Blog: Back in the 1990s I did an interview with a local woman, a church deacon, and we used a full page colour photograph of her in front of a stained glass window. Things had just changed dramatically for her, for a wider group of her colleagues and for the Anglican Church.

The headline over the picture was the clue: Women Ordained and Justice Done.

It was truly a defining moment.

Because in 1992, women fighting for the right to be Anglican priests had won a narrow victory when the General Synod – the Church of England’s ruling body on earth – passed the legislation by a margin of only two votes.

Emotions at Church House in Westminster, as the decision was announced, ran high.

The then Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr George Carey, who had supported the proposal recognised that the result would not please everyone. But he said, or pleaded, really: “What binds us together in God’s love as a Church is vastly more important than a disagreement about women’s ordination.”

Some traditionalists – including priests – left the Church, converted to Roman Catholicism or stayed and were miserable. Others tried very hard to come to terms with what they saw as the new and too radical decision.

This week, Dr Rowan Williams, the present Archbishop and leader of the worldwide Anglican Church, backed a move which could see women as bishops. And most of us who have followed these debates down the years might wonder what all the fuss has been about.

Because once you have ordained women in exactly the same way as men, how in the world or in heaven can you then say they must not have any opportunity to also progress through the church along the same route?

And attempts by the Archbishop and Dr John Sentamu, Archbishop of York, to create some sort of male-only group of bishops so that unhappy parishes could call in a man, might have been well-meaning but were destined to cause more rifts and factions.

Those of us who have long supported the full inclusion of women see how their ministry enriches and fulfils and, speaking for myself at any rate, can see no biblical evidence that somewhere down the line, God has said: No.

So are traditionalists basing their no doubt deeply held views on the Bible or simply on things staying the way they’ve always known them?

Sure, Jesus chose men as his first disciple – that’s what you did in the male orientated world of 2,000 years ago. But some of his closest, dearest confidantes, those to whom he made himself known at the crisis times in his life and after his death, were women.

And now in 2010, this gut-wrenching, heart-aching debate still goes on, trying to analyse the pros and cons of women being firstly ordained, and then eligible to be considered as bishops.

It still has a long way to go because of the set-up of bishops, clergy and laity, and parliamentary approval and then Royal Assent are still distant.

But in the hearts of those who believe this to be a loving and really, an inevitable move, the die for change has been cast long ago.

While laws surrounding equality play some part – they must after all be obeyed everywhere else – they are not the most significant influence.

For myself, in this and other matters which might vex modern decision making, I ask just one question: what would Jesus do?

And on this, I think I know the answer.

By Shirley Tart