Last week a friend sent me a link to Denny Burk’s blogsite where Dr. Burk noted that an Evangelical church in Colorado has decided to endorse homosexual monogamy as a valid Christian lifestyle. In the discussion that follows one finds the usual disclaimers of any real connection between Evangelical egalitarianism of the kind that endorses women’s ordination and the endorsement of homosexuality: no “slippery slope” between the two positions and states of mind.
Generally missing from discussions like this is a sense of the history of what might be called the Evangelical mind, a frank recognition that the Protestant mainline churches, all now only nominally Christian, were all what one would identify as Evangelical a hundred and fifty years ago. The authority of the Bible was effectively undermined among their leaders by the adoption of European higher criticism beginning soon after the Civil War, and the coup de grâce, which is ridding them of any vestigial orthodoxy, has been administered by the totalitarianism of the sexual revisionists of our time, who are effectively making acceptance of women's ordination and homosexuality requirements for membership in their ministeria.
The causes are related in their common attack on Christian teaching through sexual perversion, based on the refusal to recognize the nature of sexual being as created and ordained by God. That one perversion "leads to" another is difficult to prove, and may be fortuitous, but that they are connected to each other by the same dissolution of mind and the same removal of ancient boundary-stones seems hard to deny. The "otherwise conservative" Evangelical who is in favor of women's ordination but not homosexuality does not see the larger category relation between one kind of sexual rebellion and another, so would be unable to see a slippery slope even if one existed. That acceptance of homosexuality as a more radical form of the same thing generally follows egalitarianism makes it reasonable to infer a “slope” for the same reason one would acknowledge that an artillery bombardment to weaken defenses before the full attack is customary and reasonable.
On one hand we have the assertion of no necessary relationship between egalitarianism and endorsement of homosexuality because they are "two different things," and on the other the observation that they are related in character and one generally follows the other chronologically: i.e., the high likelihood of a "slippery slope." I'll wager you can guess which theory seems more probable to me, and something about what I think will happen to the egalitarian Evangelicalism that just can’t see the connection.
On one hand we have the assertion of no necessary relationship between egalitarianism and endorsement of homosexuality because they are “two different things,”…
From a certain perspective, I suppose it is perfectly sensible to see the camel’s head and chest as two wholly different things. In fact, if we were to assume something less than the highest and purest motives, it seems perfectly expedient to see them as such, if the laity are just not quite ready to accept the camel’s chest. But in fairness to the slope hypothesis, those organizations that have lately accepted both head and chest, uniformly see them as of one piece (tho’ they will all no doubt strenuously resist hump and hind parts); why should late adopters avoid a similar fate?
There is much more than a slippery slope binding the errors of female ordination and homosexual sodomy masquerading as marriage. The ordaining of ministers is an incorporation of men into the relationship of the Father and Son bequeathed to the apostles. As my Father has loved me so I love you. Marital love is gounded in the particularity of one male and one female forming a sacred couple mirroring Christ and the Church.It is Adam and Eve as they were meant to be. The ordained priesthood or (for evangelicals) the called ministerial office is not simply the shaping of an individual man into an alter Christus.
Ordination draws men into a ministerial relationship which began with Christ and the apostles. It is an office but it is also a communal relationship witha distinctive character. It is not a couple but a public group and the group is ordered into a sacred brotherhood under a common head. It is as Adam and his sons were meant to be. This masculine bond is disrupted by the liturgical cross dressing of women in clerics. The masculine bond is anthropologically rooted and historically necessary because the revealed Christ is always Christ attacked. Wether Herod who would slay all the males of his cohort or the dragon who crouched to devour the male child, the revelation of Christ always invites a brutal attack of monsters demanding a robust effective communal male defense. Life and Love are ordered by the communions of protection–male female marriage and male clergy of the church and male soliders of the nation. Female ordination is not a slippery slope to the sanctification of sodomy. It is the other side of the same counterfeit coin.
We can all thank the men of Touchstone for keeping that lonely argument alive in these last forty desert years.
I’m thinking it is a connection that no one will ever be able to convince a lay evangelical of, or is even true for the laity (even if it might be true for the people at the top making such decisions). Growing up in a Fellowship of Christian Assemblies church, people care about their Bibles, and don’t believe in the authority of any Church Tradition (which is where the all male priesthood comes from).
To the Evangelical lay Christian who is also concerned about liberal churches condoning homosexuality, the difference is clear. The Bible explicitly forbids homosexuality, and it takes all kinds of philosophical and historical back bending to make it sound like it is ok. They chalk it up to that particular church being weak on Bible teaching, and lament that another one has caved to cultural influence. To those in such a church, it is probably more about being “nice” than anything else.
However the Bible itself really says nothing about whether or not women can be ministers (at least not the way it says not to have homosexual relations), which then moves the debate into issues such as whether women are as fit to lead (usually with references to Deborah), how passages in Timothy are to be applied (usually with a facetious questioning of the validity of the female-dominated Sunday school teacher arena), and whether there was a female apostle named Junia (the focal point around which the Assemblies of God bases its acceptance of women in the ministry). Add that female ministers are increasingly common, so any serious discussion of the topic too easily becomes a hurtful questioning of a particular individual’s ability to complete their ministry combined with the fact that most Evangelicals don’t vest their minister with any particular authority anyways leads most to not want to argue about what they see as nothing more than whether a women can effectively deliver a sermon or sing.
Mr Espe
A good descriptin of the evangelical connundrum.
So, Dr. Pence, if I were to ask what it is that renders a particular ecclesial community immune to feminization of its ministers (a category that in my mind includes both female ministers and the acceptance of homosexuality as normative), what would the response be? Not to be evangelical? Or possessed of an appreciation for tradition? Or with the wisdom to have seen the destination of a particular path before the first steps are taken down it? Or the protection of the Holy Spirit (and if that, why does the Spirit care less about evangelical soundness)? Or a hierarchal church government that is (wisely or not) rather more resistant to change? Obedience? Prevision? Caution? (I have not yet mentioned hatred of women or exaggerated male delusions of grandeur, but there are those who would.)
Please don’t misunderstand me. I belong to a church that only ordains men (but “commissions” women for non-sacerdotal ministries such as chaplaincies) and seems likely to continue that practice for the foreseeable future, a practice with which I fully agree. But what separates those who stand from those who fall? Predestination? Cultural vulnerability? The lack of a prudence gene? I have my own ideas, but I would like to hear yours, as I greatly admired your statement above about a “sacred brotherhood” dedicated to the defense of both the truth and the body of those who hold to that truth.
FWIW, when I was a religious feminist, I argued against the supposed slippery slope on the basis that woman is something one *is* while homosexuality refers to behaviour.
One thing I wish Egalitarians and their fellow travelers would realize is that *even if* the slippery slope does not exist, homosexualists like Vickie Gene Robinson sure think it does – they’ve been waiting for feminists to break down the barriers that would pave the way for acceptance of homosexuality as good and right in God’s eyes.
Those who do not follow the crowd down the slope will find themselves becoming lonelier and lonelier.
Kamilla
>However the Bible itself really says nothing about whether or not women can be ministers
That is a bizarre assertion.
Deacon Harmon,
You asked, “What it is that renders a particular ecclesial community immune to feminization of its ministers?”
I observe three different immunizations:
1) The Catholic/Orthodox traditional millenial strictures of Holy Orders. As Pope John Paul said — Christ chose only men as apostles and we have no authority to do otherwise. His argument was a humble deferential attitude to a received truth. After all he is only the pope and popes are guardians of a received order and gospel, not their creators.
2) The Biblically rooted evangelical tradition which submits to the biblical texts about Church order. This of course is quite paradoxical. The vituperative Calvinist critique of the Babylonian Captivity of Christ’s Church by corrupt priests and of popery did not blind the reformers to a right ordering of Church life in terms of sex roles. As Catholic men we are aware that both at the time of the Reformation and now in America and Europe there is a debilitating omission by the Catholic hierarchy to follow Christ and wash clean the stain of betrayers from the apostles’ feet. It is not all the apostles who must be washed, but now as then some among them are full of Satan.
It is our present scandal that the great tradition of a masculine priesthood is so obfuscated by the lavender priests and bishops whom our hierarchy has not removed from their offices. The shepherd’s staff has become a walking stick for the infirm rather than a rod against the wolves.
3) We cannot ignore the sustained success of the Mormon tradition, which introduced an apostle modeled male priestly order in the heart of Protestant America. Their unorthodox Christology has not damned them to become a vanishing sect because the inter-generational public bonds of their male priesthood is deeply consonant with both human nature and the example of Christ.
So those are the three rather different ecclesial strategies which I observe.
Let me add that I do not think any of these traditions have mounted a coherent anthropology of male communio. What good is a heresy like feminsim and its gay sidekick if it doesn’t draw from churchmen an ever more convincing explanation of Patriarchy and Fraternity as the ordered forms of protective Christian love? This will deepen our understanding not only of the church, but also of the anthropological basis of the polis and nation.
Especially in this year of the priest, deacons, priests and laymen in the Catholic tradition should buttress the Catechism statement that Christ chose all males with a more robust defense of its sacramental and anthropological meaning. Much like the theology of the body grounds marital love in a biological sense of marital communion, we need a more robust defense of masculine public brotherhoods under legitimate leaders ordered in both the life of the Church and city. The male priesthood and ministerial function is not some weird anomaly inserted into nature and history as a stumbling block for rational egalitarians.
