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Source: (consider it) Thread: I Do Not Suffer a Woman to Teach
mousethief

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Anent denominations/churches that don't allow women to teach men (we'll assume that it's okay for them to teach children, although maybe there are some that don't allow women to teach boys but only girls?): Do they allow men to read books on spiritual topics written by women? Do they allow their women to publish such books?

Surely one can teach others even though not in their presence through words on paper (or on a Kindle or such).

Do churches who advance this particular bit of praxis (or deny it depending on how you frame the question) take it to its logical conclusion as regards books?

Come to that, can I listen to a woman singer of religious music if she wrote a song that has some kind of, you know, content?

Inquiring minds, etc.

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Brenda Clough
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An allied question, which came instantly to mind when I visited the local Orthodox church: only the priests are supposed to go into the holy area, behind the rail. Who cleans and vacuums, back there, or are the dust bunnies fierce?

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leo
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I suspect only males do the cleaniung.

At S. Alban's Birmingham (anglo-catholic) women used to arrange the flowers in vases then handed them over to men in cassocks to place them in the sanctuary.

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mr cheesy
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quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Anent denominations/churches that don't allow women to teach men (we'll assume that it's okay for them to teach children, although maybe there are some that don't allow women to teach boys but only girls?): Do they allow men to read books on spiritual topics written by women? Do they allow their women to publish such books?

From my observations of very conservative Evangelicals; with children it seems women can teach until the boys are of an age to graduate to being taught by men. As far as I could see, this often meant that after the age of about 13, the children attended church with the adults.

Women authors of spiritual books are usually only tolerated when they're writing on women's topics. Hard theology and doctrinal books are always written by men.

quote:
Surely one can teach others even though not in their presence through words on paper (or on a Kindle or such).
Right, as above. But the odd thing is that they don't seem to have much problem with their kids having female teachers at school on secular topics, with having female politicians, with having female judges, policemen, doctors etc.

The oddest thing I've witnessed is a bookshelf entirely filled with thick books written by men on weighty looking subjects next to some (pretty racy) novels. I've never quite been able to get my head around that.

quote:
Do churches who advance this particular bit of praxis (or deny it depending on how you frame the question) take it to its logical conclusion as regards books?
Again, in my experience there are only a small number of acceptable theological publishers and these are almost entirely written by men. For that reason, I don't think the praxis needs to be "taught" exactly - if you only buy from these publishers, then you'll not have any other choice.

What becomes more complicated is that often they're also reading very niche magazines, newspapers and websites - I'm not sure how they justify having women writing for these kinds of publication. I'm guessing that the justification is that the women are not writing the weighty teaching articles.

quote:
Come to that, can I listen to a woman singer of religious music if she wrote a song that has some kind of, you know, content?

Inquiring minds, etc.

Mm. I don't know about that one. The ones I know don't listen to any form of modernish Christian music because they've decided it is evil and of the Devil. So in that house the only music without words.

I'm not sure what happens in less strict households.

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Bibaculus
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I guess there is a difference between Protestant ideas about not allowing women to teach, and catholic/orthodox ideas about sacraments and purity. They may appear to be similar, but come from very different mindsets.

On the latter, when women were first ordained in the CofE, I recall a presentation by a CofE priest who was also a lecturer in the Theology Dept at King's College London. I hope after almost 25 years I don't misrepresent his ideas. But he argued (as I recall) that only men could be priests because women shed their blood every month by a natural process, and men, as priests, changed wine into blood in the Mass, and you couldn't confuse the two.

I guess it was tied into OT ideas of ritual purity.

It seemed bonkers to me then, and it still does now; but I guess people believe that stuff.

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Baptist Trainfan
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I remember about Watchman Nee's "Little Flock" church in, I think, Shanghai, which was strongly influenced by the "Exclusive" Brethren. They had one gifted lady preacher who was visiting; all the men wanted to hear her but that was not allowed as they would then be "under her authority".

