WOMEN BISHOPS - WHERE NOW?

HE GENERAL SYNOD has now formally resolved that 'admitting women to the episcopate…is consonant with the faith of the Church…and would be a proper development'. This historic decision, on Saturday 8th July 2006, in itself, brings about a fundamental change. There will be those who will continue to insist that the ordination of women remains provisional, awaiting similar developments throughout the universal Church, but something fundamental has changed.

A bishop is one who links us back to apostolic times, and forward to the Church of the future. He also links us across the world with bishops of every land under the sun. It is a problem that not all bishops presently recognise one another's ministry.

It is even more of a problem that, by ordaining women to the episcopate, Anglicanism has now introduced a new category of bishop. Women bishops are not recognised by most other bishops in the world. They would not be recognised by almost every other bishop of the last two thousand years, including of course the twelve apostles. One of the essential characteristics of a bishop - connecting up the Church in all directions - is thus missing.

The basis for this change is part cultural and part theological. The cultural basis is simple: we live in a world of equal opportunities. If the Church is in the business of 'proclaiming afresh', then - so the argument goes - we must keep up to date. Anglicanism would make little sense if England said no to women bishops at the same time as the USA had a woman presiding bishop. The only real theological argument in the Synod debate involved some highly ingenious footwork. Mary Magdalen was really the first apostle, it was said, and perhaps some of those named in Romans 16 were what we would now call ordained women. Why then is the New Testament so quiet about women apostles? Unlike the Twelve, Mary Magdalen disappears from view in the New Testament immediately after the Resurrection. Was she there after all in the Upper Room when the Lord breathed the Holy Spirit on his apostles on the evening of the first Easter Day? Was she there on the Day of Pentecost? Who knows? The Bible doesn't say. I'm sure there must be a theological argument for the ordination of women somewhere but this certainly isn't it!

It was the impact of Greek and Roman culture on the Church, apparently, which suppressed the ordination of women bishops and it has taken until the modern emancipation of women to spot this. Not everything fits this new theory: there were priestesses aplenty in Greek and Roman religion. Meanwhile, the Church of England, with a new working party, hunts for a way forward so that women may be ordained bishop and those of us who remain unconvinced by the new theories can continue to have a full and honoured place. The circle must be squared.

This is a time for great patience and, I believe, increasing forbearance, faithfulness and prayer: the Church continues to be vibrant in many of the parishes - not least in many of ours - but many on the wider stage seem to have lost the plot. Never has the need for authority been clearer.

May God bless you as you stay close to him and to each other.

+ Andrew Ebbsfleet



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