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July 07, 2008
C of E Live (or Not)
Bill Tighe provided this link from Times Online giving an inside look at the debate in the Church of England to consecrate "women bishops." Too bad they didn't have a discussion and review, first, of what is a bishop's job? Not tha administrative stuff, but the stuff about receiving the faith and passing it on exactly as received. Now if such a change isn't really about the faith at all and merely an administrative alteration, then there's no need to crow about a new step forward signalled to the gathered bishops by none other than the Holy Spirit. Of course, when you have female priests to begin with.... I've never been an "Anglican" but it's in my family background, and fifty years ago I would have felt at home there, perhaps. I find this long demise, decades in its unfolding, a very sad story.
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The C of E just voted and, surprise, surprise, let's hear it for women bishops!
For those who were able to accept priestesses, sodomitical priests and bishops, and the murder of small babies, but somehow have decided to draw the line at bishopesses(?), that line has just be crossed. Time to start packing.
Posted by: tony o | Jul 7, 2008 6:06:08 PM
"...what is a bishop's job?"
That's the question. And in the controversy over same-sex "marriage," the question is: what is a marriage? For the liberal, marriage is essentially a partnership or a friendship, and a bishop is little more than a manager. No wonder the issue of the sex of the persons involved drops away. The image of the bishop as a spiritual father is ignored, as is the nature of marriage as an institution for the promotion and protection of procreation.
Posted by: Bill R | Jul 7, 2008 6:12:06 PM
>>>"...what is a bishop's job?"<<<
Based on my own up-close observations of Catholic bishops, both Latin and Eastern, their main job is raising money, balancing the books, and suppressing all hint of scandal while deflecting the inquiries of the laity.
Posted by: Stuart Koehl | Jul 7, 2008 6:15:08 PM
Well, I can't speak for you guys, but in the LDS Church, I've found that the reservation of the performance of formalized "Priesthood" ordinances to males has had a few positive benefits. The main one, I think, is that it gives men in our church a sense of purpose "as men." A few stats from the Pew research group seem to bear this out showing a higher male participation rate in the LDS faith than in some other religions.
Overall, it seems to reinforce the idea among our membership that gender matters. Being a male matters, and there is some purpose to it. The point of being a man seems to be gradually being lost in our wider modern society. Church for us is one place where men can reclaim a bit of purpose and identity in life.
I have no idea if any of the same dynamics are at play in your faith traditions.
Posted by: Seth R. | Jul 7, 2008 6:26:40 PM
Fr. Reardon: "This bottled question of the Eucharist and the Priesthood, about which Anglicans decided that it was better not to look nor to inquire too closely, has finally emerged from its long confinement like an infuriated genie and seized the Anglican communion by the lapels to rattle its every last bone. The matter of women’s ordination is what opened the bottle and brought the genie out.
And, oh, it is sad. A sort of beached whale, I suggested. Decent people like whales, even love them. No one makes fun of a beached whale. If, on occasion, there are people laughing at what the Anglican communion is doing, it is very probable that such laughter is only disguising broken hearts, because this has been among the most noble and loveable of the great whales."
Written 20 years ago. Read it all at The Beached Whale
Posted by: Truth Unites... and Divides | Jul 7, 2008 6:37:28 PM
>>Based on my own up-close observations of Catholic bishops, both Latin and Eastern, their main job is raising money, balancing the books, and suppressing all hint of scandal while deflecting the inquiries of the laity.
Don't knock it. From a secular sociological viewpoint, one of the chief functions of a clerical caste is to dampen and regulate the religious enthusiasms of the laity. Would that other religions had clergy as effective as the Christians! :-)
Posted by: DGP | Jul 7, 2008 6:46:39 PM
Tony O, that would be "bishopettes"
Kamilla
Posted by: Kamilla | Jul 7, 2008 7:24:36 PM
Right now, for this traditional Anglican *not* in communion with the C. of E. or TEC or any such similar bodies, it's both all too predictable and all too depressing to watch the "mother church" formally move from heresy to apostasy, as TEC did before it.
Posted by: James A. Altena | Jul 7, 2008 8:01:05 PM
Stomach churning, the wounds that have been delivered to the Body of Christ today. Prepare for the rapid descent of the CofE from mere heresy to apostasy, just like their confreres in TEC.
