"What we're after is not simply justice": beyond captivity to secular discourse

At a recent conference held in Lambeth Conference on women's ministry and its future development, +Rowan's concluding comments emphasised that "in arguing for and working for the full inclusion of women in the ordained ministry of the church what we’re after is not simply justice".  Rather than flowing from social change and secular discourse, it flows from a theological affirmation of the Incarnation:

The conversations, the questions, the presentations, have drawn us into thinking about what it is for a priesthood at an episcopate to be human.  And in its humanity – and what I spoke of this morning as the drawing in of the maximum range of human experience into priesthood – in that respect of course to say something absolutely crucial about the saving humanity of Jesus Christ.

It is, of course, characteristic of +Rowan that he challenges us with the radical nature of orthodoxy's Christological affirmations, thereby urging the Church to move on from its captivity to the secular discourse of modernity and postmodernity.

Also worth noting is his thoroughly Augustinian description of the nature of priesthood and episcopate contra secular management theories:

Bureaucracy exists partly so that you can say, “I've done that.” And I think ordained ministry at any level is rather profoundly about knowing you’ve never done that ... And bureaucratisation can mean perhaps taking the priesthood away from justification by faith and anchoring it in a kind of justification by box ticking.

In his comments concluding the conference, +Rowan wonderfully demonstrated how the ministerial priesthood and episcopate cannot be shaped by secular discourse. Rather, they flow from the heart of the Church's narrative - Incarnation and justification by faith.