So they rigged up a curtain across the meeting room, the ladies all sat in front of it and the gentlemen sat behind, keeping very quiet and pretending not to be there! [Cool]

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Lamb Chopped
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I'm going to write only about my own denomination. I thoroughly expect to get dumped on, and whoever wishes to may do so, of course; but I'd be grateful if before you dump, you take a moment to consider it as if we were some sort of weird anthropological specimen you were studying the odd customs of. A little detachment makes a better discussion, IMHO.

Anyway. I am from the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, and I am a woman. I am an educated woman, with a doctorate in English and the equivalent of a master's at least in theology. I read Greek and Hebrew, and I am fairly well-versed in church history, doctrine, missiology, etc. etc.

My denomination does not ordain women, primarily because of this verse and its parallels. We do allow practically every other kind of service. I have taught at the seminary (research and writing). I have written books which have been published by my denominational publisher. I have been a staff writer for LCMS agencies. I have taught missionaries, conducted workshops, led Bible studies, taught Confirmation, and even (shock, horror) written sermons. I have been involved in the making of some high-profile worship and teaching resources, and that by invitation. I have confronted men, both lay and pastors, who were making asses of themselves. I have done it on the basis of Scripture. I have baptized, and I have distributed the Lord's Supper. I have served as lector in public worship. I have led family and small group devotions, and was once forced by circumstances and the whole congregation(!) into leading half a worship service (at which point my husband finally showed up, thank God--he's the one who signed on to be a pastor, not me).

Have I had blowback on any of this? On rare occasions, mainly from men who show every sign of not picking up their own underwear at home--and never on Scriptural grounds. Which is a damn good thing, because I would cream them on that basis. Perhaps they realize that.

More common is the subtle or not-so-subtle discrimination that comes from trying to make a career as a laywoman in the church. None of that is provable, and God knows none of that is Scriptural, but it's a real thing. And I don't think it's doctrinally based. I think that it springs from feelings of inadequacy on the part of certain males in power. It is usually alluded to (if ever) as "are you ever going to want to seek ordination?" Snort. As if. (I also have no desire to stick my hand into a meatgrinder.)

There are quite a few women like me. God still does miracles. He gives us the grace to carry on in spite of non-Scriptural shit thrown our direction by the above-mentioned males-with-adequacy-issues. He gives plenty of males-who-would-never-dream-of turning service into a dick-matching competition, like my adoring fellow Greek students (I got shoved into substituting for our Greek prof several times during college while he was out, basically because of my grades. My fellow students were all male, and I was the only female. But that didn't matter to them. What DID matter to them was that I had been taught that magical procedure, sentence diagramming! which made impossible Greek passages suddenly crystal clear. They hung on my every word. My old English teacher would have laughed herself sick.)

So much for my experience. Now what about the passage?

The word in Greek is didaskein, διδάσκειν, which we translate "to teach." And the whole verse is "I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet." That "exercise authority" is a Clue™, folks. When I did a word study on didaskein, I found that in every case where a nuance could be discerned, it applies to "teaching-with-authority-over-the-life-of-the-learner," that is, what we would call nowadays "being a guru" or "taking disciples." The problem is not with simply imparting information, which is what most of our teaching boils down to in modern times. Paul likely could not have imagined such a situation. What he seems to be concerned with are cases where you have a woman leader who takes male disciples and oversees their lives and discipline.

So that lets out people who teach via music, book, or ordinary Bible study. It also lets out anyone teaching a secular subject, or offering leadership of any sort which does not involve life-and-morals discipline. It does mean that the pastorate and eldership are off limits, certainly in our church, because those are precisely the people tasked with handling discipline. In our polity the congregational president is NOT tasked with this, so it is possible to have a woman president--and we do.

The natural next question is "Why is it a problem for women to discipline men in the church?" This post is long enough, so I'll leave that for later if anybody's interested. I don't have the answers, just an interesting perspective from a Jesuit priest I studied under. It will doubtless offend the hell out of everybody.

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TurquoiseTastic

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# 8978

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I am interested LC. Allow me to sit under your teaching-but-not-in-a-discipling-or-guruing-way authority on this question.
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Lamb Chopped
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heheheheheh. Not mine, but Fr. Walter Ong. It'll have to be after work (provided I can make it--I hate viruses!).

