Women Bishops a reality

So the Synod of the Church of England has voted.

I am broadly, but cautiously, in favour of women bishops. But I really don’t like the way it has been done.

Regarding the basic theology:

In favour:

• It is illogical to have women vicars but not women bishops.
• In history women have always been domestic, and it is only in the modern western world that this question has been asked, and hence it is only now that we have reviewed scripture on the topic. So just becasue it has not been done traditionally does not mean it should not be done.
• Christ opposes discrimination and broke the social taboos of his day to elevate women.
• Peter (and the church) was given authority to 'bind and loose'

Against:

• “I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man” – this verse has never been satisfactorily answered.
• The doctrine of ‘one flesh’ and many other verses in the Bible indicate that while the genders have equal status, they have different roles. Especially where these are roles that symbolise the relationship between Christ and the Church.
  
• (I reject the idea that a woman cannot represent Christ as president at the eucharist. We are both made in the image of God.)

Regarding the politics:

• It has been done politically, rather than spiritually.
• The baying angry women campaigners are NOT the women I would choose to be bishops (there are many women I know who would do the job well, but not these ones). They have not shown Christian love towards the traditionalists, they have shown only a worldly thirst for power. They have not sought a genuine compromise in the inclusive spirit of the Catholic and Protestant Church of England. They have sought to exclude the traditionalists. And in driving them out, they impoverish the church. How is this an example of peacemaking to the world?
• If the liberals had been willing to accept a system of separate structure of male bishops for those that want them, they would have had women bishops years ago. So they can’t even manage their own strategy, yet they want to run the church?

So, it is something approaching the right outcome, but it was definitely done in a shameful manner and the women should have had the basic Christian grace to make more generous concessions to people with different convictions to themselves.