I am not a religious person. In fact I do not believe in a God. I was a lonely only child and until the age of 10 or so I had an imaginary friend who accompanied me everywhere. He had one characteristic that was particularly so; he was not quite as good as me at everything we did. When we raced for the nearest tree, I won by a whisker and when we played marbles, I won. Of course I had to flick the marbles for him but I can assure you in no way did that influence the outcome. His presence was very comforting and the fact that I was allowed to beat him helped in a small way to build my confidence and spur me on to greater things.
But as I got older, I no longer needed Eggy, that was his name, and I suppose he went to a different school and his life took a different course. I boarded at school as my parents lived in India. The school was a religious foundation so we had prayers every day and chapel on Sunday, but I was not particularly taken by the religious aspect; like most people brought up C of E I just put up with it more or less as an obligation. I dropped out of confirmation classes when the chaplain insisted that children brought up as Hindus in India, would not go to heaven unless they converted to Christianity. This was my moment of apostasy; how could I consider putting faith in a god that was so unfair as to bring people into this world and then deny them access to heaven just because they had been born in the wrong place? Of course other priests would have argued differently but this experience showed me that religious belief is a matter of personal taste and so there are no absolutes.
I don't think I gave up on the concept of a god altogether but I reached the position, which I more or less still have today, that it does not matter whether there is a god or not. If he (or she) is all-powerful and shows any interest in me and my behaviour then so long as I am a reasonable person, kind to my neighbours and friends and considerate of humanity and the world we live in, then he (or she) would look on me in a kindly way and, if there is a hell, then I would probably not be sent there. I suppose this is a version of Pascal's wager, except that I did not need to believe in God or go to church. the only downside was that I was excluded from the school choir and the madrigal group, the elite singers, who enjoyed all-expenses paid trips abroad during school holidays. A small price to pay for principle, I thought, but also confirming the small-mindedness of the school chaplain and the music master.
Which brings me to the subject of Women Bishops. Despite my lack of religious faith (I do believe in the possibility of goodness in people and I am positive about the future of humanity), I am fascinated by the debate that has gone on in the Church of England about whether to allow, initially, the ordination of women and now their promotion to the position of Bishops. Despite the fact that active membership represents less than 10% of society, the Church of England remains part of the establishment, which is more than just being the "established church", so it plays an important part in our lives whether we want it to or not. We should all be entitled to express a view on its machinations and arguably have a say in how it is managed, though perhaps a national referendum on whether there should be women bishops woudl be a step too far. But I have yet to read, or hear, the real arguments that are put for and against. Well I really mean the arguments against as those "for" women bishops are pretty straight forward.
My suspicion is that the arguments against women bishops are so unreasonable, archaic and illogical that the people who hold this position are afraid and embarrassed to put them forward in public. So in the absence of a clear statement from the antagonists I will have to reach my own conclusions. As far as I can tell the arguments are broadly as follows:
1. Jesus was male.
2. All 12 apostles were male.
3. Women and men have different roles in life ("equal but different") - the bible tells us this.
4. Men are born to lead, although men and women are "equal in the eyes of God" (I am not sure if the bible tells us this as well)
5. The bible is the word of God.
There may be other theological arguments with which I am unfamiliar but these seem to be enough to get on with. But I wonder how anyone with a modicum of common sense, never mind the intellect of a bishop, a Prime Minister or a senior judge, could accept any of this codswallop. The response in each case is clear but lets go through them, just for fun, anyway.
Jesus was male. God did not send non-identical twins, a brother and sister, to save the world but, apparently came himself, in human form (I know this is getting into a difficult theological area and I am not a specialist on the trinity, so excuse me if I have erred in that respect). And as one person, generally speaking, will be either male of female, this singularity cannot logically be used to exclude the other sex. Had he been female of course but then the argument would I assume be that all bishops should be female, which would be equally preposterous, though might have resulted in a very different theology. Perhaps "he" could have been a hermaphrodite but then there would probably be a shortage of priests. We could also create a cast of castratii to serve as priests and bishops (did the Romans not do this?). But perhaps we should move on.
All 12 apostles were male. This may have been true, though a different writing of the text, if for example the church had been led by women, might have treated the women in the story differently. However the fact that they were all male in my view simply reflects the way society was organised at the time. Men were in charge and women were chattels. Now I admit this is speculative on my part as I am not an expert on Rabbinic law of 2000 years ago, though I believe I am right that in Roman law women were subservient to their husbands. But generally it seems clear that women did not have the legal and social rights that we expect today. And you don;t have to go far back in history to recall when that was the case in our own country. So the choice of 12 men as apostles is probably no more than a reflection of society at the time, with women struggling at home to bring up their children, feed the family etc.. while men had the time to wander around the country in small bands, entering into philosophical debates about the meaning of life, the existence and form of god, etc... And probably as important, it reflects male dominance also when most of the new testament was written or revised, by men, in the ensuing centuries after Jesus was executed.
From the two arguments above, one might equally ask why women are allowed in church at all? Should they not get back in the kitchen where they belong preferably with their chastity belts on? If the bible is the word of god then does it not teach us that a women's role in society is either a homemaker and mother, or a whore? No of course not, because this is simply unacceptable today, and indeed there are lots of other models, including of women in positions of power, in the sacred book. It is only a question of how you interpret the word of your god.
Points 3 and 4 above are really extensions of the argument about the apostles all being male, so there is no need to develop them further.
The bible is the word of God. Of course the evidence clearly demonstrates that the bible was written by humans, and further was written and revised over a period of several hundred years after the Birth of Christ. The process was highly political and reflected the changes in the balance of power between various factions within the church. Now it is possible to believe that throughout this process the people involved were reflecting God's ideas, but this does not explain why the bible would be revised over time. Is it likely that God could not make up his (or her) mind? Nice idea but surely not really compatible with any concept of a powerful all-seeing God. Still some people do believe that the bible is indeed the word of God, to be obeyed However the bible is a very long book, written over a long period of time, and there are ample conflicting ideas so there is plenty of room for cherry picking and interpretation. So how can they all be right?
To conclude, because I have gone on too long already, Who needs Women Bishops? Well frankly it does not matter to me what adult Christians do behind closed doors, but it does matter what the Church of England does because it is part of all of our lives, for the time being at least. The institutions representing our society need to be representative of all of us and not factions within it. And if I have understood the arguments against women bishops (which are also arguments against women priests) then they are not arguments of sane intellectuals living in the 21st century. These people should not be allowed to determine the future of the established church in this country.
And a few hundred million others also believe that the Koran is the word of God to be believed and acted upon. These Moslem anti-intellectuals, and the Christian ones implied above, surely represent the greatest threat to humanity and the the long-term survival of our race. It probably does not matter to them as they think they will all go to heaven anyway (though whether there will be enough virgins to go round is another matter). But it does matter to the rest of us and it is time we confronted them. But that is for another day.