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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
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Albertus
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quote:
Originally posted by Bibaculus:
I guess there is a difference between Protestant ideas about not allowing women to teach, and catholic/orthodox ideas about sacraments and purity. They may appear to be similar, but come from very different mindsets.

On the latter, when women were first ordained in the CofE, I recall a presentation by a CofE priest who was also a lecturer in the Theology Dept at King's College London. I hope after almost 25 years I don't misrepresent his ideas. But he argued (as I recall) that only men could be priests because women shed their blood every month by a natural process, and men, as priests, changed wine into blood in the Mass, and you couldn't confuse the two.

I guess it was tied into OT ideas of ritual purity.

It seemed bonkers to me then, and it still does now; but I guess people believe that stuff.

Completely bonkers, indeed. FWIW IIRC the Abbe Pierre believed that women *should* be priests for precisely the reason that the menstrual cycle meant that they were connected to the rhythms of nature and life in a way that no man could ever be.
Possibly equally bonkers as an argument, but in a much more charming and inclusive way.

[ 08. March 2016, 17:31: Message edited by: Albertus ]

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Cottontail

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The 'theologian' John Piper spends a lot of time worrying about this very thing. In his contribution to the tome, Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, he worries deeply about what a man should do if he is lost in a strange town, and has to ask a woman for directions. Or what should the woman do, who is asked for directions, and thereby forced into an authority-over-a-man position? (I can't remember the solution to this.)

Google him and you will come across his Desiring God website, where he addresses such burning questions as:

Can a woman be a police officer? (no definitive answer given)
Can a woman be a traffic planner? (yes)
Can male builders work to a plan drawn up by a woman architect? (yes)
Can a woman be a drill sergeant?(no)
Can a man work for a female boss? (if he must, but he will not flourish)
Can a man read a book of theology written by a woman? (yes, but cautiously)
Can men to listen to female speakers? (yes, unless they start becoming dependent on her)

Piper advises that we consider whether the authority of the woman over the man in such situations is (a) personal or non-personal; and (b) directive or non-directive. Personal and directive is bad; non-personal and directive is fine; personal and non-directive is fine.

So, a woman civil engineer who designed the traffic system along which men drive has authority over men in this situation, but although directive, it is non-personal, so that is okay. Similarly, the woman architect's authority over builders, etc, "is so impersonal that they may never know a woman stand behind it all."

A wife may offer personal guidance to her husband, especially if she knows more about a topic than he does, but as long as she does it in a non-directive way, using "persuasion" and "petition", this will not offend his male authority. But a female drill sergeant shouting at male soldiers is being both directive and personal, so that is a no-no.

So can a man read a book or listen to a song by a woman? Yes, because her authority here is non-personal. In fact, the song may not even be directive, so that is doubly okay.

Sorry for being so directive here. But at least we do not have a personal relationship, so hopefully I have not overly offended your God-given sense of responsibility and leadership, nor controverted God’s created order. [brick wall]

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"I don't think you ought to read so much theology," said Lord Peter. "It has a brutalizing influence."

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lilBuddha
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So, how do people resolve the conflict between
Be fruitful and multiply And A man should not marry?

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LeRoc

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quote:
lilBuddha: So, how do people resolve the conflict between
Be fruitful and multiply And A man should not marry?

Er … that one's actually rather easy.

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lilBuddha
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So God is about free love?

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LeRoc

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Perhaps not, but free love would resolve the conflict.

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mark_in_manchester

not waving, but...
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quote:
I am interested LC. Allow me to sit under your teaching-but-not-in-a-discipling-or-guruing-way authority on this question.
That's a plus 1 from me [Big Grin]

During your long post, when you introduced the word study and guru / discipline ideas, I started thinking about Abbots and conversely, of course, Abbesses. No one would think of putting a man in charge of a convent. He'd be mincemeat.

I'm getting quite old-fashioned in my middle age - I enjoy a Christian men's group, and I think I'm tending to a kind of gender-spiritual apartheid where actually being around each other is concerned. But here on the ship...teach away, if you can be arsed to stoop to my deep, co-incidentally-male ignorance!

