Synod Crowd Gather in the Studio

Peter Levite: I can hardly see myself going backwards from going forwards as the Chadderbox panel rapidly reconvene just after the result from the Church in England General Synod that voted by six votes not to have women bishops.

Rachel Marsovenus: If only someone would do decent hermeneutics on 1 Tim 2.

Harry Tick: Ah male superiority, the one other evangelicals have to dodge around with some liberal-like footwork.

Rachel Marsovenus: Hiss. Women bishops is NOT liberalism.

Harry Tick: Included.

Lesley Tilgate: Not by me. I'm glad it failed. Now I can go on saying how unequal and unethical the Church in England is while drawing my salary as one of its representatives.

Rachel Marsovenus: Anyway, it wasn't voted by six votes not to have them; six votes more and we would have had them. Us, I mean.

Peter Levite: So far we've heard from Rachel Marsovenus of near Derby, er Lesley Tilgate near Aldershit, and Harry Tick from around here. We've got people coming in and going out all the time. Yes, come on in.

Barry Brokeback: This is a deeply disappointing position to be in, personally. I don't know how you, Lesley, can stomach it with your so called progressiveness, and Rachel you get what those around you wanted. I don't want to have to join Harry Tick when there are people suffering in Africa at the hands of Anglicans, but what a beacon we are not here.

Rachel Marsovenus: It's about doing the right theol...

Barry Brokeback: No it is not, not at that level. You will never convince them, never ever. They represent the nastiest bunch of unethical types you could get in one place. It's far more that we have a sweep of creation that represents a demand for love and everything. Theology is crap; I'd rather hug a tree.

Anthony Wedgewood Bigg: I'm not stopping in case there are any other issues arising. I've retired to organise our own people, you know. It is time we had a Church in England that confessed its full faith and that means the biblical verses that have our kinds of bishops whether from abroad or at home. This decision means we have a chance to turn the Church in England around now. But goodbye as I want to operate in secret, away from authority of other kinds.

Peter Levite: Let's cut to the chase. Your outgoing Archbishop, Rowan Tree, has achieved nothing - no convenant, no women bishops; your incoming one, Justin Ewing has a headache from the start.

Jade Stowaway: Absolutely. I mean, how can SeeSaw be in the middle, the centre, if we cannot support our Archbishops? What a disaster. We cannot now, ever, find common cause with Conservative Evangelicals.

Harry Tick: I told you. The cut off point is you. Some of you Open Evangelicals will go with them still; some of you will have to find common cause with liberals.

Rachel Marsovenus: Hiss. Surely they can be persuaded.

Jade Stowaway: I wouldn't bother.

Anthony Wedgewood Bigg: I'm only outside the door, you know. I'm making a note of those comments from so-called evangelicals. Evangelicals? The name has been watered down for too long. Look, I'm going as I don't want to be seen.

James Graham: Hello, I am Bishop James Graham.

Peter Levite: Not seen you before but join the party.

Jade Stowaway: Wake; a bloody funeral.

James Graham: It's the way I tell 'em. It's a most disappointing outcome. We will be holding an emergency meeting of bishop-p-ps. Zzzzz.

Barry Brokeback: I think he's fallen asleep. Wake indeed.

James Graham: I'll get a taxi and go home.

John Sendmehome: Hellooo everyone. Hope you're feeling all happy and hearty. A man hired a taxi and said, 'Take me to Norwich.' The taxi driver asked, 'Which part?' And the man said, 'All of me.'

Peter Levite: Oh you're here. Yes, come in - who are you?

Noel Gordon: Noel Gordon, sometimes called by my nickname Ugh Noel.

Rachel Marsovenus: Ugh, I'm supposed to be friendly with you.

Peter Levite: So what's your take?

Noel John Gordon: Well the tricameral Synod reflects rightly the nature and sovereignty of God, and you believe in serious theological reflection Rachel, not like some idealistic equalitarians...

Peter Levite: Do come in, especially you two. The microphones will pick you all up.

Justin R. Ewing: Fracking oil, what a terrible decision.

Noel John Gordon: I haven't finished yet. We didn't trust you others in the majority that you would let us flourish, and neither side on this trusts the other. So we should repent, all of us.

