the pussification of the anglican church

Well at least the Anglican church in the West.

And that's not just Western Australia.

In widely unexpected news, and thanks to a loophole in current Anglican canon law, the Anglican Diocese of West Australia has appointed its first woman bishop.

Expect some fawning op-ed from Muriel Porter, Australia's only Anglican laywoman^TM some time soon.

What makes Archdeacon Goldsworthy's appointment a joke, as does the appointment of all women priests and bishops in the Anglican Communion - is that these Anglicans have failed to provide a theological basis for the appointment of women priests and bishops. This is not to say the theological case for opposing women priests and bishops is strong - it isn't really because the Anglicans can't make up their mind about whether the priesthood is sacerdotal or not, and whether that even implies it's only for men (Anglo-Catholics and evangelical Anglicans for example, would both oppose women priests and bishops for different reasons) but at least those who oppose it, try to do so on theological grounds. 

The agitators for women priests and bishops have simply used loopholes in current Anglican canon law to prosecute their case which is based on no more than secular notions of "equality" and even more inappropriately, some "right" to be a minister.  As I have pointed out before, it's theology by polity, and it's a tactic taken straight out of the American Episcopalian activist handbook.

Goldsworthy's appointment is meaningless and in fact, an insult.  Goldsworthy is just a political stooge. Women ministers in other denominations would have more credibility.

I will guarantee you one thing though. The more the Anglicans veer towards the loony left in their theology and politics, the more irrelevant and empty their churches. 

If you want evidence of that, see the ECUSA - the largest Anglican body in the U.S.A. which has dwindled to next to nothing in terms of membership, and where the current high-priestess whose theological education and formation amounts to, um, oh...hmm... is deposing any orthodox Anglican bishop in their midst, and suing every parish that dares oppose 815's loony left political agenda to ensure that its pews are completely emptied.  And it is purely a political agenda.  There is no Christian theology here.

To see how much of a joke the ECUSA has become, look no further than the Episcopal Divinity School - a seminary for Episcopal priests which offers such delightful subjects as:

T 3150 Queer Incarnation
Jordan
7:00-9:00 pm
The incarnation is sometimes presented as an arithmetic problem: What do you get when you add some divinity to a human body? But thinking about incarnation has to start much further back, in the realization that accounts of Jesus show us how little we understand about either divinity or bodies, much less about how bodies can show, act, and becomes divine. Just here and theology of the incarnation can learn from works of queer theory and the writings of queer thinkers. The body of Jesus- despised, de-sexed, and yet miraculously distributed- invites us to an exchange of bodies along the margins of human power and its certainties. We will think about the queerness of Jesus' body with the help of some traditional texts on incarnation and passion (Athanasius, Bonaventure, Aquinas, Julian) and much more recent work on gender performance, bodily transition or transformation, and the rituals of camp.

I'm ever so curious how they get queer out of Athanasius, Bonaventure, Aquinas and Julian (I guess that's because Jesus' body was "queer"), but then, even the preliminary reading list barely features an orthodox Christian author, much less any primary texts. So what's a bit of revisionism here and there.

A commenter at MCJ offers more:

T 3410 Theology of Liberating Queer MDGs
Gillian
Fr 11pm - 2am

Using phenomenological reconstruction of deconstructed postmodern interpretivist readings of selected Gnostic scholia to marginalized "pseudepigraphical" gospels, we shall attempt to liberate the reimagined stories of the historical Jesus from the patriarchal paradigms of repressive premodern historical literalism. Using the seminal works of modern queer theorists, we will examine how this reconstructed Jesus' divinity lies essentially in his embracing of the liminal and rejecting of the privileged center, and how this teaches us that our holiness derives from love of self, as actualized in the passion of the homosexual 'other', and love of world, as incarnated in the MDGs. Prerequisites: Queer Theory, Feminist Theory, Intro to Environmentalism. Some rudimentary familiarity with the New Testament suggested but not required.

Yeah, well, what place the New Testament in a Christian Church.  The seminary has replaced it with Gaia's Gift: Earth, Ourselves and God After Copernicus.

And this one's a treat:

P 1810 Modern Pastoral Counseling, part 2
Himmler
T/Th 5:00-7:00pm

The contemporary Episcopal world offers new challenges in parochial and diocesean communities. In this semester we discuss the uses of terror, propaganda, and psycological warfare against active opponents, as well as continuing our study of manipulation, desensitization, and "victim rhetoric" in cultivating communities of ignorance and apathy. Guest lecturers will include members of the local legal community, ex-Soviet KGB agents, Hollywood musical agents, and an anonymous Italian businessman from the Chicago area.

"Anonymous Italian businessman from the Chicago area?" Well I guess the Lavender Mafia learnt its standover tactics from somewhere. 

Why don't they form a partnership with Randolph College and do field trips, no, work experience at the local brothel? 

No wait, that might imply there's men left in the Episcopal Church.

Indeed, their catalog, which begins with the favourite Hollywood quote from every lefty's favourite syncretist dead Hindu, is the epitome of pussification and queer. 

And blasphemy.

There are many factors that have dragged the Episcopalians down to this gutter level, but one is that conservative Episcopalians didn't have much taste for church politics, leaving room for the loonies to move in and turn the church into a front for their favourite political cause.

Australian Anglicanism can look forward to descending to the same self-parodying sop in the next decade - some dioceses are not far behind now - if Anglican men don't get back to their churches and boot out the girlie-men and their jack-booted sisters.

HT MCJ

Update: Right on queue, The Age - via SMH's Linda Morris - sings praises to the shattered "stained glass ceiling" and wheels out Muriel.

I also don't think Linda realises just how stupid Herft's protocol is - not just in terms of what it says about Goldsworthy's appointment - but also in terms of how stupid she is revealed to be, in the way she reports it:

The protocol included making provision for a retired male bishop or a bishop of a neighbouring diocese to step in to perform largely ceremonial duties in place of a woman if a congregation could not accept female ministry.

Ceremonial duties? *rolls eyes*