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luvanddaisies

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While I was reading Lamb Chopped's post it occurred to me to wonder about this in the age of t'interweb.
There are some posters here from whom one often learns things, so I guess one could be said to be being taught by the, to some degree. Thinking of posters like that who are female, like Lamb Chopped or Josephine, to take the first couple of examples from the top of my mind's filing system, would that be a problem for someone? How would you know a blogger or a poster was male or female? Would someone who was particularly hung up on that want to know for sure before reading a blog post or a bulletin board post, or dies the removal of the words from the context of a person allow the reader to superimpose a gender onto them or negate the importance of the gender of the writer.

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Brenda Clough
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On the internet nobody knows if you are a dog.

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Albertus
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Woof.
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mousethief

Ship's Thieving Rodent
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Saint Gregory Nzianzus (I think it was) praised his father for submitting himself in all things spiritual to his wife. Which says something.

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Golden Key
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There's a longgg tradition of women writers being published under initials or pen names. And that's actual print media. There may have been lots of spiritual writers who were women, and we just don't know.

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deano
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IANAL, but aren’t their laws that prevent women from being discriminated against that would cover these cases where specific denominations prevent women from teaching (pond differences aside of course)?

I don’t know if faith organisations are excluded from such legislation, but surely “teaching” at a lay level would not be the same as, for example, protecting the right of the Catholic Church to only employ male priests.

Does anyone know if anti-discrimination laws would apply to lay-person discrimination such as not allowing women to teach men?

As the father of a young woman, this kind of sheer bigotry (for there is no other name for it) makes me very angry. I suspect my daughter would probably be a better teacher than most of the men in our church (which is academic because we wouldn’t discriminate in that way anyway).

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Alan Cresswell

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IANAL either, but my understanding is that the 2010 Equality Act has a list of exemptions that includes ministers of religion - so the RC church, for example, wouldn't face prosecution for rejecting a woman or non-celibate man from pursuing a vocation in the priesthood. As far as I know, those don't cover non-ministerial positions which could include preachers who are not ordained ministers. Although there is provision for cultural sensitivities and other occasions where limiting employment by gender could be deemed reasonable (examples often cited include not employing men as rape counsellors), and maybe this topic comes under "cultural sensitivity". Also, in a lot of cases, a lay preacher wouldn't be employed in any formal sense or get paid (possibly expenses), so employment legislation probably wouldn't apply.

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stonespring
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Somewhat unrelated are various Canon Laws in the RCC that limit the holders of certain offices in the Roman Curia and in the bureaucracy of local dioceses to priests . These laws can all be changed as they are not dependent on any defined doctrines of the Church. When a woman has been appointed to a role that had previously been reserved only to priests, such as chancellor of a diocese, those duties of that role that must fall to a priest because of church doctrines (I think these duties are mostly ceremonial or liturgical, but I am not sure) have been delegated to a priest.

It is arguable, a woman can be appointed a cardinal without needing to be a priest or even a deacon, but the current Pope has discouraged the idea without saying that it is impossible.

If women cannot be priests or bishops (which the RCC says is unchangeable church doctrine but not because of a ban on women being men's spiritual teachers), than no matter what teaching or governing role a woman may hold in the Church, she will always be able to be overruled by a man (even the leader of an all-female religious order would need to answer to the Pope). I wonder whether if some day a Pope tries to change Canon Law to make women cardinals and Prefects of Congregations of the Roman Curia, etc., while delegating any ceremonial/liturgical priestly or episcopal functions of those roles to ordained folk, whether or not we may finally hear some protests that there is a "teaching" or "governing" component of these positions that only a priest or bishop could occupy.

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Brenda Clough
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I am the mother of a daughter who is just about to become a major in the US Army. The solution is on the other side, not the church but the world. When women rule the world, the priesthood can do what it wants. The bishop or the pope will have to negotiate with women presidents, women tax assessors, women who are governing their polities, women who are generals of the armed forces defending their nation. This will be good for them.