I pray that the renewal of the Diaconate in the Catholic Church might foster a deeper reflection on the apostolic masculine friendship of agape adelphos and philia for bishops and their priests and deacons. We might at the same time see the wisdom of the male lay offices of lector and acolyte. These are the special opportunities for Catholics.
I think the Mormons and Evangelicals have a special role in explaining America as a brotherhood under God in the spirit of Calvin’s insight in the ordering of the city.
My last recommendations to you are the Leon Podles books on the Catholic church (“Sacrilege” and “The Church Impotent”) and two books on the secular side of this discussion — “Light for the City,” about Calvin, and “Bonds of Affection,” a terrific history of America by a Mormon Matthew Holland (president of Utah University). Neither of these books specifically addresses the male bond as the lattice of public life, but both books explain Christian ordered love as the basis of civic life. Once you start explaining political life in terms of ordered loves, you will inevitably be led down a true slippery slope to a public recognition of God’s sovereignty, masculine protective brotherhoods of shared duties, and male-female marriage.
There was a time, before we became more generally known as hopeless on the matter, when a number of people told us the editorial board of Touchstone needed women on it to provide whatever it is that is missing whenever men get together to do some project without their help. Our reaction to this was to turn the hoses on anyone who made the suggestion.
I remember Fr. Reardon remarking, to everyone’s agreement, that whenever a woman came into a deliberative situation, the whole atmosphere changed: something that we wanted and needed in our work was lost, not gained. We needed them to leave us alone so we could act together as men. Men understand this, and so do women who appreciate them.
Egalitarians and similar life forms do not; they reject on principle that there is positive value in anything distinctly and exclusively male, and the concept of a band of brothers, held together in a bond of loyalty and duty to a specific end either is hateful to them or means nothing. They destroy it wherever they find it simply by insisting (usually by some form of nagging) that every organization contain women or their direct influence, or is incomplete–and why should it not be for those who see no value in the male institution–a prejudice rooted hatred of the man, that is, in desire to do away with the maleness that defines him.
We need to insist on the value and importance of what is distinctively male, and to that end we need to define it fearlessly and consistently against all attempts to caricature it as brutish, stupid, mean, retrograde, and useless until feminized. Most of the ground upon which this principle stood has been lost in the last several generations. It must be aggressively retaken.
I agree – though, every once in a while, I wish I was a little fly on the wall when the ladies leave and the men are enjoying their brandy and cigars after dinner.
But only a fly. I wouldn’t dream of playing George Sand. As you say, it would ruin the atmosphere completely.
Kamilla
No, gentlemen, we egalitarians don’t hate the “exclusively male.” What we hate is your idea that women ruin everything, which SMH expressed above. Complementarians parrot “equal in dignity” but never act like women are, in fact, equal in dignity and that our work is important. SMH and Drpence express this quite effectively: men and the bonds between men are important and women are parasites on that importance. Your contempt for women is clearly apparent in your comments. You can’t see that repeating “go away and do some stupid girl thing while we boys take care of everything that matters in life” is insulting to half the human race?
Karen, it was not said that “women ruin everything”. You are engaging in eisegesis of the statements of SMH and Drpence. It is very different to say, “men need to work alone on this matter that men are entrusted by God to do alone”, than to say, “women can’t because they only can do stupid girl things” I think you are purposely construing to the authors an evil thought they don’t really express. Why?
Someone somewhere said something about nagging.
“I remember Fr. Reardon remarking, to everyone’s agreement, that whenever a woman came into a deliberative situation, the whole atmosphere changed: something that we wanted and needed in our work was lost, not gained.” — SMH
This is why I used the word “ruined,” because SMH flatly stated that when women try to deliberate with men, something is lost. There is no significant distinction between “something is lost” and “ruined.”
Is there some place women can gather and prohibit all males from ever entering? That’s my gripe: you seem to be saying that men need to go off and be manly but that women never ever need some place of our own without males. Why?
Also, does SMH believe that women are not capable of reason? Is that why we can’t be part of a deliberative body?
I return to the basic question that no complementarian has ever answered: please define what mental capacities men have that women lack?
OK…. so how do we retake this “lost ground” with Holy Intension?
You can respond off-line if you like. thx, TB
Karen,
No one has said, “Women’s work is unimportant” or that they should, “Go away and do some stupid girl thing” or that “women are incapable of reason” and never need “some place of their own without males”. . .
If they *had*, I daresay I would have beaten you to the punch and done a much better job of it. Now stop whining about these imaginary insults.
Kamilla
>SMH flatly stated that when women try to deliberate with men, something is lost.<
Who would be fool enough to deny it?
Please tell me: What mental capacities do women lack that men have? Clearly, if women are as mentally capable as men are, then you have no reason to exclude us. So, please define the capacities that women lack?
>Clearly, if women are as mentally capable as men are, then you have no reason to exclude us.<
Is an apple an orange? If you make an apple pie (not that I’m implying you’d lower yourself to such a mundane domestic task) would it be changed if you put oranges in it? Think about it.
There is a vast difference between saying something is lost vs something is ruined. I would say the same thing when women meet to deliberate something (or just to have fun) and a man shows up. That is not a put down on men, it speaks more to the way we operate and how we look at things. Karen, I am sorry that you seem to have never gone off with a bunch of girl friends or co-workers and experienced the joy of being among all women. I am almost 60 years old and as far as I know, women have been doing this forever! I would venture to say, more than our male counterparts, since we are clearly more relational in nature.
I worked for a large, now defunct, computer company for years and we had at least two all gal get-togethers every year across departments in our region. It wasn’t that we didn’t like the guys (who never did this), it was really a time to get away from the rat race men had created (and we insisted upon joining) to be ourselves.
Personally, I loved JPII’s explanation of why the Catholic Church maintained the all male priesthood. The Church has no right (and isn’t it really all about confusing rights, duties, endowment and responsibility) to ordain women based upon the Biblical record and 2000 years of tradition. There may very well come a time when God shows us a new way but until such time, we rely on what has been revealed, not what we want and certainly not on 20th century human sensibilities.
We have no rights when it comes to God except the right to accept or reject His graciously given gift of Himself. God graciously offers us His mercy, love and life… if we choose to accept the gift of faith and make a decision to believe. We have no rights in this, we can’t even get out of our own way. Our ‘duty’ is to persevere in our belief, to live as He would have us live and to offer the gift to others.
Bananas, you haven’t answered my question: what mental capacities to men have that women lack?
Also, CMA, I’m glad you enjoyed being with your female coworkers. Is there some place where you have the absolute right to forbid men from entering? Men, according to this post and several commenters, have the right to kick women out of the public square. Is there any place we can forbid men? If not, why not?
>Bananas, you haven’t answered my question: what mental capacities to men have that women lack?<
It wasn’t relevant to the topic, why would I bother to answer it? You’re writing in the manner of someone blind from birth who is trying to describe colour.
Hi Karen,
I don’t know that there are any mental capacities that women lack; certainly not all women without exception. Human beings have an amazing capacity to adapt and make the best of anything they are required to do. Think of the herculean efforts single fathers and mothers must attempt to make up for what is lacking in the other being gone. No one wants to undermine what they accomplish, but no one wants to pretend that it isn’t unfortunate that these parents must do what they do. Anyway, that’s not what we are talking about here. It’s not a matter of someone’s capacities – mental or otherwise – but rather a question of human flourishing.
The question we need to be asking is “what is the best way for men and women to build each other up, as men and as women?” In what ways do I bring something to my wife, that her female friends do not? In what ways is she fulfilled in my stepping back to give her exclusive time with those same friends? It has nothing to do with mental capacities that either I, or her friends lack, but everything to do with the sort of creatures we are and how different relationships serve to build us up in different ways.
To give a snippy rhetort, one place I am forbidden is the women’s bathroom. I’m also “forbidden” attending baby and bridal showers. Would you deny that the atmosphere of these places would change if men showed up? Is this because we men lack some mental capacity and screw up all we touch? Or is it because these are places set apart for a specific purpose, to aid the flourishing of women as women?
Karen,
Honestly, I have reread the comments. Not a single one says or even implies that women should be kicked out of the public square. To say that something is lost is NOT to say a woman would be forbidden to enter. If that were the case, you and I, Kamilla, etc. would not be commenting.
There is no place out of which men have an absolute right to kick women or vice versa. I am of a mind that both men and women OUGHT to have places where the other cannot go, right down to bathrooms in dormitories. I am a strong proponent of all boys schools and all girls schools. Studies show hands down that women who attend all girls schools, even if only at the collegiate level, do markedly better in the work field of their choice.
My guess is that if anyone were ‘man enough’ to study it, (i.e. not to be intimidated by feminists and their left leaning educational system), they would find the same goes for men educated at all male schools.
SMH, you might want to put Fr. Reardon’s comments in context by explaining what he meant or letting him explain himself. While clearly no one here considers women inferior in any way to men, and the word ‘lost’ in no way equates to ‘ruin’, the statement lies there begging for explanation.
As a woman who does, in fact, enjoy girls’ nights out and spa days and girly vacations and stitch’n'bitch sessions with my besties and all that, who thrives in equal but different ways on socializing with single-sex and mixed-sex groups, I would also like to hear Karen’s question answered. In matters of theology, of the study and discussion of our relationship with God, both directly, through our interactions with one another as the living Body of Christ, and through our interactions with the rest of the world, what deficit do women bring to the discussion that’s so massive and destructive to the discourse that we must wait patiently and silently outside until the deciders are done with their work and can present us with their pronouncements? Is there truly nothing that our inclusion would add to the discourse worthy enough to offset whatever is lost?
