Women lose the vote

I’m sat on my sofa, trying to know where to start. Today, after 12 years of consultation, legal wrangling and campaigning, the draft legislation, which would have allowed women to become Bishops, was today rejected. 42 out of 44 of the church’s dioceses have given their backing to women bishops over the last decade and two out of the three houses in the Synod passed the legislation. In the end it came down to six votes in the House of Laity.

It’s a bitter blow for women looking for the Church of England to acknowledge and accredit their God given gifts. I think it’s a bitter blow full stop for the Church of England. Twitter exploded as the result was announced with many claiming that they were ‘ashamed to be part of the Church of England’. The Telegraph describes the decision as ‘plunging the Church of England into its biggest crisis for decades’ with Damian Thompson suggesting that Archbishop of Canterbury elect, Justin Welby faces the prospect of an Anglican Civil War.

It’s not the kind of talk I like to hear about the church. Jesus said that we would be known as his disciples by the love we have for each other. Days like today make me despair – when the church is, instead, known for its infighting, its hypocrisy and its inequality. Today was an opportunity for a part of the church to show that it loved and recognised women the way that Jesus did. But it didn’t.

My prayer is, that in the aftermath of this vote, the church – all of it, really does respond with the love and the grace that should mark us out as Jesus followers. That as those of us who campaigned and prayed for change pick up the pieces to start again, we do so gently if determinedly and that we treat our brothers and sisters as brothers and sisters and not as enemies. The way the next few days, weeks and months are handled will define the church as much, if not more than, today’s vote.

Today a sad decision was made; a decision that seems to restrict women’s liberty. But today’s decision does not define God’s church and it does not define women. Today’s vote does not define me. Or you. It does not stop me from becoming all that I was created to be. It does not stop you. Devastating as it was, today’s vote will, in time, be voted on again and I believe that there will be change. But in the meanwhile, I will carry on leading in the sphere that I am given, I will carry on being a light to the world I live in and I will love those who say I shouldn’t.

I hope that you will too.