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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: women - which side?
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Mudfrog
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# 8116
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Posted
Sorry, I couldn't think of a better title.
Anyway I want to ask a question regarding female ministers in the CofE.
Of the women priests, what proportion of them would be evangelical and what proportion would be non-evangelical/liberal?
Just asking, no agenda. Just interested really.
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
I don't know what that would tell any of us, Mudfrog. I'm curious about why you asked the question.
I believe folks come forward one by one on the basis of perceived calling, which is tested and nurtured by training and pastoral support. The outcome is what it is. If training and nurturing is any good, it will challenge some pre-conceptions, lead to some modifications of understanding. Folks may well come out a bit different to when they went in. The change process is likely to continue, given the nature of discipleship.
I recognise the pragmatic importance of "good fit" into a local parish. Nevertheless, aren't questions of character and gifting more important in the long run?
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Spike
Mostly Harmless
# 36
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Posted
You missed out Anglo-Catholic!
In my experience, traditions from which women come for ordination is pretty much the same proportion as men.
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"May you get to heaven before the devil knows you're dead" - Irish blessing
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Mark Betts
Ship's Navigation Light
# 17074
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Of the women priests, what proportion of them would be evangelical and what proportion would be non-evangelical/liberal?
I feel the point needs to be made that "liberal" doesn't mean anything that isn't evangelical. I don't think you meant that, but FiF Anglo-Catholics would be very offended by such a suggestion!
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"We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary."
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Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
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Posted
Sorry, perhaps my question should simply have been, how many women priests would identify themselves as evangelicals.
I certainly wasn't making a judgment either way and certainly not on those who are not evangelical.
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
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Evangeline
Shipmate
# 7002
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Posted
I wouldn't have thought there'd be too many conservative evangelical women coming forward for ordination.
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Evensong
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# 14696
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Posted
Which side?
On the side of Christ of course.
Which makes them liberal* I suppose.
(* C'mon Mudfrog. That's such an archaic designation. The liberal/evangelial divide is SO passe )
As for how many women priests are evangelicals would depend on whether they were the kind of evangelicals that accepted the leadership of women I suppose. You're hardly likely to develop a vocation in a tradition that thinks you don't belong there.
[ 11. November 2012, 08:37: Message edited by: Evensong ]
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a theological scrapbook
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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
Early on I suspect you might have found slightly more women going for trad-like services, if nothing else to be reassuring to the congregation. As in - yes, I am a woman but it doesn't mean the worship is different or disconnected from the history of the church. They have been around so long in the CofE now that that subtle pressure has probably worked itself through.
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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
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Spike
Mostly Harmless
# 36
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
You're hardly likely to develop a vocation in a tradition that thinks you don't belong there.
I disagree. I know several Anglo-Catholic women who were originally opposed to OoW and who were in parishes that were opposed who subsequently felt called to ordination. One even started out training for the permanent diaconate but changed part way through, so it does happen.
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"May you get to heaven before the devil knows you're dead" - Irish blessing
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Jengie jon
Semper Reformanda
# 273
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Posted
Yes. But what people do not realise is the way people absorb the former stance. It often creates an insecurity for themselves that can be quite detrimental to their ministry.
I have worked with ordained women who during childhood were in men only congregations, several of them have had a flash point at anything that they felt undermined their status as clerics. I have equally worked with women ministers who have only known equal eligibility of both sexes to ordination. I have never known one of them to have a similar flash point.
In other words ordaining women who have a vocation has not undone all the damage done to such women who have felt the tension between that and their perception of who can be ordained.
Jengie
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Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
Which side?
On the side of Christ of course.
Which makes them liberal* I suppose.
(* C'mon Mudfrog. That's such an archaic designation. The liberal/evangelial divide is SO passe )
*sigh* As I said:
quote:
Sorry, I couldn't think of a better title.
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
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Adam.
Like as the
# 4991
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evangeline:
I wouldn't have thought there'd be too many conservative evangelical women coming forward for ordination.
