The Liberal-Christian Conundrum

So for now, the fissure-prone church of England will not move ahead with female "bishops." A truly surprising move, given the direction they've been moving over the past several decades, which is to say, embrace and conform to every trend demanded by the sirens of political correctness. Interestingly, the opposition emanated from the laity, not the enlightened church leaders.

Writing for the Telegraph, Tim Stanley takes on the the fallacious arguments liberals often rely on when taking up theology. In politics, their sophistry and rhetoric will sometimes have a certain logic, but when dealing in the category of immutable truth, they run into some awkward situations.

The Synod really was Anglicanism in the raw – and seen from the outside it is a very strange creature. As a Roman Catholic, I don't understand its "evolving" attitude towards scripture and tradition. God, I always thought, is not for turning. But the Anglicans not only allow for change (which surely concedes that God makes mistakes?), but it also seem to have decided that building a consensus that accommodates that change is a sound alternative to a consistent theology. “Whatever happens, no matter how far we depart from Scripture or tradition … we must all stand together!”...

And how achingly liberal the church has become. The words “respect” and “equality” were used so often that the Synod sounded rather like a Labour conference fringe meeting. From the pro-women bishops side, the argument was often made that Christianity’s relevance lies in it reflecting the society around it (tell that to the Christians who were fed to the lions by pagans). Tim Stevens, the Bishop of Leicester, said that the Synod was not listening to the voices of the young unemployed or displaced children – as if the number one issue that the starving or the homeless are worried about is the gender of the Bishop of Leicester. Sally Muggeridge of Canterbury helpfully pointed out that the Queen is a woman. I would like to point out to Mrs Muggeridge that while it might be unjust that Elizabeth Windsor cannot be a bishop … a bishop cannot be a Queen either. I'll leave the door open to innuendos on my way out.