Controversy surrounds bishops warfare comments on women in the episcopate

The Bishop of Lewes’ comments over the consecration of women bishops has upset supporters.

The Rt Rev Wallace Benn told the recent Reform conference of conservative Anglicans that opponents of women bishops were faced with a similar situation to Europe in 1939.

He said: “I’m about to use an analogy and I use it quite deliberately and carefully.

“I feel very much increasingly that we’re in January of 1939.

“What we must not do is create a phoney war, but we need to be aware that there is real serious warfare just around the corner.”

Women bishop’s advocate Christina Rees was quoted by the BBC as calling his comments “demeaning”.

“There is a sense of desperation, a fear, and an unwillingness to believe that this is what the Church of England should be doing,” she said.

A statement from the bishop’s diocesan office refuted headlines suggesting that the bishop had compared supporters of women bishops to Nazis.

The statement read: “He said that the situation in which we find ourselves in the Church feels like people probably felt as they viewed the year ahead in January 1939. There are storm clouds on the horizon and warfare around the corner. We all hope and pray that it won’t happen.

“He also said that the consecration of women bishops should not be a church dividing issue, and will not be, if proper provision is made for those who hold the traditional position, who are equally loyal Anglicans.”

The reports have left some Jewish groups angry.

According to The Telegraph, James Smith, chairman of the Holocaust Centre, said the comparison “belittles both the scale of the suffering the Nazis caused and the scale of the moral challenge they represented”.