I know at least one. She still claims that label, despite having come to believe (obviously!) in women's ordination.
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Ave Crux, Spes Unica!
Preaching blog
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evangeline:
I wouldn't have thought there'd be too many conservative evangelical women coming forward for ordination.
The last three ministers in our Church (conservative evangelical) have been women! We haven't had a man since the mid '90s.
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Garden. Room. Walk
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Jengie jon
Semper Reformanda
# 273
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Posted
All Conservative Evangelical need mean is that she is a cessationist evangelical and thus wants to distinguish herself from Charismatic Evangelicals.
Jengie
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"To violate a persons ability to distinguish fact from fantasy is the epistemological equivalent of rape." Noretta Koertge
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Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jengie Jon:
All Conservative Evangelical need mean is that she is a cessationist evangelical and thus wants to distinguish herself from Charismatic Evangelicals.
Jengie
Erm, is that the only alternative? Either an evangelical is cessationist or charismatic?
In The Salvation Army we are neither cessationist nor charismatic.
We are also conservative evangelical and we have women's ordination - though maybe that's irrelevant because we don't have sacraments - but in the evangelical context that's also irrelevant because their issue is with headship and authority.
Our General is a woman. So is my wife who, alongside me, is a Major.
[ 11. November 2012, 20:42: Message edited by: Mudfrog ]
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
Which side?
On the side of Christ of course.
Which makes them liberal* I suppose.
(* C'mon Mudfrog. That's such an archaic designation. The liberal/evangelical divide is SO passe ) ....
People may define themselves differently in Australia, but I don't think that distinction is passé here. Evangelicals, whether open, charismatic or conservative tend, like many Anglo-Catholics, to be unhesitating supernaturalists, in a way that liberals often appear not to be.
As regards women in ministry, because evangelicals tend to have a functional rather than sacerdotal of priesthood, I get the impression it is less likely to bother them unless they are deeply committed to the importance of male headship or went to a public school (in the English sense of the word) that was still segregated.
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Gramps49
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# 16378
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Posted
After the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America started ordaining women into the pastoral ministry I noticed there was more of a feminizing of theology. Now, it is not unusual to talk about the feminine side of God or how there may be female authors or traditions in the Bible. Our revised Lectionary seeks to use more inclusive language. Now, half of our theologians in seminary are female.
I would say it has helped our denominational ministry be much more rounded and inclusive. I don't think it needs to be feared.
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Spike:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
You're hardly likely to develop a vocation in a tradition that thinks you don't belong there.
I disagree. I know several Anglo-Catholic women who were originally opposed to OoW and who were in parishes that were opposed who subsequently felt called to ordination. One even started out training for the permanent diaconate but changed part way through, so it does happen.
Sure it happens.
But surely it's more likely if theology is not a problem....?
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a theological scrapbook
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
As regards women in ministry, because evangelicals tend to have a functional rather than sacerdotal of priesthood, I get the impression it is less likely to bother them unless they are deeply committed to the importance of male headship or went to a public school (in the English sense of the word) that was still segregated.
That's true. So even if someone has this "headship" notion of why women ought not to be ordained they can often get along quite happily with women ministers in junior positions in their church as long as there is some man as The Pastor or The Vicar or whatever. Also the more congregational focus makes bishops less emotionally important to them. So they are less bothered about who the bishop is.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
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Jengie jon
Semper Reformanda
# 273
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
quote:
Originally posted by Jengie Jon:
All Conservative Evangelical need mean is that she is a cessationist evangelical and thus wants to distinguish herself from Charismatic Evangelicals.
Jengie
Erm, is that the only alternative? Either an evangelical is cessationist or charismatic?
In The Salvation Army we are neither cessationist nor charismatic.
Up until the charismatic movement evangelicalism tended to largely be one body, the split happened because charismatic movement and both sides immediately became more extreme, just as any debate tends to polarise people. The labels adopted were Charismatic and Conservative. The Conservative are predominantly cessationist simply as a reaction to charismatic. I doubt that the Salvation Army would use the label "Conservative Evangelical" either. The label comes from a debate it has chosen to bypass. Many evangelicals in historic denomination did although you can see evidence of it in the CofE. The ballast of the denominational identity seems to have led to less more muted stances.
