The Church needs to speak not with one tongue, but with many tongues as it always has. Legalism and intolerance are bad Christianity, but they are what the proposed Measure was very likely to increase. We were told over and over again that provision was being made for those who reject women clergy and bishops. But this was simply untrue. It was a lie. These minorities had sought arrangements on which they could rely. But instead what they had said they needed had been consistently rejected - or, when the Archbishops made some effort to achieve a compromise that would work for them, neither Archbishop managed the process of promoting what they were proposing at all well. That was how the Church arrived at this situation fraught as it was with dishonesty and illusion. That the vote went against the Measure despite the immense pressure placed on the Laity should suggest that what was being proposed was seen as a serious problem. It was defeated by a coalition that included many lay people who want there to be women bishops but not by dishonest inadequate means that were demonstrably not fit for purpose.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Church of England (CoE) • CoE Bishops

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