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?

To a certain extent you are right. If you just did the reading put to you and didn't actually think at all, you would pass but would not be challenged. I (and my dh who did the course with me) both aimed to read outside the reading list, challenge the thinking, ask a lot of questions in lectures, push the boundaries.

Didn't always make us very popular.

Basically the staff were OK. The other students were often very conservative. One told me that "no intelligent Christian" could believe in evolution. I came back at him on that - so either I'm stupid, or I'm not a CHristian? Cue lots of backpedalling!

I was considering going back to do a MTh next year but have decided I need a break before I do so.

The college was International Christian College in Glasgow.

ICC degrees are awarded by Aberdeen University, so they are academically rigorous, btw.

Interesting - the students being more conservative than the staff rings a definite bell . I spent a couple of years here though I only did a Certificate, so much less academic than your degree. In my time there, I know of one student who found the staff far too liberal for his taste and transferred to a bible college to complete his studies, hence my view of them as more biblically conservative.

Are you studying with a view to working in the church, or just for interest?

I posted this early on it may answer a few of your questions@weegiemum

"Properly understood, the doctrine of inerrancythe teaching that the Bible contains no errorsapplies only to the original copies of the biblical documents. The original writings came directly from God through human authors.

The Old Testament was originally written in Hebrew and Aramaic (cf. Genesis 31:46; Ezra 4:8-6:18; 7:12-26; Jeremiah 10:11; Daniel 2:4-7:28), and the New Testament was penned in Greek. After the Old and New Testament books were written, scribes produced and distributed copies of the original manuscripts. They took painstaking care to craft those copies by hand, long before the days of the printing press.

In God's providence, we no longer have the original documents. They disappeared over time. What we have available now are copies of those original documents--copies produced over a number of centuries. By comparing and analyzing those copies through a process called textual criticism, we are able to determine what the original manuscripts said and where variations crept into the copies. That process has confirmed that God has accurately preserved His Word for us.

I see it as if I dont believe fully then how can I take any of it as truth? How can I believe what God, the God salvation has to say, if any part of it is wrong?

It would mean that God isnt capable to save me from my sin thus rendering my faith pointless. "

I use the glasgow bible;) I jest, I normally use the new american standard but I use others too.

St John's has a great reputation.
There have been a couple of people from ICC transferred out to Highland Theological Institute. But most come in with their prejudices, hopefully lose a few, but go out largely unchanged in their beleifs, unfortunately.

I have been radically transformed, but a lot of that was due to doing a lot of missions classes, investigating Liberation Theology, Incarnational Mission etc, which leads you some more 'unorthodox' thinking. I also had a fab doctrines lecturer who got me into Moltmann, Volf, people like that, which is a bit off the beaten track for evangelicalism - he has since left for a more liberal college in America.

The degree was partly for interest, partly for my faith development, partly because we are applying to go and work here though we are at an early stage with that at the moment. We want to be involved in some kind of missions/development work in Latin America.

I certainly found St John's great, there was a real mix of people so you saw a lot of different opinions. I guess the majority were fairly conservative evangelical, but there were enough others to make for some real debate. And the studying was certainly challenging, whether you wanted to be challenged or not!

Your Venezuelan project looks like a big step - good luck with your application.

I have ended up describing myself as a 'liberal evangelical' Oxymoron? Or just honest?

I passionately believe in women in ordained ministry expressed at all levels including being bishops - but more pragmatically I think that the church of England has to do some radical rethinking on the nature of ordained ministry before it is ready to really receive women as bishops.

I am reading 'Clergy Moms' atm which despite a cheesy title is really thought-provking and tells the predictable story of how much more juggling clergy women with children have to do than clergy dads - which of course limits what women can do in their ordained role.

So it's back to that old work / children balance question.

'liberal evangelical' is about where I am at I think. Or 'progressive'. Dunno. Not big into labels really.

'liberal evangelical' is about where I am at I think. Or 'progressive'. Dunno. Not big into labels really.

I think I've become more aware of labels over the last few years as I've sen how some words are so loaded with assumptions and expectations; there is a lot that the word 'evangelical' connotes that I can't agree with. So that can cause some cognitive dissonnace unless I have a framework in which I can accept that, e.g. my strict Brethren mates are evanglicals and so am I, but that can mean a whole load of things.

So probbaly because I've done quite a lot of ecumenical stuff, it's become important for me to sift through the bits I can accept and the bits I can't, juts so that I know where to fit in to the Body of Christ.

I still have the utmost respect for my strict evangelical friends, and see them as no less christian than myself, it's just been for me, a journey into knowing myself better as well as knowing God (and the Bible) better.

Rosey - that sounds very similar to the path I have been on. I have been studying at an evangelical college, with evangelical teachers, thought I was a pretty classic evangelical when I got there.

And somehow, something just unravelled inside me during the third term (think it was the atonement debate stuff actually) and I realised while I respected the views that were being put over, especially by students, I could no longer agree with them, stand along side them and say 'this is me'.

I have learned to encounter God through ways that would be frowned upon or seen as somehow less 'right' or more 'dodgy' (just about the biggest insult at college was that someone was dodgy - I was, often), and have delved into theologians from Catholic, Orthodox, Liberal etc schools as well as the classic evangelical scholars. Its been hard, but it has been so worth it, my vision of God is so much broader, bigger etc ....

Sorry I missed all this! What an interesting discussion.

I also understand tearinghairout's interpretation of that verse to be correct; furthermore apparently the women were often shouting - they sat at the top of the temple, separated from the men, and so would often contribute to the service by shouting out their opinions, thereby disrupting the service. Why didn't they just move the women down to sit with the men?! This I believe is a point of cultural tradition, not religion - it's important not to confuse the two.

I do understand where Spider and Mrs Mattie are coming from, however I would say that yes, there is misogyny in the church as in every other walk of life , but in my experience the problem is not religion per se, but the way some people choose to practise it. I'm sure there's just as much misogyny in academia or politics, but again I'd blame the men who choose to behave that way, not the institutions themselves (pauses for thought...hmmm...maybe I'm wrong with those examples! )

Yet again I feel that with this issue, the church wastes so much time and energy on things that either don't matter all that much or aren't central to the Christian faith. If your house was about to collapse with your children in it, who would you rescue first - your kids or your collection of (silly example alert!) vintage Barbie dolls? Right. Well, the church seems to have its eye on the Barbie dolls.

P.S. I say this as a (rather fed-up with the Church) Christian.

I've only just noticed there are 5 pages to this discussion, so my previous posting probably sounded a little out of place! Will read up and post more later!