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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: A decision to cross the Tiber
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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
I liked the parallel lines analogy earlier - so I shall try for something equally abstract.
Imagine you have red squares, yellow circles, and blue triangles. Jesus picks a set of red squares.
I now have a set of squares, circles and triangles in all three colours. I want to pick all the reds, you are telling me I can only pick squares.
Same evidence but different category sort.
Or to tie back to the original situation - Jesus picked faithful people who had a chance of being listened to.
In that time and place, that first meant Jewish men of some maturity - other things will also have been true of them. They probably mostly had beards, and didn't wear trousers, and didn't live in houses made of red brick - and had all sorts of *incidental* characteristics. Later gentiles were included, because they could be faithful people with a chance of being listened to. It has taken until the latter part of the 20th century for women to have a equal chance of being listened to.
But the important thing was that the apostles were faithful people who had a chance of being listened to.
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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
Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by TubaMirum:
quote:
Originally posted by Triple Tiara:
Secular authority? You made the secular qualification remember. So, what about religious authority? There were plenty of women priests around at that time in other religions. It would not have been a novel concept.
It would have been, in Judaism - the wellspring from which Christianity flowed.
But that was then - and this is now.
Irrelevant anyway. Christians aren't ordaining Old Testament priests, or their pagan equivalents. In the Church that role is taken by our Great High Priest.
We're ordaining servers, elders, & overseers to be pastors, teachers, preachers and so on. To make the OT precedent support an all-male ordained mimistry you would have to show that no women were ever prophets, pastors, teachers, or leaders. And you'd be on to a loser there.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
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AdamPater
Sacristan of the LavaLamp
# 4431
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
Irrelevant anyway. Christians aren't ordaining Old Testament priests, or their pagan equivalents. In the Church that role is taken by our Great High Priest.
Is it relevant that the Catholic priest stands in loco Christus(sp?), and as such continues, in a sense, a sacrificial priesthood?
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Put not your trust in princes.
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TubaMirum
Shipmate
# 8282
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by AdamPater:
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
Irrelevant anyway. Christians aren't ordaining Old Testament priests, or their pagan equivalents. In the Church that role is taken by our Great High Priest.
Is it relevant that the Catholic priest stands in loco Christus(sp?), and as such continues, in a sense, a sacrificial priesthood?
Yeah - I have a higher view of the priesthood than the one Ken seems to hold, too. One which I'm quite certain women can fulfill.
Actually, the very fact that this issue is not being argued along those lines any longer points to doubts about the theological soundness of the all-male priesthood. "Tradition" is the argument now - but at that point, we're not really having a theological/doctrinal discussion anymore.
I've linked to this post here before, which points out some of the problems with the theology.
[ 17. July 2011, 13:12: Message edited by: TubaMirum ]
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anne
Shipmate
# 73
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by AdamPater:
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
Irrelevant anyway. Christians aren't ordaining Old Testament priests, or their pagan equivalents. In the Church that role is taken by our Great High Priest.
Is it relevant that the Catholic priest stands in loco Christus(sp?), and as such continues, in a sense, a sacrificial priesthood?
Here, my attempts to understand the 'anti arguments' start to fail as the red mist descends. The pure tradition stance (from within the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches) doesn't convince me, but is clear and coherent, particularly when it is restated as 'what is handed on to us from the post-apostolic church is what we should hand on', which I hope is a fair summary of what some posters are saying.
The in loco Christus argument - that Jesus was a man and therefore priests should be men - is superficially clear but lacks internal coherence, and I recently promised myself that I wouldn't take it from ordained men who were not themselves both celibate and Jewish.
Jesus was many things which most priests from any part of the Church are not, and He was some things that no priest is. We do not insist that Christian priests are genetically or culturally jewish, or that they are born in Israel, or that they are under 35, or that they speak Aramaic, or that they are circumcised or that they are an oldest (or only) child or have long hair. His gender is an important part of defining His incarnated being - but it is far from the only part of that definition.
Sorry - you pushed my buttons.
anne
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‘I would have given the Church my head, my hand, my heart. She would not have them. She did not know what to do with them. She told me to go back and do crochet' Florence Nightingale
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CL
Shipmate
# 16145
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by TubaMirum:
It's also interesting that (I believe) even the Catholic Church acknowledges the existence of women deacons in the early church. So in fact there is indeed precedent anyway; I suppose deacon was as far as anybody dared go - which was, in fact, pretty far.
