I see you didn't grow up in Catholic Ireland.

Some may dispute the extent to which I grew up, but it was very much in Catholic Ireland.  I should, more accurately, have phrased my comment to read - the ordination and consecration of women is a threat that that traditional world-view, not necessarily the women themselves - although in my experience, it can be the women as well.  (My mother-in-law is a 79 year old ordained priest who has no time for such crap)

notes from no w here

Anders Wejryd triggered outrage from a Lutheran church in Africa when he ordained an openly lesbian woman as bishop of Stockholm on 8 November

Free republic - but it is a source

And as we all know the swedish church is in apostolic succession as well.

No, there is no real theological argument just misogynistic, prejudiced ridden interpretation of unfortunate ambiguous texts and traditions.

The CoE controls no narrative spaces today, AFAIK. All they have is a tribe of people imprinted 30 years ago or more. And these congregations will eventually die off, not to be replaced. I can't see the core values dying off any time soon, since they are shared by many of the world's religions. What goes is the ritualistic behaviour. What remains is moral values of a certain limited kind, a sincere belief that there is something bigger than us (Well there probably is, but it is in no way anthropomorphic), and that 'life' doesn't stop when it dies.

You can't be me, I'm taken

it's a 'flight to safety', in economic terms.

governments that can't deliver quality to their citizens, can't offer an easier afterlife.

their promises, equally improbable, involve material things like chickens in pots.

strange as it may seem to this crowd at ET, many apparently rational people are concerned about their souls, and cannot blithely deny them with the facility given to those who have delineated their belief syatems in other, more worldly ways.

people have been that way for ever, it will be interesting to see if secularism, an easier choice in times of plenty, continues to provide the 'womb-to-tomb' social contract in times of woe.

if it doesn't, and as predicated it seems unlikely, expect a plethora of faiths to continue to mushroom, to try and cope with reality.

it's a pressure valve, we can only hope we don't revert to theocracy, the cruelest form of government.

seen in that light, the disestablishment of the c of e is surely a good thing, its obsolescence is almost a given, the real point is what, if anything, will take its place?

humanism?

disclaimer, i am a believer, but will happily co-exist in an atheist world, as long as i am allowed the freedom to believe as i see fit, the same right i see as fair for any belief system one does not resonate with, from atheism all the way to the FSM.

humanism would work fine as a social framework, and i am extremely leery of meshing religious institutionalism with government, the power of the state, history is quite clear on where that takes us.

"Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do." Jim Hightower

It's a bit of a pantomime, but it's a very British pantomime. Symbolically it's still extremely important to some of the more relevant castes in British identity politics.

The latter views the Church more as a journey through history than as a final destination and acknowledges past mistakes on slavery, fascism, anti-semitism, Apartheid, segreation etc.  It is interesting to note that these "errors" can all be attributed to viewing your community as somehow morally superior and the "out-group" - be they blacks, Jews, Communists, Women, Gays etc.- as somehow evil or inferior and thus deserving of a worse fate as God's punishment for that inderiority or sin.

There seems to be a deep human need (perhaps historically or religiously created or reinforced) to define Good and Evil, to identify yourself as belonging to the good, and some suitable outgroup as embodying the evil.  Success or empowerment is then deemed a reward for virtue, and the weakness of others justified by their sin.

This paradigm lends itself to warlike, polarising, adversarial forms of politics.  It's a great way to rationalise gross inequalities, exploitation and oppression.

It's interesting to note that this Good/Evil polarisation and labelling of the other as evil is not characteristic of Buddhism or some of the more metaphysical forms of Islam or Christianity.  Indeed Jesus' intervention in Jewish tradition can be read as an attempt to end the Good/Evil : Insider/Outsider : Jew/Gentile duality of that tradition.

The common characteristic of sects is their need to develop very clear boundaries with non members on the basis that non-members cannot be "saved" without their special knowledge or virtue.  Hence the strong trend towards a mystification of history, the natural world and current reality.  Thus Evolution, tectonic plate theory, and climate change must all be opposed because they challenge the Good/Evil polarity as the driving force of history.  They effect that Good and evil equally, and thus cannot be used as a basis for in-group, out-group differentiation.

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notes from no w here

Personally I would recognise that the state church should minimise its religious content and fill posts on the basis of purely political patronage, but I suppose disestablishment would bee a better option.

I always thought I would quite like to be a priest, if only belief in religion was not required.