Jengie
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"To violate a persons ability to distinguish fact from fantasy is the epistemological equivalent of rape." Noretta Koertge
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fletcher christian
Mutinous Seadog
# 13919
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Posted
posted by Ken:
quote:
That's true. So even if someone has this "headship" notion of why women ought not to be ordained they can often get along quite happily with women ministers in junior positions in their church as long as there is some man as The Pastor or The Vicar or whatever. Also the more congregational focus makes bishops less emotionally important to them. So they are less bothered about who the bishop is.
You know, I've just realised the same rules apply to a chicken coop
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'God is love insaturable, love impossible to describe'
Staretz Silouan
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jengie Jon:
... less more muted stances.
![[Confused]](confused.gif)
quote:
Originally posted by fletcher christian:
You know, I've just realised the same rules apply to a chicken coop [/QB][/QUOTE]
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Back in the early days of women's ordination in the CofE I heard some conservative evangelicals - both inside and outside of the CofE - claim that this would inevitably lead to greater liberalism in theological terms. The assumption was that any woman going into the ordained ministry in an Anglican context had to be theologically liberal - otherwise they wouldn't be putting themselves forward for it in the first place.
I suspect this was a fairly rare position, though ... but equally I'm sure that most of the initial female candidates inclined towards the liberal side - but not because it was any kind of 'deliberate' stance necessarily - although it might have been in some cases.
Most female Anglican clergy I've known have tended to come from the liberal catholic side of things - although I do know a recent female ordinand from a very evangelical background.
I'm not sure there are any figures or statistics on this. I think it also should be recognised that people can and do move between the various traditions in the CofE - so you may get someone of a more evangelical persuasion working alongside a MoR or Broad clergyperson.
I know of a very traditional Anglican parish out in the sticks a bit from here which has a female curate who raises her hands in worship HTB-style whilst everyone else - including the vicar - is doing the conventional Prayer Book stuff. It seems to work.
So, the short answer, as is invariably the case with the CofE, is ... it depends ...
![[Biased]](wink.gif)
Jengie Jon will be able to speak for the URC, but I've met female URC clergy who are liberal and others who are evangelical. The same applies to the Baptists. With the Methodists it's probably a bit more complicated as they tend - in my experience - not to divide these things out as neatly as the rest of us.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
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Jonah the Whale
Ship's pet cetacean
# 1244
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
quote:
Originally posted by fletcher christian:
You know, I've just realised the same rules apply to a chicken coop
I'm guessing that the chickens are happy if there are one or two bossy hens around, but only as long as they all recognise that the real top dog is the rooster. Or something like that.
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jonah the Whale:
only as long as they all recognise that the real top dog is the rooster.
Round here we call a cock a cock. Especially when they crow.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
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Tubifex Maximus
Shipmate
# 4874
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Back in the early days of women's ordination in the CofE I heard some conservative evangelicals - both inside and outside of the CofE - claim that this would inevitably lead to greater liberalism in theological terms.
I definitely remember this belief being common in the early days of women's ordination. In practice the female vicar in the church I attend described herself to me as conservative evangelical with some fairly obvious and necessary caveats. The same could be said of 2 of the 3 female methodist ministers I have known. My suspicion would be that the proportions of female ministers adopting each theological stance would mirror the proportions of christians adopting that stance although I have no evidence for this.
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Sit down, Oh sit down, sit down next to me.
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by fletcher christian:
]You know, I've just realised the same rules apply to a chicken coop
Headless chickens?
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Garden. Room. Walk
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fletcher christian
Mutinous Seadog
# 13919
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Posted
Jonah got it right...or closest anyways. In a coop with a large amount of hens it's good to keep a rooster who will keep them all in check, but he will always have a favourite who will be slightly above the others. But the point was; these are the interpersonal relations of chickens. It would generally be hoped by most people that the interpersonal relations of humans would be a little more complex, and hopefully better.
