Female bishops
The Anglican Diocese of Christchurch, New Zealand, recently announced that Bishop Matthews will be their new Bishop. The Anglican Church of Australia announced her first female bishop last month.
Meantime, the good old Church of England continues in seemingly endless chicken-licken style discussion. In my more bleak moments it makes me think of Nero fiddling while Rome burned. Fresh Expressions? A Missional church? All around us there are people hungry and thirsty for the story we have to tell, yet all they can hear is our endless circumventions of an argument that is out of date.
Will we ever see women in the Episcopate? Probably. A while from now. And then another round of hissy fits and arguments. Now, I have no personal career/ministry agenda in this: do not mistake me for someone who would want to be a Bishop. My gifts and inclinations clearly lie elsewhere. And in any case by the time the discussions are over I shall be on the verge of retirement. But I still feel deeply sorry that the Church I belong to continues to maintain levels of its organisation as a boys’ club, wastes the talents of women who would be brilliant Bishops, and by inference misrepresents the gospel to the world around us.
Bishop Alan is on fine form this morning on the subject. Go read.
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Maggi has kept a blog since September 2003, writing about theology and faith, the arts and literature, and a little about life and random nonsense...
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