Personally, I loved JPII’s explanation of why the Catholic Church maintained the all male priesthood. The Church has no right (and isn’t it really all about confusing rights, duties, endowment and responsibility) to ordain women based upon the Biblical record and 2000 years of tradition. There may very well come a time when God shows us a new way but until such time, we rely on what has been revealed, not what we want and certainly not on 20th century human sensibilities.
Which leaves unanswered the question of how precisely established and ordained the formal priesthood was in the first couple hundred years of the Church’s history (the few records that remain are, as I recall from my last stab at scholarship on the subject, ambiguous rather than firmly negative on the participation and leadership of women, and ambiguous rather than firmly positive on the topic of a rigidly established hierarchy and set of rules; the earliest records make it all seem rather vague, improvised and all-inclusive, if anything), the question of whether the Pentecostal blessing and call of the Holy Spirit to that vast crowd fell only upon the men, or whether the vast crowd was in fact solely male, the question of what the Gospel writers and earliest traditions chose to include or leave out about Christ’s female followers, friends and confidantes, and the question of whether the growing number of women insisting that they do feel a call to the priesthood, coinciding with a catastrophic drop in vocations among men (at least among Western men), might not in fact be God showing a new way.
Please. Describe colour to the blind people, won’t you please?
“Deliberation” of the kind I am speaking of involves a great deal more than reasoning capacity. It should be clear to anyone who is not intent on misinterpretation that what we were concerned about was not women’s ability to think–to any who know the editors and their families the notion is absurd. The point is that in the presence of women men–especially men who have been trained to respect them–change, and in that change put something by that is needed in certain times and places, by the design of God, for the life of the world. That, as I recall, was what Fr. Reardon was speaking of.
Those who are attuned to this truth understand why, although Christ and his apostles were obviously close to many women, the apostolic college was (and remains) entirely male. Good men, in the presence of women, take off their shoes, mind their language, and adjust themselves to the domestic arena of which the woman is the spirit. To introduce a woman into a place where business that men regard as their own is being transacted (however apt she is at reasoning), is fundamentally to alter that atmosphere, removing something exclusively male which is in its rightful place good.
But egalitarians deny the rightness, the goodness, and the place. While they don’t seem to mind the exclusively female (as in Womens Studies departments and whatnot), any significant male grouping must be feminized to be valid. Enough of this.
How do we retake lost ground? Well, first note that there is much ground that hasn’t been lost yet (as in many churches’ continued refusal to ordain women to the presbyterate). What must be done in such places is to shore up the defenses.
People concerned with Christian teaching must, after reasonable efforts to defeat egalitarianism, withdraw from churches and organizations that have adopted the heresy and begin to attend churches, and establish new institutions, that do not. As a gardener, I’m not much interested in saving withering branches past a certain point. I cut them away to remove disease and make room for new growth, or, in the presence of certain pests or diseases, kill the plant entirely and replant another, with better resistance, in a different place. I don’t much believe in reformation, whereas I’m a great supporter of death and new life. There have been few things I have seen that disgust me more than people who claim an interest in orthodoxy who have given their lives and their children to Baal worship on the vague and unlikely possibility that things will get better.
Stop giving money and other kinds of support to churches and religious institutions with which you have significant disagreements. When was the last time you did a careful check on the church or mission or parachurch organization or publisher or college or seminary to which you have contributed for years–I mean a check that goes beyond the glossy prevarications and slick fund-raisers they send to alumni and other contributors? Things have changed radically in the last thirty years, folks, and many of you, while not laying up treasures on earth, are building mansions with your checkbooks–in hell.
Here are places to start, and once a start is made, other necessary things will become evident.
>>Egalitarians and similar life forms do not; they reject on principle that there is positive value in anything distinctly and exclusively male, and the concept of a band of brothers, held together in a bond of loyalty and duty to a specific end either is hateful to them or means nothing. They destroy it wherever they find it simply by insisting (usually by some form of nagging) that every organization contain women or their direct influence, or is incomplete–and why should it not be for those who see no value in the male institution–a prejudice rooted hatred of the man, that is, in desire to do away with the maleness that defines him.<<
I have to agree with Karen. The above paragraph is odiously smug and quite offensive to both men and women (for when we denigrate one or the other, we denigrate humanity.) Note the sexist use of the term “nagging,” and the lie that egalitarianism is rooted in “hatred of the man.” Think of the smallness of that remark! It is akin to saying, “We will exclude all blacks from our little club. They get in the way, don’t you know,” and then having the hypocrisy to complain that it is the blacks who hate when they question this exclusivity. This sort of writing contradicts the essence of Christ as reconciling love.
But egalitarians deny the rightness, the goodness, and the place. While they don’t seem to mind the exclusively female (as in Womens Studies departments and whatnot), any significant male grouping must be feminized to be valid. Enough of this.
Setting aside the question of Women’s Studies courses (most colleges and universities that I personally know of have both male and female faculty, and both the individual courses and the subject as a declared major are open to both genders), this still does not explain why the business of discussing and hammering out the details of our relationship with God and with one another, and of the direction and structure of the Church, must be exclusive to men (other than “it’s always been that way,” which, again, leaves out questions raised by a lot of Biblical scholars about the strict accuracy of our records of the earliest life of the Church and its gender makeup and hierarchy).
If we are all God’s children, and all of us, men and women alike, the Bride of Christ, His living Body in the world, and one people with neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, but all one in Christ Jesus, I still remain blind to this essential understanding of why the central discussion of the central fact and love of our mortal and immortal lives is to be formally barred from half of us.
For those of you who don’t understand what is being said here, avail yourselves of the Touchstone archives. It’s all there and we don’t need to say it again. Have a look especially at what Fr. Reardon, Dr. Esolen, Fr. Mankowski, and I have written over the years on every one of the subjects on which you wish to be informed.
When I say things like “Egalitarian is rooted in hatred of the man,” I do not mean the egalitarian has any notion whatever of why this is so. His idea of reconciling love as barring all “exclusivity” makes it unthinkable for him.
Miss Karen,
SMH did not say “women ruin everything”. He said women ruin the dynamics of an all male group. So the dispute is not with the word “ruin” but “everything”. Don’t you agree those are quite different statements? There are all sorts of female groupings that males do not enter. Dont you belong to any all female friendship groups. If you dont I suggest you go to a few classses on an all female college or a a female high school. My daughter teaches at a high school in which 90% of the groupings are all female and they would kick a male out if he came. I love my daughter and she loves me and we both are capable of reasoning. We are both happy that when she and her girls go to Mass the group responds to a male priest.
I didnt catch the offensive assertions of women as “parasites” or the devalunig of women’s work. To say there is some work and duties which are male is not meant to be a degradation of women. I am sorry if you read such statements as misogynist. I sense that somewhere you learned that setting men aside specifically as men implies a degradation of women. This leads you to read into any statement setting men apart as offensive. What do you make of the sign of the Old Covenant–circumcision?
I have found that most men who believe there are spheres of work proper to the different sexes, value motherhood, the domestic arts and other examples of the feminine genius far more than those who collapse all tasks into the genderless world of individual competence. I ask that you reread your post and honestly ask if the antifemale insults of SMH and DP came more from your mind than our pens. You should rest assured that my mother, my wife, my four sisters, my four daughters and Mary, the Queen of Heaven and Earth (as well as the lady here known as Kamilla) would all be more coherently critical than you if your accusations of “contempt for women” were close to true.
Finally let me begin to answer the question “no complementarian has ever answered.” There is a growing scientific literature on male and female brain development which shows significant differences. Male brain development undergoes a short period of heavy testosterone intrauterine effect which females do not share. I dont know anyone who says the power to reason is exclusivley male. That would certainly be contrary to the Catholic position on the human soul and isnt in any of the gender differences literature I have read in medicine. There are huge sexaul cognitive differences which are the basis for many arguments for separate male and fenale classes in many subjects but to repeat the ability to reason is not one of the differentiating sexual traits.
One example: almost any study of spatial reckoning will differentiate males from females. Mathematical tests often show a skewed male female distribution with male clusters at the very top and very bottom of the scores. Several questions on national college entrance tests were in fact eliminated because they consisitently were answered more correctly by the males taking the tests.
The heart of the matter on deliberation and male groups is not really about measuring differences in the reasoning power of individual male and female brains. The male group in a vigorous interaction sharpens the thought and words of the group. There is a way men can form interpersonal communion in large groups through an alchemy of contest and dialogue which is simply not part of the interpersonal male female vocabulary. It is not the brain of the individual man so much as the nature of man in in the social group which marks a certain kind of deliberation. When aristotle said man is a political animal–he meant man as in male. In general males make the polis and women live in it.
