Job Description 'Celibacy'

(149 Posts)
CogitoErgoSometimes Fri 04-Jan-13 18:15:26

Gay Bishops have to keep it in their pants


Well I've learnt something today, I never knew polycotton is un-godly. Wonder what the bishop's robes are made of. Oh, and the sooner this farsical organisation has nothing to do with politics or state education, the better.

niminypiminy Sat 05-Jan-13 11:10:36

It's a small move in the right direction, and essentially what it does is to extend to bishops the provisions that already cover priests. The Church of England is moving by incremental steps in what I and most of the laity think in the right direction.

I agree the Church is out of step with society - but in some ways it should be. It should be out of step with a society which makes its shrine in the shopping centre, which elevates the trivial and worships gossip.

I do wonder sometimes if the people who fulminate against the sexism and homophobia of the church a) have recently (perhaps ever) been in a church, and thus have experience of what the conditions are for women and gay people in the church, or b) were the Church suddenly to turn round and do all the things they are demanding would they then say, oh fine, this Christianity thing is worth exploring?

In my experience, sexism and homophobia is often used as a convenient stick to beat the Church with by people with little actual interest in or knowledge of it.

trockodile Sat 05-Jan-13 11:13:56

You seem to be having two different arguments. 1) religion as a whole and it's relevance or otherwise and 2)whether people have the right to change the established church while still believing in the Christian God.

MiniTheMinx Sat 05-Jan-13 11:23:07

Actually I'm rather upset of late, the church is trying to get it's paws on my father. That's another story though. Each to their own. I just think that if you set out to make a jelly and replace the gelatine with sand, cement, gravel and then add water you end up with concrete, you end up with something that has lost all of it's character, credibility and flavour. The integrity of the thing has been altered.

trockodile Sat 05-Jan-13 11:23:48

My comment was to Mini btw.
I believe that people have a perfect right to change things from within and in many cases it is not about "joining a church who doesn't want them"-it is about people who have been brought up in a tradition and still see it's worth, even among the problems. It is about gay people who have suffered through small minded bigotry and ignorance and who want to change that for the next generation. It is about people who believe that they have as much right as anyone else to be counted as a member of the church and not take the easy option.

ChristmasFayrePhyllis Sat 05-Jan-13 11:25:09

Obviously this isn't enough but I agree that this is a tiny step in the right direction. This would have allowed Jeffrey John, for example, to become a bishop, and I hope will allow other people who have the gifts for leadership to become bishops.

I am bored rigid by all the comments about the OT - do you think this has never occurred to anyone who is a Christian? Christians consider Jesus to be the living fulfilment of the OT Law. That's why we respect the OT as a collection of documents trying to express what God is - but we don't consider ourselves to be subject to it. Are you going to have a go at Jesus now for curing someone on the Sabbath?

MiniTheMinx Sat 05-Jan-13 11:29:48

But did he? Why not accept all the stories in the bible to be factual? Why are some stories factual and other things within the bible can not be taken literally depending upon mood or personal opinion. If Jesus actually walked on water then Noah actually built an arc and levictus stands.

weegiemum Sat 05-Jan-13 11:36:09

In the gospels, Jesus never mentioned homosexuality.

Which I learned at an evangelical bible college which seemed to obsessed with it.

Better concentrating on what He said about money IMO!

Snorbs Sat 05-Jan-13 11:42:12

niminy, are you suggesting that the Anglican church's refusal to allow women bishops can only be criticised by people who either attend church or are likely to attend church if the sexism is abolished?

That's like saying it is innapropriate to criticise racism in football unless you're a team member, or that you cannot pass comment on sexism in the media unless you're a journalist.

Bollocks to that.

Sexism and homophobia are often used as sticks with which to beat the Anglican church because they're so bloody blatant about it. It is against the law for an organisation to refuse to promote someone to the top position simply because of their sex. It is against the law for an organisation to insist that some of its members cannot engage in entirely lawful sexual practises simply because of their sexuality.

Well, those things are against the law unless your organisation is a religion in which case you get to be as bigotted as you like.

That is unpleasant when it's a religion that has no real power but when we're talking about the Church of England, an organisation that has an automatic right to seats in the House of Lords, then it becomes something much more serious and damn right I'm going to criticise it even if I'm not a member of the club.