Barry Brokeback: There's nothing to repent about. This is the dregs of the minority who have not allowed the vast majority to experience the breakout of the sunny uplands.

Noel John Gordon: Well you don't obey any of the rules, and we have rules. You're on the fringe, mate, and know it. The sovereign God has rules, our rules. It's up to us of belief and tradition, you know those who believe in the Gospel, to go away and come back to the majority and show you what you should accept in any future legislation and then you might have bishops who are women for yourselves. Do some serious theology.

Lesley Tilgate: No women bishops without complete equality, maybe in twenty five years time.

Harry Tick: In twenty five years time your Church will be a sectarian irrelevance.

Peter Levite: Who are you? Come in.

T. J. P. Hooker: I'm Peter Hooker. I won't stop. Perhaps God is sending this Church mad. Madness comes before destruction, right? Well instead of destruction, we should separate. The Episopal Church has it right, except it did it wrong. Split. Take the light from the dark, and we the light get the women as bishops on a simple basis. Bye.

Noel John Gordon: Repent first.

T. J. P. Hooker: Bit of that: over to Justin eh?

John Sendmehome: Definition of a bi-shop. A place that sells it both ways.

Peter Levite: It's not a very good end to your stint of Archbishop of All England. What have you achieved? Zero?

Rowan Tree: Well I would not say that this isn't frustrating. There are a not inconsiderable number of very sad people now who I can hug. We will need a lot of pastoral care, I think. I tried to present a one considerable intellectual argument on this, as I did on the Covenant. About me as Archbishop, well, hum, the jury used to be out but I think it has come in with its verdict. But I knew that and decided to take up adult education teaching instead, introducing some folks to painting.

John Sendmehome: We just go over the same arguments again and again. I think we need the Gang of Six.

Peter Levite: What like in China?

Justin R. Ewing: We need some managerial heavy-lifting.

Rowan Tree: There'd have to be some negotiation over this, I think, some ways in which we can be patient and compromise so that the Gang of Six can make a proposal to hurry up.

Noel John Gordon: No chance. The leaders of the House of Laity shouldn't do it whatever the Archbishops want and if they do it'll be stalemate. We're not going away you know.

John Sendmehome: If triangles had a God, God would have three sides. Like our lovely Synod.

Lesley Tilgate: I give it twenty five years. Me and my non-interventionist God will get stuck into mission, though I'm not sure why. The perversity of this is an opportunity.

Rowan Tree: Such paradoxes do have potential when you follow the narrative through.

Lesley Tilgate: I've had dreams about you.

Rowan Tree: But you don't need a hug.

Lesley Tilgate: I won't say no.

Rowan Tree: That's a yes in my language, I think.

Lesley Tilgate: That was nice; thanks for that.

Jade Stowaway: Can I have a hug? I need a paper towel.

John Sendmehome: Hey, if there is no intervening God, who pops up the next Kleenex out of the box?

Jade Stowaway: Thanks Rowan. You're cute you are.

Rachel Marsovenus: Can I have a hug? Off the new chap if you want.

Justin R. Ewing: OK but look, there's everything wrong with this stupid fracking decision but nothing wrong with your ambition.

Rachel Marsovenus: It's not ambition. I'm not ambitioning.

Justin R. Ewing: Climb every mountain, ford every stream, drill for oil.

Barry Brokeback: Can I have a hug?

John Sendmehome: I think at this point we might have to look into civil limits to hugging inside the more discriminatory setting, I meant discerning...

Rowan Tree: Perhaps hugs have a limited application.

Peter Levite: Is there any more to be said on this?

George Hudson: Yeah, me, at London Bridge. I looked at the rain and I thought these must be God's tears, and then I realised I am a weatherman and of course that's like thinking drivel.

Noel John Gordon: Theological ignorance is no defence.

George Hudson: Nor is supernatural pseudo-science.

Noel John Gordon: Rules are rules: that's the lesson of today.

George Hudson: Anyway, tell the new bloke there are storms ahead and howling winds, and the waves will become so high and disruptive that the link you have to the land might just get cut off.

Justin R. Ewing: I'm listening.

Peter Levite: News! I wonder if this will make the news?