2: In 1948 C.S Lewis wrote an essay about women's ordination, or as he very provocatively put it, priestesses in the church .

In 1948, Lewis wrote an essay about women’s ordination, or, as he very provocatively put it, Priestesses In the Church. Anglicanism is a very broad Church, and presumably some clergymen do see themselves as Priests in a Catholic sect that has temporarily split with Rome; but others are thorough-going Lutherans who believe in a Priesthood of All Believers. Lewis’s objection to lady vicars was not based on pure sexism: he specifically says that a woman can be as learned, pious and zealous as a man; and will probably be better at specifically pastoral duties. But he is sufficiently High Church to think that, during Mass, the Priest represents God to the congregation. To say that a Priestess can represent God as well a Priest is to imply that we might just as well think of God the Mother as God the Father. 

I used to think this was a valid argument: I used to enjoy making the smart-alec point that the Church of England should not have female Priests because, as a Protestant church, it should not have Priests at all. I no longer think that Lewis was right on the purely procedural point: lady clergy do not particularly imply a lady God. At any rate, thirty years since the first clergywoman and a decade since the first female bishop, no-one is showing the slightest sign of talking in terms of God the Mother, God the Daughter and God the Holy Ghostess. But I do take is point about imagery: the language you use to talk about God both reflects and determines your beliefs about Them. “A child that had been taught to pray to God the Mother” he says  “Would have a different religious life to a Christian child.”

Shortly before his death, Lewis was asked to comment on a very silly book by the then Bishop of Woolwich, JAT Robinson. (In private, Lewis used to refer to him as the Bishop of Woolworths.) Robinson had argued that earlier generations had seamlessly replaced the idea of a God “up there” with that of a God “out there”: it was now time to replace “God out there” with “God down here”. Robinson clearly means that we should replace the idea of a God who exists with one who doesn’t: “God down here” is simply his figure of speech. But Lewis tactically misunderstands him. He suggests that Robinson was really saying no more than “Religions of the Earth-Mother have hitherto been spiritually inferior to those of the Sky-Father, but perhaps it is now time to readmit some of their elements.” 

Lewis said that if he would be prepared to defend the proposition, although he wouldn’t believe it very strongly.

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