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Also wise as serpents

What Anglicans Online has to say is typically gentle. I can never recall it being as brusque as we sometimes glimpse Jesus in the Gospels.

I note — this is typically Anglican — you quote Mother Julian and "All shall be well". It is a gentle, consoling statement that, when we look at the world over its many centuries or look at individual lives, hardly bears much relevance to reality.

You note rightly that change is usually a slow process over many years, even centuries, in the church. But we live in a time of rapid change and style in communications, and of incredible widespread knowledge of what is occurring. I suggest the old ways are no longer appropriate when a woman is being consecrated a bishop for Swaziland and a vote in England is maintaining the myth of a male priesthood that was foisted on the church in its earliest years. The time you are calling for has already been centuries.

Of course like Julian's words, the search for the common good (consensus) is looked on as a civilized, even Christian, way. Again, history shows this has never worked — see the early Church councils.

Brian Poidevin
Anglican Parish of Castlemaine
Victoria, AUSTRALIA
bpoidevin@bigpond.com
26 November 2012

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