The Panel of Reference—the group appointed by the ABC to deal with contentious bishop-parish oversight issues—has finally spoken on Fort Worth’s request for alternate oversight. [Correction: as Thinking Anglicans clarifies, this is the reponse to a different appliction. I hadn’t realized that FW had two items pending…] It focuses on what FW put up as the presenting issue: the election of a bishop who maintains +Iker’s theological agenda. The money section is the recommendations. Some are good. Others…not so much.
I haven’t the time nor energy to comment on it now except to say these things: 1. I’m struck again that most provinces simply don’t “get” the concept of diocese electing bishops rather than having them imposed on them. 2. I know there are people with well-thought out positions who cannot accept the validity of women clergy on theological grounds. I also know there are a lot more who oppose it on less-than-theological grounds. How do I know this and why do I say it? Because of the number of people (mostly older) who have told me how their minds were changed on this issue by seeing my wife celebrate and preach. Institutionalizing a no-women policy institutionalizes prejudice alongside theology. That is, a mandate of this sort allows the non-theological opposition to remain unchallenged, confirming it and giving it room to flourish under the guise of the status quo.
Here’s an interesting little nugget I found out about recently: the Diocese of Fort Worth didn’t even come into existence until seven years after the Church began ordaining women.
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Wow! Now that’s interesting…
Uh huh. As a friend of mine says, that guy doesn’t have a leg to stand on – and yet continues to make as much trouble as he possibly can.
I’m really losing patience with these people at this point.
Check out, too, what apparently happens under the so-called “Dallas Plan” and the hoops women in these dioceses have to jump through.