CoE Rejects Concessions for Anglicans Opposed To Women Bishops

Odd how conformity is the price of diversity.

The Episcopalianization of western Anglicanism proceeds.  The C of E will shortly become just as spiritually irrelevant as the Episcopal Organization is now.

And it will no doubt follow the same path of the TEcAN playbook which I humbly submit was the ABC’s plan all along - and not just in this matter, either.  The facade of opposition or seeking “inclusion” was artfully played but I am not sure many will by the charade.

Look for a formal schism in the CofE.

You guys are such bigots.  TEC has grown by leaps and bounds since female clergy has been introduced.  The period of “reception” is over.  Women in all levels of the clergy is a universal good.  Your lack of prophetic witness is appalling.

I thought the decision to ordain women bishops and not protect objectors right of conscience had already been made.  Is it made now?  An outsider to the Church of England, I don’t understand the procedure for making this decision.  It seems like the slow death of a thousand small cuts. 
Can anyone enlighten me when the decision will be final?

Everyone in the CoE who isn’t cool with this might just as well LEAVE right now.  It won’t get any better.  And you can bet it will get worse.

Midestnorwegian, there isn’t anyone in the CoE.  It is a shell.  The vast majority of Brits stay away in Droves.  However, they do produce lovely Lessons and Carols at Christmas.

Bill2, please explain how TEC has grown by leaps and bounds since female clergy were introduced, and maybe you’d like to tell us all why your total membership figures and ASA numbers have so drastically shrunk since 1973. 

I’m sure you’ll be able to explain why your PB has managed to alienate so much of the Anglican Communion and cause them to be in impaired communion, or why they’re in a state of broken communion with them.  Your answer, should you care to respond, should be very interesting….but not surprising.

And now, back to the thread.  This action is sure to exacerbate the growing schism in the Church of England; I just don’t see how it could be otherwise.  For an Archbishop of Canterbury who claims to be trying to keep things together and under control, ++Rowan Williams has done a terrible job of it.  I don’t think any of us on this side of the Pond will be surprised to hear of a formal schism when it occurs….as it looks like it most assuredly will occur, absent a miracle.

Cennydd, I am pretty sure Bill was being sarcastic.

Cennydd, not only is your lack of prophetic witness appalling, but your sarcasm detector is turned off as well.

If my lack of prophetic witness is appalling, then so be it.  As for the sarcasm, I didn’t understand it that way at all; I tend to take things like this rather seriously.  If this offends you, I’m sorry.

Alea iacta est

Geez Cennydd.  How’s this: <sarcasm>You guys are such bigots.  TEC has grown by leaps and bounds since female clergy has been introduced.  The period of “reception” is over.  Women in all levels of the clergy is a universal good.  Your lack of prophetic witness is appalling.</sarcasm>

<sarcasm>Cennydd, not only is your lack of prophetic witness appalling, </sarcasm> but your sarcasm detector is turned off as well.

Only the delusional would ever claim that TEC has grown by leaps and bounds.  It’s lost about 40% of it’s membership since they started ordaining <sarcasm> womyn </sarcasm> in the mid-70s.  But I’m sure the TEC’ans feel they’ve kept the better “enlightened” 60%.

I have idea if you lack “prophetic witness” or not.  It’s just a well-worn TEC revisionist catch phrase.

cennydd13,
This was the inevitable, logical conclusion to female deacons and priests. Let this be a sober forewarning to those in the Episcopalian Continuum whose bishops either ordain women themselves or who are in communion with those who do, it is just a matter of time. To those who are in dioceses which do not presently ordain women, but who are in communion with others which do, you are whistling past the cemetery. It is also ironic that this is not only the Three Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, but of the Great Expulsion of Puritans from the Church of England. What goes around does indeed come around.

It should be noted that the vote casts doubt upon the viability of the plan come July.  A two-thirds majority is needed in all three houses for passage, and two-thirds was not achieved in all three houses.  It’s difficult to predict future outcomes on such evidence but if there had been a two-thirds margin, the liberals would be crowing about it from every venue.  This is not a done deal yet.

On the other hand, it would probably be better for the Church in England (as opposed to the CoE) if approval was granted.  Such a decision would provide much-needed clarity about the future of the established church.  It would force people to make decisions instead of holding onto a treasured institution deeply embedded in English culture.  The Institutional church that is the CoE is a lost cause.  It’s ten years behind TEC on the same road.  There is no temporal power capable of reclaiming a hierarchical church once the hierarchy gets corrupted.  People need to face that fact, and adjust one way or another.  They are understandably reluctant to do so.  But eventually they will have to do so.  The longer this goes on, the more painful the eventual reckoning will be.

carl

Bill2, thanks for the edificationary comments.

RMBruton, I share your concerns, and I’m quite sure that a growing number of us in orthodox Anglicanism here in North America agree.  Our bishop, +Eric Menees, has made it very clear that the policy regarding women in this diocese will not change, and I expect that he will confirm that in a pastoral letter.  I have reason to believe that this may be spreading in this Church.  Some would say that it isn’t spreading quickly enough.