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Bibaculus
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quote:
Originally posted by stonespring:
Somewhat unrelated are various Canon Laws in the RCC that limit the holders of certain offices in the Roman Curia and in the bureaucracy of local dioceses to priests . These laws can all be changed as they are not dependent on any defined doctrines of the Church. When a woman has been appointed to a role that had previously been reserved only to priests, such as chancellor of a diocese, those duties of that role that must fall to a priest because of church doctrines (I think these duties are mostly ceremonial or liturgical, but I am not sure) have been delegated to a priest.

It is arguable, a woman can be appointed a cardinal without needing to be a priest or even a deacon, but the current Pope has discouraged the idea without saying that it is impossible.

If women cannot be priests or bishops (which the RCC says is unchangeable church doctrine but not because of a ban on women being men's spiritual teachers), than no matter what teaching or governing role a woman may hold in the Church, she will always be able to be overruled by a man (even the leader of an all-female religious order would need to answer to the Pope). I wonder whether if some day a Pope tries to change Canon Law to make women cardinals and Prefects of Congregations of the Roman Curia, etc., while delegating any ceremonial/liturgical priestly or episcopal functions of those roles to ordained folk, whether or not we may finally hear some protests that there is a "teaching" or "governing" component of these positions that only a priest or bishop could occupy.

I don't think you have this quite right. According to RC Canon Law, only a cleric can exercise jurisdiction. And only men can be clerics. The Chancellor of a diocese occupies an administrative post. As far as I am aware there has never been a rule that it needs to be a cleric - it was simply the custom, as all posts were occupied by clerics until quite recently. While laypeople acting as chancellors are common in the US, it is not common elsewhere. A lay person may be a member of a tribunal, but lay members must be in a minority.

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stonespring
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quote:
Originally posted by Bibaculus:
quote:
Originally posted by stonespring:
Somewhat unrelated are various Canon Laws in the RCC that limit the holders of certain offices in the Roman Curia and in the bureaucracy of local dioceses to priests . These laws can all be changed as they are not dependent on any defined doctrines of the Church. When a woman has been appointed to a role that had previously been reserved only to priests, such as chancellor of a diocese, those duties of that role that must fall to a priest because of church doctrines (I think these duties are mostly ceremonial or liturgical, but I am not sure) have been delegated to a priest.

It is arguable, a woman can be appointed a cardinal without needing to be a priest or even a deacon, but the current Pope has discouraged the idea without saying that it is impossible.

If women cannot be priests or bishops (which the RCC says is unchangeable church doctrine but not because of a ban on women being men's spiritual teachers), than no matter what teaching or governing role a woman may hold in the Church, she will always be able to be overruled by a man (even the leader of an all-female religious order would need to answer to the Pope). I wonder whether if some day a Pope tries to change Canon Law to make women cardinals and Prefects of Congregations of the Roman Curia, etc., while delegating any ceremonial/liturgical priestly or episcopal functions of those roles to ordained folk, whether or not we may finally hear some protests that there is a "teaching" or "governing" component of these positions that only a priest or bishop could occupy.

I don't think you have this quite right. According to RC Canon Law, only a cleric can exercise jurisdiction. And only men can be clerics. The Chancellor of a diocese occupies an administrative post. As far as I am aware there has never been a rule that it needs to be a cleric - it was simply the custom, as all posts were occupied by clerics until quite recently. While laypeople acting as chancellors are common in the US, it is not common elsewhere. A lay person may be a member of a tribunal, but lay members must be in a minority.
I read in a newspaper article that when women were first appointed to be chancellors of dioceses, they had to delegate certain duties of the chancellor to priests while allowing the female appointees to do the rest. These duties may have been a matter of diocesan canons, diocesan non-canonical rules, or simply local custom. Based on what you have said, they probably were not based on the Code of Canon Law. Of course, newspapers are often very wrong or at least slightly inaccurate when they report on religion.

I have also heard theologians in the RCC argue about ways in which women and other laypeople can theoretically exercise some forms of jurisdiction, although these might require a change of canon law. I do not know if it is a matter of doctrine. I am not sure what specific roles that exercise jurisdiction they were referring to.