I agree, LydaRose: this debate is so over at this point. It seems beyond absurd that we're still talking about it, really.
(A Catholic friend says that the Church is going to have to ordain women soon, anyway - because it's running out of priests....)
A deaconess was not a female deacon. It was a lay office.
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"Even if Catholics faithful to Tradition are reduced to a handful, they are the ones who are the true Church of Jesus Christ." - Athanasius of Alexandria
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by CL:
A deaconess was not a female deacon. It was a lay office.
Do you really think that the current distinction between lay ministers and ordained ministers existed in New Testament times?
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
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la vie en rouge
Parisienne
# 10688
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Posted
Besides which the whole thing is a fudge. The word used of Phoebe in the New Testament (diakonon) is exactly the same word as that used of a man in the same position. The only reason to suggest she was doing something different is an a priori assumption that she couldn't have been doing the same job because she was a woman. The text itself gives no evidence of this.
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Rent my holiday home in the South of France
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TubaMirum
Shipmate
# 8282
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by CL:
A deaconess was not a female deacon. It was a lay office.
This article says you're wrong. Quote:
quote:
Unless I am mistaken, the author is precisely correct that there is historical evidence that women were actually ordained as deacons, using the same, or very similar, formulas and prescriptions as used presently for the ordination to the diaconate. The attempt to gloss over this to preserve the integrity of an exclusively male priesthood is admirable in its intention, but intellectually dishonest.
I don't think "glossing it over" is particularly "admirable in its intention" - but that should be a selling point for you, CL.
At any rate: no.
[ 19. July 2011, 14:59: Message edited by: TubaMirum ]
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TubaMirum
Shipmate
# 8282
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Posted
An interesting additional point from the article referenced in the above quote; apparently all this is right there in the historical documents:
quote:
As time and practice accrued, women were ordained to the diaconate in rituals identical to those used to ordain men to the diaconate. The ordination ritual of the Apostolic Constitutions for women deacons, codified by the Councils of Nicea (325) and Chalcedon (421) begins: “O bishop, you shall lay hands on her in the presence of the presbytery.” Perhaps the oldest known complete rite of ordination for women deacons, a mid-eighth century Byzantine manuscript known as Barbarini 336, requires that women be ordained by the bishop within the sanctuary, the proximity to the altar indicating the fact of a true ordination.
[ 19. July 2011, 15:56: Message edited by: TubaMirum ]
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
When are we talking about?
It doesn't really matter if they had downgraded women deacons to mere deaconesses by the whateverth century, its whats in the New Testament that convinces.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
ancient Coptic
So so what? It doesn't affect Chesterbelloc's, IngoB's., Trisaigion's et al aruments which are based on a Pope the Copts don;t and never did recognise. They've got their own and always did.
Nor mine in favour of ordaining women which are based on the New Testament.
All a bit irrelevant.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
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anne
Shipmate
# 73
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Posted
Is there a contradiction between this
quote:
Originally posted by TubaMirum:
An interesting additional point from the article referenced in the above quote; apparently all this is right there in the historical documents:
quote:
As time and practice accrued, women were ordained to the diaconate in rituals identical to those used to ordain men to the diaconate. The ordination ritual of the Apostolic Constitutions for women deacons, codified by the Councils of Nicea (325) and Chalcedon (421) begins: “O bishop, you shall lay hands on her in the presence of the presbytery.” Perhaps the oldest known complete rite of ordination for women deacons, a mid-eighth century Byzantine manuscript known as Barbarini 336, requires that women be ordained by the bishop within the sanctuary, the proximity to the altar indicating the fact of a true ordination.
and this
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
The rites for deaconesses spoke of ''keepers of your holy gates' - similar to a 'doorkeeper in the house of the Lord' - 'doorkeeper' was a minor 'order' like acolyte - certainly not 'deacon'
?
Or are we talking about different times or strands of church history?
anne
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‘I would have given the Church my head, my hand, my heart. She would not have them. She did not know what to do with them. She told me to go back and do crochet' Florence Nightingale
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TubaMirum
Shipmate
# 8282
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Posted
Apparently there have been both "female deacons" and "deaconesses."
