New Zealand continues to show the way

Great news today as New Zealand elects the third woman Diocesan bishop.

The Rev Dr Helen-Ann Hartley has been elected the next Anglican Bishop of Waikato.
Helen-Ann, who is 40, succeeds Archbishop David Moxon, who is now the Anglican Communion’s ambassador to Rome.
Bishop-elect Helen-Ann is at present Dean of Tikanga Pakeha students at St John's College in Auckland.
She was born in Edinburgh and grew up in north-east England. She is the fourth generation of her family to be ordained, and was priested in 2005 in the Diocese of Oxford.

So apparently she is the first woman ordained in the Church of England to become a bishop.

In New Zealand she follows Penny Jamieson, who was the Bishop of Dunedin from 1990 till 2004, and Victoria Matthews, who was elected the Bishop of Edmonton, in Canada, in 1997, and who was chosen as the Bishop of Christchurch in 2008.

Of course England is yet to vote to allow women to be bishops and while Australia now has 4 assistant bishops they are still not allowed to be in charge of a diocese.

Australia's Third Woman Bishop

And the First in NSW. Very pleased to see the Diocese of Canberra-Goulburn has appointed Archdeacon Genieve Blackwell as Assistant Bishop. It will apparently be 20 years next February since that diocese first ordained women priests. (It was the 2nd such ordination in Australia and I was present. I have always said the first, which was in Perth, was a bit far. )
At that time there were court cases as the Diocese of Sydney tried to prevent it going ahead. Apparently Sydney has been more cooperative this time.  Archdeacon Blackwell was once a student of Moore College and was taught by (now) Archbishop Jensen.
''I very much admire Genieve Blackwell,'' Dr Jensen said. ''However, I regret I am not able to take part in the service for reasons of conscience.''

The Bishop of Newcastle  will replace Jensen at the consecration. I presume the Bishop of Canberra-Goulburn Stuart Robinson will also be involved. (Do you need 2 bishops to consecrate a third?) 
I was disappointed when Bishop Robinson was appointed from the Sydney Diocese. It is amazing how some change when they move out.

Still we only have women as assistant bishops. Apparently the consecration of women as Diocesan bishops is still blocked in Australia.

Role of Women

Have been reading about the latest shenanigans in the  progression towards women bishops in the Church of England. I do not understand all the details except that it is trying to find ways for men who will not accept women to remain in the Church.

I really become very angry and have trouble seeing these men, who will not accept women as priests or bishops, as even Christian. Whether they be the extreme evangelicals like those who run the Diocese of Sydney or the extreme Anglo-catholics, I do not want to have anything to do with them.

I needed to read Davis's comment at Audacious Deviant to calm down.

We start bickering about all the details, but so often we're missing the reason for daring to be Christian. It's about love - even of our (perceived) enemies.

Love one another.


It's worth every bit of pain.   Thanks Davis.

When I began teaching aeons ago, women had few leadership roles except in girls' schools. I taught in co-ed and occasionally boys' school and saw the gradual movement of women into leadership roles and finally become Principals.  I saw how they had to push harder than men and how men ridiculed them for being pushy. Apparently it was okay for a man to be authoritarian but not a woman. I have worked under hopeless women and excellent women but also hopeless men and excellent men.
That this argument should be still going on in the church in the 21st century angers me. How can one defend one's church when it is so antiquated? St Paul wrote in the 1st century and there are many things he writes which are just irrelevant today and I do not believe reflect the teachings of Jesus.

In Sydney Diocese some women have just been brainwashed. It is sad to read their writings. The senior woman, Archdeacon Narelle Jarrett (Arch deacon, not priest) is pathetic in my opinion.  One woman wrote about her work in her parish as a deacon and it was obvious she was seen as second rate by the male clergy and she accepted this situation. I felt like being sick.

In Australia we have 2 women bishops but neither is a Diocesan. It remains to be seen what will happen if one is elected a diocesan. If men cannot accept this they can go to the Roman Catholic church in my opinion.

New Zealand has had two women diocesan bishops. Bishop Penny Jamieson, Dunedin was the first woman diocesan in the Anglican communion and Bishop Victoria Matthews is now Bishop of Christchurch.  Two New Zealand Dioceses will be choosing a bishop this month, including Dunedin this weekend. I do not know what the possibilities are.

I would like to quote Father Ron Smith from Christchurch who commented on Thinking Anglicans. He expresses my views much better than I ever could.

It would be wonderful if the Church of England could be humble enough to take a leaf out of the book of it's fellow Anglican Provinces - who have trusted the Holy Spirit to call and equip women for the total ministry of the Church. This has been quietly going on now for at least a decade in most overseas provinces, and the Church buildings have not fallen down. Why not take a calculated risk and trust God's providence, and preserve the Church from further schism?