Posted by: Stevely | Jul 7, 2008 10:00:55 PM
Church of England.
R.I.P.
Repent in Purgatory
Posted by: Christopher Hathaway | Jul 7, 2008 10:12:13 PM
The catholicity of Anglicanism, like the unity of its Communion and even the essence of the Elizabethan Settlement itself, fundamentally relies not upon the external authorities of a shared confessional, magisterium, or the preservation of ancient praxis, but in a purely personal and internal basis with a sort of honor system--a gentlemen's agreement not to violate the agreed upon bounds of the faith once received. The leadership of the church, however, has been and is currently filled with scoundrels, villains, and knaves. Gentlemen are in short supply.
I’m not sure what else needs to be said other than “Newman was right.”
Posted by: DBP+ | Jul 8, 2008 8:27:33 AM
Fr. Stephen Freeman said something to the effect of, "It's isn't that only men can become priests; it's that only a few men can become priests." And one could add, even fewer men can become bishops.
Posted by: Patrick | Jul 8, 2008 8:37:52 AM
>>>And one could add, even fewer men can become bishops.<<<
And, according to John Chrysostom, very few of those will be saved.
Posted by: Stuart Koehl | Jul 8, 2008 8:49:33 AM
1 Tim. 2:12: “I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet.”
“Christina is American by birth, but a member of our General Synod, and chairwoman of Women and the Church (Watch), which struggles to free the Church of England from patriarchal prejudice.
“I had scrambled peacock eggs for breakfast,” said Christina, over her shoulder, as she stepped inside. “I need all the primal peacock energy I can get, to do battle with the bishops!”
And within an hour, turbo-charged by egg power, she’d explained the Anglican Communion to me, unravelled all its competing theologies, and made it appear suddenly quite clear that despite his recent nod in the direction of the conservatives, the Archbishop of Canterbury will eventually have to go with the liberal flow, to follow in the wake of America and embrace not just women bishops, but actively gay clergy as well.
Christina knew better. She picked up a cat from between her sandals, and said: “You want to know what the headlines will be on July 10?” Yes please. “They’ll all say the same thing: ‘C of E votes for women bishops!’ So hooray! It’ll be a wonderful day and a step towards redressing the great mistakes that were made in the first few centuries of the Christian Church.”
What mistakes? Christina looked surprised. “The suppression of women, of course. The early Christians were so keen to separate themselves from Goddess worship that they began to treat women as inferior. It was something Jesus himself never, ever intended.” So Jesus would have wanted women bishops? “Absolutely.” And actively gay bishops like Gene Robinson, would he have minded them? “No, not if they were in a faithful relationship, of course not.”
For Christina Rees and Bishop Jefferts Schori, perhaps for Rowan Williams, the ordination of women into the episcopacy and the ordination of gay priests are connected in a very basic way. At the heart of the matter is the liberal Anglican idea of who God is and what He wants from us.
“Come on! God is Spirit! So how do we know how He wants to be worshipped? We don’t.”
It is true that in my part of London, a nice lady priest and her girlfriend run their parish side by side, and in the next-door church, a gay priest and his partner do the same.”
Excerpted from (but do read it all): Coming very soon… women bishops
Egalitarian feminists are joyfully celebrating. I'm not joining them.
Posted by: Truth Unites... and Divides | Jul 8, 2008 9:22:41 AM
"Come on! God is Spirit! So how do we know how He wants to be worshipped? We don’t.”
Left totally on our own, free to make up things as we go along! It isn't like God gave us instructions or anything like, say, a collection of books written by inspired authors to give us some specific ideas or, you know, the ability to look back on 2000 years of Christian tradition to guide us.
Oh, wait...
Posted by: AMereLurker | Jul 8, 2008 1:52:44 PM
"The early Christians were so keen to separate themselves from Goddess worship that they began to treat women as inferior."
Where on God's green earth do these folks come up with this tripe?
Posted by: Rob G | Jul 8, 2008 1:59:49 PM
From Dan Brown.
