Try Again (Female Bishop Amendments)

Let's try another scenario (if I can get this right).

PCC Secretary
Parish of Water
Deeping Lake

May 29 2030

Ms Karen Delawney
Lincoln Castle
Lincoln

Dear Ms Delawney

We understand that there is a diocesan scheme that follows the code of practice that gives you the role of finding a priest and bishop for a parish that writes to you in this fashion. Our priest is retiring soon and so we need a bishop as soon as possible. The bishop should be theologically compatible with our views.

The PCC has delegated me, as you are delegated, to outline our views.

As we believe that life starts at conception, we are concerned that a pregnant priest might have two people in one, one unordained, blessing the bread and wine. We do not believe that this has been properly thought through on a theological level.

Secondly, we believe in real presence, that is the production of the body and blood in the appearance of bread and wine. This leads to concerns about women who are menstruating and therefore expelling blood, or indeed the position just after childbirth. Again, we have not seen much written theologically about this in recent times.

We are also concerned about female priests who may be penetrated by men wearing condoms. We believe that this takes away the potential for extending life, and life is a sacred flow, and therefore particularly involves women being so penetrated.

We further believe that these functions of women lead to a greater level of emotional and irrational response to situations and that these could be pastorally prejudicial, for example in an inability to keep a professional distance in the situation of a parishioner's difficult emotional condition.

We also discussed apparent damage that can be done bodily if a man is ordained by a woman, and so we would wish not only that his theological views are agreeable with ours but that he would not come from a line of ordinations involving women (as they may have been pregnant, giving birth or menstruating).

Please recommend some names that we might interview them for theological compatibilty, or perhaps there are some choices already available where such views are recorded on a database.

Thank you. We hope you are in good health.

PCC Secretary
Parish of Water
Deeping Lake

Bishop Karen Delawney
Lincoln Castle
Lincoln

June 5 2030

PCC Secretary
Parish of Water
Deeping Lake

Dear PCC Secretary

Fortunately the diocesan scheme has someone listed who can fulfil these functions and meet your concerns. It is not exactly 'pick your bishop' but this person seems to be theologically compatible on every minute level and concern. So I have already delegated him to be your bishop, although I reassure you that he is bishop by derivation already.

Bishop Karen Delawney
Lincoln Castle

Understanding the New Ordination of Women Bishops Amendments

Bishop Jane Delawney is the new Bishop of Lincoln in 2025.

A parish PCC Secretary at St. Peter's Deeping Hollow, rural Lincolnshire,  writes.

Dear Mrs Delawney,

We understand that you purport to be, for some, the bishop of this diocese. We need a man who you might delegate as bishop instead and will bishop to us because he has derived bishop powers at his ordination - derived properly and unpolluted because no woman was involved either when he was ordained or when his ordainers were themselves each ordained.

Our priest, Arthur Dox, agrees with this PCC and shares our convictions. He himself was ordained priest by three male bishops in attendance none of whom were ordained priest or bishop by women.

Yours

PCC Secretary, St. Peter's Deeping Hollow.

A parish PCC Secretary at St. Paul's Quick Sandy, a town in Lincolnshire,  writes:

Secretary, John Boy
Lincoln Castle

Dear John Boy

We are a Conservative Evangelical parish looking for a different bishop. Please don't contact Jane Delawney on this matter as if she delegates any action we would regard it as headship and she cannot do it for us.

Can you have a word with a bishop who is clearly evangelical and a man? It doesn't matter if a woman ordained him, so long as he is male and can be in charge. We don't accept transexuals who started out as female.

If you won't do it we will find our own, probably overseas.

PCC Secretary
St. Paul's Quick Sandy

[Predicted!] Code of practice: Ensure that there is a supply of bishops who have derived orders from a line of exclusively male ordained bishops. Female diocesan bishops or male bishops ordained by women, or ordained by men ordained by women, or any history of women in the line of ordinations, can delegate a bishop from a line of exclusively male ordained bishops and who regards this as necessary for valid ordination.

