Why the Church of England rejected female bishops

Christian Science Monitor ^ | 11/21/2012 | Robert Barr

[SeekAndFind]

The Church of England's governing body blocked a move Tuesday to permit women to serve as bishops in a vote so close it failed to settle the question of female leadership and likely condemned the institution to years more debate on the issue.

On Wednesday, Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron told the Church of England to "get on with it" and reverse the decision now, not five years from now.

And the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, said on Wednesday: "We have – to put it very bluntly – a lot of explaining to do," he said. "Whatever the motivations for voting yesterday … the fact remains that a great deal of this discussion is not intelligible to our wider society. Worse than that, it seems as if we are willfully blind to some of the trends and priorities of that wider society."

The General Synod's daylong debate Tuesday ended with the rejection of a compromise that was intended to unify the faithful despite differing views on whether women should be allowed in the hierarchy. But backers failed to gain the necessary majority by six votes.

"There is no victory in the coming days," said Rev. Angus MacLeay. "It is a train crash."

The defeat was a setback for Archbishop Williams, who retires at the end of December, and his successor, Bishop Justin Welby. Both had strongly endorsed a proposed compromise that would have respected the decision of those who objected to the ordination of women bishops.

[generally]

The article doesn’t really do a very good job of answering the question. It mostly discusses the politics of the issue and who was on which side. I was hoping to see a more well-reasoned discussion for and against.

[wideawake]

Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron told the Church of England to "get on with it" and reverse the decision now

This whole Reformation thing was clearly a brilliant idea.

Now hop to it, Christians. The Prime Minister has spoken.

[ABQHispConservative]

Very clever by those who reject Christ and his teachings. Now we Christians must march with the ‘progress’ of society. So, should God had spared Sodom and Gomorrah because they were ‘progressive’? Utter BS. I say this because it is the argument being used to destroy weak churches from within. Besides, why should white liberals have a greater say than non-white conservatives? Seems racists to me.

[IbJensen]

It could be because they’re either wiccans, lesbians or both.

[MasterGunner01]

The last Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, was an unmitigated disaster for the Church of England. It does not appear his successor, Rev. Justin Welby, will unite the liberal and conservative wings of the Anglican Communion. The liberal rot is too deep and too entrenched in the UK where CoE attendance is cratering as the WW2 generation is dying out to be replaced by secularists and a swelling Muslim (”Asian”) minority. The CoE and elites are totally blind to the Muslim threat and are circling the deck chairs on the Titanic after hitting the iceberg.

[Cicero]

The Queen appoints the new Archbishop of Canterbury, but the Prime Minister gets to nominate him. And in the modern world, the Queen does whatever the PM wants, whether she likes it or not.

Tony Blair appointed the current Archbishop, with the express purpose of installing homosexual bishops. He appointed one, but there was such a firestorm that the guy resigned. It was done too soon.

Now we have a so-called “Conservative” PM, David Cameron, who if anything is somewhere to the left of gay-activist Tony Blair. He is trying to impose gay marriage on the country, and female bishops. And he’s mad that it didn’t go right through.

It was stopped mainly by the lay people at the conclave. No doubt they will now proceed to appoint more progressive lay people, and push it through sooner or later.

Really disgusting. I suspect that David Cameron may be gay himself. There are all the appearances. I feel sorry for the few remaining Christians in the Anglican Church. England is swirling down the drain.

[wideawake]

If the question is why the CofE voted against women "bishops", the answer is that they were unable to get a two-thirds vote in each House of the Synod to approve it.

Their Synod has three houses: Bishops (10% of votes), Clergy (42%) and Laity (46%).

94% of bishops voted for it, 77% of clergy voted for it, but only 64% of the laity voted for it.

So the laity were unable to get their support up to 67%.

6 votes shy.

The reasoning of the dissenters falls into two camps: the Anglo-Catholic perspective and the evangelical perspective.

The Anglo-Catholic argument would be from Scripture, right reason and Apostolic tradition.

The evangelical argument would be directly from Scripture and likely indirectly from right reason.

[agere_contra]

The majority anti-gay-marriage sentiment in England has forced Cameron to step back from his weird plans. Hopefully he will get kicked out as PM.

[Cicero]

I meant to say that Blair appointed Rowan Williams—and that Cameron is responsible for this one.

And Cameron is somewhere to the left of Blair on these issues, even if he calls himself a Conservative.

[Cicero]

I sure hope so. But it’s gone from having one or two mad deans in the Church of England to a hierarchy that is nearly all mad. How long can the people resist?

[MNDude]

I demand female Immans!

[jonno]

Now THAT should be our battle cry.

And any on the left who stammer and stutter in reply should be called for what they are - spineless hypocrites!

[ravenwolf]

This is no different than the gay marriage issue, the Church has deteriorated to the point that something like this has to be debated means the Church has already been destroyed from within, just like our U.S. government.

Rev 17 tells how the church will be destroyed from the out side by the beast .