Posted by: Mike Kriskey | Jul 8, 2008 9:39:09 PM
>>"The early Christians were so keen to separate themselves from Goddess worship that they began to treat women as inferior."<<
This is, of course, also why the Church killed hundreds of millions of witches in the Middle Ages. Just ask any Wiccan. :)
Posted by: Ethan C. | Jul 8, 2008 11:29:17 PM
Funny you should mention that, Ethan. I was going through the boxes of books in the closet in my study - you know the ones, no shelf space but you can't bear to part with them right?
I found my copy of the Malleus Maleficarum. ;-)
Kamilla
Posted by: Kamilla | Jul 9, 2008 12:24:19 AM
Oh, don't you folks have better things to worry about than the ordination of women (by a denomination that you don't like anyways)? Jesus said that the most important thing was to love God and our neighbor. I'm pretty sure that feeding the hungry and protecting the innocent are a rather higher priority than flipping out over women as bishops. Let's get our priorities straight here.
Posted by: Emily | Jul 9, 2008 10:10:14 AM
>>>Oh, don't you folks have better things to worry about than the ordination of women (by a denomination that you don't like anyways)?<<<
No, actually, I don't. And,inter alia, a lot of people writing about the subject here DO belong the Anglican communion, or what is left of it.
>>>I'm pretty sure that feeding the hungry and protecting the innocent are a rather higher priority than flipping out over women as bishops. Let's get our priorities straight here.<<<
The social gospel grows out of true and proper worship, which in turn is the fountainhead of all theology. Our right worship of God is what causes us to go feed the hungry and protect the innocent (and, by the way, what of the unborn, the most innocent of all, about whom most of those who support the ordination of women do not care at all?). Feeding the poor and protecting the innocent, while worthy in themselves, are not the means to an end, but a manifestation of the fruit of the Holy Spirit--as is the maintenance of the Apostolic Tradition, a Tradition which never allowed for the ordination of women to the presbyterate or episcopate. Moreover, it's kind of hard to get around the fact that the Apostle Paul, who laid out the qualification for becoming a bishop--not once, but twice--did not make provision for the ordination of women (nor for that matter, did he accept the idea that someone guilty of sexual immorality could qualify--sorry V. Gene!).
Posted by: Stuart Koehl | Jul 9, 2008 10:20:13 AM
"I'm pretty sure that feeding the hungry and protecting the innocent are a rather higher priority than flipping out over women as bishops. Let's get our priorities straight here"
I agree; let's ask the new bishopettes to attend the next March for Life, to counsel at abortion mills, and to work for the legal protection of the unborn. Protect those innocents.
(Fat Chance).
Posted by: tony o | Jul 9, 2008 11:03:04 AM
"I'm pretty sure that feeding the hungry and protecting the innocent are a rather higher priority than flipping out over women as bishops. Let's get our priorities straight here"
I agree; let's ask the new bishopettes to attend the next March for Life, to counsel at abortion mills, and to work for the legal protection of the unborn. Protect those innocents.
(Fat Chance).
Posted by: tony o | Jul 9, 2008 11:03:36 AM
"I'm pretty sure that feeding the hungry and protecting the innocent are a rather higher priority than flipping out over women as bishops. Let's get our priorities straight here"
I agree; let's ask the new bishopettes to attend the next March for Life, to counsel at abortion mills, and to work for the legal protection of the unborn. Protect those innocents.
(Fat Chance).
Posted by: tony o | Jul 9, 2008 11:03:41 AM
>>Jesus said that the most important thing was to love God and our neighbor<<
He also said "If you love me, you will obey my commands."
Like this one: "You will consecrate Aaron and his sons, and they will serve me as priests."
Whoops, overlooked that. I'm all about loving God and my neighbor. Well, not really, but I should be and, like every other imperfect soul, I strive to be. This also means telling them when they're wrong. Thanks for playing along.
Posted by: Michael | Jul 9, 2008 11:55:43 AM
peacock eggs? Is that a Mandean thing? Shouldn't it be flamingo eggs? (take off on whatever that word was)
Posted by: labrialumn | Jul 10, 2008 3:10:27 AM
I would like to hear what John Yates has to say about all this.
Posted by: Greg Hessel in Arlington Diocese | Jul 10, 2008 3:10:10 PM
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