I’m trying to think through my position on women’s ordination, having tried to avoid the issue for years.

Since I came to a living faith in my teens, the evangelical churches I’ve belonged to (pentecostal, presbyterian, independent evangelical, baptist and Anglican) have all (basically) been of the view that women shouldn’t be ordained. In those circles, it’s quite easy to avoid giving the issue a lot of consideration. After all, the Bible seems clear on the topic, we don’t really have much to do with churches that take a different view, and all the celebrity preachers and authors in our ‘camp’ also take the same view.

But I’m now finding myself (strangely) drawn to immerse myself in the broader body of Christ, and that entails reading around a bit more, and figuring out what to do as a consequence. So I’ve been gathering a list (and a pile) of things to read (suggestions welcome!), and my plan is to post summaries here — largely for my own benefit, but hopefully at least someone out there (or even both of you) will also find it vaguely helpful.

My particular focus is the Church of England, so the questions I’m trying to think through are:

  1. Was the Church of England right to decide to ordain women?
  2. How should those opposed to the ordination of women respond to this, whether clergy or laity?

I’ll make this post into an index for any posts (past, present or future) that may appear on the topic. So here goes…