As someone untrained in the theological and ecclesialogical (sp?) issues pertaining to WO, I can only say that I have a great deal of sympathy for anyone in orders who is confronted with this situation. At first, while doubtful because (for one) the doubts of my beloved C.S. Lewis, I participated in church ceremonies led by women who had attempted to be ordained. Over the years, I have attended many. The problem for me, as a communicant, is, (and I hate to be woo-woo about this, but can’t in this case avoid it) when women officiate, I don’t perceive the presence I perceive otherwise in services led by men who have kept the full faith transmitted to them. I’ve tried, but the difference is palpable. So I reason backwards from my perception and experience to question WO as it were in retrospect (this is in the U.S.). The situation is much more dire when it comes to the issue of bishops, because valid apostolic succession depends upon valid orders. I pray that you will be spared the particular pain of not being free to recognize the orders of another in your communion, but here in the U.S., at least, the rupture is long-since established and we are cast onto stormy seas indeed.
22.5% of bishops, 23.9% of clergy and a whopping 35.6% of laity cannot agree with this move (para. 31, Manchester Report). What is to become of them? What place do they have?
Destruction and dismemberment, I fear. The advocates of WO are not just committed to defeating their opponents, but to publicly humiliating them as well. They wish to parade them through the streets as captives. Only public recantation will satisfy the egalitarians. So any accommodation to opponents of WO will eventually be undone. The offense to their egalitarian mores will simply be too great to allow the accommodation to stand over time. They want to see their opponents defeated, and they want to see their opponents despair over their defeat.
Of course, the defeated opponents will not stay on condition of compromising their consciences. So another chunk of the CoE will be torn off and thrown away. And that will also be just fine with the advocates of WO, and their ever shrinking inclusive church. Sure it would be fun to watch reactionaries forced into submission, but watching them forced out will also have its joys. Schadenfreude can be fun.
“Submit, or leave.” That is the Hobson’s choice to be offered.
carl
My initial glance through the report—I’m too busy with work at the moment to study it properly—was that I could live with the proposal of three new dioceses, but not with anything less than that. I would prefer that the church of England return entirely to Biblical doctrine. But you point out some important points concerning the small print, which I missed. Perhaps I would have to think again.
But my chief concern was how the Anglo Catholics could accept the idea of separate non-geographical dioceses in general terms (even if the requirement to recognise the lawfulness of invalid ordination is dropped). For the first few generations, it will be far from ideal, but possibly tolerable. But then, people “ordained” by women “Bishops” will be “consecrated” to become Bishops, and even Archbishops themselves (I use the quotation marks speaking from a Catholic point of view). So who is going to consecrate the Bishops in the non-WO dioceses, particularly if there are only three of them in the first place (so if there is a vacancy, there will only be two); and what means will be put in place to ensure true apostolic succession? This, to my mind, is the problem with this proposal. It isn’t enough for a permanent solution.
Of course, the liberals will fume at even this much provision, and do all they can to block it; and, if it does get established, to remove it.
But, as you said, we should be thankful that the house of Bishops at least are taking our concerns with some level of seriousness.
Isn’t that special! Sort of reminds me of TEC’s rules about WO. You know, the ones that said it was OK for a diocese to ordain women and/or have them serving in parishes? The same rules that magically changed from “permissible” a dozen years to ago to “mandatory” about 2 years ago without any changes to the wording of the rules?
Well, one thing’s for certain. Any hope of unity, reconciliation or whatever term you like with Rome is gone. Any hope of an intact AC based on Canterbury as the See is gone. Yeah, I’m aware CoE for the most part (most people in most places) has little regard for or about the AC and none for striving to move to unity with other denominations. Trouble is, the rest of the world does care, and in CoE taking the next step (female bishops on the ground) the “reception and discernment phase” of WO is over. So is an intact Canterbury AC.
The question that seems unasked as well as unanswered, is what happens when the day comes in 10 or 15 years, that a female British scientist sees her government grants dry up, enters the ministry, and a few years later is consecrated and then, to satisfy various political constituencies, is enthroned in the See of Canterbury. And given the recent example in the US, don’t pretend it can’t happen. The whole diocesan overlay scheme goes up in smoke. Then there will be dozens of lawsuits, hundreds of inhibitions, deposition of all bishops who oppose the new thing in the CoE, and imposition of a new theology. Well, judging by the current “lab results” in TEC.
As can be gleaned from David’s piece, this is a church-dividing move, and there’s no way around it. It’s bad enough Anglicanism thinks it a virtue to have widespread disunity of belief, but, if there can’t even be a common recognition of clerical orders, it’s hard to see the point in even continuing to have an Anglican Communion, or, perhaps better phrased at this point, the Potemkin Communion.
The sad thing is, nobody questions the validity of male priests and bishops, so that path represents unity, whereas the alternative cannot lead to anything but disunity.