Jane Delawney
Bishop of Lincoln
Lincoln Castle

PCC Secretary
Deeping Hollow

Dear PCC Secretary

As your and everyone's diocesan bishop observing the Code of Practice I would suggest that your own priest is ordained bishop by the three bishops of Beverley, Goole and Sunk Island, all of whom were ordained in an exclusive male line and think it important. As the Bishop of Sunk Island is going to retire soon, Arthur Dox will be bishop elect for Sunk Island. He would then have bishop duties elsewhere and so will help organise your replacement priest. Remember that although I am delegating this matter the bishops all operate in their own right.

Jane Delawney
Bishop of Lincoln
Lincoln Castle

Jane Delawney
Bishop of Lincoln
Lincoln Castle

PCC Secretary
Quick Sandy

Dear PCC Secretary

As your and everyone's diocesan bishop observing the Code of Practice I have the right to delegate a bishop of your PCC's express theological convictions. I will do this just once after which he will deal with you in future. He is the retired bishop Arthur Tickles and he will see you soon.

Jane Delawney
Bishop of Lincoln
Lincoln Castle

The Secretary is asked to reply:

PCC Secretary
Quick Sandy

Jane Delawney
Bishop of Lincoln
Lincoln Castle

Dear Jane Delawney

Please do not do anything for us. We will find our own bishop. We have decided to appoint the Right Reverend Art Tickles, who was recently retired.

PCC Secretary
Quick Sandy

Entryist Out

So it turns out that Richard Turnbull has been removed from Wycliffe Hall as Principal. The conservative evangelical attempt at entryism into the theological colleges may be coming unstuck.Simon Vibert and appointees will probably keep up the identity of the place but only until there is a new Principal. Turnbull may stay in another role.

I made a lot of this in 2006 and into 2007 when my website noted the entryist strategy employed by the new Principal, to go after liberal evangelicals and replace them in order to get after the real enemy, the liberals. In fact, my transcribing his talk to Reform made my then new blog and older website reach out to more Anglicans. He appointed the like-minded, and probably they were not suitable. Maybe the wheel has come off his wagon and the 'liberal-evangelicals' will live longer after all.

Arriving at an Unpolluted Jesus Christ Construct

Here is a sort of three-way debate. There is that CEEC Statement and a supporter of it like Andrew Goddard. There is then that statement (and Anglican formularies) and opponents such as Colin Coward with Changing Attitude. Then there is someone like me. My basic ethical agreement is with Colin Coward and Changing Attitude, but can he and it hold up the basis of the Colin Coward argument as highlighted by Andrew Goddard?

It is not possible to find an accommodation between teaching based on a fundamentalist interpretation of Scripture, the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, The Book of Common Prayer and the Ordering of Bishops, Priests and Deacons and the evolution of gay identity and the expectations of same-sex loving Christians. Changing Attitude’s prime loyalty is not to these formularies and this inheritance of faith but to the deeply personal call of God to us in faith and love. We test our inheritance against the example and teaching of Jesus Christ. Where there is conflict, and of course there is conflict aplenty, we opt to follow Jesus.

My argument from this is where does this construction of Jesus Christ come from? I posted this comment on Fulcrum itself, which (as I write) has yet to appear:

The question is whether there is a general 'thrust' of meaning and ethical intent as an interpretation of Scripture, the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, The Book of Common Prayer and the Ordering of Bishops, Priests and Deacons. It brings back the question of the basis of the declaration of assent. Colin Coward presumably thinks that in that collection of words is the essence of something he calls Jesus Christ; but if not then he is declaring a marginality regarding Anglicanism in that he is loyal to what he calls Jesus Christ whilst not caring too much what is in those formularies. So it might not just be 'experience' based, often given as a liberal basis of faith, but it might and it might be a form of religious humanism - what is wholly human, and therefore what is Christ about that.

