Today the Church of England has voted against having women bishops.
Cue the self-pitying humbugs to come crawling out of the woodwork. Ophelia Benson get’s it all started with a giant mope. Well, so far, so typical, but some otherwise sensible acquaintances of mine are also getting all huffy. Now, I was not aware that these people had a life’s ambition to become an ordained Bishop. Nor have I seen any complaints that we are fantastically unlikely to see chaps in senior positions in, say, NOW. Their club, their rules.
That’s the basic point. There is also a more subtle one. Benson betrays a fantastic ignorance of the reasons behind this. Quote:
Well you know how it is. It’s who wants to stand up and talk about it, go on shows about it, go to conferences and speak about it, who’s intellectually active about it; you know, it’s more of a guy thing. Women aren’t so good at that. Women prefer to sit down and not talk about it…
And so on. However, it has nothing to do with any of this. The reason behind this, and also the reason that the Churches traditionally do not have women priests, is because the Priest is supposed to stand in persona Christi. He is supposed to be the physical representative of Our Lord and Saviour.
Just how many people do you think they are convincing with this sort of thing? Do you think that there is anyone “on the fence” about religion who is convinced by this self-pitying nonsense? Or is it likely that Benson et al are just reinforcing the stereotype of atheists as cheerless busybodies who have no values of their own and just get off on tearing other people down? Award yourself five points and a biscuit for the right answer.
[Important parenthesis: Some people may be wondering why I, anti-theist that I am, routinely refer to the semi-mythical figure of Christ as “Our Lord and Saviour”. You may have noticed a phenomenon in our media recently: references to “the prophet Muhammad”. Not “Muhammad”. Not “Islam’s prophet”. No, “the prophet Muhammad”, as though we’d all suddenly converted to Islam. Well, I am going to continue using the terms “Our Lord and Saviour”, “in the year of our Lord”, etc. until they knock this shit off.]
UPDATE: This doesn’t deny that there are good reasons to be angry at the Church, such as its anti-gay agenda that turns murderous in places like Uganda. And of course, the fact that we still have seats in the House of Lords reserved for Bishops adds another twist to this, another proof of the necessity for strict secularism (by way of contrast the Masonic brotherhood has an all male membership, but it has no seats in the House of Lords, hence, no problem). There are a number of reasons for being angry at the C of E, but this isn’t one of them.
