Always Hope

So, the deed is finally done, less than 2 years after the embarrassing collapse of the original proposal, the Church of England's General Synod has voted to open the ranks of the episcopate to women for the first time. Years of anxious wrangling appear to be coming to an end, as the new rules will surely be speedily approved by Parliament and then nodded through the final stages by the same Synod, before its term of office expires next year. I'm in favour of this, I always have been, and though for the most part I respect and value those who hold a different view, I'm sure this was the right decision. I don't have anything to add to the many comments already made on the rightness of it, only a few reflections on what we might learn by observing what happened on Monday: We learned that General Synod hasn't improved since 2012.  Let's get the bad stuff out of the way first. We wouldn't be talking about this if the Synod had not failed, in 2012, to pass a ...

Yesterday's vote in General Synod, which kicks the possibility of women becoming bishops into the long grass again, was the wrong decision. Not because it is right to have women at all levels in the church (although I personally believe that it is). But because the final decision does not reflect the intention of the church. As Tim Hind wrote in the run-up (I think in a national newspaper), the people of the churches are expecting to have women as bishops and expecting that soon. That expectation was based on a long and careful process that has clearly demonstrated that the Church of England is ready for this. What we saw yesterday was a failure on the part of General Synod, a catastrophic failure of process and of the body itself. Synod is not, as many commentators are saying, the Church of England. (As in "Church of England rejects women bishops"). The Church of England is where I was last night, with a group of baffled women and men who worship in their local churche...

The recent post about the failings of synodical process has generated an unprecedented amount of traffic to these pages, even to a rare mention from the Church Mouse , and spun off all kinds of surprising conversations elsewhere in the online universe. Pleasant as it is to have the attention, it has made me re-examine what I said in the light of the knowledge that people are actually reading it, and I feel a few more thoughts are in order: Always Hope has never pretended to be offering fully thought through opinions. It's more in the line of "thinking aloud", and I do welcome people's feedback, because the conversation is interesting, and it helps me form the thoughts more carefully. It may even be that I sometmes deliberately overstate the point. This is not because I court controversy - it's just what I call humour. Regular readers may get used to this and perhaps forgive me for it. You might be interested to know that though I personally am in favour of women i...

Thanks to Lesley for drawing attention to this on Damian Thompson's blog. Opponents of the proposed scheme for women bishops are apparently rubbing their hands at the prospect of blocking any further progress once the legislation returns to Synod. They believe that the recent election to General Synod has delivered them enough votes to prevent the two-thirds majority needed (why two-thirds, by the way?) for final approval. I have no problem with this in principle. This is supposed to be a democratic process, and if we are silly enough to set up a situation where a one-third minority can block a motion, then so be it. But the way in which this is being touted is thoroughly distasteful. Incidentally, the source for this may not be entirely reliable. I have no idea what the provenance of the "Christian News Release Service" is, but apart from mistrusting any organisation that is capable of such egregious capitalisation, it seems hard to believe that everybody's voting ...