Agreeing to disagree in Sheffield…?

Mar 1, 2017 by

by Ian Paul, Psephizo:

There has been a little local difficulty following the announcement that Philip North is to be the next Bishop of Sheffield. Except that it hasn’t been little or local. Leading the charge (once more) has been the Dean of Oxford, Martyn Percy, who is quite clear that this appointment lacks integrity and that Philip should immediately withdraw. There are several things worth noting about his response, not least his own claimed ability to know what Philip’s own thinking must be, and the measure of what is acceptable in a bishop:

Sheffield is a go-ahead, vibrant, progressive city, with cutting-edge universities and research-led industries.  It is thoroughly modern.  The public will neither comprehend nor welcome this rather fogeyish sacralised sexism of the religious organisation known simply as ‘The Society’, whose Council of Bishops includes Bishop Philip North.

The measure of credibility, it seems, is whether or not the Church appears to be ‘modern’. He goes on to state:

We can’t speak with authenticity publicly, when we still sanction & sacralise sexism: CofE is just made to look like an odd reactionary sect.

It is quite striking how illiberal Percy’s liberalism is; anyone who is not as tolerant as him simply will not be tolerated: ‘Tolerating intolerance is not virtuous practice!’ The obvious response to that is that we should not tolerate Percy’s intolerance in turn, highlighting the incoherence of this position. As it happens, Philip and Libby Lane (pictured together above), the first woman to be ordained a bishop, meet regularly together and pray for one another, and attended each other’s consecrations as bishops. Such mutual respect of difference is, according to Percy, lacking in integrity and impossible to sustain.

Read here

Read also: Bishop Philip North – ‘5 Guiding Principles’ restated by David Pocklington, Law and Religion UK

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