As a lay person, I’d be appalled.  The question is not whether they can be nice people, give a good sermon, or provide good pastoral advice, but whether women can function sacramentally as priests and now bishops, not just say the words out of the BCP. 

If women can’t be bishops, then the priests they ordain aren’t really priests, the absolution they pronounce for confession may not be valid and the Sacrament of the Altar becomes play acting.  There’s no in between on this, it’s just yes or no.

Their arrogance and presumption that THEY know best and are, de facto, making the claim to be the ones who are “getting it right” and the RCs and Orthodox are know-nothings just astonishes me to no end.

Evangelicals come to the same conclusion, by a different route. We see Scripture stating plainly that the authority ministries in the church are to be exercised by males (1 Timothy 2, especially verses 11-12; 1 Cor 14:26-40, esp. verses 34,35).

Scripture sets out the direct commands of Christ and his Apostles to his Church, the living and active Word of God (Heb 4:12).  Its one thing to honestly misinterpret or misunderstand Scripture. But the liberals just set it aside without even a pretence of trying to obey it. And if you do that with one part of Scripture, you will be prepared to do it with any other part that suits you also.

Only the delusional would ever claim that TEC has grown by leaps and bounds.

Bill, in Cennydd’s defense, you should realize that the delusional post here all the time, throwing out such things just to stir the pot and proclaim TEC’s defeat of orthodoxy in the Anglican Communion.
I would ask that our more Evangelical brethren here also recognize that this has been a very rough couple days for all Anglo Catholics.  Once an ABoC lays hands on a woman and elevates her to the Episcopate, any lingering hope for reconciliation between Anglo Catholics and the Anglican Communion is over, since it will no longer be possible for Anglo Catholics to be in full communion with the ABoC.  ACC membership or whatever notwithstanding, it will no longer be possible to establish a chain of authority in the Anglican Communion consistent with that of the historic Church. So, this vote effectively ends Anglo Catholicism as a part of the Anglican Communion, although for some period we may be able to maintain communion relationships with some provinces and primates outside of West. What +RW has done is to effectively give us our walking papers.  For the 3rd time, he has torpedoed his own lukewarm proposal, giving another speech about how his amendment is probably not the best way to do things, and no one really has to vote for it, and made it abundantly clear that he didn’t really want it.  And in any case, since it did not establish any form of diocesan authority or perpetuity, nor any theological requirement for the new “coordinating bishops,” it did not provide the bare minimum necessary to provide for Anglo Catholics in any case.  But it might have provided enough continuity that the elderly who maintained the Faith as they received it might die in peace, rather than be cast out of their churches in the next couple years.  But as the founder of affirming catholicism, +RW has now achieved his primary goal- he has replaced Anglo Catholicism in the British Isles with a shell of ceremony wrapped around a secular agenda.

The innovators spitefully must impose their optional innovation on all - regardless of the harm to fellow Anglicans.  The nature of such people lead me to suspect that I will not die an Anglican.

It is sad, even for me as a [Roman] Catholic, to see the Anglo-Catholic movement in the Church of England being required to sacrifice itself in order that the ideology of women’s ordination may score a clear victory.

In addition to the points made by tymcmahon in #21 above, I’d like to add this:  as I understand it the new regime will be a “single structure” (Rowan Williams’ words), in which the diocesan bishop, who may be a woman, will “delegate” functions to the male “complementary bishop” chosen to minister to Anglicans conscientiously unable to accept a woman bishop.  Although this arrangement may work for a few years, it cannot survive in the long run, in my view, for a simple reason:  the problem of “credentialling.”  Move the calendar forward 50 or 100 years. An Anglo-Catholic parish is given a “complementary” male bishop.  But how does the parish know that in the complementary bishop’s “ordination chain” there was not an episcopal ordination performed by women bishops?  There are theoretical ways to get around this—like requiring bishops to maintain a personal “succession list” going back to 2012, but I’ve heard no discussion about anything like this.

#21 TJ - it hadn’t occurred to me, but that is an odd and interesting thought.  Could the Archbishop of Canterbury by consecrating a woman bishop place himself out of Communion with some Anglicans?  If he has ordained women and practising homosexuals - what was the effect of that?

PM, seriously, do you not think this was the ABC’s intention all along and the “interventions” -like those with EcUSA - were mere theatre?

#25 dwsmd - I have no idea, I’m afraid.  I used to pour over his utterances and actions, but long since decided there are better things to do.

Could the Archbishop of Canterbury by consecrating a woman bishop place himself out of Communion with some Anglicans?

