I happened to be in London when the Church of England voted to reject female bishops. The verdict came as quite a surprise. Women have been ordained as priests in the Church for twenty years, and allowing them to become bishops would certainly seem to be the next logical step. Twelve years of negotiations between “reformers” and “traditionalists”—apparently a way of life in the C of E—had culminated in a compromise under which dissenting parishes not wanting to be under the authority of a female primate could request hierarchal supervision by a male. Both the soon-to-retire Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, and his about-to-be-installed successor, Justin Welby, energetically advocated for the reform. In the run up to the vote, most commentators believed that the resolution allowing woman bishops would receive the General Synod’s overwhelming support. 
And indeed, it did. Seventy-four percent of all four hundred-plus voting members voted ‘yes.’ But it wasn’t a simple referendum: Church rules require a two-thirds approval in each of the three “Houses” that make up the Synod—Bishops, Clergy, and Laity. Because traditionalists elected enough of their own to the House of Laity two years ago, they were able to prevent the requisite majority in that body by six votes.
Uproar! Thunder and lightning! Wailing and gnashing of teeth! Newspapers—conservative and liberal alike—ran screaming headlines decrying the “scandal” of rejection. Caustic editorials flew in all directions. The Church was accused of “committing suicide.” Even Prime Minister David Cameron decried the rejection from the floor of Parliament, warning darkly that the Church of England had better “get with the program.”
As an American, it was a bemusing experience. I had never seen an entire nation react so viscerally to the action—or in this case, inaction—of a church.
But I was astonished when, the day after the vote, the Archbishop of Canterbury not only bemoaned the failure in his farewell speech to the General Synod, but also insisted that the Church had betrayed its responsibility to reflect the sensibilities and values of the general culture: “Whatever the motivation for voting yesterday,” Williams sternly lectured his flock, “whatever the theological principle on which people acted or spoke,” dissenters had to understand that their objection to woman bishops “is not intelligible to wider society. Worse than that, it seems as if we are willfully blind to some of the trends and priorities of wider society.”
Whatever his settled views of the matter, the unfortunate suggestion in these remarks is that the Church of England has the duty to be of as well as in society, rather than in, but not of it—a breathtaking assertion for a major Christian leader that turns the traditional and proper role of faith on its head.
There may be something to this. Perhaps bowing to the sensibilities of “wider society” is the price paid for being an established church—as opposed to a mere “sect,” the term applied to other churches and religions in the public discussion. Sects can believe as they please. Mosques can segregate women from men. Catholics can insist on celibate clergy. Evangelical Protestants can oppose homosexuality in their preaching (although saying so in the public square can land one in legal trouble).
But the Church of England is a national as well as a religious institution. That means, apparently, that its dogmas and governing policies are expected to generally parallel the broad social values of society.
That comprehension had me thanking the Founding Fathers. When they enacted the First Amendment prohibiting the “establishment of religion,” they guaranteed there would never be a Church of the United States. The point was to ensure that people would be free to worship as they choose (or not).
But with the culture having become generally “post-Christian,” the Establishment Clause now also protects the freedom of churches. Can any state-established church long retain the fortitude to speak truth to power when its leaders consider themselves obligated to follow “the trends and priorities of wider society”? No wonder the Archbishop didn’t defend the Church’s prerogatives by telling Cameron to shove off with his criticism. The threat of disestablishment was in the air.
Here’s a further irony: Statues honoring Christian martyrs—including Martin Luther King—have been installed above the main entrance to Westminster Abbey. But what Christian was ever martyred for adhering to mainstream cultural values?
It is amazing that Rowan Williams, a widely respected scholar of Church history, would urge the church toward such a blatantly conformist course. Under his theory of fitting in, for example, should early Christians have attended the wildly popular gladiator games in order to prove they were not “blind” to the values of their culture? Rather than seeming aloof and intolerant, should they have participated in pagan feasts and consumed meat dedicated to idols? Heck, maybe they should have gone through the motions of emperor worship—such as famously required by Pliny the Younger and approved by Trajan—to avoid martyrdom.
I mean, dying rather than lighting incense to a statue? How “not intelligible to wider society.”
Wesley J. Smith is a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute’s Center on Human Exceptionalism. He also consults for the Patients Rights Council and the Center for Bioethics and Culture. His previous “On the Square” articles can be found here.
RESOURCES
BBC, “Women bishops: Church of England general synod votes against,” November 20, 2012
Letter of Pliny (the Younger) to the Emperor Trajan
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Comments:
in my opinion, whatever assertions are made regarding the vulnerability of a faith to the hammer of mundane political organizations should at least attempt to confront that fact. viewing this question through the narrow prism of the United States offers little.
For the next century, "Protestantism" became the battlefield for the English monarchs and their increasingly restive nobles who used rivalrous concepts of Protestantism as stalking horses in their efforts to establish their competing supremacies in the State of England. That culminated in the English Civil War and the brothers Stuart, who succeeded to the throne in the Restoration at the end of that period, were so disgusted with the use of religion as a pawn for political games that they resolved to allow for toleration of all Christian religions so the people clould decide for themselves. They did that despite the fact that they were the acknowledged heads of the only Church in England with a right to exist! Indeed, both Charles II and James II, who had a Catholic mother and had been exposed to Catholicism throughout their long exiles, converted to Catholicism.
