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[Starver]

Was tempted to entitle the thread "The Evolution of Faith", but it'd have put the wrong spin on the whole thing...  Let's just say that I've seen enough discussions about faith (its nature, its efficacy, the justifications, whether it applies to 'scientific beliefs' as well) gone awry (or phase in and out of good-naturedness, alarmingly), and I think this is something I'd want to avoid.  I'd appreciate it if we stay away from that lot.  Not that I can stop you.  (Although I suppose I could, if I have the right to lock the thread, or Toady/Threetoe does, but that's really not something I'd want to happen.)

No, instead I was wondering if there was a more anthropological discussion to be wrung out of the following.  Can we follow that train of thought?  Pompous of me, perhaps.  Totalitarian, maybe.  Me, who probably (temporarily, at least) derails as many threads as any equivalently prolific poster, so probably shouldn't be deigning to mention it anything even when that isn't malice aforethought.... 

However...

It may or may not have come to your attention that the Anglican Church has been having a bit of a difference of opinion with itself about the possibility of Women Bishops™.  There's already been a concession put forward (simplifying greatly) that parishes whose parishioners are against female clergy shall not be forced to accept female clergy, in other words that there should always be a male alternative to any appointment.  (Again, I repeat that this is simplified, and it may also suffer from the fact that I have no involvement in Anglican affairs and thus am taking on board what is reported in the news.)

Today, I heard, there may be a further concession.  Given that such parish groups as mentioned above do not accept the authority of any form of female-headed bishopric, they are also entitled to not take male clergy whose ordination was performed by such females as have have attained sufficient seniority.  Presumably because they do not recognise the 'handing down' of powers.  Thus, I further surmise, they would not accept male clergy ordained by male clergy ordained by a female member of the church.  And so on.


This brings to bear an interesting situation.  The measures announced are there in order to prevent the splitting of the Anglican faith (in some cases whole nations' sub-specie of Anglican church object, or else object to to the objections, in other cases there may be a split of opinion from one parish to the next, in a patchwork nature across an otherwise pretty much similar terrain of faith.

But if this is the case, we end up with an interesting proposition, as now the subsets of the Church that decry female involvement (and, please, the merits or not of this opinion is also not my intended aim) will seek for each candidate, for posts in their particular conglomeration of ecclesiastical establishments, someone essentially with a 'pedigree' untainted by the feminine touch.  While the remainder of the possible appointees are going to gain a position only within the 'asexual' portions of the church.

Anthropologically, this would be an interesting development to monitor, for there are a number of possible outcomes.  In one, the success of female integration could achieve such a degree of success that the pool of 'untainted' clergy becomes vanishingly small, forcing those exercising their rights to the exception to recant their position, as soon as they realise that (however competent the suitable cohort of candidates might be) at some point they're going to be faced with the option of a 'dreg', or low-competence 'pure blood' priest, rather than get a pretty nifty pick out of the legion of 'mud-blood'-descended alternatives.  (And, who knows, may even have by now moved to a philosophical position whereby they reverse their original reticence against actual female clergy!)

In another option, the massed-ranks of the candidates themselves recognise something of the above, and consider that remaining 'pure' may give them a shoe-in to just about any strictly gender-conforming parish of their choice.  Thus they eschew being elevated (directly, or indirectly) by the female lineage of church officials, essentially 'breeding out' the "faith-gene" for women clergy.

Of course, there's also the possibility that neither of the above effects will dominate and either an uneasy truce will arise out of an unstable (or meta-stable) equilibrium, but far more likely than that would be the actual splitting of the church into gynophilic and gynophobic variants, producing the schism that these original measures were intended to alleviate.  Like a fault in the Earth's crust that's been allowed to slip a little, but still builds up pressure so that it does eventually rupture and produce a quake...

Or, to continue that last analogy, by relieving the pressure in this spot, it creates new pressures in another area.  Once members of the worldwide Anglican community realise that such 'arrangements' are possible for this matter of disagreement, what other niggling little alternate interpretations might then arise, with accompanying demands for either rulings over them to exhibiting total conservatism/liberalism of POV, or intended to generate further "you shalt not do what you don't want (even though many want to, and will)" allowances to various local sensibilities.


I could open a poll on which way this might swing, but I'm actually quite interested in what freeform thought might exist over this point, rather than tie you down to  finite, discreet and (presumably) mutually-exclusive options.  Like I said, I'm not really interested in the legitimacy or otherwise of the positions, but am really looking at how you might think the situation would pan out...  There are a few options and directions that I've not mentioned, e.g. something that takes into account the Catholic Church's apparent offer to absorb (with special, Hong Kong-style freedom from the incompatible parts of the ruling organisation's main doctrine) such dissatisfied elements of the Anglican Church.  (I believe that some flocks have... well.. flocked to the side of their 'papist saviour'.)  Maybe you'd like to riff upon connotations derived from these other alternatives?

