Women Bishops - any hope?

In September this year the "Radio Times" had a neat little note by a trendy clergyman from Sussex who had done a programme on religious history for the BBC. He was reported as having said a very nasty remark or two about those opposed to gay priests, women priests or women bishops.

I began a blog about this but pulled it off the web very quickly because I had reacted very strongly to the ageism implicit in his reported remarks. However now that the matter of women bishops is back on the Church of England agenda, and almost certainly bound to happen, it is right to visit this example of bigotry again.

We can do without this sort of thing!

The truth is that, whatever happens, there will be those fanatically in favour of women as bishops, those just as fanatically opposed, and lots of us in between.

Anglicans have a prayer, provided to be used daily, for "All Sorts and Conditions ... " which asks God to help us live in "the bond of peace." To allow God to achieve this we have to be - as the new Archbishop of York has pointed out - not just tolerant but magnanimous towards those with whom we disagree. We are one church (just about!) after all.

The main problem lies with those who have never really thought about the matter, which is the vast majority, I suspect. Even our General Synod disdained to recommend the serious thought behind the Bishop of Rochester's Report.

If we don't think deeply about the consequences of this action, the Church of England may well sink itself, or at least "hole itself below the waterline." It is very easy living beside parishes who differ from each other over women priests. There is no need to do anything except accept the fact, and avoid any potential clashes! However it would be quite a different matter for any one opposed to women as bishops who lived in the middle of a diocese with a women bishop. There would be no escape, except to another diocese, or another denomination, or as some would have it, a Third (Anglican) Province with a presence in the diocese.

The real problem is that many many evangelicals - a hugely numerous, vocative, often rich and generous sector in the church - will have great difficulty in accepting a woman being "in authority over" them in church affairs. Many Catholic minded Anglicans will simply say that a women bishop is a contradiction in terms, a sacramental impossibility.

Is there a way forward? There has to be if we are not to be rent apart as a church even more than at present. What cannot be a way forward is the kind of bigotry, cant, and refusal to understand any opponent at all, an attitude all too common today.

So all of us must think deeply, search our hearts, and remember to the magnanimity towards others which our new Archbishop recommends. We don't have to agree with everyone about everything, or force everyone to agree with us. The main hope in preventing us following apart must surely be the recognition that others follow Christ too, but not exactly as we do ourselves!