Rowan Williams should star in a Sit-Com

It is a rather sad day for the Church of England when its Archbishop doesn't actually understand the religion he is supposedly leading. In fact the lack of understanding would actually be very amusing, almost sit-com like if it was not for the fact that it is a real life official Church of a developed nation.

Sky reports that he has said:

"We have, to put it very bluntly, a lot of explaining to do,"
"Whatever the motivation for voting yesterday (Tuesday), whatever the theological principle on which people acted and spoke, the fact remains that a great deal of this discussion is not intelligible to our wider society.
"Worse than that, it seems as if we are wilfully blind to some of the trends and priorities of that wider society. We have some explaining to do, we have as a result of yesterday undoubtedly lost a measure of credibility in our society."

(http://news.sky.com/story/1014291/archbishop-church-lost-credibility-over-vote )

I don't think that it is particularly unfaithful to the sentiments of what he said to paraphrase as follows:

1. "You've made a serious mistake!"
2. "You've voted on the basis of Christian principle that people unfamilar with the Bible don't understand."
3. "Worse than that, you're deliberately not following the trends and priorities of people outside of the church"
4. "As a result people outside the church don't think the church is doing things right"

A few observations...

People who care about Christianity would know about the Bible, if they don't know about the Bible, they probably don't care what goes on in church. Even if they do know about the Bible and care about what happens in church, they are inevitably going to be unconvinced by the way the church goers manage their life, after all if they saw value in it, they would be in the church not outside of it.

Those who are in the church, ie the ones that actually care what the Church/the Bible has to say, voted in the manner they did. They are also the ones most likely to understand the reason behind the decision.

'The church doesn't follow the values of wider society'. Well of course not. This is a most obvious statement of fact. The Church is completely counter cultural. It always has been. If socity says "it is a dog eat dog world" the church says 'love your neighbour'. If the world says 'nice guys finish last' the church says 'the meek shall inherit the earth'. If the world says 'don't get mad get even' the church says 'forgive us as we forgive others'. Most of the concepts of the church run completely contrary to wider society in general. Which is presumably why the Bible says "be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God." (KJV).

It is with considerable shock that a Bishop would chastise the church of England for not acting like society. After all if the church acted like society what would the point of the church be? You don't need an organisation to show people to act the way they do anyway. The idea of the church is to attract people, not by their similarity, but rather by their contrast. To show that seeking revenge, being constantly drunk, taking drugs, cheating on your partner, having an unstable marriage, or being constantly self-seeking isn't the best way to go one doesn't do so oneself. If one does, what one will demonstrate is that this is the norm. Rather by avoiding those things one demonstrates that there is a different alternative way of doing things that is better in some way. To put it another way, if you want people to by Honda instead of Ford, you don't make a replica of the Ford (they already have one) you make something which is in someway better.

Society as a whole doesn't understand the reason why women aren't allowed to lead in a church. That is true. Society as a whole also doesn't understand how humbling yourself can mean you are exalted, how putting others first you can excel or how loving your enemy can make you happier and improve both your situations. It also doesn't understand how women and men can only be truely free and equal when they are accepted as of equal value, but still different, rather than pretending we're exactly the same, and hindering both. Society will never understand either... until they SEE it. And that is the very purpose for which the church is there.