A divide widens in the anglican church

There are times when the great events of the day are glimpsed through a prism of small, personal rituals and modus operandi that offer new penetration, almost a kind of truth.

And so it seemed for some Christians contemplating the paroxysm within the hierarchy of the Anglican Church over the vexed inquiry of allowing the assignment of women bishops.

Finally, 16 years after permitting the ordination of women priests, the full general Synod of the Christian church of England took the first step this past week toward the consecration of female bishops, followers the pattern prevalent in the United States, Commonwealth of Australia and Canada.

But far from being feted as a progressive tense step forwards, the minute seemed drowned out by the minority voices of churchman and lay worshipers opposed to the lift of women to the diocese.

Barely had the votes of the full general Synod been counted when senior clergymen (and they were, so, men instead than women of the cloth) began to complain that the Christian church was, in the words of one diehard, "mean-spirited and shortsighted" in rejecting the idea of so-called superbishops to oversee those parishes opposed to female bishops.

There was talk - progressively common in the worldwide Anglican Holy Communion - of split, of rebel churchman abandoning their ministry within the Christian church of England to march toward the Christian church of Rome, reversing the historic split inside Christendom inspired by Henry VIII in the 16th century.

For centuries, the break with Rome molded the personal identity of many English language worshipers, and yielded a telephone exchange element of the Anglican self-perception as tolerant, pragmatic and, most of all, mugwump. Now, for some, the Vatican Palace itself - deeply opposed to female clergy - offering a beacon fire of faith.

The Anglican Communion claims a global membership of about 80 million, an progressively fractious body riven by debates between reformers and traditionalists, pulled this way and that by the liberalism of the Episcopal Church in the United States and by the conservatism of many African church leaders.

But the debate about the appointment of female bishops in the Church of England - the historical wellspring of the communion - seemed curiously at odds with the practices that have become normal in many ordinary parishes, where the place of women in the church is not even an issue except at the level of theological debate.

Indeed, it is hard to imagine how many churches would survive as bastions of male exclusivity.

It is perhaps a conflict of interest for a reporter to cite something as familiar and personal as experiences at a local church. But there is some value in juxtaposing the wordy debate among the primates, or church leaders, against the parochial reality of the priest.

Take, for instance, St. Anne's Church in Highgate, north London, where a thriving, middle-class congregation listens to a woman lay-preacher's sermons, takes communion from female lay assistants (albeit to the male vicar) and depends on energetic women not only for tasks like flower arranging and running rummage sales and the church shop - the lowly tasks long delegated to women by men - but also for high-powered fund-raising to replace the leaky roof.

The cantor is a woman, the organist a man, the congregation mixed.

Surely, it cannot be a sustainable argument that, in the 21st century, when, as The Guardian newspaper put it, "the equal treatment of women is quite simply one of the great moral causes of humankind," the contribution of women should be limited to their ordination as priests, or flower-arrangers.

The dissenting voice against female bishops is a powerful one, arguing that Jesus' exclusive choice of men as disciples offers theological justification for their beliefs.

And it is worth noting that, in the General Synod's voting, the appointment of female bishops was approved by the narrowest margin - 111 to 68 - among lay representatives at the gathering, not among bishops (28 for, 12 against) or lesser clergy (124 for, 44 against).

In journalists' shorthand, the question of females in the priesthood is frequently mentioned in the same breath as the appointment of openly gay clerics to describe the Anglican fault line.

From many perspectives, these are separate issues, driven by different doctrinal arguments and social perspectives. Yet, divisions over both these matters will almost certainly overshadow one of the most significant Anglican gatherings - the 10-yearly assembly of 800-plus bishops, known as the Lambeth Conference, beginning in Canterbury, England, on July 16.

Already the Anglican mainstream - personified in the archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Reverend Rowan Williams - is reeling from the creation of the Global Anglican Future Conference, a traditionalist movement created last month in Jerusalem by conservatives, mainly but not exclusively from Africa, who say they represent a majority of the world's Anglicans.