The Jewish tradition of some prayers only being uttered by a group of ten or more adult Jewish males mirrors this psychological truth. This QUORUM of men was also needed to start a synagogue in a new city. Itis helpful to understand that the best of all male deliberative discussions and oral traditions make a claim on men as men. This broadens the male voice from himself to his brothers in the room and to other men not in earshot. There is something about males in groups(especially bigger groups than a few buddies at the bar)which elevate our conversations to the larger groups we belong to and remind us of the particular male roles we play in those larger groups. Forming large protective groups is in fact a particular trait of human males which distinguishes us from almost all other animals. When you see portraits of the founding fathers or early church councils,or germanic tribal war councils, you are seeing something very old, very deep and very male. You benefit from such masculine bonds and deliberations. Believe us when we say the kind of elevated deliberations of these meetings is dependent on males ineracting with other males in group formation. A female in that group is as disruptive to the communal body as an extra partner in the marriage bed. It has nothing to do with a woman’s capacity for reasoning. The whole is bigger than the parts and the male group is a certain kind of whole which allows (but does not guarantee) a certain essential quality of deliberation. I am taking your last objection much more seriously than your early intemperate remarks because I heartily agree with you that we are in need of a more convincing defense of complemntary sex roles and masculine ruling publics.
Wonders for Oyarsa–
To give a snippy rhetort, one place I am forbidden is the women’s bathroom. I’m also “forbidden” attending baby and bridal showers. Would you deny that the atmosphere of these places would change if men showed up? Is this because we men lack some mental capacity and screw up all we touch? Or is it because these are places set apart for a specific purpose, to aid the flourishing of women as women?
Well, I’ve been to a baby shower where both men and women were welcome. It wasn’t any different than the women-only showers that I’ve been to. [/snark]
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CMA–There is no place out of which men have an absolute right to kick women
Seriously? The men around you are denying all women the ability to enter the priesthood, saying that it’s been that way for 2000 years so why change it now? Maybe because the answer we’ve always done it that way hasn’t ever been acceptable.
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SMH–The point is that in the presence of women men–especially men who have been trained to respect them–change, and in that change put something by that is needed in certain times and places, by the design of God, for the life of the world.
Oh so, it’s only because you respect women? I don’t think all women are the delicate little flowers that you think we are.
To introduce a woman into a place where business that men regard as their own is being transacted (however apt she is at reasoning), is fundamentally to alter that atmosphere, removing something exclusively male which is in its rightful place good.
But you’re assuming that such a thing was good in the first place, that the absence of women was superior, and that’s something that you’re claiming a priori with no real knowledge or experience of how women affect the thing you’re talking about. It’s all vague, general, men change when they’re around women, and aside from claiming that what’s lost is something vital for the life of the world, you can’t actually tell anyone what that is. Who was it that accused Karen of being blind?
Everyone is on about how Christ never ordained female apostles. He lived in a patriarchal society, quite different than the one we inhabit today.
But egalitarians deny the rightness, the goodness, and the place. While they don’t seem to mind the exclusively female (as in Womens Studies departments and whatnot), any significant male grouping must be feminized to be valid. Enough of this.
That’s because every other subject is Men’s Studies. Think about it. How many times have you heard that Watson and Crick deduced the double helical structure of DNA, even though it was Rosalind Franklin’s work that they were using (and her conclusion that they basically stole).
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SMH—you’re doing exactly what so often happens in political discourse—you think that egalitarian means something it doesn’t, as though it’s a label, and everyone to whom you apply that label possesses a set of characteristics, X,Y, and Z that you find reprehensible and absolutely impossible to harmonize with your complementarian views. Not all the people you label as egalitarian “hate men” as you say.
I think the way that some of the commenters are being blown off (“refer to the archives because we’re too awesome to have to repeat ourselves for the purposes of debating our point with you”) is disingenuous. If you were just going to refer us to the archives, what was the point of starting conversation by having someone write and post the article at the top of the page? After all, it looks like you’ve already said everything before.
What if we have read the archives, or many more books and articles expounding on the same themes, and, upon serious reflection and prayer, remain unconvinced? There may be numerous social and political spheres in which it is appropriate that one gender dominate or completely exclude the other (though I am also not convinced that they are very numerous, as the same studies outlining brain function differences between male and female also strongly indicate that variation within a gender is much wider than the differences between the two genders, and the most they can conclude is that the average man is slightly more likely to reason with capacity X and the average woman slightly more likely to use capacity Y, but that individuals may be all over the map with many members of each gender outscoring the other gender at the other gender’s own advantaged capacity).
But when it comes to faith, God, my heart’s home–I read and read, and think and think, and run up against this every time: neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, but all one in Christ Jesus. And Christ on a hilltop weeping over Jerusalem, that He has loved and worried over as a mother hen her chicks. And the old Latin texts from which the first English translations were made, which use the gender neutral term “homines” in so many places where the translators opted for “man” or “men.” And the endless explanations ring somehow small and tinny compared to the gargantuan reality revealed in Scripture, and I cannot reconcile them to one another. They seem to belong to different universes.
>If you were just going to refer us to the archives, what was the point of starting conversation by having someone write and post the article at the top of the page?
Perhaps he didn’t intend to start the conversation you desire?
Perhaps he didn’t intend to start the conversation you desire?
Then what kind of conversation did he want to start? One in which we discussed the imaginary connection between feminism and gay rights, since they’re both forms of sexual rebellion?
Karen,
Your questions haven’t been answered to your satisfaction because you suppose something that has never been said. I don’t believe SMH or anyone else here, besides yourself, has posited that women have a lack in their rational capacities. It’s not about raw abilities, and never has been. It’s about suitability, period.
And if you can’t see why dropping a man into a gathering of women or putting a woman on the Touchstone editorial board changes the dynamics of what goes on and that this changed dynamic is, in some respects, a loss. Well then all that I can say is that I pity your for the bland grey world you inhabit.
Personally, I love letting men be men. Now, on the other hand, if once the editorial business is done and they all go out to dinner and they happen to have had this meeting in Denver for some reason and they *don’t* invite me to join the men and their wives for dinner. Well, then I might get my knickers in a twist. But not until then.
Kamilla
Oh my. Jessica (and Zmayhem and any other feminist/egalitarian type out there),
No one, absolutely no one has claimed women don’t have the “ability” to enter the priesthood. No One. What we are saying, however, is that no one has the *authority* to make priestesses. It’s a simple matter of bowing to Christ’s authority, period.
If you cannot grasp that point, I am not sure why SMH or any one else here should continually re-hash old arguments simply because a new feminist has poked her head into the discussion.
Kamilla
>>Well then all that I can say is that I pity your for the bland grey world you inhabit.< <
What could be more bland and grey than a simplistic and mindless division of humanity into two groups, male and female, instead of 7+ billion individuals?
>>Personally, I love letting men be men.<<
Men don’t need fawning, obsequious servitude and compliance from women (something I personally find rather revolting) in order to be “allowed” to be men. As a truly confident man, I can share companionship and power with a woman without feeling my masculinity is about to be stripped from me. Confident women don’t need to abase themselves to their “masters” (whether editors or boyfriends) in order to please men. Such behavior is both pathetic and repulsive.
Er, again, I’m aware of the distinction. I am unconvinced that this is in fact what Christ’s authority says. What we do know for certain is that He, and followers like Paul who were writing within the lifetimes of His friends and apostles, seemed to have viewed men and women as equally valuable in God’s eyes and, at the same time, to have viewed maleness and femaleness as not particularly relevant. We are told of the twelve apostles, by writers who as Jews of their time would have been raised to not even see women as adequate to form a minyan, let alone lead a worship service.
That there were women close to Our Lord, whose friendship, wisdom and company He valued immensely, is clear; that any of them were in leadership positions seems to be obliquely suggested in some of the literature after His lifetime, but the question is muddied by multiple translations, questions of translator bias, etc., none of which you are addressing here. I will happily search the archives to see what the current state of scholarship is. My understanding as of a few years ago, before I married and got swallowed up by stepparenting and then parenting and lost the time necessary to burrow into a 400+ page text, was that there were serious uncertainties about the accuracy of translations of documents about early Church life, about the role of women in the early Church, about the politics and jockeying that went into sorting out the canon Gospels from the Apocrypha (long after everyone who’d lived through it all had passed on) and whose agendas were being served and why, and even about just how organized and formal the practices of priests and laity and worship services were.
Christ never clearly stated that women were not to be priests, or that only men were; He didn’t have a lot to say about the priesthood, period. Paul came close to saying women couldn’t do it, but there’s been a ton of scholarship indicating that translations of his letters have been fudged and fiddled with (I am thinking in particular of the works of Mary Hayter scrutinizing the Pauline letters, which I’ve never seen refuted). What little we’ve got on the early Church is ambiguous and in places seems to indicate pretty strongly that at least some women were in positions of recognized ecclesiastic authority (inasmuch as anyone was at all at the time).
I understand that you’re not saying that women can’t, but I am unconvinced by the repeated statements that Christ’s authority bars it.
>He, and followers like Paul who were writing within the lifetimes of His friends and apostles, seemed to have viewed men and women as equally valuable in God’s eyes and, at the same time, to have viewed maleness and femaleness as not particularly relevant.
Up is down. Black is white. Etc.
The work(s) of Mary Hayter, plural? All I could find was one book. I’ll see your Mary Hayter and raise you a Stephen Clark – I’ve never seen *him* refuted. And, since he stands on the side of 2000 years of universal church witness, I rather think the ball is in your court.
You see, any Egalitarian/Religious Feminist has rather a lot to fight against and one book simply ain’t gonna do it. You’ve got to answer the prior question, first. Namely, where has the Holy Spirit been for the past, oh, almost two thousand years? Why is He only now getting around to saying, “Oopsie, my bad, of *course* you can make priestess any old time you please. Makes no difference to me.”?