And it seems maybe (from what I'm gathering, although I'm not 100% certain yet) that the two functions existed simultaneously.
Although that doesn't make much sense, does it? OTOH, use of the English word "deaconess" could have been - as was hinted at in an earlier post - a way to erase "female deacons" out of existence, substituting this apparently non-ordained position for the ordained one. As you notice above, CL immediately tried that tack; I mentioned "women deacons" and he went right with "deaconesses," in a sort of sleight-of-hand "translation"!
But there could have been two completely different words in Greek, or Latin, for these two functions, if they existed together at the same time.
Still reading....
[ 19. July 2011, 22:25: Message edited by: TubaMirum ]
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
It does seem pretty bizarre, linguistically speaking, to have a distinction between female deacons on the one hand and deaconesses on the other. If there was in fact a distinction, it obviously loses something in the translation. Alternatively, there was no distinction and people are arguing that deaconesses aren't deacons of female gender purely to arrive at a predetermined result.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
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Chesterbelloc
Tremendous trifler
# 3128
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Posted
I really don't want to get caught up in this argument too much - time doesn't allow - but I just want to point out what I hope are a couple of uncontroversial things.
1) There is nothing close to scholarly consensus about whether there were ever female deacons ordained in the full sense in which men were: i.e., with precisely the same key indicators, including the laying on of hands with the explicit invocation of the Holy Spirit for that office. That's just a fact.
2) The Roman Catholic Church has not definitively ruled on whether women can be ordained to the diaconate.
3) This has no bearing for Catholics on whether women can be ordained to the priesthood because that has been definitively ruled out, as discussed above.
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"[A] moral, intellectual, and social step below Mudfrog."
Posts: 4199 | From: Athens Borealis | Registered: Aug 2002
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
Chesterbelloc
While you are right to caution about building too much on e.g "Phoebe, diakonos" (Romans 16:1) there is an equal and opposite danger of being too dismissive. Much can be made, indeed is made, of the ambiguity of "diakonos", meaning both "servant" and "office". But that's a post-facto rationalisation. The truth is that this is a uniquely commended servant of the church, and she is undoubted female. She is also a clear "ikon" of Christ in this context, since on the testimony of Paul, she mirrors the teaching that he came among us not to be served but to serve. There is a tradition that she was entrusted to carry the Epistle itself to its destination. And if one looks at the further instruction viz "that you may welcome her in the Lord in a way worthy of the saints, and help her in whatever she may need from you, for she has been a patron of many and of myself as well.(ESV)" this is a high commendation indeed.
Not suggesting you build a whole edifice on this, but I don't think this can be easily argued away either. It should give pause for thought. Treat with dignity and respect. She's earned it through her faithful service. Isn't that a principle which shines through the cultural differences? Why can't we build on that?
The great majority of us now accept, following MLK, that content of character is more important than colour of skin, and that is a Christian virtue. Is it such a big stretch to replace "colour of skin" by "gender" and say that is the criterion to apply to those entrusted with serving the church? Why cannot that be done? When it comes to the priesthood, it is surely just one aspect of Holy Tradition conversing with another. Surely the outworking of theology is about such conversations?
"We've never done it this way before" just doesn't seem adequate somehow. I'm not saying I don't understand the reservations, but where is that conversation?
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
ancient Coptic
So so what? It doesn't affect Chesterbelloc's, IngoB's., Trisaigion's et al aruments which are based on a Pope the Copts don;t and never did recognise. They've got their own and always did.
Nor mine in favour of ordaining women which are based on the New Testament.
All a bit irrelevant.
Not irrelevant to those who search antiquity in search of crumbs of evidence that there is a precedence for the OOW.
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My Jewish-positive lectionary blog is at http://recognisingjewishrootsinthelectionary.wordpress.com/
My reviews at http://layreadersbookreviews.wordpress.com
Posts: 23198 | From: Bristol | Registered: Oct 2001
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TubaMirum
Shipmate
# 8282
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
Not irrelevant to those who search antiquity in search of crumbs of evidence that there is a precedence for the OOW.
In case you're interested, this is rather an insulting turn of phrase, and isn't actually what's happening anyway.
What's actually happening is that people are taking a closer look at history to see where the role of women has been purposely ignored, demeaned, or totally erased. The "diakonon" incident is just one of many.
