The Guardian carries an interview with the first woman to be a bishop in the Church of England:
Libby and George Lane both have theology degrees from Oxford, trained to be priests at the same college, and were ordained at the same time. Yet when the couple job-shared a curacy in the early years of their married life, for many congregants Libby was, she recalled cheerfully this week, “never anything other than the curate’s wife”. Twenty years on, the tables are turned. It is George, the jolly co-ordinating chaplain at Manchester airport, whose identity is now defined by his spouse’s job. “I’m just the husband,”…
But why did she ever want to serve in a church that, when she began her training, didn’t even allow women to become priests, let alone bishops? “… I always want things to be better, but I want to make them better by getting stuck in. And the way of making the church better was doing it within it.” … “I think it’s wrong,” she concedes. “But I don’t want to be part of an organisation that says because you don’t agree with that, you no longer have a place. It’s my job to preach a form of Christianity that tells a different story. I can do better.”
When it comes to marriage equality for gays and lesbians: “She refuses politely to answer that, saying only: “When I was ordained, and at every time I am licensed to a new role, I under oath say that I will be obedient to the disciplines of the church and I will only use the orders and rites of the church that are permitted by law. I serve under obedience and you are not going to get me to say anything else.”
Read it all here
posted by Ann Fontaine
All Content © 2017 Episcopal Café
For same-sex couples in England who wish to marry there is always the register office. And for those who want some religion, there are the Unitarians, Quakers, and Reform Jews. The Church of England, I agree, Bryant, is irrelevant. How can it be controversial for a new bishop to discuss harmonizing religious law with the law of the land, which in England is now finally marriage as an option for all couples?
Our own Episcopal Church still doesn’t offer marriage to all couples.
Gary Paul Gilbert
The Church of England has shown us time and again that it is completely irrelevant except insofar as it stands with the unjust who oppress those seeking justice. Without justice, it has nothing to offer. No wonder it’s withering away.