If you did have a woman bishop would she look like Anne Soupa, the Bible scholar who has applied to be Archbishop of Lyons? The candidate description in 1 Timothy suggests that “a bishop must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach … one that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity (for if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?)”
Dr Soupa has, it seems, one husband and four children. But I’m not quite sure how St Paul would have coped with a bishop who actually wears lipstick; I fancy he’d have taken a dim view. But undeniably, Mme Soupa has a certain gravitas; she’s a scripture exegete … and she’s 73, which is rather a good age to assume a position of leadership, so, “not a novice”. as St Paul has it.

Trouble is, of course, that while there’s a case for women as deacons, based on their position in the early Church, there’s no such precedent for us to occupy positions equating to those of the apostles. We’d be talking about the successors to Lydia and Chloe, not to Sts Peter and Paul. And since the diaconate in the early church seems to have revolved around service, particularly in distributing alms to the poor, rather than being simply a precursor to the priesthood. I’m not sure than Dr Soupa would be entirely satisfied in that role.