If anyone's bothered.

(Oh, and need I add that if you are Anglican, then of course you can contribute, but it's not supposed to be about "whether it's right or wrong", so that might best be omitted or downplayed.  Oh dear, I really am sounding like a thread-Nazi, but it's just that I don't want this to become an actual faith battleground.  And, 'believe' me, I have opinions of my own which I should hopefully not have made a relevant issue in my writings here, so far.)

((And anyone caught copying this whole thing, verbatim, onto an actual bit of coursework for their current educational establishment frankly needs their head looking at!  Especially if it's supposed to be math(s) homework!!))

[Loud Whispers]

Eek, Christianity is splitting again over trivial issues! What an exciting new change of events!
Although given the nature of the organisation of the church, I doubt we'll be seeing mud-blood/pure-blood (lol) levels of departure.
(And of course, it'll happen word for word, because I'm terrible at predictions).

[Leafsnail]

Hmm... it hasn't been confirmed whether they'll allow the "appointed by a woman" virus to spread through an unlimited number of people yet, has it?  I think they'd probably have it only go on for one generation (ie any male bishops appointed by a male appointed by a woman are valid) if the situation becomes too insane.  They've already made their point by then.

Although assuming they don't do something sensible like that or just break off into the Catholic church it would be pretty funny.  A kindof genetic virus "infecting" some portion of the clergy (which would include women) with the other portion basically completely cut off from them and all male (I'd imagine the "anti-female bishops" people would basically just form a faction and never let any women be appointed to it).

[Wayward Device]

Actually, there was a recent mass breaking away of a parish to the Catholic Church, so...

Edit: I've decided that it must be a scam along the lines of "new coke".

[Zrk2]

Just to clarify - the Anglican Church is essentially Catholic only with the monarch as the head of the church, right?

If it is this brings up an even more interesting question; can they remain Anglican if the head of the Anglican church is female?

Oh the controversy!

[Leafsnail]

It's inherently protestant, so... it's not really very much like the Catholic church.  The queen does pretty much nothing with regards to it.

[Ancre]

Iirc, Anglicans see themselves as in-between protestantism and catholicism. They do have a clergy, after all. Which is why we have this thread.

Do Anglicans have female priests though ? I mean, they probably do, since the issue is about female bishops, but how accepted are women priests ? (Or is the clergy system much more different than catholicism than I first thought ? )

[ggamer]

Eek, Christianity is splitting again over trivial issues! What an exciting new change of events!
Although given the nature of the organisation of the church, I doubt we'll be seeing mud-blood/pure-blood (lol) levels of departure.
(And of course, it'll happen word for word, because I'm terrible at predictions).

You know, originally, I wrote out a comprehensive guide on why you are wrong.

However, i'll settle for this:

Most of the splits in the church have not been trivial. You aren't funny. OF COURSE people in the church can, will, and have split, that's what caused the freaking protestant reformation.

Good enough?

[kaijyuu]

Yeah most the schisms were over big issues. Like, you know, predestination, those donations that got you out of purgatory time, etc.


The Bible is contradictory and vague (not to mention all the extra stuff on top of the Bible for various denominations), so of course people are going to cherry pick what they like and make a religion out of it (or patch all the plot holes with a fanfiction (no offense to Mormons)).

[ggamer]

so of course people are going to cherry pick what they like and make a religion out of it

Thaaaat's the one problem with most christians. Instead of following all parts of the bible (Or the new testament, still praying, learning, and asking about the whole old vs. new testament and which should be followed deal).

[Starver]

Might as well step in to say that "Anglican" (in my mind) describes a worldwide alliance of churches based upon the Church Of England, which was originally essentially a form of derived-Protestantism split from Catholicism because of old Henry VIII's little spat with the pope (and one or two of his wives), but is not Lutheran Protestantism (something that H8 wrote against, although that might have been him currying favour with the Pope, before he snapped over the whole divorcing issue), and there are "more protestant" and Calvinistic offshoots.  I believe it also counts as Reformed Catholic, under some measures.

But, anyway, as the English/British Empire rose and fell, it left behind churches modelled to some degree or other after it in many of the colonial lands[1], and they coalesced into the Anglican movement.  Some of them are explicitly "Church of England in <countryname>", others are less obviously nominative in their connection.  I suppose it's a kind of "Coalition of the Willing" in religious terms, with each sub-church being "it's own boss", although some might argue that the Archbishop Of Canterbury is its formally ordained head much as The Queen is of The Commonwealth (as well as "Defender Of The Faith" and titular head of the CofE, and others), even while each Commonwealth country has its own political leaders.