I've written here that the [Anglican] declaration of assent is so worded that no one giving it is forced to agree with every item on the creed, or every article or formula. It just is not asked of any individual, though it is given that the Church is correct in having these. The individual is to give loyalty to the inheritance, and also to use exclusive forms of this Church. I personally think he is pushing it further than it will go.

I would ask what is his construction of 'Jesus Christ' and if it is, for example, based on the historical Jesus and how. Last Sunday the preacher in our Unitarian church is an Anglican and she referred in passing to Jesus's weak pastoral skills - he tends to give some people the brush off. Now if this is correct (and she has a point), how does that relate to the construction of 'Jesus Christ'? Is Jesus, for example, morally and ethically perfect and how do you know so? How do you locate such humanism? I suggest you can only say that from tradition, and if you can't say it from tradition that, actually, you cannot say it. If Jesus Christ is just a code word for ethical superiority then it may be good enough to argue as ethical superiority but it isn't good enough to argue as Jesus Christ.

It is why I argue that if you cannot say the declaration of assent, as I cannot, then these constructions of Jesus Christ start to fall apart. He might be the other side of the line from me. I still think there is a Jesus of Nazareth to work out, but it is not a code word for ethical superiority or guarantee of pastoral humanism.

Incidentally, earlier, I had cause to post a different kind of comment to the thread Should Orthodox Christians depart from Fulcrum ? after the usual repetitive reference was made about revisionist Anglicans and those irrelevant trolls from outside:

I come here wearing special trolling costume that gives out a funny if regulation smell to repel those who may be sunning themselves in evangelical short sleeved shirts and blouses. On my black hat it says 'Beware of the Troll',  and my visitor's ticket acquired at the guarded barriers reminds me that my views here are irrelevant. And as I sit on the park bench alone, giving off the putrid smell, I occasionally hear people talk about liberalism and liberal views, often without visiting where I have come from or nearby, or refer to other beliefs, or refer to matters experienced directly by me in neighbouring places [I] once inhabited if no longer resident, and so I might mutter something of that experience to the wholesome citizens. But all the while I am careful to show my pass and remind people to hold their noses so that they are not contaminated by my commitment to heterodoxy and become ravaged, as I am, by theological disease. Though, I have heard, all this might not be good enough, because people who have spoken to me and thought about the reply have caught bad colds and ended up in evangelical hospital, and sometimes left out the back door and gone over the border where, apparently, they've been told they are not ill at all.

Website Attention

Given the Pluralist test sub-website - SETAM on the menu, to show a friend what a web 'shop front' would look like as he contemplates shifting towards Internet selling from a shop, I am now looking at my website and transferring some content in its direction from several creative places (including here). I've just submitted a puzzle idea and content to the Hull church for its calendar (bimonthly magazine) - but it can be online instantly - and there were two articles merged into one page on Puritan into Unitarian Bowlalley Lane history. The history isn't just rehash as it asks extra questions. I'm looking forward to receiving choir backed CDs and making them usable in the church for each planned service.

Licence to Kill

My loose end was to help kill the Covenant in the Church of England and thus bodes better for the different folks that make up the Church. The gathering of bloggers against the Covenant grew but also turned into a coalition, with Lesley Crawley leading the charge. Now there is a new licence to kill the Covenant, especially internationally, and Malcolm French has a submission numbered as D007 to be accepted as a resolution at The Episcopal Church General Convention this year. Best wishes to M in his efforts.

C of I Bishop Doesn't Get It

Perhaps the Church of Ireland bishop Harold Miller, who'd like to know whether Dean Gordon is bonking with his Civil Partner, will tell us first whether he is busy in bed. He says that and yet:

Bishop Miller hit out at liberals for alleging that a “witch hunt” could take place against gay clergy...

Don't get too worried, he says, as Dean Gordon cannot be sought out and disciplined retrospectively of the Church of Ireland vote. And, furthermore...

I can’t quite get to the core of what the issue is for them.

Tough at the ecclesiastical top, isn't it? Ignorance, more like.