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'God is love insaturable, love impossible to describe'
Staretz Silouan
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Jonah the Whale
Ship's pet cetacean
# 1244
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
Round here we call a cock a cock. Especially when they crow.
My apologies, you are quite right. I have been fighting a rearguard action against Mrs Whale and have conceded vests and cocks. But I am hanging on grimly to other exemplary embodiments of Queen's English, like wellies and lorries.
Back to women priests. I have undertaken an unscientific study of the two we have had here and can conclude that 50% of them lean to the evo/charismatic and 50% to the more Anglo/Catholic side of anglicanism.
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daronmedway
Shipmate
# 3012
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jengie Jon:
All Conservative Evangelical need mean is that she is a cessationist evangelical and thus wants to distinguish herself from Charismatic Evangelicals.
Jengie
The weird thing though is this: most Anglican Conservative Evangelicals are continuationist, not cessationist, in their theology of spiritual gifts. Heck, on paper even Sydney Evangelicals admit that people can still speak in tongues. The problem I think is that, functionally speaking, they don't plan for, expect or encourage such things. In this sense they are notional charismatics but functional cessationists.
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ExclamationMark
Shipmate
# 14715
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Posted
It depends IMHO on what your definition of (for example) "Conservative Evangelical" is. Is it today's understanding or based on a definition 20 years ago when women began to be ordained into the CofE?
Many would see themselves as Con Evo who accept women's ministry - some would not.
FWIW my understanding (from friends in the CofE - albeit evangelicals) is that female priests "tend to be more liberal."
FWIW, IMHO and IME the same is true of the BUGB.
Posts: 3845 | From: A new Jerusalem | Registered: Apr 2009
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Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by daronmedway:
quote:
Originally posted by Jengie Jon:
All Conservative Evangelical need mean is that she is a cessationist evangelical and thus wants to distinguish herself from Charismatic Evangelicals.
Jengie
The weird thing though is this: most Anglican Conservative Evangelicals are continuationist, not cessationist, in their theology of spiritual gifts. Heck, on paper even Sydney Evangelicals admit that people can still speak in tongues. The problem I think is that, functionally speaking, they don't plan for, expect or encourage such things. In this sense they are notional charismatics but functional cessationists.
That would be The salvation Army's position on the supernatural gifts - tongues, etc; but they would be very happy to talk about the practical gifts.
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
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daronmedway
Shipmate
# 3012
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ExclamationMark:
FWIW, IMHO and IME the same is true of the BUGB.
I was with you up to BUGB.
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Am I the only one here who finds a Calvinist saying that we should 'plan for, encourage and expect' such things to be rather odd? After all, if these things are sovereignly administered then why should we have to plan, encourage or expect them ... shouldn't they 'just happen'?
I know, I know ... it's more complicated than that ...
But the degree to which these things happen in response to expectations does make me wonder whether we are literally dealing with 'self-fulfilling prophecy' here - to a certain extent.
But that's a tangent.
I'm always more convinced by incidences of 'spiritual gifts' where they occur in places where they are not actively 'planned, encouraged and expected' - ie. without the levels of coercion, suggestion and pressure (whether gentle or otherwise) that almost invariably (in my experience) seem to be the stock in trade of places with that kind of expectation.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
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daronmedway
Shipmate
# 3012
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Am I the only one here who finds a Calvinist saying that we should 'plan for, encourage and expect' such things to be rather odd? After all, if these things are sovereignly administered then why should we have to plan, encourage or expect them ... shouldn't they 'just happen'?
Means, Gamaliel, means.
quote:
I'm always more convinced by incidences of 'spiritual gifts' where they occur in places where they are not actively 'planned, encouraged and expected' - ie. without the levels of coercion, suggestion and pressure (whether gentle or otherwise) that almost invariably (in my experience) seem to be the stock in trade of places with that kind of expectation.
