The controversy over women bishops encapsulates the challenges to the Anglican Church in the modern world, writes Peter Jensen.
I was asked recently whether I would accept priests ordained by women if the Anglican Church of Australia allowed women to become bishops.
For biblical and historical reasons, I oppose having women bishops and believe they would create great difficulties for communion and fellowship. However, in practice it is likely that I would recognise their ordinations and confirmations, accepting that the intent underlying them is still valid.
The office of bishop touches every parish, every Anglican, every minister and every aspect of church life. Most see the bishop of a diocese as the source and focus of its unity. He represents the diocese in dealing with other dioceses. As the opponents of women priests in the United States and Sweden have found, there is nowhere for conservatives to go within the church when the move to female bishops has been made. It is a major threat to our unity.
The issue of women bishops shows something of the problems which confront the Anglican Church as it meets for its triennial General Synod in Brisbane today. Yet the underlying issue is: how do Christians best respond to the severe challenges to faith from modernity and postmodernity?
There are broadly two strategies. Liberal Christians offer reinterpretations of ancient texts and a rapprochement with current culture. Conservative Christians favour the plain meanings of the Bible and a style which challenges the culture rather than comes to terms with it.
I am convinced that the conservative path is the only way for the church to survive, although I respect the sincerity of liberal Christians.
Christianity has a supernatural core. It says that the tomb of Jesus was empty on the third day and he had been raised to life again. It follows that the world is an utterly different place to the one contemporary culture allows us to believe in. There is life after death, for a start.
I can't see much point in reinterpreting the Resurrection. The world is more likely to believe that Christ rose from the dead physically than in an attenuated spiritualised version such as that presented by the former Bishop of Newark, John Shelby Spong. The full Resurrection is what the original documents claim. If we don't believe them in this, why believe them at all?
But back to the question of women bishops. The yes case goes that because women are already allowed to be priests in most Anglican dioceses in Australia, it follows logically and in justice that they must be able to be bishops. Some conservative Christians also accept this argument.
However, quite a number of people in Sydney and around Australia still believe that allowing women to be priests was wrong. It fits the liberal strategy of accepting the culture's demands, but it fails to do justice to the teaching of the Bible and to a true understanding of the sacraments. So far, the two views can live together in the same church, though uneasily. But women bishops pose a special problem.
Urban Anglicans can usually avoid a woman priest by changing parishes, but you can't avoid your bishop without changing dioceses.
This leads to radical proposals such as that parishes may opt to belong to another diocese altogether. Thus a parish from Melbourne may choose to belong to Sydney. Clearly we are facing potentially deep divisions.
To limit the damage in this debate, the church has been working on possible compromises. More moderate proposals would allow parishes to operate to some extent under another bishop. A male bishop from elsewhere would come into the parish for such events as confirmations. A commendable try, but the outcome satisfies few.
Some Synod members will argue, therefore, simply to have women bishops and let the chips fall where they may despite the serious threat to unity. Others will argue that the church's unity is more significant than having women bishops.
In my view, the problem lies further back, in our willingness to set aside the teaching of the Bible. Either the church's authority is the Bible or we may as well be ruled by the culture in which we happen to live.
The essence of this debate points to the very soul of the church and its relationship with our culture. It should be an interesting week.
Dr Peter Jensen is the Anglican Archbishop of Sydney and Metropolitan of NSW.
Either the church's authority is the Bible or we may as well be ruled by the culture in which we happen to live.