Kamilla
You see, any Egalitarian/Religious Feminist has rather a lot to fight against and one book simply ain’t gonna do it. You’ve got to answer the prior question, first. Namely, where has the Holy Spirit been for the past, oh, almost two thousand years? Why is He only now getting around to saying, “Oopsie, my bad, of *course* you can make priestess any old time you please. Makes no difference to me.”?
I don’t have the scholarship in the relevant works that zmayhem does, but do you really think that the Holy Spirit (which works through people, not apart from them) couldn’t be ignored by a patriarchal society? It’s entrenchment. Women couldn’t have been Christian priests because they weren’t allowed to even own property. The 2000 years of *proven tradition* are based in a patriarchal society, that, as I said already, bears little resemblance to the world we now inhabit.
If you cannot grasp that point, I am not sure why SMH or any one else here should continually re-hash old arguments simply because a new feminist has poked her head into the discussion.
Well, I wasn’t part of the old arguments, so I wouldn’t know who was rehashing what, now would I?
Of course, I realize that going over old ground isn’t very exciting, but some comments are addressing the feminists and egalitarians, so engaging the discussion and then pulling out of it because you’ve already talked about it before is kind of a bait and switch.
I’m not saying you have to rehash your same old arguments, but I think people are making a point that the Bible doesn’t speak of Christ forbidding women to be priests, and when you claim that it’s a matter of submitting to Christ’s authority, others are disagreeing with you and backing up their side with evidence.
I think this flurry illustrates my earlier point nicely. To the Catholic and Orthodox, they are living in their Tradition, which is clear on the subject. To the Evangelical (many of whom are posting angrily) who provides no weight to Tradition that is not academically verifiable to their satisfaction they see the Bible alone as silent on the subject, and good luck convincing them of this point before convincing them of the authority of Tradition.
To simplify the statement that sparked this, I don’t believe anything more was intended than to say that polite men will not argue as robustly in the company of women, which is why Touchstone prefers an all male editorial board (as argue they must from the excellent quality point/counterpoints they publish). They are a private organization, and I believe that should be the end of the discussion on that rather narrow point.
The Holy Spirit is a “which”? Are you sure you meant to put it that way?
I am afraid the ball is still in your court. We are promised the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, who *will* guide us into all truth, not, “Oh well, He’ll try unless your culture ignores him.”
Do *you* really think the Holy Spirit is so inept and powerless He can’t guide the Church in spite of the culture? And religious feminists wonder why I think they serve a small, petty little god?
You did get one thing right, however, even if it wasn’t how you meant it. You’re absolutely right in that the world we inhabit now doesn’t resemble patriarchal cultures of the past. However, rather than judging God by the culture’s standards, shouldn’t it be the other way around? Who gives a rat’s right whisker for what “the world we inhabit now” resembles? Shouldn’t we be asking how God would have it be instead?
Kamilla
>>Shouldn’t we be asking how God would have it be instead?<<
Do you honestly think we’re not doing that??
Up is down. Black is white. Etc.
I quite agree. What on earth was that Paul rattling on about, with his neither this nor that but all one in Christ?
I’ll see your Mary Hayter and raise you a Stephen Clark – I’ve never seen *him* refuted. And, since he stands on the side of 2000 years of universal church witness, I rather think the ball is in your court.
And I shall certainly look at Mr. Clark’s books, now that I’ve been pointed in their direction. However, I’m still uncertain about the “2000 years of universal church witness,” as my understanding (which nobody so far has corrected) is that the details of the first 150-200 years of the Church’s history, immediately after the life of Christ and those who personally knew Him, are both murkier and, where known, rather more egalitarian than less.
Do *you* really think the Holy Spirit is so inept and powerless He can’t guide the Church in spite of the culture? And religious feminists wonder why I think they serve a small, petty little god?
Well, I do think that God prefers to hint and nudge and suggest rather than open the clouds up and boom down a direct order. We’re supposed to use free will and intellect and reason and prayer to come to our own conclusions, hopefully in consonance with His will and intent; we’re not puppets or robots or transcription machines mechanically blarting back divine dictation without judgment or volition.
Unfortunately, my belief in Original Sin and a look back in history at the terrible things we’ve done to one another in the name of every conceivable faith or none at all doesn’t make me particularly sanguine about our ability to instantly conform to God’s will. As a species we’ve proven over and over that we are fully capable of ignoring and even blaspheming the Spirit’s call, the Father’s commands, and the Son’s example, all while claiming to follow, enforce and glorify them. I wish I could believe that the Church’s history was one of unbroken perfect witness and understanding and that we could all rest easy in the certainty that everything is just as it should be and we’ve no reason ever to question its conclusions. I wish I could, but I can’t. I don’t think the Holy Spirit is that inept and powerless; I do think we’re that knuckleheaded, selfish, and frequently terrified.
Though I admit I really can’t imagine how a God who joyfully welcomes the full gifts, used to their fullest capacity, of every one of His people regardless of chromosomal status, is small and petty.
I’m not interested in nitpicking grammar and typos. If that’s how you like to debate, it’ll be rather one sided.
I am afraid the ball is still in your court. We are promised the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, who *will* guide us into all truth, not, “Oh well, He’ll try unless your culture ignores him.”
Do *you* really think the Holy Spirit is so inept and powerless He can’t guide the Church in spite of the culture? And religious feminists wonder why I think they serve a small, petty little god?
You mean you don’t want to address the point I’m making. You’ve said it yourself above: He guides. He doesn’t force, he doesn’t as zmayhem said above, open the clouds and boom out “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased”. That it has happened that way in the past is not a good enough reason to assume that it will always happen that way in the future.
Of course the Holy Spirit can guide in spite of the culture: why do you think women want to be priests in the first place? It’s not like this is the first time this debate has ever happened. Is it inconceivable that the Spirit moves within the people He inhabits and encourages those vocationers to ordination that would be best suited for it?
You did get one thing right, however, even if it wasn’t how you meant it. You’re absolutely right in that the world we inhabit now doesn’t resemble patriarchal cultures of the past. However, rather than judging God by the culture’s standards, shouldn’t it be the other way around? Who gives a rat’s right whisker for what “the world we inhabit now” resembles? Shouldn’t we be asking how God would have it be instead?
Are we judging God by the culture’s standards? I don’t think so. I do think I’m a realist, understanding that in a patriarchal society women were denied a lot of opportunities, and being a member of the clergy is only one of them. That people can use God (or their belief in Him) to accomplish that is a sad thing, and I think the movement to ordain women is a positive one, and in the process of asking how God might have things be, I believe that God values his daughters as much as he does his sons.
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@ Robert– I think that emphasizing tradition over anything else is similar in kind to the error that some evangelical churches fall into, but different in type. Tradition is a good thing, but it is not the only thing, any more than scripture is the only thing. Simply because something is outside of tradition doesn’t make it wrong.
>I quite agree. What on earth was that Paul rattling on about, with his neither this nor that but all one in Christ?
Obviously he meant it in a different sense than you wish to take it as he also said:
“I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet she will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control.”
>why do you think women want to be priests in the first place?
Hell does not rest?
@Bananas Gorilla–
Do you actually want to engage on the topic, or are you only interested in snarking?
With respect to the quote by St. Paul, I think others were making the case that Paul is sort of out by himself in not allowing women to teach or hold any authority at all. That message isn’t found in any of the gospels, at least not explicitly. We can argue about the implicit assumption of all the apostles being male, but I’m not enough of a Bible scholar to get that discussion going.
What about women that don’t have or are unable to have children? Since they can’t be saved by childbearing, what hope do they have? The thing that I’m getting at is that women do have something useful to offer as priests, but it feels to me like you’re only interested in shouting me down instead of actually discussing the topic.
Jessica,
It’s not a matter of my nitpicking grammar – it’s a matter of your slip showing.
And you’re not a realist, you’re a utilitarian. Your arguments betray you. Best suited? Right. That’s why God chose men (yes, as in the exclusive male human being sense) like Moses the stutterer to be his spokesman, the impulsively outspoken Peter, etc.
As for patriarchal societies denying women opportunities? That particular argument is above my paygrade, I am afraid. You’ll have to take that one up with God who established patriarchy which runs from the first Adam to the last.
Kamilla
>With respect to the quote by St. Paul, I think others were making the case that Paul is sort of out by himself in not allowing women to teach or hold any authority at all.
You have a pagan understanding of how to handle scripture.
Jessica,
It’s not that I don’t want to address the point you are making – it is that I cannot because it derives from faulty premises. Your feminism drives the leap from Paul forbidding women to hold authority over men to Paul not allowing women any authority at all. And your utilitarianism drives your argument that women should be allowed to become priestesses because they have something “useful” to offer.
So I simply cannot give you an answer that you will even recognize as an answer. Beside which, we have run far afield of the subject of the post so, unless folks want to get back to the subject, I’ll bow out.
Kamilla
*adjusts her slip*
Sorry, I don’t normally let my undergarments show in public.
And you’re not a realist, you’re a utilitarian. Your arguments betray you. Best suited? Right. That’s why God chose men (yes, as in the exclusive male human being sense) like Moses the stutterer to be his spokesman, the impulsively outspoken Peter, etc.
I’d say that it seems to have more or less worked out alright, all things considered. So yes, I’ll stick by it: best suited. I think God calls those He wants, and that makes them best suited for whatever job– Jonah didn’t want to go to Nineveh, but God’s call was relentless, and Jonah ended up doing it anyway. So yes, right person for the job.
