BISHOP ALAN COOKS THE NOT-SO-VERY-ROTTEN EGG

(1) “This isn't, of course, about gender. Perish the Thought.”
This assertion is a lie. It is, and it always was. Discriminatory is as discriminatory does. It is not for the discriminator to judge the matter, based on their intentions, but those discriminated against, based on what actually happens. All else is illusion.

(2) “This is about theology not discrimination.”
This assertion is a lie. However you tart it up, Trevor Huddleston showed us years ago, discriminating is actually a theological assertion. Imagine, as I have attempted sincerely to do, that there is a theology that justifies treating women, against their will and calling, as inferior. I can't conceive of such a thing, but let's suspend disbelief for a moment. What is the difference between that noble theology and cultural prejudice dressed in voodoo? At no time in the past five years has anyone showed me. All that unites reactionaries in this matter seems to be a cultural prejudice against seeing women in positions of authority, reinforced by a reactionary subculture. It is every bit as much drawn from the contemporary world’s values as progressive aspiration. It’s just drawn from the reactionary quarter of them.

Read the entire excellent post.

If the amendments to the legislation on women bishops from the House of Bishops were not so tragic for the Church of England, I could view the entire enterprise as farce.  42 of the 44 dioceses have spoken that they want women bishops.  General Synod has voted for women bishops, and yet the senior bishops in the church do not get the message.  As Bishop Alan says:

Many of our senior men probably thought on Monday that all they were doing was giving the women what they wanted whilst being as nice as possible to the other lot.

It appears to me that the House of Bishops plays a game of chicken with the members of Synod, but perhaps, as Alan says, many of them are merely clueless. The diocesan synod votes and the vote in GS should have put the senior bishops a bit more in touch with the rest of the church.

From Thinking Anglicans:

The Synod has no power to amend the legislation further but can adjourn the Final Approval debate and invite the House of Bishops to reconsider the amendments that they have made. If such an adjournment motion were passed the House would have to meet again-and would at that point have power to make further amendments- before the Final Approval debate was resumed. An adjournment motion in July would mean that the further meeting of the House and the resumption of the Final Approval debate would have to happen at a later date. The earliest that the General Synod might be able to conclude the Final Approval Stage in that eventuality would, therefore, be in November.

There you have it.

GOOD NEWS FROM BISHOPS

From the presidential address of Archbishop Barry Morgan of the Church in Wales:

Lambeth 1998, as I said, accepted homosexual orientation – what some have regarded as "a natural attribute for some people," that is, a natural predisposition toward people of the same sex –which has only been fully understood fairly recently.  Even so, the Lambeth answer was to separate orientation from practice and commend celibacy.
 
But can celibacy be imposed?  Shouldn't it be freely undertaken as a personal vocation by heterosexuals and homosexuals alike?  As Rowan Williams once put it, "anyone who knows the complexities of the true celibate vocation, would be the last to have any sympathy with the extraordinary idea that sexual orientation is an automatic pointer to a celibate life: almost as if celibacy before God is less costly, even less risky to the homosexual than the heterosexual."  And is not separating mind and body or feelings or orientation from practice a kind of dualism which the church has condemned in the past since human beings are a unified whole and cannot be compartmentalised in such a way.  If that is true of humanity in general, why should we expect people of a homosexual disposition to be singled out in this way?
....

If the legislation to allow civil marriage is passed, I cannot see how we as a church, will be able to ignore the legality of the status of such partnerships and we ought not to want to do so.  There is a further complication and that is that just as the Government only initially allowed civil partnerships outside religious premises but has now extended that provision to include them, the same may happen as far as what they call civil marriage is concerned and indeed some argue that it is against European law to separate the two since there is no distinction in law in this country between marriage in church and marriage in a register office.

The question then as now is, will the church protect and support pastorally, faithful, stable, lifelong relationships of whatever kind in order to encourage human values such as love and fidelity and recognise the need in Christian people for some public religious support....  It is a discussion we need to have.

