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Old Familiar Stuff

Postby hammurabi2000 » July 8th, 2008, 9:17 am

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Postby alecto » July 8th, 2008, 1:30 pm

Rowan Williams does not seem to have actually commented on the issue of ordination of women much except to say he does not have much of a comment - which is strange, actually, given his position. This is of course enough to rile people up who may hope that he would put an end to some of these things.

There are several main points that I have heard made about the ordination of women. They primarily involve the belief that the church position opposing ordination of women is wrong because:

1 - Ancients believed that women were not as morally strong or important as men. This is imbedded in language like "virtue" which literally means "manliness". Since this general philosophical opinion is now considered to be incorrect, all judgments of the early church and interpretations of scripture about women made by early theologians are under review. For example, in ancient times Paul saying in I Cor 14:34 "Let the women keep silence in the churches" etc. would be interpreted as a reflection of the general inferiority of women in spiritual affairs. Now many justice-seeking Christians assume it cannot be that and look for a local interpretation (e.g. some fear in the Corinthian congregations, or a desire not to challenge some existing authority, etc.) There are many scripture passages like this that make sense in a different way once the assumption of inequality has been removed.

2 - The first people given the commission to preach the gospel of the Resurrection were women (Matt 28:5-10 and synoptic). If they were considered suitable then, they should be now.

3 - Paul appointed female deacons (Rom 1:16. "servant" is the word "deacon" in Greek). At some point, this kind of service was made into an official church position that excluded women, though at this point they can no longer use scriptural backing of verses containing this word to explain or defend the diaconate because the category of deacon no longer contains the same items that it did at the time of Christ and Paul.

4 - The early church continued to ordain some women, even for categories of priesthood Paul thought should be excluded from them, (though the RCC challenges that all of these ordinations were by heterodox sects.)



Within some Protestant denominations, a priest is not considered to be conferred a special power or office by an officer of the church (another priest, bishop, etc.) All people are considered part of a priesthood. Therefore it follows rather automatically that if a congregation believes women are full members of their church, then they are equally eligible to be made a pastor (pastrix). This is all rather simplified of course, but it does explain why these churches are more likely to "ordinate" women.



Position changes on homosexuality are driven by a belief that sexual attraction to the same sex as oneself, when it occurs, is usually due to an immutable genetic or congenital condition, or another condition which is not the fault of the person with the condition, and also that the same-sex acts do not themselves do harm (like drunkenness does, which is often a result of deep-seated conditions called "alcoholism.") These two together convince some theologians that scriptural passages appearing to condemn homosexuality actually condemn something else (e.g. male prostitution). This kind of reasoning is based on a strong hypothesis that definitions of sin in scripture all derive rationally from commandments to love God and to protect oneself and other human beings (e.g. Mark 12:30) and not some kind of inexplicable purely "spiritual" goal.

My version of arguments presented by Rev. Daniel Helminiak and others concerning specific passages in Scripture is in this thread at the wardrobe: http://cslewis.drzeus.net/forums/viewto ... sc&start=0

I focused a lot more on language than other discussions that I have read on the subject, and I do a section on Matt 19:3-12 that I created in response to questions but that I have not seen in other literature on the subject (though I imagine it is there.) The treatments of various passages are distributed through the first three or so pages of the thread, because they are interspersed with responses and Q&A.

Responses to homosexuality issues should go on that thread, to avoid multiplication of homosexuality threads.
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Postby rusmeister » July 11th, 2008, 4:04 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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Postby hammurabi2000 » July 12th, 2008, 11:18 am

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Postby rusmeister » July 12th, 2008, 4:03 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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Postby mitchellmckain » July 12th, 2008, 5:13 pm

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Postby rusmeister » July 12th, 2008, 7:02 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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Postby hammurabi2000 » July 26th, 2008, 8:54 am

Unfortunately at the moment all I get for this is the chance of an hour on a public machine at weekends.

The reason the two subjects are linked is that they are both 'hot' topics in the church; analysis of them may go in different directions. Interesting though your comments may be, they do not actually address the point I was raising: what are the arguments used by those who desire change to support such a major change to the Christian view. The current ABC comes from a background of teaching at theological seminaries but although I understand he says there is no theological impediment to the change I have not heard or read the basis for his opinion; I should like to.

I wrote that:

As far as I can see there are two lines of approach one might take:
(1) Our understanding of scripture has deepened in some way which causes us to change our viewpoint
(2) Culture has changed in such way that the cultural specifics of biblical days need to be reinterpreted for modern standards

The line of logic being advanced so far seems to be a change in the first. This suggests that somewhere early on the church diverged from a proper understanding of the topic. Am I right?


This I find strange as I should have thought any logical argument would need to use (2) to be credible but in practice what I learn suggest that the approach being taken is more like (1). However, one cannot ridicule the notion without proper review as protestants condemn the roman catholic insistence of the singleness of priests and when did that first come into effect? Longevity does not necessarily mean an argument is true.

What I cannot find is a clear statement of the rationale: can someone here provide it in summary without trying to analyse it?
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Postby Adam » July 26th, 2008, 10:11 pm

If patience will permit me, I shall attempt to summarize the principle that I believe operates in progressive Christian disciples which permits radical change, not merely from current practices, but even from original practices of the Church, and this without needing to mention particularities.

It is true that some suggest a change from current practices to what they imagine the original practices to be, and that what they imagine often conveniently coincides with what they want.

However, I believe that the stronger and more common position is some permutation of this principle: social meaning changes, so social expression must change in order for principles to remain the same.

As a crude example, if it is a social meaning in the first century that an uncovered head is disrespectful, then in order to serve the principle of respectfulness the social expression of covering one's head must be practiced. However, if today a covered head is disrespectful, then in order to serve the principle of respectfulness the social expression of uncovering one's head must be practiced.

There are important aspects to this position. One is that social meanings are neutral: it is not any better for a society to believe that covered or uncovered heads are respectful, anymore than it is better for a society to speak English or German. Two is that the principle does not evolve: no one contends that we understand respectfulness now better than they did two thousand years ago. Three is that the expression does not evolve: we are not learning to speak more effectively than the church spoke two thousand years ago. The only difference is that the social context now includes a different language, and it is the church's job to preach in the language of it's time. It would be a waste of time to try to convince all Christians that it is their duty to believe that hats are respectful to God; if the common assumption now, according to social custom, is that it is disrespectful, then don't wear them and move on.

I think this can be extrapolated to the particular issues which you mentioned without my having to entangle myself in them.

Adam
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Postby Leslie » July 26th, 2008, 11:08 pm

"What are you laughing at?"
"At myself. My little puny self," said Phillipa.
--Rumer Godden, In This House of Brede
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Postby Ben2747 » July 27th, 2008, 1:32 am

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Postby rusmeister » July 27th, 2008, 3:53 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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Postby Leslie » July 27th, 2008, 10:36 pm

"What are you laughing at?"
"At myself. My little puny self," said Phillipa.
--Rumer Godden, In This House of Brede
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Postby rusmeister » July 27th, 2008, 11:24 pm

"Eh? Two views? There are a dozen views about everything until you know the answer. Then there's never more than one."
Bill "The Blizzard" Hingest - That Hideous Strength
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Postby Adam » July 27th, 2008, 11:52 pm

"Love is the only art that poorly imitates nature."
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