Secular Café: The theology of women bishops

Secular Café Discuss atheism, religious apologetics, separation of church & state, theology, comparative religion and scripture.

The theology of women bishops May 19th 2012, 15:43 I guess most people here don't particularly mind if the CofE goes on tearing itself apart on the issue of women priests and bishops. But I find it at least as interesting as watching any sort of team sport. In the red corner, ladies and gentleman, are those who say that the previous exclusion of women form power within the church was a reflection of social mores and nothing to do with Christian theology that says that men and women are equally created in the image of God (whatever that really means). In the blue corner we have the fact that Jesus was supposed to be incarnate as a male (we don't actually know anything about his tackle, but no-one seems to have had doubts) and God is referred to as "the Father". Furthermore the apostles were all male (or is this later misogyny leaving our Mary Magdalene etc.?). The Anglican priesthood claims to be in apostolic succession (although the RCC denies this) and has been handed down from one man to another over the centuries. Since 1994 the CofE has had women priests, having first safeguarded dissident male priests by letting them report to "flying bishops" who ministered only to male priests and not women. Now that most CofE people are used to women priests, and there are already female bishops in parts of the Anglican communion, but they are still getting their knickers in a twist about what to do for the dissidents. Of course, some of them have already sloped off to join the RCC, which is letting them in even if they are married. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...t-of-existence http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...t-of-existence Quote: Some argue that it is simply impossible for a woman to be a priest or a bishop, and so wish to avoid both our ministry and that of male priests or bishops being tainted by association. But this cannot be accepted as valid simply because it is a deeply held belief. The key theological principle at stake is summed up in the famous phrase of the early church father, Gregory Nazianzen: "the unassumed is the unhealed". Put simply, this means that we can be sure that we are saved because Jesus, in his incarnation, became human. If this is accepted, then Christ, as the fully representative human being as well as fully God, must be understood as essentially having assumed humanity, rather than maleness. In Aquinas' sacramental terminology, Christ's maleness must be essentially "accidental" (meaning incidental): the substance of the incarnation is Christ's humanity. If the maleness of Christ is to be understood as a key salvific characteristic of the incarnation, or if gender is understood as a fundamental division within humanity, then the theological implication is that women are not included in the saving activity of the incarnation. On this understanding women, to put it bluntly, not only cannot be ordained, but cannot be saved.

You are receiving this email because you subscribed to this feed at blogtrottr.com. If you no longer wish to receive these emails, you can unsubscribe from this feed, or manage all your subscriptions