Women Bishops Debate Goes On<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Here's a defense of women bishops in the Church of England. The author, Jane Hedges, was ordained in my diocese when I was an Anglican priest fifteen\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2008\/07\/women-bishops-debate-goes-on.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Women Bishops Debate Goes On\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Here's a defense of women bishops in the Church of England. 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Notice the drift of her arguments: they are based on three things: utilitarianism, sentimentality and politics. The utilitarian argument is, \u201cWomen priests do a good job. People like them. They\u2019ll be great bishops.\u201d The sentimental argument is, \u201cJane is such a nice person. She is so spiritual. She is a great Christian. It would be so hurtful and so unfair not to allow her to be a bishop.\u201d The political argument is, \u201cThis is a question of equal rights. Women have been oppressed by the powers of patriarchy long enough.\u201d<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n

The proponents of women\u2019s ordination once tried to make their case from Scripture and theology and tradition. I think they still try to, but for the most part the utilitarian, sentimental and political arguments prevail. Somone once observed, \u201cIn the sixteenth century the Protestants threw out the authority of the Pope in favor of the authority of the Bible. In the twentieth century their own liberal scholars undermined the authority of the Bible. Now they have nothing left but their own opinions.\u201d<\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here\u2019s a defense of women bishops in the Church of England. The author, Jane Hedges, was ordained in my diocese when I was an Anglican priest fifteen years ago. Notice the drift of her arguments: they are based on three things: utilitarianism, sentimentality and politics. The utilitarian argument is, \u201cWomen priests do a good job. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":557,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nWomen Bishops Debate Goes On<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Here's a defense of women bishops in the Church of England. 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