Thank God!!

I think this is a brave and prophetic move by the Church of Sweden, and I very much hope that the Church of England will learn from it. How long will it be before here in England the church is courageous enough to appoint a bishop who 'has extensive experience as a vicar'. Well done, Sweden!

Doh! Thanks to possibly the most tenuous link in Christendom the Church of England will no doubt be in crisis again tomorrow morning!

Well said, Toby!

BRAVO CHURCH OF SWEDEN and FELCIDADES to Bishop-elect Brunne (also a big abrazo to our friend Göran Koch-Swahne who often keeps us ¨posted¨ on great, and positive, events that come to pass in his beloved Sweden at Church).

Wow, the conservative blogs are going to have a tabloid-style field day when they get hold of a Swedish lesbian bishop story!

Interestingly, the British press ran lots of headlines about "world's first lesbian prime minister" in Iceland recently, whereas the Scandinavian press didn't give her sexuality so much as a mention: I would predict the same here.

You go, girl! And the Church of Sweden, too.

"How long will it be before here in England the church is courageous enough to appoint a bishop who 'has extensive experience as a vicar'."

Well, it has happened - occasionally, but it is often said of bishops who take very hard lines on things (such as homosexuality): "he's never run a parish", sc. and so knows nothing of the dignified compromises people of very different persuasions make with obvious realities".

Funnily enough, this is often said of Tom Wright, Anglicanism's leading theologian. Why, oh Why, can that be?

A perplexed John.

"On Monday the Diocese of Stockholm voted for a new bishop. The person who won is called Eva Brunne, and she will be the fifth female bishop in the Church of Sweden.

I know her a little. My experience of her is that she is wise, kind, pious, structured, humble and funny. She is also known to be loyal and a very good leader who takes care of her flock, both employees and other sheep" - smiles -

Sounds like a good bilbical 'Bishop' to me, and she does, after all, have only one wife!

How refreshing to hear from someone with the name "smiles" who recommends this newest Bishop of the Flock as someone of great integrity, whose loyalty, piety and humility have been experienced by others in the Church! May God richly bless her ministry as Sweden's newest Bishop. And at least, she does actually love one other person besides herself.

"Sounds like a good [Biblical] 'Bishop' to me, and she does, after all, have only one wife!"

*LOL* Fr. Ron!

Meanwhile, TEC ties itself in Windsor-Compliant knots, re whether to consecrate another gay-partnered bishop, and the CofE chases its tail re whether to consecrate ANY woman a bishop. |-p

God bless the Church of Sweden!

No Ron, Prästflickan isn't called "Smiles", she is called Maria ;=)

I wonder whether the C of E will send a bishop to be among her co-consecrators... ?

Oh, she's a lesbian. I didn't pick up on that. Sorry, I don't see what that's got to do with anything. Please can we have one of those as a bishop as well? Then we can all forget about what people do in the bedroom and worry about how they run a diocese.

Strange...

Not a sound from the refusniks so far ;=)

Sorry, Maria. I just could not resist the *smiles* metaphor - which seems so suitable for the celebration of God's gift of joy at this announcement. But your is a lovely and honoured name in the Universal Church.

""How long will it be before here in England the church is courageous enough to appoint a bishop who 'has extensive experience as a vicar'."

"Well, it has happened - occasionally,..."

So - where DO they come from? In the States, I think I'm accurate in saying that most of our bishops started as parish priests - some got to be cathedral deans before being elected bishop, but very few have NOT had parish experience.

Where do you guys get yours?

Cynthia: they generally have to have been on lots of committees for many years mixing with other people who think committees are terribly important, and being very careful to avoid expressing strong opinions.

I’m still curious as to the guilty (?) silence from the usual suspects; those who always fuss.

Is it a refutation of what we saw in the case of the Bishop of New Hampshire a couple of years ago?

Or is it Gender?

Is it easier to heap scorn and death threats on a gay man than on a woman?

Is it actually more “normal/expected” to be gay for a male bishop than for a lady bishop?

How about Colour? Bishop Harris of 20 years hence? Her successor, also a Bishop Harris? A relative silence there too, from those who always fuss.

Or is it Ecclesiology? Is it easier to pretend that an Anglican “Church” is somehow the overall umbrella giving the disaffected a right to accuse and complain, than to criticise a Church – in full communion since at least the early 18th century – but understood to be autonomous?

Curiouser and curiouser…

Well we have too many real queer folks on the planet to be able to exactly target them all at once, simultaneously. Even our most weaponized doctrines are finite in application?

