Maybe Obadiah is being fanciful. But just suppose you were in a Sydney Anglican Church that wanted to appoint a woman as senior minister. Impossible, right? Well maybe no longer. Richard Condie the Bishop of Tasmania, and the chair of Gafcon (Global Anglican Future Conference) Australia was asked if the new Diocese of the Southern Cross, set up by Gafcon, would have women in charge of churches. The new diocese, a separate body from the “official” Anglican Church of Australia, is set up as a “lifeboat” for conservative ministers finding it hard to serve with progressive bishops in parts of Australia.
He told Radio National’s Andy Park, “Bishop Davies will be licensing women as rectors of parishes and leading them. That’s different to what he did when he was archbishop of Sydney but that will be the nature of this new diocese.”
So any Sydney Anglican Church wanting a Woman senior minister should join the Diocese of the Southern Cross. Right?
(Okay, Obadiah is simply stirring.)
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Lots of women preachers: Speaking of women ministers Megan Powell du Toit (half of the team from the With All Due Respect podcast) reported on Facebook:
“In the Sydney Women Preaching group, we have been doing a poll to see which denominations the preachers come from. It’s ongoing, but about 60 women have answered so far. The results at this stage:
1) 48% Anglican
2) 24% Baptist
3) 17% Uniting
4) 3% Presbyterian
5-8) 2% each of Brethren, C3, Salvation Army, Churches of Christ
It’s been pretty much word of mouth, started by women from Anglican, Baptist and Presbyterian backgrounds.”
As “MPdT” pointed out this does not equate to how many sermons are preached… some of the preachers may only get the occasional run, and some (only a few) may only preach to women. And the group may attract women seeking support, for example, if they serve in a complementarian church. But those numbers are very interesting.
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An almost unique title: Serving previously as editor of the Eternity newspaper and website, Obadiah caught himself saying he was part of a rare breed, a “post-Eternity Christian.”
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Quote of the week: Russell Moore, the new editor in chief of Christianity Today on evangelicals’ siege mentality: “There is often a kind of siege mentality in some sectors of evangelicalism that does have those two almost contradictory ideas together. Most of America is with us. We’re the real America. And we’re under siege and under threat. What most people who hold that view would say is that that’s because American culture is being driven by the most secular people even if they don’t reflect the views of most people in the country.
Now, I’ve been a critic of that in order to say authentic gospel Christianity, as I understand it, has always been a minority in American life and in every other culture since the Resurrection of Jesus. The way is narrow, Jesus told us, and the broad way is the one that leads to destruction.” Russell Moore was interviewed by Jane Coaston for the New York Times’ Ezra Klein podcast.