That enlightened rulership, though, was not welcomed by any of the nobles' factions, and it led to wrangling throughout Charles II's reign and to a second revolution during James II's reign to make sure a king never dared allow for religious liberty again. That is where things have stood in England ever since. The monarch, assisted by the Abp. of Canterbury, has a ceremonial role in the life fo the Church (whether he wants one or not) but it is Parliament that gets to make all significant decisions about the Anglican Church.
Your version of the evolution of religious liberty in Britain is a little one-sided. I am an American Catholic whose mother converted from Episcopalianism at a time when it was getting a bit silly, so I have my suspicions of Anglicanism as well. However, portraying Mary Tudor and the Stuarts as champions of religious liberty is a bit much. While not nearly the tyrant her father was, Mary Tudor did burn English protestants at the stake in an attempt to undue the Reformation. The early Stuarts, James I and Charles I, persecuted both calvinist dissenters and Roman Catholics. That is why English colonies like Massachusetts and Maryland had to be founded in North America. Religious liberty is a relatively new concept in human history, so maintaining a narrow established church was not unusual at that time. When Oliver Cromwell came to power, he proclaimed religious liberty for Protestant dissenters, but not for Catholics. James II was originally for liberty for Catholics, but not Protestant dissenters. James II later endorsed religious liberty for both groups, but historians debate about whether this was purely pragmatic because at the time his popularity was dropping. Finally, this is not "where things have stood ever since." In the nineteenth century, Roman Catholicism was legalized in Britain, and Catholics were gradually allowed to vote and hold public office. This post may seem a bit nit-picky, but since your main objection is the author's ignorance of history, you seem to invite it.
This is the exact reason I left the Episcopal Church in 2005 to return to the Roman Catholic fold. I want to know Christ, His crucifixion and resurrection. I want to know HIS gospel, not the ever-changing, ever-declining morality of death which is too often excused as preaching in our churches today.
"portraying Mary Tudor and the Stuarts as champions of religious liberty is a bit much...."
Talk about straw women!! I never said Mary Tudor was a champion of religious liberty. She wasn't a proponent of religious liberty generally; she simply wanted to restore the freedom of the pre-existent Church that had existed before her father's thefts and that had at one point been guaranteed by Magna Carta. She therefore sought to return the Church's property to the Church and to get the state out of the business of running the Church.
By contrast, Charles II and James II Stuart WERE champions of religious liberty generally and Mr. Willems discussion of Charles I and James I is simply irrelevant (they were part of the problem). As to his claim that James II wanted religious liberty for Catholic alone at first, that is simply untrue and a bit of "Whig historical revisionism."
In truth, James II was his predecessor-brother Charles's close advisor and Charles II had long proposed religious toleration for the Protestant dissenters as well as for the Catholics, so when James came to the throne 25 years later, there was no question that toleration was for dissenters as well as for Catholics. The best proof of that comes in James II"s and Charles II's sponsorship of Quaker Dissenter William Penn, who had been all.owed to found a tolerant colony in the woods of America.
As for those "left behind," sins usually contain within them the seeds of their own punishment. Beware of what you ask for.
If one looks at James' constant, and ultimately successful (but it was all undone in 1689) attempts to force religious toleration (including toleration for Jews, as well as for Catholics and "peaceable" sectarians) upon the highly-reluctant legislature of "his" colony of New York from the early 1670s onward, one will have no basis for the qualifications found in the above-excerpted comment.
The Church is in its essence spiritual, not material. As such, when God in His Providence permits its material possessions to be stolen, it does not matter in any truly important sense. The faith of Christians requires that such events be accepted as part of God's perfect plan for the world.
A product of academic theological circles, he showed little sensitivity to the pastoral concerns of the Anglican bishops of the developing world. Treating them as children to be patted on the head, while talking to the adults-in-the-room (e.g., Bishops of the ECUSA, Canada, and other erstwhile strongholds for Anglicanism) has driven the Anglican Commune to split in practice if not formally (yet). A great scholar, yet pastorally obtuse and morally confused.
"Meantime, Prime Minister David Cameron has warned the church to think again -- and fast -- about its "very sad" rejection of women bishops.
Chris Bryant, a Labour member of Parliament and former Anglican vicar, has proposed stripping the church's exemption from the Equality Act of 2010, which prohibits gender-based discrimination. Bryant has also proposed denying seats to the 26 bishops who sit as "Lords Spiritual" in the House of Lords until the church changes its position on women bishops."
One NCR correspondent asked what would the American Catholic Church look like if it had to hew the government line that way. My thought is that the American Cuomo Catholic Church would have seats filled by Biden, Pelosi, DeLauro, Leahy, and Dodd, praying to St. Ted of Hyannisport (patron of "social justice" and possibly refuge of swimmers) while its universities conferred accolades on Barack Obama.
As far as I can tell, outside media and church circles very few people care about the Church of England's attitude to women bishops or anything else. It could hardly be otherwise - less than 2% of the population attend the services of the "national" church. It was the same with the death of Princess Diana in 1997 - the media was crammed with garbage about a nation in mourning, when my main recollection of that week is of myself and my colleagues laughing our heads off at Diana jokes in the pub.