When I was confirmed into the C.of E., I was taught that bishops were the focus of unity. What has changed in the theology of the Church that could possibly dictate otherwise - in the modern age, where women have been accepted as equal partners with men in most other spheres of human endeavour. To create a division in the Church on the grounds of sex or gender does seem to compromise Paul's later understanding of our common (male/female) life in Christ.

The whole idea of 'flying Bishops' sounds like something from science fiction. Do we need to bring further extra-terrestrial paradigms into the serious business of getting alongside both men and women in the world of today, where there are many problems to be solved that require the different skills of both male and female clergy.

Christ was not just a representative male, he was representatively and fully human. He chose not to generate children, but rather to nurture all who came into contact with his inclusive grace and empowerment, giving men and women the equal right to become 'children of God'. AND, Mary Magdalene (a woman) was chosen by Christ to bring the Good News of his resurrection to the male apostles - who, of course, did not believe her. What's new?

Wise Words

"The bishop is a teacher of the faith. This doesn't mean unthinkingly regurgitating formulae from the past," he said.

"Guarding and teaching the faith means bringing the depth of the church's inheritance to bear on today's questions.

"This can lead to the disclosure of aspects of Christian truth that have been forgotten or gone unexplored. The church is a place where things can happen for the first time."

From the sermon by Archbishop Aspinall of Brisbane, Primate of the Anglican Church of Australia as he conducted the consecration of Bishop Kaye Goldsworthy in Perth. Bishop Goldsworthy is the first woman to be consecrated a Bishop in Australia. Canon Barbara Darling will soon follow in Melbourne. 21 Bishops from Australia and New Zealand were present but not, of course, the Archbishop and his gang from Sydney. Their loss.

Ring the Merry Bells

When I checked Caliban's blog just over an hour ago I was greeted with the greatest news. Australia is to have its first woman bishop as an assistant bishop in the Diocese of Perth. Archdeacon Kay Goldsworthy will be consecrated on May 22. She was one of the first women priests in Australia in 1992 when she was ordained by the then Archbishop of Perth, Peter Carnley. He was never forgiven by the Jensenites even when he became Primate. They tried to stop the next ordination which was in the Diocese of Goulburn which is in the Province of NSW by going to court. They obtained an injunction which forced a delay but did not prevent the inevitable. I attended that ordination and it was one of the most joyful services I have ever attended. I pray that the consecration of Kay Goldsworthy in May will be equally joyful. Her choice is an answer to my prayers, praise God.
Bishop Forsyth of South Sydney has commented (why is it always him who speaks to the press?).
He said it would create "difficulties" in keeping the church together. If it means we get rid of Jensen and his mates, who cares. The true inclusive Anglican church will remain.
As Boaz says they are bringing discredit to the Christian church and driving people away with their silly antics.

Women Bishops

The Anglican Bishops of Australia are meeting this week. Apparently there will be over 50 present. (I wonder how polite they are to each other :-)) One of the items is how to provide alternative oversight to those who will not accept a woman as their bishop.
Under the draft provisions still to be negotiated by the church's leaders, a male bishop would be deputised to carry out ceremonial duties including confirmations or ordinations, but he would not assume the authority of the woman bishop for whom he would be standing in.

Furthermore, an archbishop could absent himself from leading the consecration of a woman bishop if he objected. This could, for example, allow a woman bishop in a NSW diocese to be consecrated without the presence of the Sydney Archbishop, Peter Jensen, a strenuous objector to women bishops.
A retired male bishop or one from a neighbouring diocese could be invited to stand in for a female bishop, where conservative church members refuse to accept women ministries.

There are 2 possible vacancies which may be filled by women in the next few months- assistants in Melbourne and Perth. I will pray that at least one may be chosen.

I see the church in Wales narrowly defeated women bishops after an amendment to allow such alternative arrangements was dismissed. Good on them. The concept fills me with disgust.
If these men (and strangely even some women) cannot accept a woman in authority over them let them find somewhere else to worship. I have only utter contempt for the Archbishop of Sydney but unfortunately cannot ask for alternative oversight.

More Good News from New Zealand

Emigrating gets more and more likely.
From the Guardian
Interesting times beckon in Antipodean Anglicanism, where the former Canadian bishop Victoria Matthews - narrowly beaten to become Canada's primate last summer - has been elected Bishop of Christchurch, New Zealand, a place she has never visited. She is a theological conservative who nevertheless voted that gay partnerships do not violate core church doctrines, which should bring her into interesting relations with the arch-conservative Archbishop of Sydney across the Tasman Sea, Peter Jensen, who does not believe that women should be put in charge of anything, least of all a church.
Apparently her appointment still has to be ratified by the NZ Bishops and General Synod but she is not the first woman to be appointed a Bishop in NZ (Bishop Penny Jamieson was Bishop of Dunedin). +Jensen ignored her when she visited Sydney.
I remember fondly my visit to the Cathedral at Christchurch in November 2006