Church of England to Allow Gay Bishops, Sort Of

[cbayer]

http://www.religiondispatches.org/dispatches/elizabethdrescher/6742/church_of_england_to_allow_gay_bishops__sort_of__/

January 4, 2013 12:00pm
Post by ELIZABETH DRESCHER

The House of Bishops of the Church of England has announced that it will no longer prevent gay priests, including those in civil unions, from being elevated to the office of bishop…with a couple conditions. One is that gay clergy must promise to be celibate. The other is that they “repent for active homosexuality in the past.” No kidding.

While conservative Anglicans are predictably irate over what appears to be a softening of his predecessor’s more conciliatory position toward anti-gay leaders in the church by recently named Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, LGBT activists and allies hardly see the announcement as much news.

“It’s nominally good news but I don't trust it,” the Rev. Colin Collins of the advocacy group Changing Attitudes told the Huffington Post UK, “I don't believe that there is serious intent in the announcement and I won’t until the moment when somebody who is in a civil partnership is appointed as a bishop.”

And, perhaps, until video monitors are installed in all episcopal bedrooms so we can be certain that all bishops are adhering to the stands for sexual behavior set out by the church.

[trotsky]

1. This really isn't any different than the RCC.

They're fine with gay people too - if they promise to never, ever have sex with the person they love.

[okasha]

2. Eh?

The gay Bishops can be in civil unions but they have to promise not to have sex with their partners? I guess that one burst of reforming fervor back in the sixteenth century pretty much exhausted the English church's capacity for radical change.

[kwassa]

3. Civil partnerships are legal in England.

Same-sex marriage is not, though all political parties, including, quite vocally, the Conservative party support same-sex marriage.

The CoE is way behind the societal curve on this, as well as the issue of the openess of the church to the idea of women bishops. The church might completely collapse in the next generation from it's irrelevancy to anything modern in British life.

If the Church in England was the national football team we would have sacked the manager long ago. A European social study (published in 2002) put the UK at the 4th lowest rate of Church attendance in Europe.

http://www.whychurch.org.uk/trends.php

3.1% of the population worships in the Church of England at least once a month. that is all!

http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/2012/anglican-churchgoing-in-2010/