So, now we focus, focus, focus. Spot in our crosshair lenses are? Gay or lesbian couples who have made life commitments to each other, and of course as tradition has it, also to the surrounding community of family members, friends, and faith community. Why these gay folks are best targets from among all the other possibles, hard to say?

Used to be, the moralistic targeting was all aimed at Fast Lane queer folks. That was the only sort of queer folks anybody bothered to suspect or perceive.

Then the HIV/AIDS epidemic shook things up. Queer folks were dying, and other queer folks were looking after them, along with as many friends or family members or neighbors in general who could be bothered to look after them.

As global queer communities aged, a whole new group came into view - committed life couples. Couples have always been present; but did not get all that much press outside, certainly not in official church life forums. In Episcopalian churches in USA Bible Belt states, it would have been odd indeed if at least one covertly known committed gay couple (or more) was not actually well known in particular parishes. More so, in bigger cities on the two USA coasts.

My working suspicion? Couples get targeted especially because their goods are the worst affront to believers who still cling to flat earthisms about how awful gays are. Such couples have simply refused to live down to the worst expectations of traditionalistic believers; and their thriving contradicts all those worst expectations. Family, friends, neighbors of such couples already know, of course. But, shhhh. So many traditionalistic believers do not know, or know that they already know.

Target couples then, before anybody gets the word out.

But in the meantime - just rejoice that "The Lord is doing a new thing" - something a living, breathing Church ought to expect - especially in the Easter Season leading up to Pentecost.

"The Spirit of God fills the whole world, Alleluia" and St. Paul tells us all to beware of resisting the Spirit!

"just rejoice that "The Lord is doing a new thing""

The problem is that for conservatives, New Things are suspect, dangerous, and, in all likelihood, wrong. They will lead to the destruction of society. Better to Keep Things The Way They Were. So, God, if He is in any way good, cannot possibly be doing a New Thing. The last time He did a New Thing was 500 years ago when He allowed a bunch of white European men to decide they knew better than the Apostles and those to whom they passed on the Gospel, what that Gospel actually meant because, 1500 years on, they were finally allowed to read that Gospel poorly translated into their native languages. God hasn't innovated since, having, I assume, learned His lesson after that little folly. Indeed, to do a New Thing would mean that God Himself is a sinner.

That the very reliable Old Latin translaion was changed beyond recognition in 12th century Paris, surely Ford.

And the Church of Sweden is usually about thirty years ahead of the Church of England.

;=)

But the difference New Hampshire - Stockholm?

Bishop for Bishop?

"That the very reliable Old Latin translaion was changed beyond recognition in 12th century Paris, surely Ford."

I'm not sure how this relates to my little bit of sarcasm, Goran. You and I walk closely but not in lockstep an the issue of translation and such things. For instance, we differ on the significance of the non-Pauline material attributed to Paul, since my attitude on those things is High Church rather than scholarly. I'm not a Biblical scholar. Start getting into 12th century translations, however, and I get a bit more uneasy. Bring it up to the 15th and 16th centuries, and I really have difficulty. But then again, trying to build Christianity just from the Bible is like trying to build Stockholm from reading the Fromer's guide.

You're misreading me, Ford. My point is that precisely those that say that "new" is wrong are the ones who changed the Bible. And now they are accusing us!

"My point is that precisely those that say that "new" is wrong are the ones who changed the Bible."

Gotcha! And you're right. Most glaring is how those most enamoured of the Reformation seem unable to comprehend how, in its day, it was a far more radical and innovative reworking of Christianity than anything that is being proposed in the Anglican church today. As I have said before, it appears from the language of the conservatives that 500 years is roughly how long it takes for radical innovation to become "orthodoxy". That, I presume, is why the innovations of the Reformation are considered Good Things, while those of today are "preaching a new religion".

On my other point, though, am I right in assuming that, for you, the Epistles that someone wrote and put Paul's name to are either less authoritative than those we KNOW Paul wrote, or perhaps ought to have no authority at all? Or is that an overstatement?

I knew we are on the same wavelength as to the injustice of the accusations ;=)

As to the 2nd century Letters, you are quite right. I regard some of them as outright forgeries, especially the more Hellenist, that is Gnosticist/Philosophical ones.

Just look at the Pastorals.

They try to represent Paul as anti women and anti slaves, contra his own letters.

At the Time this was palatable for Churches under the influences of the Culture of their day, but I don't think w e should treat it as written by Paul when we k n o w they are contrary to his own views, Theological, Ecclesiological, Sociological.

To me it's a small matter of Thruth. And False Witness.

"To me it's a small matter of Thruth. And False Witness."

