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Priestesses in the Church? ... from Jack's God in the Dock

Comprising most of Lewis' writings.
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Re: Priestesses in the Church? ... from Jack's God in the Dock

Postby hammurabi2000 » February 7th, 2009, 2:42 pm

rusmeister, I think our discussion and comments are divergent. My real query is why have priest/priestesses anyway? As Frederica Mathewes-Green almost implies.
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Re: Priestesses in the Church? ... from Jack's God in the Dock

Postby rusmeister » February 9th, 2009, 3:20 am

"Eh? Two views? There are a dozen views about everything until you know the answer. Then there's never more than one."
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Re: Priestesses in the Church? ... from Jack's God in the Dock

Postby hammurabi2000 » February 14th, 2009, 10:35 am

Two points we can agree on are that:
(1) people often seem to prefer to have a view that they like and then seek to find scriptural support rather than looking at the evidence before deciding what is right
(2) modern equality views are driven by modern thinking

However, to get clarity one needs to understand what is meant by the term "priest". If they have been there since the beginning one might presume they can be seen in the first century records? Are they shown there? If not then they are subsequent creations.

Thus to have a priestess you need to establish:
(1) that there is such a thing as a priestly class
(2) that gender should not be an issue

I query the first. The second is vague. Times change. The question is what are the key elements that make up a priest if you are going to have one. Answer this and one can see if gender is significant.

I can recall this topic being covered at least twice before but of course we no longer have the details of those discussions available to us.
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Re: Priestesses in the Church? ... from Jack's God in the Dock

Postby rusmeister » February 15th, 2009, 9:32 pm

"Eh? Two views? There are a dozen views about everything until you know the answer. Then there's never more than one."
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Re: Priestesses in the Church? ... from Jack's God in the Dock

Postby hammurabi2000 » February 21st, 2009, 12:21 pm

rusmeiester, I am giving you the opportunity to define your own authority. I do not think there would be any dispute over the use of Holy Scripture or the Nicene Creed but then again it is true that just about everything is undermined as authorative in this day and age.

What I am much concerned about are claims to 'tradition', which is widely used by the Roman Catholic church but which I would prefer to see backed by something with stronger substance. I see from your BLOG that you major on the authority of the church but we need to avoid passing our resposibility to another individual who is a third party. If we are going to talk of the church as the christian community as a whole then I suspect our terms of reference may be different.

But should a Christian church have such a person as a priest? What are they?

Just for the record I grew up in a liturgical church with robed priests and defected as an adult to become a Baptist.
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Re: Priestesses in the Church? ... from Jack's God in the Dock

Postby rusmeister » February 23rd, 2009, 2:57 am

"Eh? Two views? There are a dozen views about everything until you know the answer. Then there's never more than one."
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Re: Priestesses in the Church? ... from Jack's God in the Dock

Postby hammurabi2000 » February 28th, 2009, 1:11 pm

rusmeister

Sorry about the delay!
I shouldn't worry as all I get is an hour at the public library on a Saturday.

The final question, though, is not whether Sts Peter, Paul, Ignatius, Chrysostom, etc were a part of our tradition, but whether we are a part of theirs.
Indeed it is. Which church tradition is the right one: Roman Catholic or Orthodox? The point of Protestantism was the belief that the churches had strayed from the ways of the first Christians.

And it is exceedingly strange and illogical to accept the Bible as holy, but not the Church that told us that it is (the Bible).
It would be if they did that but they do not. However, we cannot elevate the writings of the early church fathers to the level of Scripture; they did not so why should we?

One of my main beefs with "growing up in a religion" and defecting from it is that most often, the people who do so do so without ever having honestly and with a mature mind adopted and taken upon themselves to attain an adult understanding of the faith they defect from.
One thing I did at university was undertake a review of religions of the world in order to understand what I really wanted to base my life on, as well as consideration of the various forms of Christianity. I chose to become a Baptist and have remained so ever since.

I pass on the responsibility to no "third party individual". This is a common error that reveals the "2nd grade" nature of your view of liturgical religion - the idea that a bunch of men in robes are running things like human politicians in a secular government, to put it bluntly.
There are limited number of words to convey ones thoughts in such exchanges. The church contains humans and to imagine that it cannot make mistakes would be most unwise. All churches consider wisdom is drawn from the exchange of views between individuals. One may seek enlightenment as the Holy Spirit is indwelling in all of faith yet it would seem that to some it gives one message and to another a contrary view. One must be careful in drawing conclusions and lean most on those who were closest to our Lord. Thus it is Protestants are so keen on Scripture.

