…so said a Bishop after the recent failure of a Synod vote to allow women bishops.

I have just been reading through the comments on the Guardian article for a (possibly unrepresentative) straw poll. Here are a few highlights;

So the head of the C of E is the Queen, but they don’t want to have female bishops?

Nice one, institutionalised religion in this country failing to learn from the mistakes of US extreme right wing politics. Decreasing their markets. Perhaps they enjoy being irrelevant.

Are we not equal in the eye of the Lord? No. He’s saving the socialist paradise for the afterlife.

Bloody hell. I despair. Where now?

I’m sorry, but the Biblical prohibition(s) on women holding positions of authority and engaging in a regular teaching ministry within the Christian church do not embody ‘centuries of entrenched sexism’. It is, rather, the plain teaching of Scripture, which is why the vast majority of Christian denominations have held to this doctrine for centuries. There is clearly spiritual equality between men and women (Ephesians 5.33; 1 Peter 3:6; Galatians 3:28) and Matthew 22:30 also implies that gender distinctions will cease to exist in the next life (as souls have no biological sex). However, the Apostle Paul also forbids women from teaching and holding authority in the churches (1 Timothy 2:11-15). The Apostles were all male. People who do not take the Bible seriously really should question whether they are Christians at all for if we do not define the religion of Christ according to its foundational documents then there is absolutely no other way for it to be defined and we may as well make it up as we go along, as Welby and other supporters of women bishops and ministers are doing. How a woman organises her life in the secular sphere is entirely her own business, but in the Christian church leadership is clearly intended to be male.

Surely, Church in crisis as there is no God?

Life’s full of contradictions so is the Bible.
That’s what makes it so fascinating.
Look hard enough and the truth shines out.
Look out for the good bits.

A woman without a mitre is like bread and fishes with a delivery bike.