FarrahFawcettsFlick Sat 05-Jan-13 11:49:51
CogitoErgoSometimes Sat 05-Jan-13 12:06:15

@niminy... maybe we don't want to go in a church precisely because the discrimination is being played out in public for us all to see and judge? As PR for the organisation, these arguments and decisions do it no favours whatsoever. I know that there are sympathetic clergy out there... gay friends of mine got married recently and a CofE Dean attended & supported the ceremony, even though he wasn't officiating. You can't be surprised or throw your hands up in horror if we judge the CofE on its press-releases and prefer not to take the risk.

niminypiminy Sat 05-Jan-13 12:11:45

No, let's be clear. You're free to criticise the Church of England. But to suggest that somehow it could do enough to satisfy you, if only it agreed, right now, to ordain women and LGBT people as bishops, and to marry gay people in church (all of which I agree with btw), that then you would think that the Church of England was ok - that's simply disingenuous.

My point about criticising from the outside is that you simply have no idea whether the church is felt to be as bigoted by those on the inside as you think it is.

exexpat Sat 05-Jan-13 12:19:43

If the Church of England was a self-contained organisation that just made up its own rules for its members, so only applied to people who signed up for it, then yes, I think we should all butt out.

The problem is that the CofE is still the established church, with bishops in the House of Lords, influence over our law-making process, a major role in our education system etc, so it affects many people who are not members, and I think that gives the population as a whole the right to question some of its more obviously hypocritical/contradictory rulings. If it were disestablished that would be a different matter.

pot39 Sat 05-Jan-13 12:22:14

One of the things about the Cof E which keeps me as a member is that it does 'expose' itself in public.

Jesus was much more worried about the poisonous effect that money has on relationships than sex, gender and who slept with whom. And I think he was right about that too e.g. bankers, tax avoidance, the financial effects of divorce etc etc etc

CogitoErgoSometimes Sat 05-Jan-13 12:33:26

If the church is only being run for the benefit of a select few 'on the inside' and wants to increasingly part company with society's moral values then should be disestablished from the state.

SchnappsDamnYou Sat 05-Jan-13 13:05:49

It is salacious and barking. What are they going to do, sniff the sheets?

Snorbs Sat 05-Jan-13 13:23:05


To take an admittedly extreme example, I'm sure I'd I asked a member of the English Defence League if they were bigoted they'd deny it. So what?

That members of a discriminatory organisation tacitly approve of that discrimination doesn't make it right.

NuclearStandoff Sat 05-Jan-13 13:30:07

I'm sure others have made this point too, but I am very cross that it's OK to be a Bishop if you are gay but not if you are female.

Please don't misunderstand this - I am in favour of equal rights for gay people for everything too, gay marriage etc... but I think this just makes the anti-women thing look even more absurd.

trockodile Sat 05-Jan-13 14:07:14

I don't think anyone is arguing that it is absurd-least of all the gay clergy-most of the ones I have read about/know feel a)that they will believe it when they see it and b)Still hurt and angry about their relationships and sexuality still being seen as such a major issue. They also tend to support woman bishops.
Please don't turn it into a gay clergy versus women clergy issue-at the end of the day neither of them have equal rights.

trockodile Sat 05-Jan-13 14:07:43

Not absurd!

RabidCarrot Sat 05-Jan-13 15:13:07

My priest is "camp as Christmas" and he is a fantastic bloke and a bloody good vicar, he is all for women in the church and has dragged our parish in to the 21st century.

What he and his house guest get up to in private is none of my business

BoffinMum Sat 05-Jan-13 15:51:38

Presumably if I have a sex change and become a man, that would allow me to become a bishop but only if I stopped shagging my DH. hmm

Bilbobagginstummy Sat 05-Jan-13 15:57:50

There would be a good way to make use of the nosey, interfering people that exist in every congregation, though. They could be celibacy police and peer into the Bishop's windows and check his conduct against the Book Of Common Celibacy "permitted expressions of love" checklist.

What I think about this ?

It (the C of E) will get there in the end .....

Women bishops - tick
Gay bishops (without conditions attached) - tick

But it will be too late. It's already too late.

I'm not the only one who, growing up in the C of E, has found another spiritual home.

But that's OK, I'm quite happy with that.
I probably wouldn't have stayed anyway tbf.

Just feel sad for our beautiful church buildings that they couldn't have been in the care of a much more liberal, wide-based church. And for our communities too - that the church at the physical heart of many communities has generally taken such an evangelical path that few can accept and feel able to belong to.

It's a mess, that's for sure. Trying to be as inclusive as possible, not excluding anyone male but unable to go the whole hog & embrace people who happen to be gay without placing the restriction. Something will have to give, imo. The anti-gay churches abroad won't go for it, for a start.

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