And, as per the Commonwealth countries not having to take orders from the Queen, there's nothing to say the AoC is going to be listened to.  There are always little spits and spats going on (there was a problem with the Zimbabwe church, but ditto with, and doubtless related to, the non-ecumenical spats between the Commonwealth and Zimbabwe) but it has held itself together.  I think the ordination of women is one of the biggest fractures.

There's been historic integration of women into posts for a couple of centuries, but it only really started to be 'serious' in the late '80s and early '90s[2], but the concept of "Women Bishops" came to be fully-formed a mere handful of years ago, late in the last decade.  The Queen's role has (despite some doo-daa with holy oil, etc, during her coronation) no truly ordained manner to it, and more figurehead on the ship than a captain at the wheel, IYSWIM.  (Charles, next in line, expressed an interest in being identified as "Defender Of The Faiths", IIRC, as and when (and if) he ascends to the throne.  Which would include everything from Buddhism to Bahai.)


But for the purposes of the OP of mine, I was very much boiling it down to whether a 'speciation' might occur, due to the enforced separation (although, technically, gender-strict members could re-integrate into gender-free areas[3]), and whether the relative pressures might allow both sub-populations to dominate, or just one.

It could of course go the way of the non-explosive 'fragmentation' that occurred within the Church Of Scotland (having a complicated history already) to produce "The Wee Frees" out of the (largely) Evangelical factions.  Although on their facebook pages the words "It's complicated" would generally appear where the relationships information resides.

But bear in mind, in all my attempts to describe these things above, that I'm not personally a God-fearing person of any denomination (you could pretty much put me down as a "God-disregarding" individual), I just happen to have an interest in mass-psychology that totally eclipses any ability/interest I have in deciphering any particular individual's mindset.


But, anyway, it looks like other questions have come to the for.  If you could keep the judgemental bits down a bit in volume, I don't otherwise mind where this thread is currently wandering.  I realise I didn't really give as many opportunities to add something new to the exact issues I posted in my initial contribution.


[1] Probably including the US, although of course, famously, the Pilgrim Fathers were most definitely not "CofE".  They also weren't actually "escaping religious persecution", but were arguably going somewhere where their own more strict religious doctrine was no longer going to be a problem...

[2] With, arguably, the most profound effect of this as far as I am concerned having been the envisaging and creation of the sitcom "The Vicar of Dibley".  Which I consider brilliant, but YMMV.

[3] A bit like Rugby League accepts former Rugby Union players, but not vice-versa.

[Wayward Device]

[1] Probably including the US, although of course, famously, the Pilgrim Fathers were most definitely not "CofE".  They also weren't actually "escaping religious persecution", but were arguably going somewhere where their own more strict religious doctrine was no longer going to be a problem...

Heh, its actually perfectly fine from a historical perspective to say that they were fleeing religious freedom. Sorry, couldn't resist.

On a more on topic note, I'd like to add a few details about the Church of England that are absent from Starver's otherwise excellently informative post. Basically, its surprisingly liberal. As well as the women priests and the proposed women bishops it allows gay priests (as long as they don't actually do naughty stuff with other men). I presume that the same rules applies to lesbian priests. This also means that one of its big problems is that it is already loosing market share to more hardcore versions of Christianity, be they Catholic of Protestant.

Another recent trend is for... I don't really know how to term it. Basically, people who are CoE to get their kids into a church school, 'cos their usually as good as a private school but free. Anyway, hope that was slightly informative.     

[Loud Whispers]

You know, originally, I wrote out a comprehensive guide on why you are wrong.

However, i'll settle for this:

Most of the splits in the church have not been trivial. You aren't funny. OF COURSE people in the church can, will, and have split, that's what caused the freaking protestant reformation.

Good enough?

Well isn't that shocking. It wouldn't be like the Church has split countless times over trivial things like decorations now...

Ah, wait, that has happened. Most of the splits, caused by serious issues? Nope. Major splits? Yes. Me being funny? I was quoting the OP. You replied way to seriously to a response to a joke. I'm sure there's a word for that.
And you accept that the Church will continue splitting, but disagree when I say it's going to split, but not cause conflict? Huh.

[Ancre]

Well isn't that shocking. It wouldn't be like the Church has split countless times over trivial things like decorations now...

Like what ? I'm really curious now. I know of the major splits, but I have never heard of a split over decorations.

[MonkeyHead]

Female Archbishop of Cantebury when Rowan Williams steps down in the near future would be hilarious.