One man's exhortation is another man's coercion. However, it's usually the people who don't want other people doing what they don't want them to do that cry "coercion" when it comes to spiritual gifts.
Anyway, we can take this t'other thread, I think.
[ 12. November 2012, 18:49: Message edited by: daronmedway ]
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Gracious rebel
Rainbow warrior
# 3523
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by daronmedway:
quote:
Originally posted by ExclamationMark:
FWIW, IMHO and IME the same is true of the BUGB.
I was with you up to BUGB.
Baptist Union of Great Britain
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
I beg to differ. I've seen more coercion from people who are trying to promote spiritual gifts than I have ever seen from anyone who is trying to prevent this sort of thing from happening - by a country mile.
I'm not a cessationist and I find particular forms of conservative evangelicalism very dry indeed - so in theory I can understand where you are coming from. In practice, I think it's people at your end of the spectrum who tend to over-egg things.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
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daronmedway
Shipmate
# 3012
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Posted
Well that really does depend on whether consider inertia to be a subtle form of entrenched coercion. I do.
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daronmedway
Shipmate
# 3012
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Posted
And in English...
Well that really does depend on whether you consider inertia to be a subtle form of entrenched coercion. I do.
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
I'm not advocating inertia.
I don't go around speaking in tongues and prophesying in the way I used to - although I could still do so - or at least an approximation ? - if I wanted to.
I don't think I'm any the less 'charismatic' for that. It's just expressed in different ways.
Forgive me, but you seem so binary in your approach that you don't appear to recognise that.
I've known of people who have apparently started doing that sort of thing spontaneously and without any pressure or coercion - I'm thinking of a very cerebral university professor and also of an Anglo-Catholic nun ...
Personally, I find their accounts more convincing than those where pressure, suggestibility and peer-cues etc have been brought to bear in a rather Derren Brown type way.
Although I wouldn't rule out the reality or the genuineness of such experiences in those settings in a blanket way.
The rather Arminian Church of the Nazarene had a stated position on 'tongues' which went, 'Do not forbid, do not promote' - and I suspect the Salvation Army would take a similar line, as Mudfrog has outlined.
Is that evidence of spiritual inertia?
I don't think so, it sounds to me to be more in accordance with a 'reformed' or Calvinist position than your own - even though you are avowedly reformed in your approach.
There's a certain irony there, don't you think?
I'm sorry, but I don't know you in real life and may be completely out-of-order here - but I do wonder whether - given the strength of personality and forthrightness of the views you express on these boards - you are yourself in danger of being coercive in your ministry and practice.
Just saying ...
Apologies to Hosts and to yourself if I've stepped over the mark - but that's the impression I'm picking up here.
I'm sure you'd agree that there is big difference between outright prohibition and what you've described as the subtle pressure of inertia.
It is a value judgement that you are making - as indeed I have here - and I submit that it is an unhelpful one that runs the risk of disrespecting others who take a different view to your own - such as the Church of the Nazarene, the Salvation Army and those continuationists who don't apparently see tongues and prophecy and the like as regularly as you think they should.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
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Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
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Posted
We don't believe tongues ceased with the apostles - nor any spiritual gifts - but we do not allow speaking in tongues in our meetings for the simple reason they are/can be misunderstood and divisive.
Seeing that the basic raison d'etre of The Salvation Army is to communicate the Gospel and to work together for the good of others, anything that could divide a congregation or overshadow the message is not to be encouraged.
On your own, speak in tongues as much as you like - with the General's blessing
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 8237 | From: North Yorkshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2004
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Fine, daronmedway, it fits better over there. Thanks for transferring it.
@Mudfrog - I understood that to be the Salvation Army's position and - who am I? - it would be one I share and be comfortable with.
Apropos of nothing in particular other than general interest, it seems to be the line that many of the Orthodox take - at least here in the UK from what I can gather.
I'm not 'against' these things but there seems a fine line, to me, between actively encouraging these things and coercing or pressuring them - or something that might look and sound like them - into being ...
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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