''I am a little surprised by the reaction of the Archbishop of Canterbury to the Synod vote yesterday, he is really very angry, any facade of niceness seems to dissappear. His anger seems to be that the dear old CofE seems out of touch. Dave Cameron says he is 'very sad' and a 'sharp prod' is need to keep national institutions are relevant in modern Britain. Another MP called for law to be changed to force church to accept women. The Bishop of Chelmsford said 'Church in danger of being national embarrassment'. A clergywoman: 'We have made ourselves an irrelevance'. And other female clergy are considering leaving 'the ministry'.
It all seems really as if the CofE is nothing other than a branch of government which has failed in promoting its liberal agenda. Rowan Williams warned the church looks out of touch and has 'a lot of explaining to do', some other official had said something like "What does this say to young people?" My answer is, it says nothing, apart from a very small minority, even of its members is really interested in what the Cof E has to say, because in fact, it and maybe all Christian groups, including our own, have become totally irrelevant in forming opinion in the UK Primarily because we all seem to be parroting the same old liberal message of: be nice, rather than speaking with the authority of the Gospel.
The vote yesterday according to the arcane system of the CofE was democratic, and yet that seems to be unacceptable. Those who know about these things say that it was the voice of the under represented bible believing Evangelical laity. The very people who Eton educated but Holy Trinity Brompton - Alpha Course formed Justin Welby was brought in to control. If the idea of female bishops is going to be re-introduced in 5 years time, after all these ladies have left ministry and some of the old liberals have died off and the growing, only growing bit, the Evangelicals, have grown a bit more, the CofE will be a little different.
It is the anger and the frustration that carefully laid plans have just not come off, that really the plebs just haven't done what they should have done, is what seems to be the dominant the reaction today. There is some talk of disestablismentarianism because the CofE doesn't reflect the prevailing social mores. It is that very English thing of making God a subject of the King or latterly parliament, or now more importantly the media, it spattered the brains of St Thomas over the floor of his cathedral. It is the whole problem with being "established" and "establishment" really being Her Majesty's Ministry for Religion.
There was a rather worrying interview with Frank Field on the radio a few minutes saying he intended to introduce a bill to exempt "the Church" from the exemption to the equalities legislation, he said it wouldn't apply to the Catholic Church, "yet", very worrying.
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