What's the big deal about women bishops?

[MrsThierryHenry]

Forgive me if this discussion's already been round the houses on MN, but I've been wondering about this for quite some time now.

Why is it that a woman can be a vicar but if she becomes a bishop it creates such a hoo-ha for some folk in the Church? I'm not even asking about whether it's deemed appropriate for women to be in leadership (as far as I'm concerned this shouldn't even be an issue worth discussing since men and women are equals).

But the bishop thing - surely it should be all or nothing? I.e if you can get onto the first rung on the ladder they should surely let you all the way up?

Was at MrsMattie.

SCM- Yes I do believe in the world being created in 6 days, I believe in God who can do so much, send his son to die for my sins, raise him from the dead, so that I can have eternal life in heaven with him. If I believe that he can do all these things why cant I wouldnt I believe that he created the world in 6days?

Gosh, of course you can believe that he did. Your faith is your faith and I respect that totally

You may be surprised to hear that I go to church every week, but I go in order to learn and question what I am told. I;m afraid I do not believe the bible stories

I go for 3 reasons

1. To be thankful for what I have
2. To say sorry for the wrong I have done
3. To remind myself to be better/kinder the following week

I am not praying to a God, the church service simply acts as a reminder to do these things

I do think women are equal to men

I can understand your first and last point, I just dont get your second one, who are you saying sorry to if you dont believe in God and what morals do you follow, so that you have a basis for what is wrong?

I am saying sorry in my mind to anyone that I should be saying it to - to remind myself to be better next week

I don;t believe the bible stories but I belive in the messges - which let's face it are just

Be good to each other

There are churches where women are treated equally, at least in theory (I can't answer for every individual member!) I'm in the Scottish Episcopal Church, which is part of the Anglican Communion, and we do have women priests, and passed changes to the rules about 5 or 10 years ago to allow women bishops. (Though we don't actually have any yet - we're not doing "positive discrimination" and no woman has yet been elected to a diocese, but that's just a matter of time and the right candidate)

Because we are a small church, there was no provision for "alternative oversight" - so we all just have to get on with it!

A huge number of Christians do not take a literal view of every word in the Bible, and treat stories like 6-day creation as an allegory. Many of the views of women in the bible are very much influenced by the culture of the time, and we are not bound to slavishly follow those views now that our understanding of the world has developed further.

Where do you fit the scripture "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,..." into your theory?

Either the Bible is true. In which case creation happened in 6 days (although who is to say that a "Day" is 24 hours?), or it is not. But you can't say that some of it is true, and others not.

With regards to the 'inequalities' in church - Lizzie put it perfectly. Different roles does not equal inequality. Women can preach and teach very well, but the spiritual responsibility for the church people lies ultimately with the pastor, who is male.

With the oversight of the male leadership, women can have very powerful roles in the church. The issue is that women are getting their knickers in a twist insisting on equality.

When are we going to stop being so proud, and accept that maybe God knows what He is talking about?

How can you twist "a day" to not be 24 hours, then say it's either all true or not?!

Lou031205- Have a look at this www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v19/i1/days.asp it can explian that in actual fact God did mean a 24hour period.

Lou031205- Have a look at this www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v19/i1/days.asp it can explian that in actual fact God did mean a 24hour period. Hope the link works this time

I am not twisting anything, AMumInScotland. I haven't studied the scriptures to the extent that I know a 'day' was a literal time period in Genesis. I can happily accept that it is in fact 24 hours - God can do anything.

Lou- im not saying that you are, I am just trying to give you imformation for you to make an informed decision.

Grrrr, I read that post wrong, is there not anyway to edit your posts on here? If so how can I do it?

OK - I think it's clear that Lou and I are in very different corners of the Christian world. It seems to be my day for quoting Wikipedia - sorry but they seem to put things so much more clearly than any other set of words I can think of!

I believe in Christian egalitarianism - "all people are equal before God and in Christ. All have equal responsibility to use their gifts and obey their calling to the glory of God. God freely calls believers to roles and ministries without regard to class, gender, or race"

I'd say that Lou believes in Complementarianism - "differing, often non-overlapping roles between men and women, manifested in marriage, church leadership, and elsewhere, is biblically required" - ie equal but different.

