2010: The U.K.'s first Anglican woman bishop?

The Rev Canon Dr Alison Peden is the first Scottish Anglican woman to make the shortlist for a bishopric since June of 2003, when the General Synod of the Scottish Episcopal Church voted overwhelmingly in favor of the "Motion to Allow Women Bishops."

She is one of three shortlisted for the post of Bishop of Glasgow and Galloway and as a result the ordinary at St. Mary's Cathedral, Glasgow.

If selected, she will be the first woman bishop in the U.K.

The Scottish Episcopal Church Website explains:

The candidates have been selected by a Preparatory Committee (chaired by the Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church) consisting of clergy and lay church members who represent the diocese and the wider Church. The next stage in the selection process is a meeting of each of the candidates with members of an Electoral Synod (representatives of clergy and lay church members from the Diocese of Glasgow & Galloway only). That meeting will take place on 9 January 2010, with the election of the new Bishop taking place on 16 January.

The first woman bishop in the entire Anglican Communion was Barbara Harris, ordained Bishop Suffragan of the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts on 11 February 1989. Harris, a black woman who as a civil rights activist marched with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, was nominated at one point by Mary Glasspool, the pioneering lesbian bishop-elect in Los Angeles selected this year and awaiting final approval.

Peden is married, mother of three and rector of Holy Trinity Church in Stirling and chaplain of Forth Valley College there and canon of St. Ninian's Cathedral, Perth.

Ruth Gledhill observes that you can read some of Peden's sermons here.

The other two candidates are:

• The Venerable Dr John Applegate, (born 1956), Course Principal, Southern North West Training Partnership, Diocese of Manchester and part-time lecturer at the University of Manchester.
• The Very Rev Dr Gregor Duncan, (born 1950), Rector of St Ninian’s Church, Pollokshields and Dean of the Diocese of Glasgow & Galloway.

Regardless of the selection, the times they are a changin'.