On Being Weird and "Religious Hipsterism"
Yesterday, the Church of England voted to allow the ordination of female bishops . This was a significant move in the context of the Anglican world. While many of the daughter churches of the Church of England (the US Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada, for two examples) have had women bishops for some time, many others do not, and have justified their decision on the basis of the fact that the English Church has not made that move. It also has significant theological importance--like the Catholics and Orthodox, the Anglicans believe that bishops are the direct successors of the Apostles, and so allowing a woman to be ordained as a bishop is a statement that women are (and, on some level, always were) proper successors to that ministry. It does not come as a great surprise that Catholic conservatives have used this as an opportunity to resume the Old Rivalry and throw stones at the Anglicans. In particular, folks seem to have gravitated to a co...