Evangelicals are reacting with “extreme concern” to the launch of a new campaign aiming to eliminate the provisions included in the 2014 women bishops’ legislation – claiming it may leave complementarian Church of England evangelicals “unable to continue in ministry”.
The provisions, known as the Five Guiding Principles, accommodate those who for theological reasons cannot accept women’s ministry – allowing for pastoral and sacramental dispensation. They have been in place since the legislation was made over a decade ago. However, according to the Church Times, organisation Women and the Church (WATCH) now hopes to bring a motion to all diocesan synods, asking “whether it is right for the 2014 House of Bishops’ Declaration on the Ministry of Bishops and Priests to continue in perpetuity and, if not, to set a date for it to come to an end.”
The motion was announced at WATCH’s ‘Not Yet Equal’ conference at the end of March. Addressing those present, Dr Rosemarie Mallett, a member of the committee that drafted the 2014 legislation, stated that the Principles “help to reinforce” the “unequal and iniquitous gendered culture of the current Church of England.”
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