 Dr Morgan, in a brilliant stroke, quotes the wise words of the previous Archbishop of Wales, Rowan Williams, on the folly of the imposition of a mandate to the celibate life on anyone, including those with a same-sex orientation.

Alan Wilson, Bishop of Buckingham, in his post referring to Barry Morgan's address says:

Therefore the highest duty of the Church is not to preserve institutions, but to be, simply and completely, good news. The gospel isn't “good news/bad news” or “good news as long as you buy it properly.” It isn’t even “what would Jesus do?” It’s “What is Jesus actually doing through the whole creation, and trying to do through us if only we got real?” 

Jesus referred marriage back to the way God actually made us. Marriage is a gift of God in creation that strengthens community and expresses divine love — that’s what’s meant by calling it “sacramental.” 

In fact a very small but significant proportion of every human population is gay. If some of these people want to build stable faithful relationships based on love, that has to be a good thing. Love is love wherever it is found. We know it by its fruits, not its origins. But the fruits reveal the origin. God is love and those who live in love live in God and God lives in them. This is the good news.

Amen to the Good News from the bishops, arch- and plain.  Alan Wilson has long been a breath of fresh air and a voice of sanity within the circle of bishops in the Church of England, and, thankfully, his is no longer a lone voice. 

FUNNIEST TWEET OF THE DAY

Nothing to do with the covenant.  From Bishop Alan Wilson at Oxford diocesan synod:

Christ church giftshop criticised 4 selling Harry Potter magic wands; inquiry decided it was OK cos they didn't work

See Not the Same Stream for details.  What would I do without Paul's postings to steal?

'LET'S NOT BRING HITLER INTO IT'

Alan Wilson, Bishop of Buckingham in England, writes in the Guardian on Alan Craig's despicable article in the so-called Church of England newspaper asking readers to "confront the Gaystapo", and which the editor of the newspaper says he didn't bother to read before it was published.

The worst of Craig's rant is not quoted here, because I did not want his words on my blog. Did you know? Alan Craig is today's Churchill, the lone voice against the "Gaystopo".

Cometh the hour, cometh the man. For years Winston Churchill was a lone voice against the burgeoning darkness of Nazi ideology and intolerance. In the wilderness and with few public friends, he was marginalised and dismissed as belligerent and a war-monger. He was scorned as a political has-been, out of touch with the then-modern mainstream.

We can only hope that Craig will suffer the same fate as Winston Churchill and be "marginalised and dismissed" for his nastiness, but without Churchill's comeback to a position of power.

Back to Alan Wilson:

I would defend, even on the beaches, the right of eccentrics to hold and publish their views, though I'd prefer them to read them first. May I modestly propose, however, that real debate would be served far better by ditching inflammatory second world war references, certainly those whose relevance cannot be established.
....

If we must bring Hitler into the story of the growth of gay rights, anyone who knows anything of the reality behind Craig's cheap imagery will tell you gay people were prime targets of the Nazi regime, who suffered and died at the hands of its real troops. This shouldn't be forgotten at remembrance tide.

But let's not bring Hitler into it. In the 1990s there was a whole wild west out on the internet, with usenet chatrooms in which no flame war was too hot, or opinion sacred. A general principle emerged that eventually prevailed, pretty well, down the line. In any debate, whatever the subject, the first person to bring Hitler or the Nazis into it automatically lost. Good idea.

Yes, please. Whatever point is being argued, let's leave Hitler and the Gestapo out as an analogy unless there is equivalency involving mass torture and killing? Honest. There really are ways to talk about injustices other than comparing them to to the Nazis in the WWII era. If you throw "Nazi" and "Gestapo" around casually, you lose the argument, so far as I am concerned. I follow Godwin's Law.

Godwin has argued that overuse of Nazi and Hitler comparisons should be avoided, because it robs the valid comparisons of their impact.

Exactly. Thus endeth my mini-rant.

Thank you, Bishop Alan.

Image from Wikipedia.