Here’s some more articles about General Synod from people who were actually there.
First, there is the GenSyn blog of Alastair Cutting and Justin Brett. Alastair has written this very helpful article Synod: updates on the blogs. And earlier he had written Lots of reasons to vote against the Archbishops amendment.
Justin’s own blog is The Dodgy Liberal and he wrote several commentaries on the women bishops debate: Women Bishops – Day 1, then …and the next day and finally Women Bishops Day 2.
Jeremy Fletcher has started his own blog. He wrote several “live blogging” articles and also On voting against, and then Women Bishops – Where now?
Colin Coward wrote on the Changing Attitude blog: General Synod and women bishops – is the Holy Spirit calling the church to adulthood?
Justin Brett appears yet again at the Church Mouse blog, with What the papers don’t say.
John Martin wrote several articles for the Living Church:
Synod Prepares for Grueling Debate
A Narrow Loss for the Archbishops
Understated Critiques Ensue at Synod
Synod Approves Plan for Women Bishops
Life After Synod
Rod Thomas wrote about it for Cif belief Opponents of women bishops are part of the church too
Over at Reuters Miranda Threlfall-Holmes wrote a guest piece, Pragmatism beats idealism in fight for women bishops.
“Experience of what has happened in Canada and the US shows that over time, people become less and less tolerant of traditionalist positions.” Rod Thomas in his interesting (and in my mind helpful article) is arguing not against women bishops but rather that there needs to be suitable provision for those who in good conscience theologically disagree with women episcopacy. Whether we agree with him and the traditionalists or not, what he is calling for is unity in diversity isn’t it? Surely that has to be better than just liberalism and that being the only way? Of course, the same… Read more »
I kind of agree with you, Bob, in principle but there are some things that are simply not tolerable, and which therefore cannot be considered for inclusion in that ‘unity’, which may still be full of diverse opinions, even though the intolerable within it has been named; to put it country simple, to resist someone’s bigotry or racism is not to dehumanise them. For someone to insist on a differentiation that elevates them compared to others, that’s no longer maintaining one element in the diversity of views but to discriminate. We are all different, and we can all discern differences.… Read more »
Rebecca Lewis Says:
July 14, 2010 at 8:00 pm
I wish that I could believe my honoured place in the church will persist with nothing but grace. However, the proponents of women bishops have done nothing this weekend to allay my fears. Everything I’ve seen from women in the last 5 days (the men seem to be more restrained) has been crowing, victorious, patronising and thoroughly un-Christian. I do not believe that I will have long to wait before I am forced to accept their ministry or leave.
Well reading Rod Ts comments was very interesting, for starters. I got totally stuck with this claim: Quote The Bible insists on the absolute equality of men and women, but gives them different functions in the church, so that men can show leadership through self-sacrifice and thus reveal the character of God, and women can demonstrate Christian discipleship to the wider church, thus helping us all follow Christ better. Unquote I guess RT and I live and pray on utterly different planets, in far different solar systems. Not to mention knowing completely different sorts of real women and real men… Read more »
Many thanks to the bloggers who describe-communicate some sense of the human-sized face to face in the last synod days. And how nice to have Miranda TH urge us all to remain pragmatic. I still can’t quite connect the dots however; to see what the pragmatic solution might be, nor how the human-sized face to face can trump the immense fear and hostility towards women upon which all the standard preachments disseminated in reply so far, depend. Glad TEC got over this hump, the stumbling block that threatens to collapse the CoE big tents, in favor of no go women… Read more »
Is that YOUR position, Neil? If not, say so. If it is, please don’t hide behind the words of someone else (chosen, methinks, for the purpose of the writer’s gender, ala “See, a *woman* says so!”)
[FWIW: I know nothing about Ms Lewis, but in point of fact, EVERY oppressed group has their self-hating oppression-rationalizers. Their elevation by the dominant group, into spokespersons, is virtually ubiquitous.]
I personally took strong exception to Rod Thomas’ willingness to be economical with the actualité in his article for the Guardian; had he wished to compromise he could have withdrawn his own amendment and urged instead that the Archbishops’ amendment be carried. His failure to mention the decisiveness of the vote against his amendment was also misleading; the General Synod saw what he had to offer and turned it down in no uncertain terms. Andrew Brown has noted that his elucidation of just what Reform’s ‘traditionalist’ views are is needed because it would never occur to the vast majority of… Read more »
Where to begin with Rod Thomas? How about the first line? “The news from Synod is that the Church of England may begin to consecrate women bishops in the next few years, with little provision for those who feel less comfortable with the idea.” Little provision? Try, “not the sort of provision that we wanted, which would have prevented women bishops from being full, proper bishops, and validated our smug self-righteousness in the process.” There is more than ample provision for traditionalists in the draft measure. Synod has already bent over backward. “The Bible insists on the absolute equality of… Read more »
Who, exactly, is Rod Thomas?
@Fr Ron – According to his Guardian profile: “Rod Thomas is vicar of St Matthew’s Elburton, Plymouth, a member of General Synod and chairman of the Reform council.”