Anglicans Seek to Navigate Around God's "NO"

The Anglican Way has become the way of compromise, group process, and concession.

Women bishops in the Anglican circus

Alice C. Linsley
(Formerly the Rev. Alice C. Linsley, Episcopal priest)


In November 2012 General Synod of the Church of England did not to give approval to the proposed legislation to enable women to become bishops. Though the proposal seems to have widespread support, when it came time to vote it lacked the necessary two-third majorities in all three Houses of Synod. This after after much prayer and invocation of the Holy Spirit.

Those comfortable with compromise of the Gospel see no danger in departing from the tradition of the Church. They did not anticipate this development and were confident that the Holy Spirit was leading in the direction they wanted to go. The proposal having failed, they regrouped in December to produce a "new legislative package" to bring before the Synod in July.

This "working group" presented to the Archbishops of Canterbury and York a report in May which placed emphasis on simplicity, reciprocity, mutuality and the need to make rapid progress.

Progress. Rapid. Lord, have mercy!


What does this mean?  It means that the Church of England is not content with God's answer.  It insists on moving forward to the consecration of women bishops and once that is done, it will require all clergy to consent to that decision. The report is unequivocal on this point:

Once legislation has been passed to enable women to become bishops the
Church of England will be fully and unequivocally committed to all orders of
ministry being open equally to all, without reference to gender, and will hold
that those whom it has duly ordained and appointed to office are the true and
lawful holders of the office which they occupy and thus deserve due respect and
canonical obedience;

Anyone who ministers within the Church of England must then be prepared to
acknowledge that the Church of England has reached a clear decision on the
matter..

This will be the equivalent of an ethnic purge. Anglicans holding to the Tradition of the Church will be forced to leave, compromise their consciences and the Gospel, and/or incur "significant costs in defending themselves against legal challenges."

It will create even greater distance between Anglicans and the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholics. It will mean no longer sharing the historic episcopate with those churches.

The Archbishops of Canterbury and York are fooling themselves if they think otherwise. Here is how they justify such disorder in the church: 

Since it will continue to share the historic episcopate with other Churches, including the Roman Catholic Church, the Orthodox Church and those provinces of the Anglican Communion which continue to ordain only men as priests or bishops, the Church of England will acknowledge that its own clear decision on ministry and gender is set within a broader process of discernment within the Anglican Communion and the whole Church of God;

This has become the "Anglican way" and it leads to disaster.  Dear Dr. Toon is rolling in his grave.

Related reading: Forward in Faith Response; Modernist-Traditionalist Divide in Anglicanism; Some Thoughts on Women Priests; Impressions of the New American Anglicanism; C.S. Lewis' "Priestesses in the Church?"