Thinking Anglicans

Women Bishops and the Church of Sweden

The full text of the talk given by retired Swedish bishop Christina Odenberg, at a lunchtime meeting during the York General Synod sessions last July, can be found on the InclusiveChurch website.

Here it is.

And if you haven’t yet booked for Drenched in Grace in November, go here for details.

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Prior Aelred
16 years ago

Very interesting address by Bishop Odenburg — clearly, the “conscience clause” approach is always a disaster when there is a lack of good will & when there is good will it is not necessary. What we have seen in TEC is that the bishops most adamantly opposed to the ordination of women have attracted like minded clergy which has led to like minded persons being elected as bishops & the sees involved becoming increasingly estranged from the larger church. The hot button issues of the Reformation seem less so for many people today — one thinks that the Old Catholics,… Read more »

Cheryl Va. Clough
16 years ago

This comes at such a good time. Because of an early strategic decision they managed to bypass a few decades of stalling tactics from the anti-female lobby. That has put them a couple of decades ahead of where the Anglican Communion will be once it evolves to the next stage. Their church was thinking longterm and proactively when the Church of Sweden Church Assembly took the decision in 1958 that, as from 1959, the priesthood should be open to women, that decision also implied that it was only a matter of time before the church would also have women bishops.… Read more »

Pluralist
16 years ago

Here from that talk is the plan for dealing with Reform and Anglican mainstream in the near future:

“Then there is also a group of opponents, the so-called Missions Synod, who asked Bishop Obare from the Lutheran Church in Kenya to come to Sweden and to consecrate one of our retired priests as bishop. This priest was defrocked after that consecration, and this has become a break-off group from our church. The Missions Synod has since consecrated another two bishops, who have therefore also had to leave the priesthood of our church.”

Göran Koch-Swahne
16 years ago

Let me tell you that there was relief and joy at Lund and around Skåne when it was clear that the next bishop would be a lady. At last! And a very experienced lady at that; Synod, Politics (Ms Odenberg’s younger brother just stepped down as Minister of Defence). I was a student at the time and sang in the cathedral chorus for Vespers on the Saturday her predecessor Dr KG Hammar laid down his staff to take up the archbishopric of Uppsala, and also for Ms Odenberg’s installation the following Sunday. Great days! The church was full as the… Read more »

Robert Ian Williams
Robert Ian Williams
16 years ago

As a Roman catholic i don’t believe in the ordination of women, but I can’t help being impressed by women prelates like this one and Bishop Schori.

NP
NP
16 years ago

“Nowadays it is also the case that no priest who is unable to collaborate with another priest, regardless of gender, can hold a management position within the church. That means that those priests who oppose the ordination of women to the priesthood can no longer become vicars of parishes or bishops.”

Very “liberal”….

Ford Elms
Ford Elms
16 years ago

NP,
Are you trying to say:
The Swedish Lutherans are not tolerant of differences of opinion, so TEC liberals are closed minded and intolerant? By that rather interesting logic, I could argue that because some fundamentalists in the US test God by handling poisonous snakes, British Evos are sacreligious.

Göran Koch-Swahne
16 years ago

NP and Ford,

We sign a statement of our willingness to collaborate with all priests irrespective of gender.

Seems to me you didn’t quite understand (and didn’t bother 🙁

Ford Elms
Ford Elms
16 years ago

Goran,
Sorry, I wasn’t trying to say the Swedes are intolerant. I have no idea. You’re the only Swede I know, and you don’t seem so bad:-) I was just pointing out the trouble with NP’s logic. He thinks the Swedes are intolerant, so he gets to make a sneering jibe at liberals? Why throw something about the Swedish Church into a discussion of Anglicanism? And why make it a backhanded slur at liberals?

NP
NP
16 years ago

Ford – quite a simple point….. too often those who argue for tolerance are very intolerant of opposing views.

I bet you would not agree with the Swedish policy of effectively not allowing “conservatives” to be rectors or bishops, would you?

Erika Baker
Erika Baker
16 years ago

“quite a simple point….. too often those who argue for tolerance are very intolerant of opposing views.” It is a common misunderstanding that liberals tolerate, or should tolerate absolutely everything. You can hold any view you like, but you cannot impose it on others. That’s really what tolerance means. And there are obvious limits. No organisation can tolerate that which would destroy it. When I grew up in Germany there was a law (it may still be there but I don’t know), that no civil servant could be a communist. The rationale was that communists do not accept the principle… Read more »

Ford Elms
Ford Elms
16 years ago

“I bet you would not agree with the Swedish policy of effectively not allowing “conservatives” to be rectors or bishops, would you?” I’d have to know a lot more about that before I would presume to comment. Since you disapprove, I assume you know a lot more than me, so perhaps you could enlighten me. “Where did this idea of limitless tolerance come from?” From Conservatives who need to look down their noses at liberals, and who need to justify their own hypocrisy by identifying it in their opponents. The same people who define “listening” as “agreeing” then accuse those… Read more »

Erika Baker
Erika Baker
16 years ago

Ford
“This is linked to the debate we have been having about methods of dealing with issues and crusading, I believe.”

Indeed. So how would you respond?