For another very clear example: Mary Magdalene was turned into a whore by some Pope or other - a false trope that is absolutely nowhere to be found in the Bible. Instead of being praised as the very first Apostle - which she was - she was turned into a "fallen woman," fit for nothing but eternal repentence and reform. The church has been heavy on the misogyny over the centuries, along with most of the rest of the world.
Yet even in his misogynistic culture, Paul gives high honor to numerous women working closely with him. Jesus, of course, did the same, by including women among his closest companions and confidants - and, BTW, disciples. They traveled with him, and learned from him - in some ways better, apparently, than most of the "Twelve," who are in fact often portrayed as dunces in the Bible. People have erased them from history (and "tradition") because that has served their purpose - but there they most definitely are.
Martha and Mary are Christ's disciples as much as any of the "Twelve" - who are, of course, a sign of and metaphor for the Twelve Tribes of Israel - which in turn are a sign of and metaphor for the sons of Isaac. Those were patriarchal societies, all of them.
One might say, in fact, if one actually looked at the stories, that his female companions were far more in tune with what Jesus was about than the men, who are almost always portrayed and thick and dense and uncomprehending of Jesus' message. Mary, for one, has "chosen the better part." A woman anoints Jesus' feet (or head), and the men are told that she's doing the right thing. Magdalene saw Jesus in the garden - and he commissions her right there, saying, "Go tell them to meet me in Galilee." (That's an "Apostle," BTW: sent.)
It's quite possible to make that interpretation if one wanted to, that is - but one (i.e., "the church") definitely has not felt like doing that over the last couple of millennia.
So nobody's looking at "crumbs"; we're staring at gigantic boulders that have been dismissed and ignored in order to perpetuate the status quo.
(There. I feel better now.... ![[Biased]](wink.gif) )
[ 20. July 2011, 12:47: Message edited by: TubaMirum ]
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TubaMirum
Shipmate
# 8282
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Posted
(Because, you know: we don't actually need a precedent for the ordination of women; we could "break new ground" if we wanted to, because we believe our theology points to the breaking of new ground.
I thought that was the whole idea of "revelation" anyway....)
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TubaMirum
Shipmate
# 8282
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Posted
** Sons of Jacob, of course.
(All those darned Patriarchs look alike to me....)
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by TubaMirum:
So nobody's looking at "crumbs"; we're staring at gigantic boulders that have been dismissed and ignored in order to perpetuate the status quo.
These 'boulders' prove that women are equal to men in discipleship or even better at it.
It does not prove that they were 'ordained'.
I often think that ordination is for those who are not much good at discipleship because they cannot cope as laity, it being much harder to live out the faith in secular than within the confines of the gathered church.
[ 20. July 2011, 16:32: Message edited by: leo ]
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My Jewish-positive lectionary blog is at http://recognisingjewishrootsinthelectionary.wordpress.com/
My reviews at http://layreadersbookreviews.wordpress.com
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TubaMirum
Shipmate
# 8282
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by TubaMirum:
So nobody's looking at "crumbs"; we're staring at gigantic boulders that have been dismissed and ignored in order to perpetuate the status quo.
These 'boulders' prove that women are equal to men in discipleship or even better at it.
It does not prove that they were 'ordained'.
Only you and Chesterbelloc are fixated on the (false) idea that this is what's being argued on this thread.
But by all means, keep harping on it, if that's your pleasure....
Posts: 4719 | From: Right Coast USA | Registered: Aug 2004
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by TubaMirum:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by TubaMirum:
So nobody's looking at "crumbs"; we're staring at gigantic boulders that have been dismissed and ignored in order to perpetuate the status quo.
These 'boulders' prove that women are equal to men in discipleship or even better at it.
It does not prove that they were 'ordained'.
Only you and Chesterbelloc are fixated on the (false) idea that this is what's being argued on this thread.
But by all means, keep harping on it, if that's your pleasure....
Wow! Chesterbelloc and me in the same sentence - we are at loggerheads usually.
Going back to ordained women, much as I would like it to be the case, the evidence is flimsy and what has been dragged out smacks of conspiracy theory - the women had important roles but the men wrote them out of the documents.