Phil said “this is a church-dividing move, and there’s no way around it.” Then isn’t it curious that there have only been a few comments to this article?
tdunbar, yeah - I think the presence of a Gene Robinson thread kind of sucks up all the oxygen.
phil: yes, that and other distractions. Don’t you think that’s discouraging?
As [8] notes, there is no biblical mandate or requirement for this change. We anglicans as a body are willing to embrace hurtful division for unecessary change.
What do I find discouraging? When “the 22.5% of bishops, 23.9% of clergy and a whopping 35.6% of laity” who opppose the change ask their ostensibly Christian body this question:
“do I still have a place in the Church?”
...and the body pursues the unecessary innovation regardless.
Let’s face it, even if the very best of all possible solutions happens and they create new dioceses, the whole thing is coming apart at some point in the near future.
The report gets it right, the real question is: what kind of Church will we be?
That’s the real debate going on throughout the Anglican Communion. Unfortunately, as David’s critique points out, there seems to be at least 3 If not more) ways to answer that quesiton: the progressive, the Evangelical, and the Catholic.
Thus it seems to me at least that the whole thing is coming apart.
I won’t get into, here, the issues of theology and ecclesiology. Those who have followed the WO discussions here will be familiar with the various points of view.
Instead, I’d draw the reader’s attention to just how familiar this all sounds. First we start with a “study group”, then we talk about “how, not whether” and make a big deal about respecting and making space for “all points of view”. Anyone want to guess the next steps? Here they are:
* denigration of those who don’t accept the revisionism
* marginalization and disenfranchizement of those who don’t accept the revisionism
* legal and canonical innovations to force people to accept the revisionism(so much for the “toleration” and “protection” of those who remain faithful to orthodox Christianity on the issue)
* persecution and eviction from the church of those who don’t accept the revisionism.
Sound familiar? It should. That’s exactly the process of W.O. which has more or less finished running its course in PEcUSA… and which is in the process of moving towards its conclusion in the homosexualist heresy.
Of course, being English, the CoE will be somewhat more “polite” (at least in public) and non-confrontational about it. But it’ll be the same dynamic.
So those conservatives who will be busy wondering about how to avoid the conversention-ending brain-freezing rhetorical accusations of being “intolerant” or “uninclusive” or “misogynist”—and all the while come up with all sorts of creative ways to bend over backwards without compromising (or, more likely, merely seeming to compromise) traditional teaching and practice on the issue—should be warned.
Because, as in PEcUSA with both WO and homosexualism, this will accomplish nothing but to help pass the time as any remaining place for orthodox believers who maintain the “catholic and apostolic faith” dwindles away to nothing.
pax,
LP
LP, my understanding is that there are more Roman Catholics than Anglicans in England on any given Sunday, and the most popular name of newborns in Enland right now is “Muhammad”. Why worry? The whole shell game will become quite irrelevent in another two generations or so.
Make that “attending church in England on any given Sunday”
The whole “diocese as denomination” strategy, what’s the point? Or rather, in what does the union/communion consist other than as a label for the collection of disjointed parts?
I wish I could disagree with LP. But I almost never do--spot on. I give it 20 years before Anglo-Catholicism is on the ropes in the Church of England.
The C of E has been on the ropes far longer than even when they first claim to have ordained a woman as a deacon. Hoping for some resolution at this time that will allow dissenters some level of safety is like hoping that water in the lowest levels won’t rise any further and the Titanic will make it to New York. At least in the 19th Century the Church Association fought against innovations in the C of E in the courts, but even they were unable to stem the tide. As the lyric of a pop song went in the ‘70s “It’s too late baby, it’s too late.” In for a penny, in for a pound!
Let us remember: the Roman Catholic Church has attempted to pull the Church of England back from the brink of theological/ecclesial disaster in Cardinal Kasper’s faithful report to the C of E on this matter. For your reading enjoyment, here’s the link:
http://www.cofe.anglican.org/news/pr6006b.html
Have any of you ever attempted to reason with a chronic alchoholic or someone on crack? For those who aspired to re-union with Rome, this would be just another nail in the coffin-lid to that prospect. For those of us who are classical evangelicals it’s like witnessing your family break apart and having your mother come home and declare that after many years of marriage and with children still at home that she is now a lesbian and her new partner would be coming to live with you and your siblings, while your father has just been given the boot. We’ll be just that much closer to the time of which Bishop J. C. Ryle foretold that precede us finally having to leave the C of E. One could take the slightly cynical view expressed many years ago when Archbishop Joseph Raya of the Catholic Melkite Church had been asked what would happen when they ordain women, to which he replied “nothing”. In other words they could never be ordained.
I guess the first thing that I should add is gratitude that the CofE are taking their time over this matter and having a proper debate. So much better than the recent moves in Australia.