Your feminism drives the leap from Paul forbidding women to hold authority over men to Paul not allowing women any authority at all.
You’re absolutely right, except part of it is that I’ve seen this happen in churches. Women are to “remain quiet”, and are very frequently treated as though they’re worth less than men. You could say that things aren’t supposed to be that way, as it’s not really the Biblical model, and I’d agree, but I’d also argue that saying so doesn’t affect the practice very much
The point of the original post, as I understood it, was that egalitarianism led to acceptance of homosexuality within the church (or at least some churches). Trying to tie them together as sexual perversions feeds into the complementarian arguments that Karen was addressing: why ought women to remain quiet, and men to have the authority in the church?
I’m sure you’re going to say that I have to take it up with God, which I very well might, but I would also say that I prefer to have my God be able to withstand scrutiny, not wither away from it. If my faith is vibrant and viable, it can withstand questioning, doubt, or even despair. If faith is so fragile a thing that we can’t even look at its underpinnings, it’s a rather worthless thing when we run up against rough spots in life. I’m trying to look at what sits under the complementarian views you’re espousing, and it seems a lot of handwaving and not paying attention to the man behind the curtain, if you’ll pardon the phrase. No one has answered Karen’s question about what actually gets ‘lost’, and when we start discussing the value of women in the priesthood, you tell me to take it up with God. I don’t think that’s really so far afield from the original post, as it relates to the sexual perversion of egalitarianism, but if you want to bow out, then you certainly can.
So I simply cannot give you an answer that you will even recognize as an answer. Beside which, we have run far afield of the subject of the post so, unless folks want to get back to the subject, I’ll bow out.
Well, you could, and I might, but you’re not giving me a chance. So, to bring the discussion back to the point, I’ll reiterate (and riff on) something by Karen: why ought women remain quiet? What is “lost” in a gathering of men when a woman is present? I’ve been in groups of both men where only men were present (or at least, they thought only men were present), and groups of men where a woman was obviously present, and aside from the absence of making jokes about who’s prettiest, or whose breasts are the biggest, the actual business decisions don’t change. So what is lost when a woman gets on the editorial board of Touchstone? How do the deliberations change?
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@Bananas Gorilla
You have a pagan understanding of how to handle scripture.
You could tell all that by the fact that I was quoting someone else’s argument?
Two separate but interrelated and important questions:
What is “lost” in a gathering of men when a woman is present?
Specifically, what is lost is the ability to have a non-intergender conversation, to not have a conversation influenced by the existence of the sexual relationship and tension which exists in every relationship between male and female. No matter how much a particular woman may be treated like one of the guys, no guy ever forgets that she is a woman, and that awareness is not trivial.
Is there truly nothing that our inclusion would add to the discourse worthy enough to offset whatever is lost?
No one said that the inclusion of women could not bring advantages, but it depends upon the task at hand whether those advantages are relevant enough to offset the loss that their presence engenders. There are quite a few situations in which the inclusion of women is not only helpful but crucial. Men and women think differently, and it should surprise no one who has worked among both to find that there are ways in which women are superior to men in their rational faculties. I consider women to be better at understanding social situations. Their brains are wired better at it than men’s, on average (which is a universally necessary qualifier). It is a foolish man who does not consult his wife or some wise women about what is going on in the community and how some people might react to this or that.
The fact that men have intellectual deficits that can be compensated for by women is matched by similar deficits that women have which are made up for by men. But this does not mean that optimal reasoning always necessitates using the reasoning powers of both men and women. There are jobs whose natures require certain cognitive strengths over others.
When it comes to the way we think biology actually is destiny. The way we are made affects the way we think. Women are physically different from men in that they are childbearers and childrearers. This is reflected in many physiological differences from men, among them their greater social awareness. Women know what is going on in small communities much better than men do because their natural job as mothers necessitates such an awareness.
Women also have different understandings of the greater good. A women will give her life for her children, perhaps more readily, or instinctively than a man. DO NOT get in the way of a mother and her child! Death lies that way. Yet a man may allow harm to come to his children if he thinks it will improve their character. Women may agree with this idea but will usually find it more difficult in the operation. Far, far fewer women will embrace the idea of sacrificing her child for the greater good. To most men this is a more understandable and acceptable idea. We are wired think differently.
Now, it becomes an important question whether the greater willingness to accept such sacrifices is relevant to the purposes of religious discussion. Maybe in religions NOT centered upon the sacrifice of God’s own Son for the sins of the world such differences in the way the sexes instinctively think might be irrelevant. But with Christianity? Is it any coincidence that the rise of feminism and ordained women has brought with it a view of Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac and Christ’s atoning death on the cross as sign of a cruel and barbaric religion?
Christopher–
thanks for your reply. I appreciate the time you took.
Specifically, what is lost is the ability to have a non-intergender conversation, to not have a conversation influenced by the existence of the sexual relationship and tension which exists in every relationship between male and female. No matter how much a particular woman may be treated like one of the guys, no guy ever forgets that she is a woman, and that awareness is not trivial.
I would maybe agree with you if we were talking about a social setting, but not in one that’s primarily business based. So here’s another question. How would the sexual tension affect a board meeting? I’m curious to find out how things changed on the board of Touchstone once they had a woman on. I’ve been in business meetings before, as I said, and noticed more of a difference in the atmosphere based on which men were present, not whether a woman was in the room.
I disagree with you that biology is destiny, and I also disagree with the generalizations you’re making about the differences between men and women. There’s more variability within the sexes than there is between them.
I think the points you make about women having strengths in navigating social situations, for example, are more a result of socialization than biology. Girls are raised to work cooperatively, and boys are taught to be independent. I think that’s going to have a larger impact on what you’re observing than any inborn trait that says women are better at x.
As an example, I believe someone upthread mentioned all girl or all boy schools, and demonstrated that girls tend to do better when they’re not competing against boys. It has nothing to do with boys being better or smarter, but more with the way we’re socialized. Interestingly enough, I had a lot of teachers encourage me in math and science (not the dominant paradigm) and I ended up getting a master’s degree in genetics. Did I go against my internal wiring as a girl to be a childbearer, or is that mindset just a result of how we’re all socialized to think about gender?
I think the last point you bring up is interesting: I think Christ’s death was absolutely barbaric, but I don’t think that being a feminist has anything to do with that belief. But I do not believe that Christianity is particularly barbaric, either. I think that it’s barbaric given the way some people practice their faith (by keeping pregnant women away from the hospital, frex), but I don’t think we can paint all Christians with that brush. I think more than feminism, a lot of people better understand the concept of torture and barbarism as a result of all the waterboarding discussions we had under W, and those debates did not have feminist discourse at their heart. I’d point you here so you can see what I mean– I think there’s more “love your neighbor as yourself” than “you’re torturing someone’s child” when we talk about that kind of thing.
I think some people have a legitimate crisis of faith when they encounter a loving God who commanded Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac. Those acts appear contradictory on their face, and I think that reducing that conflict to something that grew out of feminist discourse is at least a little inappropriate.
People today are raised to love their neighbors, and to treat others the way they want to be treated. The religious undertones have largely been lost in a secular society, but we still have that lying under a lot of our social interactions. I live in CA, and after the passage of prop 8, I saw a lot of bumper stickers and T shirts with the following message: “When do I get to vote on your marriage?” What else is that if it’s not an appeal to be treated fairly, as others expect to be treated?
I think our expectation to be treated fairly causes the apparent contradiction over Isaac’s sacrifice to be caught a little more readily: God said one thing, and then He changed His mind. It’s not about feminism and protecting your child, it’s about being treated fairly and with respect, and what people don’t see in the story is Abraham being treated fairly. I think that scapegoating feminism is oversimplifying the situation.
We are raised to believe that God loves us, but never to believe that God will test us or challenge us or give us something to deal with that seems overwhelming. That such an important thing is left out of our religious educations is not a failure on the part of feminism, it is just a failure. I’ve seen it happen in churches that are faithful to the complementarian views, churches that don’t ordain women, so I don’t think we can pin the fault on egalitarian thinking.
I don’t really expect to change your mind here, it’s just that I find value in exchanging beliefs and ideas with other people, especially people that don’t necessarily believe everything I do.
“In general males make the polis and women live in it. ”
Drpence, do you not see how unfair this is? Do you really want a world in which women are always and only the passive, helpless victims of male whims, with no voice or authority of our own? And please don’t come back with the “no true patriarch” fallacy — if males deserve all authority then I want all complementarians to own all the implications of that thinking, and that includes the idea that men have the absolute right to abuse that authority. If you believe that feminists should own up to the full implications of our arguments, it’s only fair that you own up to the full implications of your own, including the bad ones.
I have a further question: does “Touchstone” employ any women at all? Are all of your typists, copy editors, advertising clerks, personnel managers and cleaners male? If you have female employees, who represents them in management? Does the editorial board have staffing authority?
There’s more variability within the sexes than there is between them.
That may well be, numerically. But that does not diminish the importance of those variables between the sexes. It is said that most species share 98% of the gene code with us, but it’s the other 2% that really separate us from dogs and fruit flies.
There are a few basic universal physiological differences between men and women. Women are bihemispherial cerebrally. There are far more synaptic bridges between their two brain halves than there are among men. Cognitively, that makes them think differently, integrating right and left much more than men do. Men become much more dominant on one half or the other in various tasks, making them more long focused or tunnel visioned. Women tend to think in more rounded but general ways. There are strengths and weaknesses to both and I am generalizing of course, but generalities are useful because they are generally true.