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My Jewish-positive lectionary blog is at http://recognisingjewishrootsinthelectionary.wordpress.com/
My reviews at http://layreadersbookreviews.wordpress.com
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TubaMirum
Shipmate
# 8282
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
Wow! Chesterbelloc and me in the same sentence - we are at loggerheads usually.
Going back to ordained women, much as I would like it to be the case, the evidence is flimsy and what has been dragged out smacks of conspiracy theory - the women had important roles but the men wrote them out of the documents.
Be clear in what you're saying. Exactly who has dragged exactly what out, in terms of "ordained women"? Name names; give examples.
[ 20. July 2011, 18:55: Message edited by: TubaMirum ]
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
That is a long one, worthy of a separate thread - I can do it, if you want to.
However this thread is about the Ordinariate, which both you and I are not wanting to do, with good reasons.
By all means, have the debate, but remember that you and I are both in favour of the OOW and accept it as a DEVELOPMENT of our tradition - but I do not need to find a precedent from what has gone before - because there is none.
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My Jewish-positive lectionary blog is at http://recognisingjewishrootsinthelectionary.wordpress.com/
My reviews at http://layreadersbookreviews.wordpress.com
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Triple Tiara
Ship's Papabile
# 9556
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by TubaMirum:
(Because, you know: we don't actually need a precedent for the ordination of women; we could "break new ground" if we wanted to, because we believe our theology points to the breaking of new ground.
.... as I have been saying.
This is the important distinction between the RC Church and others and we need to recognise that.
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I'm a Roman. You may call me Caligula.
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TubaMirum
Shipmate
# 8282
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Triple Tiara:
quote:
Originally posted by TubaMirum:
(Because, you know: we don't actually need a precedent for the ordination of women; we could "break new ground" if we wanted to, because we believe our theology points to the breaking of new ground.
.... as I have been saying.
This is the important distinction between the RC Church and others and we need to recognise that.
But, TT: I think the RCC could do this, too.
And I insist that it has, actually. Every bit of doctrine and discipline that came after Christ was a new development from previous Christian theology, no?
Listen: I'm not arguing that the RCC should ordain women; I'm simply saying that it could - and alongside that, that everything it's developed over the years was an innovation, pointed to by a new theology.
But of course, it's not my business to insist the RCC do anything - I'm not a member of that church! I do respect that church, though - and I should add that I've been tempted to join it strictly because of all the great things I believe it's accomplished.
Oh, well. Maybe next lifetime. (Ooops! I'm sure I'm not supposed to say that.... )
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Triple Tiara
Ship's Papabile
# 9556
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Posted
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
well I sometimes get the feeling I was Caligula in a previous lifetime
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I'm a Roman. You may call me Caligula.
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Except, of course, that the RCs would argue that doctrinal developments have to be in keeping with scripture and Tradition. I think you'd be hard pressed to find many RCs who would argue that scripture and Tradition point towards the ordination of women without some kind of adjustment or special pleading ... just as you are unlikely to find many 'low church' Protestants claiming that they point towards the idea of an ordained priesthood in the first place ...
And of course, to an extent, the RCs (and the Orthodox) are more positive and facilitating about some aspects of women's ministry than a number of very literalist Protestant sects I could mention.
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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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TubaMirum
Shipmate
# 8282
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Except, of course, that the RCs would argue that doctrinal developments have to be in keeping with scripture and Tradition. I think you'd be hard pressed to find many RCs who would argue that scripture and Tradition point towards the ordination of women without some kind of adjustment or special pleading ... just as you are unlikely to find many 'low church' Protestants claiming that they point towards the idea of an ordained priesthood in the first place ...
And of course, to an extent, the RCs (and the Orthodox) are more positive and facilitating about some aspects of women's ministry than a number of very literalist Protestant sects I could mention.
Well, "adjustment" in point of view was the very point of my long post above.
Ah, well - back to the Anglican thing now....
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
ancient Coptic
So so what? It doesn't affect Chesterbelloc's, IngoB's., Trisaigion's et al aruments which are based on a Pope the Copts don;t and never did recognise. They've got their own and always did.
Nor mine in favour of ordaining women which are based on the New Testament.
All a bit irrelevant.
Not irrelevant to those who search antiquity in search of crumbs of evidence that there is a precedence for the OOW.
