We should not be surprised by this. The leaders of the Church of England are in thrall to feminism, an ideology derived from Marxism. They should be ashamed of themselves.
We should not be surprised by this. The leaders of the Church of England are in thrall to feminism, an ideology derived from Marxism. They should be ashamed of themselves.
I would take issue with the idea that Christianity holds little appeal for men. Observation of the evangelical churches within the C of E and denominations such as the Baptists show a strong membership of men. I suspect that this pattern is repeated in those forms of Christianity that value the gifts men and women bring. I see nothing wrong in women ministers ( and I take the point that priest is quite a different idea than minister) nor have I found men generally less Christian. However I do think there is a lot of truth in the observation that many Christian churches become “organised by men for women” when they become mainly concerned with their internal social concerns rather than outward looking. And of course in doing so rather lose their purpose. Certainly here in the industrial north the decline of the traditional churches appears to go hand in hand with a rapid proliferation of very vigorous evangelical churches in my observation very much attractive to men as much as women. Off hand I can’t think of a religious grouping in which there isn’t a strong notion of different gifts and roles for men and women and it would seem inevitable that radical feminism is in conflict with the central tenets of all, even those with many female “gods” and saints.
“Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.” (Matthew 6:9)
“What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?” (Luke 8:28)
“When the (Holy) Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth.” (John 16:13)
Those three quotes from the New Testament should be enough to demonstrate that the “Transformations Steering Group” in the Church of England has got it hopelessly wrong on this issue of whether the liturgy should be revised.
For many years there has been a crisis in British churches: men have not been attending in sufficient numbers. The reasons for this are that Christianity holds little or no attraction to them and men often do not regard spirituality as an important part of their lives. To make matters worse, many churches are gynocentric, and a good many women churchgoers want it that way: they want to be able to control their churches and their husbands and their children.
In addition to this already depressing scenario, feminism has made British churches a battlefield in modern times. Young women passed through the university system in the 1970s, picked up feminism while they were there and brought it with them when they joined churches after graduating. I have experienced this battle over a 40 year period and am glad to have met in recent years young Christian women who will have nothing to do with feminism; they KNOW it is wrong, they do not want it in their lives and they will not want this “inclusive language” to become part of the liturgy.
The Church of England has had a problem with feminism for a long time and it has not dealt with that problem. If this proposal to amend the liturgy is enacted, it will not solve that problem, it will make it worse.
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One last point: the use of the 11th/12th century Canticles mentioned in the Telegraph article to justify referring to God as “She” shows how desperate the feminisers are to obtain evidence for their case.
You probably won’t be surprised to hear that these wimmin can and do decimate a congregation and lose a good group of volunteers in under three months! My brother works for Peterborough Diocese (as an accountant) and despises the clergy – the women are even lazier than the men , he says. It shows up because they lose the volunteer group, who are almost always older women, very quickly indeed, and complaints start coming into the Bishop. They don’t have the charm of Dawn French’s “Vicar of Dibley”
In the early days, female ministers were not appointed to parishes but put into hospitals, prisons, schools etc, as chaplains where ironically they encountered their greatest opponents – the married male clergy who had been accepted for ordination in the Catholic Church. (Yes, the RCs had addressed the issue in the same way!) The RCs wiped the floor with them because of the educational standard the late Cardinal Hume had imposed as a means of keeping the numbers down; they had to have a Doctorate in Divinity, while the wimmin tended to be activists and professionally, a lot were failed nurses and teachers. It’s interesting that it was the laity who held out against female clergy and bishops the longest.
It has now reached the point where faced with a vacancy a parish is told, they can expect to wait 12-18 months minimum if they want a male priest, but a female minister will be available at once (Positive discrimination again) which is why Benedict XVI set up the Ordinariate, as many parishes that DO hold out against women are Anglo-Catholic.
Please note the terminology – I do not believe a woman can be a priest.
While taking coffee after shopping today I glanced at a paper in the coffee shop. One story caught my eye, noting a further precipitous fall in C of E membership. Got home and saw this. What seems sure is that ” modernising” has done nothing to include more people, just accelerated the losses. What isn’t understood outside the C of E is the long and circuitous route that eventually led to women Bishops. Truly “Byzantine ” essentially this process bypassed the ” laity” ( those representing the ordinary members of the church ) in Synod because the leadership has consistently lost votes to the laity. Not C of E myself ( and not a believer in magical powers of priest and bishops) it strikes me a disturbing message for the dwindling membership of that Church, that their views are elicited as if they have a say then so clearly ignored and undermined. Yet such political shenanigans are much the same as those in politics to advance policies by a form of subterfuge.