Ford Elms
Ford Elms
16 years ago

I don’t know. Do you have any ideas? I’ve been trying to find a response in my posts on TA. I usually fail dismally, I admit. I get all wrathful with NP and “the Evos”, I easily fall into the “them and us” mentality. And you can’t even discuss this without in some way referencing “them” and “us”, so it gets tricky. But I refuse, for instance, to buy into the persecution myth that the obvious funding of the Right by some very nasty American conservatives, constitutes some conspiracy against us and is persecution of us. Recognize the facts but… Read more »

NP
NP
16 years ago

“liberal”=
-broad: showing or characterized by broad-mindedness;
-“a broad political stance”;
-“generous and broad sympathies”;
-“tolerant …”
-“not bound by authoritarianism, orthodoxy, or tradition”

I think it is fair to say genuinely liberal people are quite unlikely to make rules which do not allow people with whom they disagree to get certain jobs in a church….

Erika Baker
Erika Baker
16 years ago

“I think it is fair to say genuinely liberal people are quite unlikely to make rules which do not allow people with whom they disagree to get certain jobs in a church….”

That rather depends on whether those people agree to be bound by the general rules of the church, or whether they will spend their time campaigning against the very existence of a liberal church.
You cannot allow anyone to want to eradicate you, that’s not liberal, that’s just stupid.

Ford Elms
Ford Elms
16 years ago

“certain jobs in a church….”

I don’t know what’s funnier about this, the idea that there is some kind of liberal conspiracy, for which I have yet to see any evidence, to silence conservatives, or if it’s that the Church is some kind of employer with which one has a “job”. Sorry, they don’t call us “High CHurchmen” for nothing, NP. Your continual statements about the Church being some kind of “organization” with which one gets the “job” of ‘overseer’ or ‘minister’ just shows how far you have given in to the world.

Chris
Chris
16 years ago

NP, “Oppressive tolerance” is phrase you’re looking for. The issue w/ liberal’s use of “oppressive tolerance” is that it’s often coupled with the idea that we have a right not to be offended. Thus, if I claim I am offended I can claim another is “forcing their view” on me and I create the stick needed to oppress that offensive viewpoint. Another approach is to understand rhetoric is just rhetoric and the “forcing of views” is something else altogether – i.e. implementation of policy by the government, church or leadership of an organization. Liberals are “forcing their views” on TEC… Read more »

Göran Koch-Swahne
16 years ago

“Why throw something about the Swedish Church into a discussion of Anglicanism?”

Because you are being so incredibly insular?

To show you other ways of being Church and Catholic?

To make you less sure you understand the things you don’t?

Example: We don’t have Roman “Canon” Law; our Parishes own the church building, the real estate, the funds. Everything.

Yet we do not have a single Parish which has even tried to run away with the money.

;=)

Göran Koch-Swahne
16 years ago

Where did NP get the idea that we are being “librul”?

The late modern anti modern american political propaganda she is spouting.

Clue: we are Traditional, pre Gregorian, in fact pre anything Rome post Triento can come up with.

And most certainly pre anything Scholastic Calvinism can come up with.

Göran Koch-Swahne
16 years ago

Sweden is one of the few countries where women never lost their rights of inheritance.

And the Church was instrumental in this (not that some – Scholastics and Calvinists – didn’t try).

Ford Elms
Ford Elms
16 years ago

Goran, I’m siding with you! My question was why NP would throw in something about the Swedish Church, not you. You didn’t bring it up IIRC. “Thus, if I claim I am offended I can claim another is “forcing their view” on me and I create the stick needed to oppress that offensive viewpoint.” Chris, the point of what I have been saying is that both sides do this, it is a sign of why the current tactics are, in my view, wrong. Come on, how many times have consevos here talked about TEC “forcing” their views on everybody else,… Read more »

Ford Elms
Ford Elms
16 years ago

Sorry, Goran, I read through the above and realized that I had been confused. My comment would obviously have seemed aimed at you. I got careless in the heat of the moment and attributed the reference and the sneer to the same person. Sorry for the confusion.

Chris
Chris
16 years ago

Ford,

How is the left forcing views? Well…

… by packing seminaries with profs who hold theologies that don’t find traction in mainstream academic thougt…

…by an uneven application of canon law on bishop elections…

…by monetary support of organizations that support abortion…

…by systematically blocking conservative seminarians from attending schools such as Trinity…

…by suing instead of negotiating in good faith with parishes that wish to leave…

…by watering down the BCP and rejecting central themes to the Gospel message as understood by the divines.

Göran Koch-Swahne
16 years ago

No offence, Ford – but you all are a bit insular at times, you know.

Ford Elms
Ford Elms
16 years ago

Chris, #1, 2, and 4: Prove it. #3 As opposed to army recruiting drives IN CHURCHES! As opposed to supporting groups that actively propagandize and slander people? As ooposed to campaigning for a liar who led the US into war based on his lies? #5 You mean by trying to prevent people from stealing from God? I’m sorry, but if people are upset because the Anglican Church is not congregationalist, that’s too bad. Either they didn’t study/don’t know enough about what it is to be Anglican, much less a catholic Christian, or they were poorly catechized. Either way, not some… Read more »

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