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Lamb Chopped
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quote:
Originally posted by mark_in_manchester:
quote:
I am interested LC. Allow me to sit under your teaching-but-not-in-a-discipling-or-guruing-way authority on this question.
That's a plus 1 from me [Big Grin]

During your long post, when you introduced the word study and guru / discipline ideas, I started thinking about Abbots and conversely, of course, Abbesses. No one would think of putting a man in charge of a convent. He'd be mincemeat.

I'm getting quite old-fashioned in my middle age - I enjoy a Christian men's group, and I think I'm tending to a kind of gender-spiritual apartheid where actually being around each other is concerned. But here on the ship...teach away, if you can be arsed to stoop to my deep, co-incidentally-male ignorance!

heheheheheheh. This thread is about to heat up.

[Devil] [Devil] [Devil]

First of all, this is not MY teaching. It comes from Walter J. Ong, SJ, and specifically from his book Fighting for Life. And it is SPECULATION, not teaching. And yes, it is offensive. Yes, I know that. Yes, yes, go soak your heads if you have to. I'm just reporting what he said. [Razz]

To get to it: He pointed out (he's deceased) that young boys (in general) face a developmental task that young girls never face, which is to differentiate themselves from a primary caregiver who is of a different gender. (yes, I know there are primary caregiving men. He's speaking in generalities across all human cultures.)

An infant girl is female/feminine as her mother is. As she grows, she will differentiate herself from her mother in many ways, but gender need not be one of them. A young boy, however, comes under the added pressure (social, cultural, whatever) to define himself as "Not-Mom" in the realm of gender also. And being young and the total opposite of subtle, they often do this by going to extremes. Hence the total rejection of pink, of dolls, of anything remotely "girly" in stereotypical American culture, and corresponding concepts in vast numbers of other cultures worldwide. Sometimes even language is involved, as the young boy learns to use masculine rather than feminine dialect (yes, some languages have such things, if you can believe it).

This struggle to differentiate himself from Mom-the-ruler-of-the-universe can go well, or it can go poorly. If it goes well, that's great. If it goes poorly, for any of a zillion reasons, the young lad is left with "issues" with women-in-authority specifically. (The young girl for whom it goes poorly isn't likely to focus on women-in-authority, being female herself; it's more likely to be authority figures period or some such.)

Here's where it gets particularly offensive. Ong postulates that the strictures against women in church leadership/disciplinary roles is something God laid down for the benefit of the males who couldn't get their act together--who still carry a psychic wound and can't overcome it. In short, he sees it as a concession to male weakness. Yes, I told you you'd be offended.

I don't say I agree with Ong. I simply find it fascinating to hear an explanation that locates the weakness in the male gender rather than the female for once.

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lilBuddha
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I don't think it really relocates anything, just confuses the causes.
Men, having the greater power, have built excuses into culture to justify control and allow for poor behaviour. This is just a sideways attempt at the same thing.

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Lamb Chopped
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I have to say that from my acquaintance with him he was one of least sexist men I've known, and the most open minded. (He was indirectly responsible for the birth of the Vietnamese refugee church and social care in this city.)

[ 10. March 2016, 05:31: Message edited by: Lamb Chopped ]

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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!

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lilBuddha
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It is still a mish-mash of pop psychology and apologetics used to justify an unequal treatment of women.

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Alan Cresswell

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If he could gather a group of eminent psychologists to support the description of the development of adolescent independence from mum he might be onto something. I'd also eat my hat.

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quetzalcoatl
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I remember this idea of male vulnerability, floating around in gender studies during the 70s and 80s, but it became tarnished by its adoption into pop psychology, as lilBuddha says. It was also very speculative, and non-empirical, often based on anecdotes (my dad used to wash up, but he wouldn't hang the clothes out in the garden, etc.).

You can also see it historically in the turn away from Freud in the post-war period of psychoanalysis, when emphasis shifted towards the powerful mother, and how separation from her was difficult, e.g. Klein, Winnicott.

However, research on separation and attachment by people like Bowlby tended to ignore gender differences. For one thing, girls also find it difficult to separate from mother, precisely because they're the same gender.

And of course, it has degenerated into men's rights stuff - the reason we're so aggressive, is because women are so powerful. Bonkers really.

Quite hilarious to use it to justify male priests.

