Women in the English Episcopate, May 2014

Are you advocating some form of "positive discrimination" in favour of men? Anyhow, the answer is, none. It's a non-issue.

Again, a non-issue.

 

It's all a bit sad, isn't it? In the last hundred years women have been granted the vote. Both in the UK and NZ (and Aus) we have had women Prime Ministers. We have women in medicine, law (including judges) and every profession. Yet some Anglicans have held out against them. Certainly in England, the Church respects their views and has made allowances for these people. Yet in this Forum certain minority Anglican from across the pond are using intemperate and intolerant language against sister Churches, and indeed the mother Church. In England, and I imagine NZ, Anglicans don't speak like that.

 

Yes Anglican Agnostic, I agree with the underlined part of the quote. Women, according to the apostle, are not to be in positions of authority in the Church.

 

Seagull, I hope you do not feel that I have been using intemperate or intolerant language. I can only speak for myself, but I am an unabashed Anglophile (my ancestors are from the British Isles) and it truly saddens me to see what has been occurring in the Church of England, and in the Episcopal Church in the US, over the past few decades. I am not angry or hateful about it, simply sad to see it. It was my concerns over these issues that led me into the Orthodox Church instead of the Episcopal Church, but I am very hopeful about the future of the ACNA.

 

No, I'm just asking what steps have you taken, when men's shortage had become acute, to make the church appealing to them once again? Furthermore, what steps are you taking to make their shortage now less acute?

And if women start to lose interest, just as men did, will you need to start to ordain children?

 

i) No, but Spherelink did.

ii) I like Americans. My (Presbyterian) g'g'dad fought for the North in the Civil War.

iii) Sorry about that. But we are trying to accommodate the anti-feminists. The difficulties of the Episcopal Church (far greater, it seems) sadden me.

 

i) I'm not sure that the men's shortage did become acute. Compared to the
Church of Rome we're doing fine in this respect.

ii) and ii) Let's take the parallel of medicine. The majority of General Practitioners are (or will soon be) female. They do a good job. But there's no initiative to get more male GPs. There isn't a need.

iv) They won't. And I'm not sure that the fact that we now have a large number of women ordinands can be interpreted as a sign of male disinterest.

v) No.

Incidentally, my own "profession" was that of Human Resources, aka Personnel Management. When it began, about 100 years ago, most of the founding worthies were women. Then it became increasingly male, and 80% of the students on my postgraduate course in 1966/67 were men. Now it is the other way round. But it is not viewed as a problem.

 

Sure, though not in the terms you used to describe it. The classical patrimonial family structure is fine for me.

 

That's not what you said earlier:

 

That is a misreading of two earlier posts, and in any event I never used the word "acute".

For better or for worse (probably the latter) there are too many applicants for posts in the more prosperous areas of the south, and not enough in the less prosperous parts of the north. But the male/female issue is not relevant in this context.

 

Sure

It was you who made the point, that 1) there was a shortage of male priests, and 2) women filled in that role:

 

I never used the word, "acute" though did I? I said, "we would be in a worse state because of shortage of priests". But women priests were not brought in because of that. Meanwhile I've just received the Diocesan Newsletter. There have been three retirements, all male, and three new appointments, two male, two female. A fair balance.

 

No, but you did use the word, "shortage."


You added, "without women priests we'd be lost."

 

Ok - Then can you spot what is wrong with this picture in this church?

 

As we would without male priests. We need both. And if it's 50-50 that's a healthy balance.

 

There comes a point when we have to agree to disagree. I wish those in the Church of England (and whichever body Anglican Agnostic belongs to) well, and I am content that my Church has no women bishops and hopefully in the future will have no women priests.

 

I see you've conceded defeat, so let's move on.

Explain then the benefit of modernism to me. When I said,

You responded:

First of all you acknowledge there was a shortage of priests, which women ordinands supposedly helped with. But if you imagine there wasn't, then the church today is worse and weaker than it was fifty years ago. My point still stands.

 

No way have I "conceded defeat". I really can't see how you came to that conclusion. My point is that the Church would be a lot worse off without women priests. But it's academic. We have had women priests for quite a time now, and there's no going back. Soon, thank God, we will have women bishops, falling in line with many of our sister Anglican Churches. There is nothing you can do about that. But at the same time we respect the views of the small and dwindling minority of anti-feminists. People are not moving to Rome (or elsewhere) "in their droves" as some would claim. It is a mere trickle, and compensated for by moves the other way. Splinter churches are not really an issue and the Ordinariate is withering on the vine.

That is all I have to say.

 

There is nothing wrong, of course. It merely shows that the Supreme Governor of the Church of England is a woman.

 

Thank you for that little attempt at defiance, but you can step down from the soapbox now. Your "sister churches" are a tiny speck in the Anglican world; there are more Anglicans in Nigeria than there are in England, because the english church "is in a worse state than it was fifty years ago" and has lost restraints on what is Godly and what isn't in human choices. There are parallel orthodox Anglican churches in every one of the countries you mentioned. Soon you will be cut off from the worldwide community, unless you come back to God, and repent of your sins.