A woman archbishop of Canterbury....a leap forward for gender equality?

[mids2019]

I think having a woman archbishop is fantastic but I do wonder if this post was always going to be filled by a woman and we were simply waiting for the last archbishop to resign/retire. The Anglican church is diminishing in the UK so I do wonder if this is maybe a large change in a conservative institution to try and save off falling interest in relgion.

The other major Abrahamic faiths Islam, Judaism as well as Catholicism all have patriarchal structures and yet maybe perversely are in my opinion more robust currently.

In also think that there are conservative elements within the Anglican church that will feel troubled by this decision and I wonder if this will become divisive?

But they very much are swayed by culture, and secular culture at that. The whole modern evangelical emphasis on restrictive gender roles is a backlash against the feminism of the late 20th century. 🙄

Scripture can only be understood in the light of reason. Aquinas. Or was it Augustine? Always get them confused. Paul complains about women leading prayer. The only logical conclusion is that women were in leadership positions in the 1st century Church. Why else would he moan about it?

And scripture is contextual. Paul's letters were to specific churches, about specific things, in a specific time. That's not to say they don't contain universal truths about God / God's character / salvation, and so on (they do!), but some of the 'details' (women covering their heads in church, for example), I don't think are meant to apply for all time.
I think all the major christian denominations would agree with the text of the Nicene Creed - we've been arguing about everything else for the last 2000 years!

It's very contextual, at that time period with Rome ruling and Roman culture and laws being enforced; pagan priestesses were normal, also practicing divination.Roman men and women covered their heads when they prayed (so as not to see a bad omen). Monogamous marriage was the law and men were not circumcised.
Jewish religion and culture were different; only males could be priests, women and men covered their heads in the Temple (to show their submission to Yahweh), and polygamy, circumcision, kosher food were normative.
You can see now how emergent Christianity reacted to the 2 differing cultural norms of the day and developed.
Disapproving of women priests just seems to me a Jewish cultural hangover.

Of you say scripture is contextual do we have to re-read scripture for a very generation in context and does this means the integrity of the religion (which some would argue is its strength) becomes blurred? Is there a danger that a personal relationship with God is of far greater importance than collective dogma and tradition so in effect the church facilitates individual worship. Again I suppose it's the point that Catholism and Islam are robust religions where patriarchy has not impacted greatly over the past century say.