I just don’t think one can really overcome basic biological realities. The brain wiring I mentioned and the fact that women having different hormonal drives that kick in on a cyclical basis in a way that men simply don’t.
One may find the odd woman who is more like a man in this or that way than most of the men around her (I’m thinking Margaret Thatcher. Or was it the unmanlike men around her that were the unusual ones?), but though I may feel more comfortable talking to her than to a more “feminine” women or to a “feminine” man I am not comfortable in dismissing her gender and treating her just like a man. Call it sexism or chivalry but I like the sex differences and the world it creates. Vive le difference!
There’s some truth to be gleaned here:
Victor Hugo
Man and Woman
Man is the most elevated of creatures, Woman the most sublime of ideals.
God made for man a throne; for woman an altar.
The throne exalts, the altar sanctifies.
Man is the brain, Woman, the heart.
The brain creates light, the heart, Love. Light engenders, Love resurrects.
Because of reason Man is strong, because of tears Woman is invincible.
Reason is convincing, tears moving.
Man is capable of all heroism, Woman of all martyrdom.
Heroism ennobles, martyrdom sublimates.
Man has supremacy, Woman, preference.
Supremacy is strength, preference is the right.
Man is a genius, Woman, an angel.
Genius is immeasurable, the angel undefinable.
The aspiration of man is supreme glory,
The aspiration of woman is extreme virtue.
Glory creates all that is great; virtue, all that is divine.
Man is a code, Woman a gospel.
A code corrects, the gospel perfects.
Man thinks, Woman dreams.
To think is to have a worm in the brain,
to dream is to have a halo on the brow.
Man is an ocean, Woman a lake.
The ocean has the adorning pearl, the lake, dazzling poetry.
Man is the flying eagle, Woman, the singing nightingale.
To fly is to conquer space. To sing is to conquer the Soul.
Man is a temple, Woman a shrine.
Before the temple we discover ourselves, before the shrine we kneel.
In short, man is found where earth finishes, woman where heaven begins.
—————————–
One loves more, the other better. (My words)
That’s lovely, Peter. Simply lovely.
Thank you,
Kamilla
>JESSICA…There’s more variability within the sexes than there is between them.
That resembles the taxonomy that creationists use, and that intelligent design adherents oppose. With all respect, it is disingenuous.
>CHRISTOPHER HATHAWAY…that does not diminish the importance of those variables between the sexes. It is said that most species share 98% of the gene code with us, but it’s the other 2% that really separate us from dogs and fruit flies.
Right. And that doesn’t include the 97% of DNA that is considered ‘junk’. Sorry, God doesn’t make junk.
I have a further question: does “Touchstone” employ any women at all? Are all of your typists, copy editors, advertising clerks, personnel managers and cleaners male? If you have female employees, who represents them in management? Does the editorial board have staffing authority?
Have you ever looked at our masthead?
Perhaps the most untoward of all assumptions I have seen here involve our ignorance and dislike of women, and that we commit an injustice against them by not treating them as though they were men.
Touchstone is led by men, and none of us, including its women, see anything wrong with that. Women write for and work for the magazine, and I am not going to patronize them by going on about how necessary they are to this project in which they all believe–and not because they are ignorant, obsequious, or unable to think for themselves.
Believe it or not, the editors’ mothers, wives, and daughters are women, too. They have helped make and sustain us men as what we are. If I became an egalitarian, I would be departing from the teaching of my father and my mother, my wife, and all my grandparents, who faithfully taught their sons and daughters The Dance.
Perhaps the deepest insult being delivered here is to women who in every generation have rejected feminism–it’s always been here in one form or another–because it was not only un-Christian (how long does one have to listen to an egalitarian go on before one finds him rejecting the apostolic authority St. Paul?), but positively wicked, primarily because of its destructive influence on the home and family. Every town had its liberated women of several well-known varieties. Everyone knew who they were, and the results of their philosophy were as evident in former days as they are in ours.
Please note that I will be closing this string tomorrow, New Year’s Day, sometime before noon. It’s long enough. Thank you for your contributions.
>>Perhaps the deepest insult being delivered here is to women who in every generation have rejected feminism–it’s always been here in one form or another–because it was not only un-Christian (how long does one have to listen to an egalitarian go on before one finds him rejecting the apostolic authority St. Paul?)< <
Don't we all reject the authority of St. Paul when it comes to his tacit acceptance of slavery? Remember that in the Epistle to Philemon, Paul returns Onesimus, a runaway slave, to Philemon. He does encourage Philemon to treat Onesimus well, but does not condemn the institution of slavery. In the First Epistle of Peter, and in several letters from St. Paul, slaves are admonished to obey their masters "as to the Lord, and not to men." I know of no Christian institution or person today that does not condemn slavery. What further proof does one need that Paul, along with the disciples who wrote in his name, were theologians with human frailties who wrote within the context of their time, and that they were sometimes actually wrong? To confuse their words with the authority of God is to break the commandment that "Thou shalt have no God before me."
>>but positively wicked, primarily because of its destructive influence on the home and family.<<
This is equivalent to a South African white complaining that the end of apartheid has had a destructive effect on the home and family because now whites can’t rely on cheap labor and easy privilege as they used to, so he is unable to advance and develop himself as he would in “the good old days.” It is in, fact, an argument I have seen used repeatedly in various forms throughout this thread, i.e., “if women invade our old boys’ club, we (shudder) might be in some way diminished.” I cannot think of a more self-centered argument! We men should be thinking of uplifting and advancing both the men and women around us. We should be helping every person to develop his or her gifts to their maximum potential, rather than hogging all we can for ourselves. I find your arguments, SMH, to be those of man, specifically of a man who wants to maximize his own privilege and importance. I don’t see them as the will of Christ.
>Don’t we all reject the authority of St. Paul when it comes to his tacit acceptance of slavery?
We reject no part of God’s revelation to man. We being orthodox Christians.
“I find your arguments, SMH, to be those of man, specifically of a man who wants to maximize his own privilege and importance. I don’t see them as the will of Christ.”
That’s because you, Matt, are a man that has been hoodwinked by feminism into believing egalitarian balderdash. Egalitarianism’s root is in the Enlightenment, not in the Bible. The two fonts are irreconciliable, and the sooner you learn that the better.
D’oh! I meant to write evolutionists.
Happy New Year
>MATT
?!?
>SMH
Long enough. Some corollary to Godwin’s law is close to being met.
>>We reject no part of God’s revelation to man. We being orthodox Christians.< <
So you're saying you DO think slaves should submit to their masters? I read the Bible a little more critically.
>>That’s because you, Matt, are a man that has been hoodwinked by feminism into believing egalitarian balderdash. <<
Rob G., there is nothing in your post that would make me change my mind. All I can say is “thank God for the Enlightenment!” I only have to look at my extraordinarily beautiful and brilliant wife and daughter to know that they are fully and completely equal to me in every way, and that both they and I will work together for the betterment of all of us. Just as claims for biblical support of slavery fell away over time, I feel convinced that, within a generation or two, this offensive fraud about women’s presence somehow detracting from the comfort and achievement of men will be exposed as a lie. The most selfish thing I could ever do would be to expect my wife and daughter to sacrifice their enormous potential for my personal advancement. My daughter, although still very young, is deeply spiritual. I swear I will never stand in her way (or in the way of whatever very privileged parish that might one day have her as a minister) if she hears the call of Christ to priesthood. And I will never allow men, men who are on a level with those who accepted slavery, to destroy her perfect fulfillment in Christ through bigotry or misunderstanding.
>So you’re saying you DO think slaves should submit to their masters?
I think Paul was inspired by the Holy Spirit and did not err in what he wrote.
>I read the Bible a little more critically.
So does Satan.
>>So does Satan.<<
Wouldn’t you agree that Satan would be a lot more inclined to support biblical slavery than would Jesus Christ?
So you’re saying you DO think slaves should submit to their masters?
This is little different from saying that we should obey our rulers, pay taxes, stuff like that. It is one thing to say slaves should submit to their masters and another to say they should be slaves in the first place. I think God prefers that we not be subject to masters, including kings, but that if we are we should show our spiritual freedom by not being rebellious. It’s part of our witness of humility.
That resembles the taxonomy that
creationistsevolutionists use, and that intelligent design adherents oppose. With all respect, it is disingenuous.In what way? If we talk about the average height of men and women, aren’t there women that are taller than most men? I’m six feet tall. I’m taller than a lot of men that I know. If we talk about IQ, aren’t some women smarter than men, and some men smarter than most women? And if we talk about nurturing capacities or any other trait that we might try and quantitatively measure, I think you’ll find a spectrum of positions, one on which the distribution between men and women is probably equal to the distribution between members of a single sex.
For example, I’m not particularly beholden to children, so I would say that I score low on a nurturing scale. I know other women that would score very high, and I know men who would also score very high.
In other words, I disagree that biology is destiny. I don’t think that argument and the evidence I use to support my opinion is disingenuous at all. It is what it is. It may not be convincing to you, but that’s hardly disingenuous. And I don’t know what you mean about the taxonomy of evolutionists. Would you care to elaborate? Or at least explain what does that have to do with whether the sexes contain more differences within a group than between them?
