As he was enthroned as Bishop of the Church of England Diocese of Chichester on Sunday, the traditionalist Rt. Rev. Dr. Martin Warner said in his sermon that last Tuesday's General Synod decision against allowing women to serve as bishops damaged the Church's reputation.

The outcome of the Nov. 20 vote had a "damaging effect [on] the Church of England's self-confidence and national reputation," The Telegraph quoted Bishop Warner as saying. "We now have to face some very uncomfortable facts that will implicate us all in a review of our decision-making processes as a Church."

While urging people not to "apportion blame" for the outcome, the bishop added, "Perhaps we can observe that the political processes of the General Synod have not delivered for us a reliable way of finding consensus on how to attain the goal of including women in the episcopate, which is undoubtedly the earnest desire of the majority of people in the Church of England." more >>

The Rev. Justin Welby, the next spiritual leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion, has said that the Church of England will soon have women bishops, despite losing in a crucial vote on Tuesday in the General Synod.

"It's clear those women are going to be bishops in the Church of England," said Welby, who is set to take over from Rowan Williams in March 2013 as Archbishop of Canterbury.

"It was a pretty grim day for the whole church. There is a lot to be done but I am absolutely confident that at some point I will consecrate a woman bishop," Welby said during a visit to Nigeria, where he was promoting peace among the world's largest mixed Christian-Muslim population, Reuters reported. more >>

A day after the Church of England failed to come to a two-third majority vote to pave the way for women bishops, its spiritual head, the Most Rev. Rowan Williams, has suggested that the Anglican church has lost credibility and is "blind" to the trends of society.

"Whatever the motivation for voting yesterday, 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," Williams began.

"Worse than that, it seems as if we are willfully blind to some of the trends and priorities of that wider society," he continued. "We have as a result of yesterday undoubtedly lost a measure of credibility in our society." more >>

The Church of England has voted to block a proposal seeking to allow women to serve as bishops after a day-long debate on Tuesday at its General Synod.

The two-thirds majority needed to pass the legislation was narrowly missed, meaning that women will not be able to join the highest echelons of the clergy. According to church officials, it will likely be a minimum of five years before a new vote on the issue can be put on the table.

The vote in the House of Laity came down to 132 in favor of women bishops to 74 against, The Associated Press reported. In a separate vote, bishops voted 44 in favor and 3 against, while the rest of the clergy voted 148 in favor verses 45 against – so although most Anglican officials were in favor of the proposal, the crucial two-thirds majority was not met, falling short at 64 percent, or only six votes. more >>

A U.K. judge has ruled in favor of a Christian man who was demoted from his job as a housing trust manager after he expressed views against gay marriage on his private Facebook page.

Justice Briggs ruled in favor of Adrian Smith on Friday, calling the breach of contract committed by Smith's employer, the Trafford Housing Trust, both "serious and repudiatory."

"Mr. Smith was taken to task for doing nothing wrong, suspended and subjected to a disciplinary procedure which wrongly found him guilty of gross misconduct, and then demoted to a non-managerial post with an eventual 40 per cent reduction in salary," the judge wrote in his decision. more >>

One of Scotland's leading Christian thinkers has said that atheist professor Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion book has actually paved the way for the Church to share its message about God, because it drew millions of people around the world to the debate on God and the Bible.

"Richard Dawkins has done us a big favor," said the Rev David Robertson, a minister from the Free Church of Scotland, ahead of the Faclan Book Festival on the Isle of Lewis later this week ,where both he and Dawkins will be speaking about spiritual literature.

"A book about God and the Bible has become a bestseller and as a result has opened up a discussion that many people thought was over," Robertson added to the Stornoway Gazette. more >>