Women Bishops and an Empty Jesus

If yesterday’s Church of England debate about women bishops told us very much at all, it was to do with what happens when pragmatism and popularity becomes confused with principle.

This post isn’t a comment on the rights and wrongs of women bishops—it’s about how you arrive at the positions you hold, and how you argue for those positions.

I’m not an expert on the ins and outs of how the Church of England’s General Synod works, but here are, as reported in the media — eg: here and here — the three main reasons why the church needs female bishops, and needs them now (or at least within the next year).

1. Outsiders think the church is out-of-date, old-fashioned and bigoted
2. There may well not be enough men who would make good bishops.
3. The church has already made up its mind.

These all sound great. But none of them are good.

Firstly, since when did non-Christians’ view of Christians shape what Christians do? The whole mission of a church is to be a both a beacon of and a spotlight on God. That is, local churches are saying to those living in spiritual darkness—look at the light. It’s really very different to the darkness, isn’t it? Our society may think that the church is out of date because it has (or, has had) different views on what it means to be a man and a woman. That does not make those views wrong. It does not make them right. It is what God thinks that is meant to inform what we think. It is better to be in line with him than popular with others; better to offend others than to offend him.

Secondly, since when did we make decisions based on pragmatics rather than principles? If it is right to have female bishops, it’s right because the Bible says it’s right—not because there aren’t very many good guys around. If it’s wrong, it’s wrong—even if there aren’t very many great guys around. The church is called to do what’s right, not what works. (For the record, is it really the case there aren’t enough men? I can think of dozens who lead large congregations, who are used to running staff teams, who preach the Bible faithfully, who are willing to be unpopular and swim against the culture, and who… oh, wait, maybe they’ve just disqualified themselves because of Argument One above.)

Thirdly, the church, according to its own way of doing things, has in fact not made up its mind on women bishops. The General Synod did not vote with the necessary majority to open the possibility for women to be bishops. The church’s own rules necessitate a waiting period, a time for reflecting and listening and checking your own conscience is being informed by Scripture. The church, according to its own practices, made up its mind to take its time.

It’s worth taking the approach being adopted in Synod and applying it to the earthly ministry of Christ. If Jesus had been governed by what was popular, and by what worked pragmatically, he would never have told the truth about who he was, never have challenged our hearts, and never died on the cross. He would have been a God who didn’t speak, a Savior who didn’t rescue, a Lord who didn’t rule, and a Shepherd who didn’t lead. An empty Jesus, a blank slogan for anyone to write their own personal opinions and views onto.

And an empty Jesus is exactly the Jesus you’re left with when you put your own popularity or your own pragmatics ahead of recognizing his Person and following his principles. Regardless of whether you think, on biblical principle, that female bishops are right or not, surely that’s a bad place for the Church of England to be.