Open Evangelical Responses to the Amendments of the Women Bishops Legislation

The Fulcrum website, representing (I think it is fair to say) open evangelical opinion, has published five responses to the House of Bishop's amendments to the women bishops legislation. They are generally brief, and I believe they make important reading. I've published the links below with a 'key quote' from each:

James Mercer
"Last year, at the Deanery Synod discussion on the measure to enable women to be admitted to the episcopate, the myth of two equal but contradictory integrities was at last exposed as just that, and was conclusively dispatched as a legitimate premise within Anglicanism."

Stephen Kuhrt
"Those in possession of power are usually very intuitive to danger, and the current set of bishops know that there will be far less places for them to hide if women are allowed to join them as equals. Better to allow women in but with areas of vulnerability preserved to keep them beholden to their male colleagues."

Elaine Storkey
"The present clause will mean we must maintain a pool of both Catholic and Conservative Evangelical opponents to women within the church, from which we can select those who will offer alternative episcopal oversight."

Jody Stowell
"... it seems to place in law, that which would have remained as a matter of grace, courtesy and wisdom, strongly held in the Code of Practice. This would ensure that discrimination against women was something that could be enforced by law, rather than understood as a matter of conscience which can be freely offered alternative arrangements in generosity and grace."

Andrew Goddard
"As with objectors to the covenant, both wings sometimes distort the wording and project their worst – and opposing, incompatible - fears onto the proposal: the Measure will either be worthless, offering no serious long-term provision, simply giving “hospice care” for dissenters or it will ensure in perpetuity that women are not treated equally, enshrining discrimination in law. Even more disconcerting, reactions to the amendment seem to confirm that some are not committed to recognising dissenters as loyal Anglicans and taking their theological convictions seriously. Those convictions are seen as beyond the theological pale with no lasting place in an inclusive church or as pseudo-theological cover for injustice and discrimination."


Simon Cawdell
"Whilst (as my own Bishop has pointed out in a pastoral letter to his clergy) the amendment does not mention the theology of ‘taint’ (that is to say that ordinations by any bishop who has ordained women are in particular doubt [and those of the women certainly in especial doubt]) it does very clearly enable the view that parishes and priests holding this view, widely held by petitioning parishes under the Act of Synod 1993 may expect a bishop of this theological persuasion. Thus they must be allowed the ministration of a male bishop who has never ordained women.

This therefore makes permanent in law the situation that has arisen since 1994 when the position of those opposed to the ordination of women is protected, in effect if not explicitly in statute. And this is precisely the position that General Synod has been resisting for the last seven years as the draft legislation has made its snails progress through the stages."


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