Anglicans in Australia Move to Ordain Women as Bishops

Anglicans in Australia recently embraced the ordination of women as bishops and asked Archbishop Jeffrey Driver to "help" conservative members who oppose female ordination to accept them.

According to a news report from an Australian news service, the Anglican general synod met in Canberra late last fall and adopted a proposal to ordain women and then charged Driver with bringing dissenters on board.

"While I have been a supporter of women for 30 years, I understand that for some this development in the church has difficulties and even confrontation," Driver said. " I look forward to the consecration of a woman as a bishop in the Anglican Church of Australia. I am also committed to that happening in the spirit of unity."

Women have been able to be ordained as priests, deacons and archdeacons since 1992, but could not become a bishop. The ruling was accepted in some, but not all diocese of the church. In South Australia, for example, two of the three dioceses allow female ordination, but a third does not.

Female minister Tracey Gracey speculated that some will leave the church over the issue and acknowledged that men and women possess different gifts. Gracey said she hopes members will recognize her ministry "complements male leadership."

Elsewhere in Australia, the resistance to female ordination appears to be more robust. In the Anglican Diocese of Sydney, the issue of women's ordination again arose this year after being overwhelmingly defeated two years ago. Working within this diocese is a strong group of conservative women who are advocating for the maintenance of biblical gender roles in the church known as "Equal but Different."

Over the next two days, Gender Blog will run a two-part Q&A with Equal but Different to better inform readers as to how the issue is playing out in the land down under and what Equal but Different is doing to assert biblical authority.