Which should remind us that the key question is not merely should there be priestesses but should there be priests. Are we not all now, since the crucifixion, priests with Christ our High Priest?
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Re: Priestesses in the Church? ... from Jack's God in the Dock

Postby rusmeister » February 28th, 2009, 11:42 pm

"Eh? Two views? There are a dozen views about everything until you know the answer. Then there's never more than one."
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Re: Priestesses in the Church? ... from Jack's God in the Dock

Postby hammurabi2000 » March 7th, 2009, 11:43 am

The thing I'm saying that I'm not sure you've got is that everything depends on what we accept as authority. Who would be the authority that answers your final question? (should there be priests?) You seem to speak as if we somehow had the authority to decide that.
Then give me an alternative view and the authority on which it is based.

All other churches may consider wisdom as drawn from individuals; the Orthodox Church holds that no individual can be trusted.
Baptists hold no man infallible, as do all Christians [please avoid the issue of the Pope here! :lipssealed: ]. All believe in the value of leadership by an individual and the importance of the group. I think you will find Orthodox is not, in fact, unique in this.

Do you really think a university course, run by a human professor, would be your best guide to understanding different religions?
No; I have never done such a course, although I have done comparative religion at a Bible College. What I did do is spend time while at university (or in the vacation) doing my own 'course' on reading books and seeking to understand different religions and different styles in Christianity. I was not then a Baptist but decided on it during my time at university. The general trend was in fact to become Church of England. The local church had a very active student ministry that was hugely popular with the campus students; at that time I was CofE.

Finally, you ask which Church Tradition is correct. Well and good. I ask, where was the Church from AD 50 to AD 1500? The only Church that could possibly represent a faith I could accept would have to have existed con-tin-u-ous-ly. Mistakes? Yes. Sin in the Church? Yes. Disappear (or stray) for 1500 (or even 300 or 100) years? No. That leaves only two options - the only Churches that have continuous history prior to AD 1500. One is right. the other is not.
The church of England considers that it is con-tin-u-ous-ly linked to the apostles too, from bishop to bishop. However, I think my concern is not the physical church but the trasmission of the faith. Protestants would say they reignited the flame that had gone low in the West.

Here we reach the core of the issue. You lean on the traditional Orthodox teaching and practice. We can agree that ALL churches suffer from sin and mistakes. I would query if the 'priest' concept has been correctly transmitted based on scripture. Hence as I query the 'priest', the issue of gender is a side issue.

I might mention that I have lived in the USA and attended church there. There are some very fine Christians in Baptist churches there but also some very odd ones from my Christian perspective. It may well be that your experience was with the latter.
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Re: Priestesses in the Church? ... from Jack's God in the Dock

Postby rusmeister » March 9th, 2009, 3:40 am

"Eh? Two views? There are a dozen views about everything until you know the answer. Then there's never more than one."
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Re: Priestesses in the Church? ... from Jack's God in the Dock

Postby hammurabi2000 » March 21st, 2009, 11:04 am

Very interesting. I would very much like to keep this going but fear there will be no time for me to do so. I only get Saturday for this and have a very busy schedule ahead.

I note that there is now a thread on authority:
Orthadox church and authority
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Re: Priestesses in the Church? ... from Jack's God in the Dock

Postby Tuke » March 25th, 2009, 1:40 am

"The 'great golden chain of Concord' has united the whole of Edmund Spenser's world.... Nothing is repressed; nothing is insubordinate. To read him is to grow in mental health." The Allegory Of Love (Faerie Queene)

2 Corinthians IV.17 The Weight of Glory
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Re: Priestesses in the Church? ... from Jack's God in the Dock

Postby rusmeister » March 29th, 2009, 6:50 pm

I've taken the trouble to review the entire thread, and, while perhaps I missed something somewhere, I am really struck by the fact that nobody, but nobody, intellectually challenged what Lewis actually said. People expressed their opinions on what they think he would do today, or the stands of their various confessions, but nobody takes Lewis's actual words and disputes them. (Particularly significant on a CS Lewis website, where most who come here are admirers of Lewis.)

That says a lot to me - for me it is proof that modern churches have indeed parted with what Lewis understood to be traditional Christianity - especially relevant to today's AC and EC, the inheritors of Lewis's tradition - and don't really have a response to what he did say, simply because it's true. Not like a ball at all.
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Re: Priestesses in the Church? ... from Jack's God in the Dock

Postby Tuke » April 1st, 2009, 12:38 am

True, too true. And taking Jack's position outside the church is even more dangerous than ever, or worse, ignored.
"The 'great golden chain of Concord' has united the whole of Edmund Spenser's world.... Nothing is repressed; nothing is insubordinate. To read him is to grow in mental health." The Allegory Of Love (Faerie Queene)

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Re: Priestesses in the Church? ... from Jack's God in the Dock

Postby hammurabi2000 » April 4th, 2009, 9:06 am

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