Women Bishops - Reality catching up to Sci-fi?

The Church of England Synod has officially backed the (currently theoretical) ordination of women as bishops as seen in this link.

In quite a few sci-fi series including the Honorverse, female bishops and other high-ranking clergy are accepted as simply being the way things should be, so it's rather nice to see that the Church of England is leading the way.

Interesting question, how many other major religions are doing the same (or similar) thing?

Michael Everett wrote:The Church of England Synod has officially backed the (currently theoretical) ordination of women as bishops as seen in this link.

In quite a few sci-fi series including the Honorverse, female bishops and other high-ranking clergy are accepted as simply being the way things should be, so it's rather nice to see that the Church of England is leading the way.

Interesting question, how many other major religions are doing the same (or similar) thing?

Not many. Most faiths still are male-dominated. Probably the Wiccans are the most coed, but I don't think they are a major religion.

I expect the Catholic Church (I was raised in that faith..been out of it for the last 30 years) to rise to the occasion and have women (and married) priests by no later than 2350 AD....

Still: Catholics can't conceive of Women Bishops, and Anglicans may have Bishops that can conceive....

(not original, but one of my all-time favorites)

Michael Everett wrote:The Church of England Synod has officially backed the (currently theoretical) ordination of women as bishops as seen in this link.

In quite a few sci-fi series including the Honorverse, female bishops and other high-ranking clergy are accepted as simply being the way things should be, so it's rather nice to see that the Church of England is leading the way.

Interesting question, how many other major religions are doing the same (or similar) thing?

The very first Imam of the new Muslim faith community was Muhammad, of course, but what is less well-known is that his first appointee as fellow 'teacher' (Imam) was his wife Fatima. Ever since, female Imams have been commonplace in Islam.

Female clerics are common in Hinduism, Buddhism, Shinto, the various African traditional religions, reform and conservative Judaism and a great many Christian denominations.

Hutch wrote:I expect the Catholic Church (I was raised in that faith..been out of it for the last 30 years) to rise to the occasion and have women (and married) priests by no later than 2350 AD....

2350AD!
You’re probably a bit of an optimist, seeing that the Patriarchal vs. Matriarchal aspects of all religions, probably had its origin in a religious argument the caveman Alley Oop had with his wife around 1,000,000BC!

IIRC the Catholic church allows married priests in Africa already, and there are rumbles discussing doing away with celibacy for priests world wide.

Hutch wrote:
I expect the Catholic Church (I was raised in that faith..been out of it for the last 30 years) to rise to the occasion and have women (and married) priests by no later than 2350 AD....

Still: Catholics can't conceive of Women Bishops, and Anglicans may have Bishops that can conceive....

(not original, but one of my all-time favorites)

hanuman wrote:

Michael Everett wrote:The Church of England Synod has officially backed the (currently theoretical) ordination of women as bishops as seen in this link.

In quite a few sci-fi series including the Honorverse, female bishops and other high-ranking clergy are accepted as simply being the way things should be, so it's rather nice to see that the Church of England is leading the way.

Interesting question, how many other major religions are doing the same (or similar) thing?

The very first Imam of the new Muslim faith community was Muhammad, of course, but what is less well-known is that his first appointee as fellow 'teacher' (Imam) was his wife Fatima. Ever since, female Imams have been commonplace in Islam.

Female clerics are common in Hinduism, Buddhism, Shinto, the various African traditional religions, reform and conservative Judaism and a great many Christian denominations.

I have never heard of a female Imam before.

Zakharra wrote: I have never heard of a female Imam before.

I checked the Wikipedia entry and female Imams to (technically) exist, but are banned from doing things like leading males in prayer.
The role of female Imams seems to be currently under debate.

Zakharra wrote:

hanuman wrote:The very first Imam of the new Muslim faith community was Muhammad, of course, but what is less well-known is that his first appointee as fellow 'teacher' (Imam) was his wife Fatima. Ever since, female Imams have been commonplace in Islam.

Female clerics are common in Hinduism, Buddhism, Shinto, the various African traditional religions, reform and conservative Judaism and a great many Christian denominations.

I have never heard of a female Imam before.

I really do not wish to offend anyone here, but Americans generally are rather ignorant about the intricacies of Islam and the Muslim faith community.

The Muslim faith community is incredibly diverse; it includes people from literally thousands of language groups, cultures, all race groups and every country in the world - all of whom have their own customs and practices, which often inform their particular interpretation of Islamic doctrine.

Women have always played a major role in Islam, and despite the common perspective in the West, women do in fact command a great deal of respect and authority among many of the cultures where Islam is the predominant faith.

Among the Tawariqu of North Africa (the Touaregs), for instance, it is women who control the manufacture of trade goods and who conduct trade. The tribal councils consist equally of women and men. Women choose who they wish to marry and may in fact take more than one husband at a time, whereas men are limited to only one wife.

As with Christianity, the permissibility and status of female imams vary from 'denomination' (although that's a rather ambiguous term when speaking of Islam) to 'denomination'. Islam, too, has more conservative and more liberal 'denominations', but once again, the meaning of those terms are somewhat different than in the West.

I think it is very unfortunate that the Western media tends to present certain Muslim religious practices as 'universal' aspects of Islam, when the truth is far different. What actually happens is that our media is keen for stories that will generate sales, and too damn lazy to do their background research properly. After all, who cares? Most Westerners know absolutely nothing about Muslims, except that they're all a bunch of terrorists. So who will care that the information the media dispenses about Islam and Muslims is often distorted, ignorant and sensationalist claptrap? It's not as if anyone in the West is going to call the media out for it, is it?

Michael Everett wrote:

Zakharra wrote: I have never heard of a female Imam before.

I checked the Wikipedia entry and female Imams to (technically) exist, but are banned from doing things like leading males in prayer.
The role of female Imams seems to be currently under debate.

Michael, I think we should refrain from comparing Islam with Christianity. Christian churches are organised according to hierarchical principles, with clear lines of doctrinal authority and therefore the capability to say which practices and beliefs are acceptable or not.

In Islam there is no such hierarchical tradition. It really is a matter of what local communities believe is acceptable or not - there are no lines of doctrinal authority except for local imams, and it depends on the local community whether they accept their imam's authority or not.

Many countries have organisations that supervise aspects of Islamic law, such as those pertaining to halaal and marriages, but even then those organisations have no authority to prescribe acceptable doctrine or to demand that worshippers adhere to a particular doctrinal tradition.

The one notable exception is of course Saudi Arabia, but there the situation is far more a matter of a coalition between religious and secular leaders, for political purposes. Neither the Q'uran nor the hadiths make provision for such a marriage of political ideology and religious doctrine.

hanuman wrote:Michael, I think we should refrain from comparing Islam with Christianity.

I didn't. I just posted some links to inspire thought.
Although you could argue that as Christianity is derived from Judaism (Jesus was a Jew), Islam owes a part of its origin to Christianity...

Anyway...
Have some more links.

Truth & Dogma.
Before The Translation
Trouble With Arrogance

All religions should have something like "Grampy Says".
(Warning, the main comic itself often verges on being NSFW. There's a reason it's called "Too Much Information)