We don't need to search antiquity, the Bible trumps it.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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TubaMirum
Shipmate
# 8282
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Posted
Well, I guess that about sums it up; all present and accounted for. RCC, Anglican, and Evangelical reasoning: check, check, and check. It's all right there.
Now we need a representative from the Quakers. ("Priests"? Why "priests"?.....)
Posts: 4719 | From: Right Coast USA | Registered: Aug 2004
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CL
Shipmate
# 16145
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
I really don't want to get caught up in this argument too much - time doesn't allow - but I just want to point out what I hope are a couple of uncontroversial things.
1) There is nothing close to scholarly consensus about whether there were ever female deacons ordained in the full sense in which men were: i.e., with precisely the same key indicators, including the laying on of hands with the explicit invocation of the Holy Spirit for that office. That's just a fact.
2) The Roman Catholic Church has not definitively ruled on whether women can be ordained to the diaconate.
3) This has no bearing for Catholics on whether women can be ordained to the priesthood because that has been definitively ruled out, as discussed above.
The priesthood encompasses the three degrees of diaconate, presbyterate and episcopate. Women cannot be ordained deacons for the same reasons they cannot be ordained presbyters. Ordinatio Sacredotalis applies across the board.
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"Even if Catholics faithful to Tradition are reduced to a handful, they are the ones who are the true Church of Jesus Christ." - Athanasius of Alexandria
Posts: 647 | From: Ireland | Registered: Jan 2011
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Chesterbelloc
Tremendous trifler
# 3128
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Posted
If you say so, CL - but you're the first I've heard saying so explicitly.
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"[A] moral, intellectual, and social step below Mudfrog."
Posts: 4199 | From: Athens Borealis | Registered: Aug 2002
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Divine Outlaw
Gin-soaked boy
# 2252
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by CL:
The priesthood encompasses the three degrees of diaconate, presbyterate and episcopate.
You're making this up. More charitably, you're confusing orders as such with the ministerial priesthood.
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insert amusing sig. here
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
We don't need to search antiquity, the Bible trumps it.
For protestants, maybe.
![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
For pretty much all Christians I'd hope because its our only direct witness to the life of Jesus, who is God incarnate.
And its a lot better basis for an argument than "the Pope said so" which is the one about a third of the RCs on this thread are using (mysteriously it seems to go with usernames begining with the letter "c")
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras
Shipmate
# 11274
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Posted
Leo, I find that on this side of the pond Episcopalians talk increasingly of the Church's "lived experience" in addition to scripture, tradition and reason. Indeed, sometimes here the formula now seems to one of scripture, tradition, and lived experience, the last of these seemingly either doing double duty for reason or having displaced it. This was not, however, the formula thirty or forty years ago (it maybe gained currency only in the last decade).
Posts: 7328 | From: Delaware | Registered: Apr 2006
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
But reason is not and cannot be a "leg" in this context. Its just how we think about the "legs", that is our sources of knowledge of God, such as experience, Scripture, tradition, revelation.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras
Shipmate
# 11274
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Posted
I don't see how you can imply that reason - the intellect - isn't a primary source of our "knowledge" (is that really the best word for it?), i.e. our understanding , of God.
Or is your rejection of that just some characteristically evo-low church thing?
Posts: 7328 | From: Delaware | Registered: Apr 2006
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
I don't see how you can imply that reason - the intellect - isn't a primary source of our "knowledge" (is that really the best word for it?), i.e. our understanding , of God.
Reason isn't a source of information, it is just a name for thinking done right. Logical rather than illogical. Any understanding must involve reason, whatever it is based on. Our understanding of revelation has to be reasoning, our understanding of tradition has to be reasoning. That's what understanding is. Unreasoning or illogical thought is the opposite of understanding.
"Reason" cannot be a leg of our metaphorical three-legged stool of authority, any more than "lack of woodworm" could be a leg of a real wooden stool.
I think some people are loosely using the word "reason" instead of "experience" but that is unhelpful, because it is perfectly possible to believe nonsense based on your own experience, unless you think about it reasonably and logically. Also because it implies - maybe it is meant to imply - that people who derive their understanding from Scripture are doing it in an unreasoning way.
[ 22. July 2011, 13:20: Message edited by: ken ]
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
I see ken's point. It's the difference between the source of information and the method of processing it.
