On Cliffs and Hanging

So this is what the Game show hosts call “Make-up-your-mind time.” For once, the Guardian and the Telegraph agree — this is Decision-Day. Like everyone on all sides, I’m praying. On days like this the Church chances the notion that the rather slippery and elusive concept of God’s will can emerge and take flesh. The risk is real, both that it will and that it won‘t. I read again what I’ve said on this blog about women and the episcopate. Back in July 2008, it struck me that the mountain those opposed to this had to climb was to come up with some way their sticking points, however irrational, could be positive and missional — good news. This has not happened, perhaps because it could not be done.

Since then, considerable ingenuity has gone into attempts to square the circle between justice and voodoo, almost successfully at times. We nearly discovered Schrödinger’s Cat with a Hat — she both is and is not a bishop depending on whether the box is open. Along the way many have said “there is no doubt this will happen — the only question is how.” They are probably correct, politically, but it doesn’t help to have lost focus on why and what it could mean to have women in the episcopate. Also, there's a danger that this way of speaking has created an illusion that any institution can stagger on for ever finessing the detail without losing something of the plot.

On offer is a considerable, almost fatal, compromise of principle, but most progress in the world is made crabwise. Looking at the big picture, it would be tragic to waste another seven years on this issue, and, given the sheer quanitity of thought and prayer that has gone into the present sticky compromise that’s on offer, the idea that one more wee heave will dissolve the knot is purest moonshine. Permitting blacks to sit on white beaches may leave a vestige of apartheid. It may be less good than abolishing white beaches. But it’s progress. MLK said, “The time is always right to do what is right.”

If not now, when?