At the same time, I am definitely a Liberal - "the Bible is not considered a collection of factual statements but instead documents the human authors' beliefs and feelings about God at the time of its writing?within an historic/cultural context" and "Liberal Christianity looks upon the Bible as a collection of narratives that explain, epitomize, or symbolize the essence and significance of Christian understanding".

But I assume from Lou's posts that she believes in Biblical inerrancy - "in its original form, the Bible is totally without error, and free from all contradiction".

So, while we both count ourselves as Christians, there is a huge gulf between our interpretations, and the conclusions we reach as a result.

So, Lou believes that creation happened in 6 days, because the Bible says so, and she believes the Bible is completely accurate and authoritative.

I believe that the Creation stories were the attempts of people to explain the relationship of the world to God, at a time when they did not have access to the information and scientific methods which we currently have. It is important because it tells us that they believed God made the world out of nothing, and that it was a deliberate choice of God, and that it wasn't created by a god and a goddess mating, etc.

So, while I think the Bible is important and has a lot to teach us, I do not believe that everything in it is historically or scientifically accurate, and the relationship with God in it is only described in terms that the people describing it could comprehend and express.

Mum in scotland- You dont believe that the bible is inspired by God? You believe that it has errors?

I believe that the events, thoughts and beliefs in it come very much from God, but that the explanations and descriptions come from the humans who wrote it. So, the explanations and descriptions, and the interpretation which was put on things, cannot be any more accurate than the understanding of the people who did the writing.

For instance - I do not believe that God changed personality between the Old and New Testaments (although obviously the Incarnation changed things). But many of the descriptions of God's personality and behaviour in the Old Testament are vengeful - those are based on the people's limited understanding of the nature of God. We have a better understanding (largely because of the Incarnation) and so NT descriptions tend to be more about love and forgiveness.

But I don't think the NT writers had a perfect understanding either, as they were the product of their own time and culture. Some of what we now know about nature and psychology etc allows us to understand and interpret God's will in a new way, which is relevant to our time and place.

I don't mean that we are somehow better or smarter than them, or have a perfect understanding just because we have science and psychology to explain things, just that we can see a little further by "standing on the shoulders of giants" and use everything available to us to move Christian thought onwards another little notch.

1 Thessalonians 2:13 "For this reason we also constantly thank God that when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but for what it really is, the word of God, which also performs its work in you who believe."

All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work" (2 Tim. 3:16-17)

Second Timothy 3:16 speaks of the inspiration of Scripture. "Inspired" is the translation of a Greek word that literally means "God-breathed." Every word of Scripture is from the mouth of God.

Theologians speak of inspiration as the mysterious process by which God worked through the authors of Scripture to produce inerrant and divinely authoritative writings. Inspiration is a mystery because Scripture doesn't explain specifically how it occurred. The only glimpse we have is from 2 Peter: "Know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God" (1:20-21).

OK, well we're obviously in very different corners on this one!

Yeah, I dont want you to think Im being narrow minded though, if you can show me in scripture points to back up your beliefs I am happy to listen

Lizzi - I've just re-read the thread - I think I've been merging your posts and Lou's one above - so presumably from your posts you are very much a believer in Biblical Inerrancy, and presumably Complementarianism too?

The trouble is, because of how I interpret scripture, I do not believe that anything in it automatically proves either point! So, quoting pieces of scripture about the position of scripture only shows me what the people who wrote those words thought about the matter. But, since I only take that as an indication of what those people in that time, place and culture thought, it doesn't prove to me that this is therefore authoritative.

Equally, I wouldn't be able to quote anything from scripture to support my view without contradicting myself!

Yeah i think you where. If you want to put a title on what I believe, yes its Complementarianism & Biblical Inerrancy

I'd also point out that the bible has been through a multitude of translations over thousands of years. No one is sitting around holding the original version as far as I know.

In the past the bible whose core is peace and love has been used to claim blacks are not equal to whites and women not equal to men. In other words it's people that do the interpreting and they interpret it as it suits. If you are a believer then you can accept the core of it as truth but I don't understand how you can accept the whole word for word.

Do you honestly think God wrote the whole thing - come on! This is the 21st century. Open your eyes.