CoE says ‘no official definition of a woman’

[achillestoes]

Tonight The Telegraph reports this as the official stance of the Church of England.

Comments from Dr Robert Innes, the Bishop in Europe:

There is no official definition, which reflects the fact that until fairly recently definitions of this kind were thought to be self-evident, as reflected in the marriage liturgy. The LLF project however has begun to explore the marriage complexities associated with gender identity and points to the need for additional care and thought to be given in understanding our commonalities and differences as people made in the image of God.

If anyone knows what that means...

I’m not actually religious but I do help out at my nearest C of E church because most of the congregation are elderly and so I play the organ for them sometimes and act as treasurer. These ‘Living in Love and Faith’ courses revolt me though and I’m seriously considering ‘resigning’ (not that I’m employed as such) because of the utter nonsense the bishops are spouting. Just to make it clear, I’m pro choice and pro same sex marriage and I’m absolutely certain that a woman is an adult human female.

‘Logic’ is entirely missing from @judaskween’s contribution to the thread, they’re talking bollocks. I suspect they’re high.

What makes them think there's no official definition?

I spoke to the local vicar and he sort of fudged the issue until we were outside in the car park at which point he more or less said that he agreed with me. Time to stand up for what he believes then?!!

Perhaps the Communion wine was swapped with Kool Aid?

As a congregation we were given a handout about the Living in Love and Faith thing. I read it as a consultation but it also seemed to be pre decided in the whole Jesus would have loved them thing. Did the consultation result in this?

It does boil down to the love the sinner thing to me. Hard maybe to discuss with non-religious types. Christianity is such a pick ‘m’ mix of a philosophy, it does work for me - found it as an adult - but steps like this by the leaders are just… I hestitate to say it but wrong.

You can say it running - you're amongst women here.
It's wrong. It's bollocks. It's delusional. It's pandering to the bullies. It's deeply misogynistic and anti women.
And confirms why I gave up on the CofE many years ago.

Does that mean they’ll now marry two men or two women if one of them identifies as the opposite sex?

was thinking the same

@runningfromreality

There’s no contradiction between ‘Jesus would have loved them’ and ‘that doesn’t mean they have changed sex’ or ‘that doesn’t mean women aren’t real’.

This pisses me off on so many levels.

The decades fought for female priesthood, literally in a matter of a few years the church bows down to gender ideology and says men can be women, diluting the idea of a woman down to a feeling.

They also say vicars can marry same-sex couples if one identifies as the opposite sex, but the vicar can say no if they are not comfortable. They are allowing same-sex marriages and that's definitely a hard no in Christianity.

Very religious gay couples that follow the Bible abstain from sexual relationships because Christianity is notably very clear on this, famously the vicar who was in The Communards did this. But if one person from such couples had identified as a woman then actually they could have relations?

Also, a belief in God means that you can't have the belief of being born in the wrong body. God doesn't make mistakes in creation.

It is completely against the religion, I'm not a Christian but some of my family are really into it and this truly is shit. I know our local vicar, I might have a word to get their opinion.

Be theyve got a good idea what a man is though

I give up.

Well it wasn't Adam & Adam in the flipping garden of Eden was it?! Twats.

Isn't "women" based on gender not sex though?*

No!!!!!!

Ships & cars are often referred to as 'she'.

That does not make ships or cars women & does not mean women are methods of transport.

Its utterly bonkers, I can't make any sense of it. They've gone from arguing about female vicars to being angst ridden about same sex couples to this, in such a short space of time. There's no consistency to it, no logical path from one point to the next.

That reminds me of the old joke.

My mother made me a homosexual

If I buy her the wool will she make me one too?

I’ll get my coat.

Sadly, it’s not just one bishop saying this.

The first bit is 'well, we all thought it was pretty bloody obvious for the first 9,000 years or so'.

The second bit is 'And we're pretty sure Jesus would have loved them as he did everybody, good, bad and indifferent'. Followed by Diocesanish for 'And we're going to hold some sort of research project for years so we can kick this into the long grass for as long as possible in the hope that'll all go away or we can report back that we're now absolutely sure Jesus loved everybody - without actually doing anything different'.

definitions of this kind were thought to be self-evident They somehow seem to know for centuries who should do teas and flowers 🤔

That made me laugh 😆 I think I shocked everyone, particularly the vicar, when I added his name to the cleaning rota. He got out of it by moving to another parish!

The church has spent centuries oppressing women and now they’ve decided we don’t exist because a few men say so?

Jesus wept.

@WorriedWoking What else was he to do when you clearly misgendered him?

I can’t paste the weblink for Living in Love and Faith 🙄

Not sure why. But it’s very illuminating and not in a good way