I get your point. But there is the matter of the fixing of the Canon. If it was nothing more than a group of men, well intentioned or otherwise, selecting from the extant writings what is "of God" and what isn't, I'd share your ideas. But if God had a hand in it, we can't just say that because something was falsely attributed to Paul, it is therefor a forgery or "not Scripture", however you interpret that phrase. Also, there is the fact that Paul was a man, inspired though he might have been. So, and I know this sounds like I'm making your argument in a sense, why wouldn't his followers develop his ideas, and why would that negate their writings? The Spirit, we believe, DOES lead us into all Truth. As I see it, authorship was an important consideration for deciding the Canon, but not the only one. It is the consistency of the teaching contained in a document with what those early Christians knew the Gospel to be that matters. So, how do we reconcile that with what you so rightly state, that some of the documents falsely attributed to Paul contradict what we know were Paul's ideas? Like I said, I'm not a Biblical scholar, answering these questions is why they pay you the Big Bucks:-) But, I am not at all comfortable with the idea that we can just reject certain parts of the Canon 2000 years on because we know some of it wasn't written by the people it is claimed to be written by.

"... and why would that negate their writings?"

Only because they themselves try to negate Paul.

The rest of their writings may be interesting and even valuable on their own merits - but not as the Gospel.

IM not so humble O

The sub-ordination of women and slaves was not acceptable to Paul, by his own writs. They are not acceptable to us. They shouldn't be made acceptable in the Church no matter History.

The 2nd century letters have all been - and are still being - abused for Socio-Political teachings pro abstinences, anti women, pro slavery, anti gay and pro war, to give a few examples - promoting the values of Hellenism.

We shouldn't fall for them!

"We shouldn't fall for them!"

So, after nigh on 2000 years, should we chuck them out of the Canon? Or should we designate them as somehow less authoritative than the other books of Scripture, however we define "authoritative"? I'm sure there are other options, but not only can I not come up with them, I'm sure most conservatives wouldn't even try. How DO we deal with the fact that we have in our Canon of Scripture books that were not written by the person to whom they were ascribed, and which contradict works we KNOW were written by that person? I'm reading an interesting, if somewhat arrogantly named, book called What Paul Meant. The issue of Paul's disagreements with himself is addressed, though I haven't finished it yet. Do you know the book, is it worthwhile for a layman to read it? One thing I have been thinking about is, given that Paul seems somewhat proud about being "all things to all people", or one might say, "telling people what they like to hear", I have to ask, how does he decide what things to flip/flop on and what things to hold the line on? For instance, and this is hypothetical, if he tells one group that women shouldn't address the conregation and seems to think it's OK in other circumstances, might that just be because the issue of women's participation in the ecclesia's worship is just not, for him, a core issue, and if some people have problems with it, so be it, leave 'em alone so as to avoid discord? Is it true to say that our pathological desire for theological uniformity is largely a product of Constantine's need for an Imperial religion that was uniform across his Empire, and not a part of the Gospel at all?

"One thing I have been thinking about is, given that Paul seems somewhat proud about being "all things to all people", or one might say, "telling people what they like to hear", I have to ask, how does he decide what things to flip/flop on and what things to hold the line on?" - Ford Elms

Dear Ford, your use of the term 'flip/flop' here is most interesting - especially in regard to Saint Paul. I'm pretty sure, for instance, that you would not consider his 'conversion' to have been a mere case of 'flip/flopping'; because, if that were so I guess most of the early Christians could have been accused of the very same thing.

However, on a more serious note, from the tenor of the scriptures, we can ascertain that many of the heroes have had occasion to 'flip/flop' in their beliefs. Perhaps one may need to keep flip/flopping in order to get at the essential truth about something which may be difficult to grasp intellectually and spiritually. However, I do believe there are certain article of faith that ought to be non-negotiable. The trouble is, the Church seems often to niggle about adiaphora rather than helping us to into the mysteries of the real issue of redemption.

Inciodentally, have you ever flip/flopped?

Fr. Ron, I agree. And, for me, Paul is a very powerful figure. I don't understand how someone can go from being an intense persecutor of Christians to their most prominent spokesman without the intervention of something very powerful, and to me, that means God. And niggling about adiaphora? Oh my, yes, don't we do that though? And of course I've flop/flopped in the past. One obvious area is that I was once so disgusted at the Canadian Anglican Church's inability, to me, to "get it" that I stopped going to Church for 18 years. Those same issues are as far as I'm concerned, worse now, but they don't matter to me any more. So I flip/flopped from thinking very much along the lines of the kinds of things the conservatives say now and who would have converted to Orthodoxy if I had had the chance to someone for whom the Anglican Church speaks most clearly to my soul. How's THAT for a flip/flop?