@Christopher Hathaway–
In the same vein, you said:
But that does not diminish the importance of those variables between the sexes.
Why not? What’s the difference between Margaret Thatcher and a male politician (other than the fact that she was PM, and chances are he’ll only ever be an MP?
—————–
I think God prefers that we not be subject to masters, including kings, but that if we are we should show our spiritual freedom by not being rebellious. It’s part of our witness of humility.
But Paul doesn’t say all of that, only some of it. He says that seeking one’s freedom is a good thing, but only if it can be used for Christ, IIRC. There’s no condemnation of slavery, and no command that people who keep slaves let them go.
That goes back to Matt’s position about reading the Bible critically. And that gets at what I was saying yesterday: why should we expect that our faith is so frail and fragile a thing that it cannot stand up to the barest level of scrutiny? Rather than believing everything I’m spoon fed in church, I think about it, challenge it, fight and pray and cry over it. The Bible may be inspired of God, but that doesn’t mean that every teacher is. If God is really God, then His words should stand up to some examination.
Mind you, I’m not talking about picking and choosing what to believe, I’m talking about critical thinking skills, something that everyone is taught in school. If a thing is really true, then it stands up to scrutiny. If it’s made up dreck, then it won’t. Or did you miss Oral Roberts claiming that God would ‘take him home’ if he didn’t raise 8 million dollars? There were plenty of people who did believe that, so don’t claim that everyone understood that he was full of it.
——————
That’s because you, Matt, are a man that has been hoodwinked by feminism into believing egalitarian balderdash. Egalitarianism’s root is in the Enlightenment, not in the Bible. The two fonts are irreconciliable, and the sooner you learn that the better.
I may be an egalitarian feminist, but I think Matt’s faith is vibrant and inspiring. And concepts like egalitarianism are reconcilable with the Bible, just not with this complementarian interpretation of it. Don’t go pinning that baggage on the whole of Christianity.
————
Peter J. O’Leary:
Matt’s statement wrt apartheid is an analogy. It made sense to me. You see, SMH was saying that egalitarianism is wicked because it destroys the family and home. Matt was saying, in essence, that people who believe slavery is okay would say the same thing, that it would negatively impact their lives. Time (and history) have proven the abolitionists to be on the right side, and Matt’s point was that the same will happen for the egalitarians. I hope that cleared that up for you.
—————–
Believe it or not, the editors’ mothers, wives, and daughters are women, too. They have helped make and sustain us men as what we are. If I became an egalitarian, I would be departing from the teaching of my father and my mother, my wife, and all my grandparents, who faithfully taught their sons and daughters The Dance.
Do you still ride in a horse and buggy, too? Of course you don’t. That’s because things change, and sometimes new ways work better than old ones. If nothing else, I think that’s been a pretty consistent theme among a lot of the posts that have been challenging the complementarian mindset. No one’s arguing that things weren’t done that way in the past. We are arguing that there is a better way forward, and it involves treating half of the human race as equals, not as mystical servants who make men whole, who provide their heart, and conquer their souls. Elevation on a pedestal is still sexism, not respect, because it treats women as things and not as people. Doing that is, as Granny Weatherwax said, the start of all sin.
>JESSICA
Great example… to destroy your argument.
Though my wife cooks, I’m the default cook for the family. For me, it’s very fulfilling to immerse myself in every detail of family meals. From growing, food, selection, and researching nutritional and energetic aspects of food, we know food is sacrament, and I take this responsibility seriously.
My wife is still nursing our 2 1/2 year-old. She takes this equally seriously. It would be ridiculous to think of our roles as being equal, or even think there should be an equation or calculus here.
If, God forbid, you are overcome by smoke from a fire, would you want a man of average height, weight, strength, (physical) courage, or a woman fire
manperson respectively average for their gender to try to throw you over their shoulder and pull you to safety?Metrosexual ladymen, and moob-ish endocrinlly challenged postmodern males may be dealing with issues beyond their control. Caster Semanya is a male at one extreme end of the spectrum you cite;
she can run much faster than me, to be sure. Likewise, I may prefer Janet Napolitano over Ru Paul to make national security decisions (though, on second thought…)Pre-fall humanity possessed a sort of essential polarity-without-duality. This polarity is becoming increasingly corrupt in both nature and nurture. As Adam and Eve allowed the great deceiver to come between them, we must invite the incarnate Christ to mediate our genders so that we might attain to the unity between the sexes that God intends.
Goethe wrote that there are none more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free. I further submit that there are none more hopelessly unequal as those that falsely believe they are equal.
And please, don’t confuse equal with identical. That’s really what egalitarians do, even if they don’t realize it. They want to think of God in divine, utter simplicity; that they are made of the same essence as the Father. It is the original gnostic heresy. It is a refusal to accept the me\thou, the otherness, the uncreated, transcendent and unknowable aspect of God the Father. It is error. Satan did this; he thought that he was equal and identical to God; he got the world for a while, but the worst is yet to come for him. And for those that think the same.
Have a happy, joyous New Year!
My apologies as johnny-come-lately threadjacker, but this could go on ad nauseum.
Dr. Hutchens, might you be so kind to stick a fork in this thread? I think it’s done.
>>Colossians 3:22 (NASB) Slaves, in all things obey those who are your masters on earth, not with external service, as those who merely please men, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord.<<
Isn”t it clear that Paul was a status quo kind of guy who just wanted people to get along in whatever situation they found themselves and not rock the boat?
We men find ourselves in a world where women are equal to us. And none of us, one hopes, any longer has slaves. So let’s adapt to the new status quo, guys, in all good will.
I won’t try to add anything to the argument here since more intellectual, learned folks have already hashed things out enough. Dr. Hutchens, thank you for starting this thread and Dr. Pence, thank you *so* much for joining the regulars in the discussion.
If I may add something (not regarding the original topic but the disagreement that ensued), for a lot of years I resented authority. I resented my husband’s authority (back when I had a husband). I resented my church’s authority. It might seem to some that my inability to accept authority was a good thing, an indication that there was more to me as a person than *they* were willing to let me be. But our gracious Lord patiently walked me down the long road from rebellion to obedience and a funny thing happened along the way. I didn’t become *less* of a person, I became more fully human. My life didn’t get smaller, it got bigger; the opportunities to serve others increased instead of diminishing. What is it that Lewis says, about folks resenting God’s shoreline of law but once they get past it, they discover an ocean of delight? So it is with submitting to authority, with accepting, no – embracing – the role that God has given me.
Lord’s blessings to all of you in this new year.
But that does not diminish the importance of those variables between the sexes.
Why not? What’s the difference between Margaret Thatcher and a male politician (other than the fact that she was PM, and chances are he’ll only ever be an MP?
Jessica, the difference is the stated one: She is a woman and he is a man. This difference is not diminished by their commonalities because it isn’t. It really is as simple as that. Sex is one of the givens and foundations of human existence. It is like the existence of God. One either accepts it or not, and that basic decision impacts everything else. For me trying to ignore that a woman is a woman is like trying to ignore a naked man. It’s one of those features that doesn’t go away no what else is there.
Isn”t it clear that Paul was a status quo kind of guy who just wanted people to get along in whatever situation they found themselves and not rock the boat?
Matt, in some ways yes, for the sake of the Gospel. The simple fact is that Scripture does not endorce a politicfal agenda of liberty or libertarianism because we are not meant to confuse our liberty in Christ with liberty in the world. We are already free in the most important manner, thus we are “free” to serve those who call themselves our masters and/or rulers. Is there really any substantive diference between being a slave and being bound to obey the State as subjects?
This does not mean that Scripture does not prefer political freedom. Pauls tells us not to choose slavery and to get our freedom if possible. This Scriptural preference is fairly clear throughout the Bible. If by “reading critically” you mean that you interpret Scripture with Scripture I quite agree. If you mean being willing to dispense with passages you find disagreeable then I find no use for reading the Bible at all except as a book of philosophy and poetry. If that’s all it is it isn’t worth dying for or really getting out of bed on Sunday for. I prefer my religion with more meat on it.
Happy New Year all!
>>Sex is one of the givens and foundations of human existence. It is like the existence of God. One either accepts it or not, and that basic decision impacts everything else. < <
Race is also a given of human existence. An Asian person usually looks different from a Caucasian. I think we all recognize that. I don't think Jessica is denying the existence of differences. I think (and forgive me, Jessica, if I am putting words in your mouth,) that she is making the point that there are not simply two classes of people, male and female, but as many separate classes as there are individuals and that these individual gifts and differences are sometimes more important that the basic fact of gender. So perhaps boys tend to do a little better in math than girls. How much of that is nature, how much nurture, and should it matter when Girl A may be significantly better in math than Boy B. In this case, Girl A will probably make a better engineer. Isn't her unique ability more relevant to this situation than generalizations about relative abilities in the sexes.
>>Is there really any substantive diference between being a slave and being bound to obey the State as subjects?<<
A considerable difference. Subjects have far greater freedom and participate in making the laws of the state. I have never yet had a satisfactory response to my comments about Paul’s admonitions to both slaves and women to obey “their masters” or “their husbands” as they would the Lord. You are right in that our liberty in Christ is more important than our liberty in the world. I think what Paul was saying was that human dominance/authority is less relevant than attempting to live a holy and loving life within the social constructs and hierarchies of our times. Now that those social constructs and hierarchies have changed, the spirit of his words would suggest that we work within our current society, with generosity and goodwill.