Almost Cyprian's fountain and channel again, actually.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Soror Magna
Shipmate
# 9881
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Posted
Is it really beyond the realm of possibility that the development and growth of the idea that women are equal to men is also the work of the Holy Spirit? OliviaG
Posts: 5430 | From: Caprica City | Registered: Jul 2005
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TubaMirum
Shipmate
# 8282
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Posted
Here's an interesting article from yesterday's NYTimes: In 3 Countries, Challenging the Vatican on Female Priests. Excerpt:
quote:
More than 150 Roman Catholic priests in the United States have signed a statement in support of a fellow cleric who faces dismissal for participating in a ceremony that purported to ordain a woman as a priest, in defiance of church teaching.
The American priests’ action follows closely on the heels of a “Call to Disobedience” issued in Austria last month by more than 300 priests and deacons. They stunned their bishops with a seven-point pledge that includes actively promoting priesthood for women and married men, and reciting a public prayer for “church reform” in every Mass.
And in Australia, the National Council of Priests recently released a ringing defense of the bishop of Toowoomba, who had issued a pastoral letter saying that, facing a severe priest shortage, he would ordain women and married men “if Rome would allow it.” After an investigation, the Vatican forced him to resign.
Posts: 4719 | From: Right Coast USA | Registered: Aug 2004
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Louise:
quote:
Originally posted by TubaMirum:
That's a good point, Angloid, and shouldn't be forgotten.
Most women have not had any secular rights in most places for most of history - not only in the West, but pretty much everywhere on earth. No right to vote (where there was a right to vote); no right to own property; no right to an education or to go to university; no real possibility of supporting themselves.
It's not really at all surprising that the priesthood was simply one more thing denied women.
Well yes, precisely, which is where I came in on this thread. In the words of the sainted Basil Fawlty, it's stating 'The Bleeding Obvious' that ecclesiastical 'Tradition' is institutionally sexist and homophobic, and historically always has been. When challenged about 'The Bleeding Obvious' that this is unjust, the proponents of Tradition argue that it's precisely because they have such a long and appalling track record of institutional discrimination that it must be right!
Those are good points.
What I sometimes find hard to appreciate is how far, and how quickly, we have come even in living memory. For some of my parent's lifetime, it was a common practice for employers to have an explicit policy of paying women less than men for the same work. For some of my grandparent's lifetime, women couldn't vote on the same terms as men. For some of my great-grandparent's lifetime, they couldn't vote at all. There are people alive today who were born when women did not have the vote.
And today you would have to search very hard to find anyone willing to defend to old order. We still have sexism, of course, but the idea of an intrinsically inferior legal status for women has gone from being ordinary and unexceptional to being literally indefensible.
If you want to exclude women from a certain role, it isn't at all convincing to refer back to a time when they are excluded from practically everything as authority. We all agree, on both sides of the ordination debate, that past ages were wrong about almost everything that they restricted women from doing. There's not the slightest desire to revive their inequalities in any sphere but this. If women are to be excluded from ordination, then it must be a special case, an exception to a universal rule. The onus is on those making the exception to explain why. "Tradition" doesn't cut it, because "tradition" justifies being unfair to women in all sorts of ways which have been rightly abandoned.
Against that, it is telling that as soon as the social restrictions on women (which everyone agrees were wrong) began to disappear, the churches began to realise that women could be priests, and when they have been ordained, it has been found by experience that they are no less able or blessed by God than men. If the special reason for restricting women from this ministry is an inscrutable divine disapproval, it makes no sense that the overwhelming trend is for the doubtful or undecided to become convinced of the validity of women's ordination.
If, on a hypothetical view, the Church had, because of a deeply sexist social environment, made an understandable but serious error in perpetuating sexual inequality, and the Holy Spirit wished to correct us while respecting our free will, what would the result look like? Isn't it a fair surmise that what we would expect to see would be extremely sexist practices in the church endorsed by socient, but with a latent trend throughout church tradition saying that despite appearances, men and women were on some deep and important level of equivalent value, and as soon as the social prejudice against putting that into effect were removed, women's ministry being recognised and blessed? And how does that differ from what we actually see?
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005
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TubaMirum
Shipmate
# 8282
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Posted
And those are good points, too, Eliab....
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