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bib
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So what happens if a woman undergoes gender reassignment and surgery with all that entails. If he is legally male, then will the males of the church allow him to fufil male roles in the church?

I know of one very strict man who will not allow any of his family to come to church if any women are leading in the service. This was particularly marked when we had a lady priest who was also a qualified doctor. I know that the gentleman used to consult her professionally in her medical practice and yet he refused to acknowledge her role in the church. I find such behaviour very sad and primitive and feel that it may cause stumbling blocks for some prospective female members of the church.

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mr cheesy
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# 3330

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quote:
Originally posted by bib:
So what happens if a woman undergoes gender reassignment and surgery with all that entails. If he is legally male, then will the males of the church allow him to fufil male roles in the church?

At a guess no. I'm thinking these churches most likely believe gender is fixed.

quote:
I know of one very strict man who will not allow any of his family to come to church if any women are leading in the service. This was particularly marked when we had a lady priest who was also a qualified doctor. I know that the gentleman used to consult her professionally in her medical practice and yet he refused to acknowledge her role in the church. I find such behaviour very sad and primitive and feel that it may cause stumbling blocks for some prospective female members of the church.
I have met many people who would think this perfectly normal. It doesn't really sadden me, as I think people are entitled to believe whatever they like - I just obviously and joyfully believe the opposite.

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quetzalcoatl
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Just a note about separation for boys and girls. Some theorists have argued that separation from mother is more difficult for girls, as boys have another figure (father) to identify with.

A well-known exponent of this is Nancy Chodorow, who's written a few books on gender, so google her, if you like.

As I said above, this is all very speculative. Where's the data?

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mousethief

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quote:
Originally posted by mark_in_manchester:
During your long post, when you introduced the word study and guru / discipline ideas, I started thinking about Abbots and conversely, of course, Abbesses. No one would think of putting a man in charge of a convent. He'd be mincemeat.

And yet there were women in charge of double monasteries. Hilda of Whitby comes immediately to mind.

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Brenda Clough
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I am dealing with this issue in another universe, far far away. After a couple rounds of 'but women have to face the double standard' and 'men carry a larger economic burden' the parties involved have defaulted to the larger and deeper complaint, that life is hard, and often unfair to boot. Until the world is remade I don't think all of these problems can be solved.

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stonespring
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# 15530

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quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by mark_in_manchester:
During your long post, when you introduced the word study and guru / discipline ideas, I started thinking about Abbots and conversely, of course, Abbesses. No one would think of putting a man in charge of a convent. He'd be mincemeat.

And yet there were women in charge of double monasteries. Hilda of Whitby comes immediately to mind.
Is the authority of an abbess less in anyway to that of an abbott? How is it different in Orthodoxy vs the RCC? And did anything change regarding this in the RCC after Vatican II?
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mousethief

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I am no expert on monasticism east or west, but as far as I know the chief difference between an abbess and an abbot is that the former cannot conduct divine services. I can't speak to Vatican II changes at all.

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Bibaculus
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# 18528

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The main changes to the position of an abbess came around Trent. In the middle ages, as has been noted, it was not unknown for male religious to be subject to a female superior. The Bridgettines were one example, with both male and female members, all under an abbess. Around the time of the Counter-Reformation, the male branch died out. It was no longer really acceptable to have men, and priests in particular, subject to a woman.

Vatican II had nothing to say on the matter. The 1993 Code of Canon Law (the current code), restricts jurisdiction (in the technical sense - the ability to 'speak the law', as the etymology of the word would suggest) to clerics, as I have noted above.

The interesting thing is that the prejudice (for want of a better word) against female authority is a development of the early modern period.

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Golden Key
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Bibaculus--

Re Brigittine monks:

Ah, but they came back in the '70s--and make great fudge!
[Cool]

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Bibaculus
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# 18528

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quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
Bibaculus--

Re Brigittine monks:

Ah, but they came back in the '70s--and make great fudge!
[Cool]

Hmm. Interesting. But not like the medieval Brigittine houses, which consisted of female nuns and male canons regular (as these are, under the Rule of S Augustine), all under the authority of the Abbess.

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A jumped up pantry boy who never knew his place

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