Well, (a) in the CoE they already can, and (b) your dismissive “give out crackers and pour wine” rather suggests that you hold the whole thing in contempt, so why worry if some organisation you despise on the far side of an ocean doesn’t mend its ways to suit your particular sensibilities?
Because the idea that women are unfit for a position of authority is inherently offensive to humanity.
Really? Whereas I would manage not to lose any sleep if someone, somewhere, decided that a white man could not be appointed Great High Panjandrum of Upper Bhumpopo. I’m never going there, I’m not under the authority of any panjandrums, and I really think that I can mind my own business on this issue and let other people mind theirs.
The Bishops and the Clergy voted massively in favour of women Bishops. The Laity were only a few votes from a sufficient majority too (it’s a two-thirds majority needed for this, and all three electorates need to have the same result). Please, Qin, do a bit more research before you pronounce.
If that white man was a member of the Upper Bhumpopo community and otherwise eligible except for skin color, yeah, I’d find that offensive as well.
Excluding members of a community from positions of authority based on superficial traits is an affront to every human. Humanity works best when we all show each other respect and dignity…it tolls for thee, and all that.
Yeah, yeah. “How dare these people make up their own minds! Surely it’s obvious what the right choice is?” Respect and dignity - as long as they think, say and do as you would think, say and do.
You appear to be carrying the torch for bigotry in this response. I remember that elsewhere on the board you’re quite the defender of religious rituals, but I don’t recall you ever explicitly saying that bigotry should be respected. Are you sure you want to take that tack? Is that what you actually, truly, believe? Or have you just got a bit debate-crazed and backed yourself into an unsavoury position?
If the latter, you’d gain a lot of my respect back (not that I have any illusions of how important that is to you) by fessing up… how about “Good grief I see what I was doing there. Oops! I didn’t mean to imply bigotry is a happy addition to the rich tapestry of human interaction. I retract my earlier post.”?
Warning: long.
OP here, back again. I called attention to the news story here in part because the chance to say something stupid about penises appealed to me, and in part because I think the decision is a really bad one (to simplify matters a bit, I think it is a generally poor idea for any group to put someone’s civil rights, or what should be their civil rights, up for a vote). even sven is absolutely right, as far as I’m concerned; any example of discrimination diminishes us all, and therefore diminishes me, and therefore it is my business.
But I posted as well because I do have a connection with the Church of England–though Malacandra might not see it that way. I’m an Episcopalian, and very involved in my church here in the US: vestry member, Sunday school teacher, part of the search committee that brought in our current rector, etc., etc. So things that deal even tangentially with my church jump out at me from news stories.
For background: The US church and the Church of England have no formal-slash-official connection, but the Episcopal church in the US springs originally from the Church of England, and there are a lot of similarities. Also, there is this thing called the Anglican Communion, which is a construct that pushes these two churches and a bunch of others together into an informal organization–one without any actual authority, you understand, but one that has a certain amount of what we might call moral force.
Within the US church, there is a lot of hand-wringing about the Fate of the Anglican Communion. The more conservative elements of the Episcopal church, those in particular that have been reluctant to ordain women priests or have anything to do with homosexuality, often cite the “Anglican Communion” as a justification for their views. “If we ordain women/allow women to be bishops/bless same-sex marriages, other national churches won’t like it, and we’ll be destroying the Anglican Communion!” they argue. Many of these people were extremely angry when the Episcopal Church chose a woman as its presiding bishop a few years back (presiding bishop = head of the church); others tried to break away when “admitted homosexual” Gene Robinson was named bishop of New Hampshire.
Of course, the opposition of the Church of England to some of these measures isn;t really what’s behind the conservative response in the Episcopal Church. If the C of E made changes to bring them into line with the ECUSA (and other progressive national churches, such as Canada), the argument would shift to “but the African countries won’t like it” (a shift that has already happened to some degree); and if the African countries suddenly got progressive themselves, the conservative position in the US wouldn’t go away, it would just drop the Anglican Communion argument.
But the conservative positioning of the C of E on several issues over the years has certainly lent legitimacy to the conservative wing of the US church. More than that, many progressives here may not approve of what the C of E is doing, but they do want to keep the Anglican Communion going, and it’s happened on several occasions that otherwise-progressive bishops (including, cough cough, my own bishop) have cautioned that we move forward slowly, if at all, because other churches in the AC don’t like it. And among those churches, there’s no question that the C of E is the one they are most likely to be referring to.
So, if the vote had come out differently, I suspect there would have been some changes made here in the USA, changes that would affect my church for the better. As someone who takes his faith seriously, I see that as a missed opportunity for my church and for Christianity worldwide. Does that give me a say in what happens in England? Obviously not. Does it give me a stake in it? Yes, it does. Beyond the decision being an offense to everyone, as even sven and others have explained, it has an effect on me as a spiritual and religious person.
So, yes. Bad decision. Bad decision, which will in the long run serve mainly to make the Church of England even more irrelevant than it already is. A real shame.