That is rather the whole issue, PM.  It has been the Anglo Catholic position since TEC started ordaining women 40 years ago.  In reality, RW broke communion with Anglo Catholics on the day he ordained his first woman to the priesthood.  By definition.  I am not going to pretend to be sufficient theologian to get into what level of repentance would be necessary on his part to restore relations, but the crux of the matter is that 2 dioceses that are in full communion (or 2 provinces) have “interchangeable” clergy- that is, a cleric with letter dismissory from one diocese would be able to take a post in the other.  But obviously, the women ordained by Canterbury or any other bishop are not acceptable in an Anglo Catholic diocese, and therefore a state of impaired communion exists. Additionally, if I live in diocese A, I should be able to receive communion in any parish of diocese B, if the dioceses are in full communion, which is obviously impossible if I am an Anglo Catholic and the clergy of diocese B are women. In point of fact, the first time I saw the term “impaired communion” it was referencing this very situation encountered by 2 dioceses in TEC.  The current situation exists in ACNA now, between the diocese of Pittsburgh and the Anglo Catholic and REC dioceses.  The polite way to put it is that the dioceses maintain the “highest degree of communion possible.”  No doubt, after he consecrates his first woman, most provinces of the Communion will try to maintain the “highest degree of communion possible” with the ABoC, but that degree will fall well short of “full communion.”  However, this might not matter much- it became quite evident at the GS meeting in China that claiming all those provinces are in “full” communion with Cantaur is really stretching the point.
The main problem with RW’s amendment from the Anglo Catholic (or at least this Anglo Catholic’s) point of view was that it provided no guarantees that actual Anglo Catholic bishops- that is to say, male bishops in a male Apostolic line, holding to the catholic faith in its Anglican form- would be appointed to these positions.  The “code of practice,” of course, fails on that and several other bases. RW’s amendment was NEVER designed to keep Anglo Catholics in the CoE, it is intended to keep conservative Evangelicals in by assuring them “male headship.”  What he was counting on was that Apostolic Succession and male lineage wouldn’t mean all that much to Evangelicals.
But as to the intent of “affirming catholicism” to supplant Anglo Catholics, well, that was their initial purpose when Griswold and Williams formalized their existence in the CoE.  They started out with the express intent of being “catholics who ordain women.” Obviously so much more “enlightened” than Newman or Pusey, or for that matter, CS Lewis. I doubt that Williams, left to his own devices, would have been nearly so brutal as this lot of revisionists he has given pointy hats to, but now that they know they cannot be stopped, they aren’t paying much heed to him.  And with the huge acceleration upon the consecration of women to the episcopate - adding another 5 revisionists to the HoB inside of a few months, on top of what is already a large majority, it is difficult to imagine that gay marriage and gay bishops will not be adopted by CoE within a matter of a couple years.

“RW’s amendment was NEVER designed to keep Anglo Catholics in the CoE, it is intended to keep conservative Evangelicals in by assuring them “male headship.”  What he was counting on was that Apostolic Succession and male lineage wouldn’t mean all that much to Evangelicals.”

Perhaps, but Rowan still has more anglo-catholics in the Church of England than who have left it for the Ordinariate, and he is hubristic enough to believe that he could snow them too. I agree entirely that no orthodox should trust Rowan Williams an inch - he wants the same thing as KJ Schori, he is just prepared to do it more slowly.

I suspect Rowan Williams’ ideal scenario would have been this:

(a) Get his amendment accepted back in 2010 (for limited alternative oversight) so that the maximum number of orthodox Synod reps will agree to pass the women bishops’ measure in 2012;

(b) Once the measure is passed, get several politically-connected women appointed as bishops. The first posts that come up are likely to be minor, but senior diocesan positions will be available soon. Probably some extremist liberal bishop could be found who would agree to retire early in order to facilitate a woman’s elevation.

(c) By the time Rowan is required to retire in 2020, several women have been in senior positions for 6, 7 or 8 years. One of these will then become Archbishnop of Canterbury and Rowan can crown his life’s work by seeing a woman installed as his replacement.

That is why I think Rowan wants to maximise the chances of this measure passing in 2012. If it fails to get two thirds in every house, then the earliest it can get up again is 2017, which virtually guarantees that Rowan cannot be replaced by a woman in 2020. Rowan knows that concessions can be given to evangelicals and anglo-catholics - its oh so easy to withdraw them later…

[16] carl,

You wrote:

The … CoE is … ten years behind TEC on the same road.

Based on your assessment I can only conclude that you are most likely an incurable pessimist. Ten years indeed.

Pax et bonum,
Keith Töpfer

No, they’re travelling on the same road together and at the same time.

The Ordinariate may be attractive to some Anglo Catholics, but not to me.  I’m too old in the tooth to swim the Tiber (because if one joins the Odrinariate, that’s exactly what he or she would be doing), and I’m a stubborn Anglican Welshman who refuses to cave in to the mores and usages of today’s society. 

I don’t accept the idea that we Anglo Catholics are on the losing side of the argument by ANY means.  We will always be here, and we will be visible and vocal. 

++Rowan Williams, you are wrong….DEAD wrong!