigator. All we needed for the experiment was the Church of England to try to reproduce the successful first test as performed in TEC. Too bad that the experiment takes 25 years of follow up to determine the results. The ethical problem with trying to duplicate a negative result and using humans as subjects should be apparant to most scientists, but of course, theology is not a science. What I am saying is the people of England should protest to their human rights commission as the Declaration of Helsinki is about to be tossed out the window. Perhaps we would be better off if the “wise and prudent” (Matthew 11:25) quit experimenting on us simple pew people."

[40] Posted by Undergroundpewster on 07-07-2008 at 07:02 PM

I hope and pray that the experiment fails to validate the hypothesis. Margaret Thatcher where are you?