I see the Church of England is getting into a bit of a stew over gender issues again – the gender of its leaders that is, and whether women should be consecrated as bishops. Years have now passed since women were accepted into the ordained priesthood in the C of E – something I disagreed with then, since I don’t think men should be ordained into the priesthood either. We’re all priests in God’s eyes – whether we are ordained or not. But I digress; Synod is meeting in London this week and Monday saw a big row spilling over on the whole issue of female bishops, though the decision has been made in favour, it’s just that the details are proving devilish.

Much comment was made in yesterday’s newspapers, with most of it focussing on one particular group’s argument – namely Reform, the conservative evangelical wing of the established church. You could read those reports by following this link. Rather than relying on newspaper tittle-tattle for my information, however, I turned to Reform’s own website and read their press release and their open letter to the Synod’s delegates. Let me summarise: they like women and believe God created them equal to men but that they have different roles. These roles do not include headship in the family or the church, which inevitably means they’re not in favour of having women bishops.

They base their arguments on Scripture. (But then we all do, don’t we.) And if you accept their interpretations then their conclusions make much sense. They teach one thing in their churches and then the Church does something very different. I can understand their frustrations well enough. What I don’t accept, of course, is their interpretations – but that’s for another day.

What I really struggle with is the implied threat in their letter. You see these evangelical churches are rich and have not been afraid of saying so in. They claim to have contributed over £22 million to church funds over the last 10 years. That’s serious money. And we should commend them for contributing like this. They obviously teach that giving is something a Christian does out of a willing and generous heart. But if the C of E is not prepared to make arrangements whereby opponents of women bishops can have oversight by male bishops (the so called ‘flying bishops’) they feel the need to set up an alternative charitable trust where their funds could be used to help Reform clergy and churches, thus putting ‘a severe strain on our ability to continue to contribute financially to Diocesan funds’.

Suddenly this generous giving is being used as a power-tool in the hands of a few men who want to hold the majority of the church to ransom. Now while I can’t claim to have direct revelation on this, but I don’t think Jesus would approve. Do you?