Almost half of the lay people who voted against legislation to allow female bishops in the Church of England were women, according to figures released on Monday, as senior members of the church were urged to speed up reform or risk consigning it to years of ignominy and irrelevance.
Voting records released by Church House showed 33 of the 74 General Synod lay members who last week caused the long-awaited measure to fail were women and most of them are affiliated to the conservative evangelical group Reform or the traditional Anglo-Catholic movement Forward in Faith.
Far from the emotional but untrue idea of men stealing away the rights of women, the last vote in the Church of England was swung largely on the hands of women... who said "no". We will have to wait and see how this gets spun....
3 comments:
Thats interesting. The traditional catholic wing + the conservative evangelical wing.
Of note the Anglo Catholic wing on both sides of the pond have been throwing in the towel and going back to Rome on a fairly regular basis lately.
http://www.theanglocatholic.com/tag/google-ordinariate-map/
Actually, in the US, most of the Anglo-Catholics left ECUSA a long time ago, and are now found in the Continuing Church, particularly the Anglican Catholic Church, the Anglican Province of Christ the King, and the Diocese of the Holy Cross among others.
There are still many within Anglicanism that realize that Holy Orders are not a matter for the Church to modify, having been established by Christ Himself and clearly defined in the earliest days of the Church. We simply cannot change what has existed since the beginning just to keep up with fashion. When the priest or bishop stand at the altar, they stand in the place of Christ Himself, and this is something women simply can no more do than men can give birth. God has give us each important roles in this life, but we are not interchangeable.
Fr. D+
Anglican Priest
In response to Fr. D+
Yes, the Anglo-catholics left long enough ago that I- now nearly 29 years old- was baptized in an ACC church shortly after my birth.
I'm praying that the continuing Anglicans get their ducks in a row as a group- my wife and I left less catholic/more modern churches (her the UMC, me a Baptist church) when we married. We were in search of church with a theological backbone that would stand for historical Christianity. We're LCMS now, but I feel more in-tune with Anglicanism.
I'm wishing for a church with Law/Gospel at the heart, Bishops in apostolic succession, solid liturgy, and leaning more toward Luther's small catechism than the 39 articles.
Since I'll likely never find that, I will receive the church that God has placed me in, accept His good gifts as He gives them, and pray for true unity in the church.
PS- I only get on this blog every couple of months or so, and I find myself reading several posts consecutively, which is why I am always responding to old conversations. Sorry.
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