Faith revisited and other stuff

I was listening to the news this morning, and one of the big stories of the day is the decision by the Church of England to allow the appointment of female Bishops. I think that this is a big step forward; a really significant event for all involved. What I don't understand is why women in the Church was ever an issue of contention? We could get into the whole 'women are the source of original sin' thing, but quite frankly I think that is utter BS. The Garden of Eden story shouldn't be taken literally, in my view, as historical fact; it isn't fact. Evolution is a fact (or as close to one as we can reasonably get at the moment). I don't see that the creation story and Evolutionary theory are at odds - we just have to acknowledge that the Garden of Eden story is a annalogy for the development of consiousness. Which makes the whole idea about Eve tempting Adam with the apple of knowledge utterly irrelevant. The exclusion of women from positions in the church on that basis is, thus, unjust and backward for a body which claims to desire equality for all. If the traditionalists were to have won the vote today, then it would have been a backward step for the church of England and a sign of the continued institutional sexism which has been rife in the Church for the past 500 years. The claim that women are fundamentally tainted has been used to justify the oppression of women, and exclude them from full and fair participation in a faith which teaches tollerance and forgiveness. Surely it's about time 'Eve' was forgiven and her daughters were no longer burdened with an unfair reputation as 'tainted'?

This kinda feeds into my thoughts in the last post: can I really follow a system of belief in which sexism and inequality are central tenants of the faith? I have been to a couple of Christian wedding ceremonies in the past year, and in each I was annoyed by the emphasis on the dominance of the man in the wedded state and how the woman was expected to 'submit' to the man 'as the Church to Christ'. As a feminist and a female Christian I find this hard to bear (perhaps this is why I'm not a very good Christian). In any relationship there should never be any forced dominance or submittion involved (I'm not talking in the sexual way - what people get up to in that respect is entirely up to them); a wedded relationship should be about negotiation and discussion. No decision should ever be made simply because one party has been 'picked by God' to be dominant. Besides, I doubt that God (who/whatever that is) would honestly create humans unequal; any traditions in Christianity are almost certainly the result of millenia of Church dogma and unjust male domination. Woman's submittion to her husband in the wedded state in Christianity is almost certainly the result of institutionalised patriarchal dogma. Using the 'fear of God' to restrict women of faith from full and equal participation, and full emansipation as a sex.

I'm almost certain that most of the Traditionalists at today's vote don't think of it in those terms: I guess they reason that it's "God's will" and that women were designed as man's 'help-meet' but not to be religious leaders. My response; you're stuck in the past, and many of the best and most faithful Christians are women. It's about time this was acknowldeged.

That was more of a feminist rant than I was intending, but can you see where this leaves me? Again: in the same situation as before: can I follow a faith that requires inequality? I think that I have to believe that this inequality was not God's will, but is the result of centuries of church politics.