N.T. Wright: Women Bishops: It’s About the Bible, not Fake Ideas of Progress

This from the good former bishop of Durham regarding the recent flap in the Church of England over the defeat of a proposal to allow women bishops. Wright nails it when he argues that proponents of women bishops who use the mantra of progress to advance their agenda at any cost muddy the waters and cloud the legitimate biblical argument for women bishops.

I personally support having women bishops because I think there is solid biblical warrant for such. But I also respect those who (mistakenly in my opinion) reject the idea of having women bishops. To force women bishops on those who are legitimately opposed to them, is to fly in the face of many of Paul’s exhortations to the churches on the ground in his day about how Christians must act toward one another (cf. e.g., Romans 12.10, 14.13; Ephesians 4.2, 5.21; Philippians 2.5; Colossians 3.13; 1 Thessalonians 5.11). Paul’s whole point was to not lord your preferences over others in areas that do not involve core Christian doctrine, e.g., Christ’s saving death and resurrection. The ordination of women as bishops falls safely under this category. Just so with +Wright in this op-ed piece. Check it out and see what you think.

Exhorting the CoE to ‘get with the programme’ dilutes the argument for women bishops

“But that would be putting the clock back,” gasps a feckless official in one of C. S. Lewis’s stories. “Have you no idea of progress, of development?”

“I have seen them both in an egg,” replies the young hero. “We call it Going bad in Narnia.”

Lewis nails a lie at the heart of our culture. As long as we repeat it, we shall never understand our world, let alone the Church’s calling. And until proponents of women bishops stop using it, the biblical arguments for women’s ordination will never appear in full strength.

Read it all.