Thirty years on...

Dawn French playing the Rev Geraldine Granger, Vicar of Dibley, who dons a joke bishop's hat
 in a 2013 Comic Relief sketch.  Source: Mail Online

A tweet from one of the Church of England's celebrity priests indicates that thirty years on from the approval by General Synod of the final legislation for women to become priests, a third of all those who are in ordained ministry are women and 31 women have been made bishops.

The Rev Kate Bottley along with the fictional Vicar of Dibley are about as far removed from the traditional view of priesthood as we could have possibly imagined 30 years ago but they fit in perfectly with the aims of Women and the Church. Their 'charitable' objectives are purely secular -

"The promotion of gender equality and diversity with the Church of England as experienced by both lay and ordained people for the public benefit by:

1. The elimination of discrimination on grounds of gender;

2. Advancing education and raising awareness in gender equality and diversity;

3. Conducting or commissioning research on equality and diversity issues and publishing the result to  the public; and

4. Cultivating a sentiment in favour of gender equality and diversity."

The secular aims of gender justice, equality and inclusion are far removed from the 'otherness' enjoyed by churchgoers thirty years ago. They have split communities and friendships as false notions of equality have replaced theology. 

More 'diversity' has resulted in bishops and archbishops abandoning traditional understanding of biblical teaching which has been handed down over two millennia.

The Five Guiding Principles which provide guidance for candidates for ordination in the Church of England have been consistently undermined by WATCH under the mask of ‘institutionalised discrimination’, something the absent bishop of St Davids, Joanna Penberthy, regularly complained of.

When pressed to describe the alleged discrimination the best the bishop could come up with was that some people disagreed with her. That precisely sums up the attitude of WATCH. 

The same tactics have been adopted by LGBT complainers to accuse anyone who disagrees with them of discrimination and homophobia with no evidence whatsoever, something with which readers of the blog will be very familiar.

All of which has led to blessing same sex couples with same sex marriage on the horizon, which is driving Western Anglicanism further away from the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church of which they claim to be part of in such as the Five Guiding Principles.

It is predicted that the Church of England will be extinct by the 2060's and the Church in Wales well before that.  Equally dead!