Historic theologian on women in the church

Where do you get the notion that "women can only achieve highest dignity within Christianity"?

Where do you get the idea that "Christianity is not possible without holy orders"?

The Communists in the USSR attempted to destroy holy orders in order to destroy the church. How was that an "anti-woman policy"?

What is your resoning behing your assertion that "Women being in holy orders contributes to secularization of Britain"? Do you have some irrefutable statistical evidence or is that just a gut feeling?

What specifically Christian 'culture' is eroded, and how, by ordained women? Many of our country parishes are ministered to, up to 3 or 4 in one group, by women priests. Before women could become ordained in the Church of England there were not enough men to minister to all the parishes that wanted their own priest, and parishes couldn't afford to pay for them, so they would have had to close or become just 'Chapels of Rest'. As it is some only get a communion service once a month and they are very happy for it to be celebrated by a duly ordained woman. Most have proven themselves extremely competent and are pastoraly much appreciated.

Do you really think a "return of the (inevitable)? post-Christian exploitation of women", is precipitated by more women serving the Christian communities in the role of priests? Some manage church business better than some men do. I imagine Cloe did at Corinth, better than the eucharist abusing, misogynistic, male supremacist, seperatist, factional, men were. At least that's the impression we can infer from the Bible's collection of Paul's epistles to Corinth.

To really help the church, Christian men should take advice from Gamaliel at Acts.5:38-39.

"So in the present case I tell you, keep away from these [wo] men and let them alone, for if this plan or this undertaking is of [wo] man, it will fail; but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them. You might even be found opposing God!”

Yes the scriptural 'forces' are stacked against the ordination of women and defences and barricades have gone up. Enclaves of male only ministry and doctrinally pure holy huddles now abound, and no one can blame them for that, because we all must accept that a literal interpretation of Holy Scripture as the inspired and irrevocably infallible word of God, does not speak of women being ordained, but why can't male only adherents just be content to practice the praxis of keeping God's house in order where they are, without shouting "Heretic - Heretic - Heretic" at those churches who can only GET a priest for the cure of their souls were she a godly woman, because not enough men are coming forward as ordinands, otherwise the congregation would simply have to go without shriving and eucharist.

Give the women a break I say. If it is of God, then OK, you won't stop it, if not, as you are convinced the bible tells you, then they cannot possibly succeed, but if they fail because they have simply been opposed by men, but God didn't mind, then it may be that some awkward questions may need to be answered at the Great Assize, when the good and bad fish finally get sorted from the drag-net, the sheep get separated from the goats, the tares get separated and burned and the wheat is piled in God's heavenly Silos.
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Neither though does it specifically speak of women receiving communion or any specific instruction that men only may ordain only men, yet both of these happen without any objection being raised by literalist fundamentalist bible believers or anyone else; and rightly so.
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Women should let men be all the priests, because it's the man's only legitimate chance to wear elegant women's dresses (called by fancy names, of course) and be respected for it.

Just kidding!

 

I've often wondered why the bible seems so strict on clothing, when Adam and Eve wore exactly the same gear; figleaf oneseys and later on, off the peg fur coats. ( Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. ) - (And the LORD God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.)

The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman's garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the LORD thy God. Deut.22:5.

I wonder what the differences were though in mens and womens garment though. Women and men had no slacks, suits or jeans. There were no tights, nylons, panties, knickers, bras or bikinis. Priests wore some really fetching gear, decorated with urim and thumim on the chests and with fringes of pomegranites round their ankle length skirts. Both sexes were covered from head to foot, so how did they know if someone was pushing the boundaries in the underwear department.

What items of clothing were actually involved and what designated them as male or female garments?

As for today in the church, is a cope, cloak, dalmatic, cassock, surplis, stole, preaching scarf, etc. male or female clothing? Is there any clothing item which is / was universally regarded as truly acceptably both male and female clothing. Sandals, socks, sloppy pull overs, berets, belts, scarves, overalls etc. for instance.

I just love those frilly lace cotters that the RC altar servers wear and as for those richly embroidered Afghans that Bishops sometimes sport, wonderfully fetching with the mitres topping off their ensembles.

 

There is something you should know. When there is a law or precept or dogma on faith and morals binding on the conscience, its authority can either be affirmative or negative.

If affirmative, then the authority is either generic or specific.

Generic Authority allows choices and discretion within the very NAME of the matter or actions commanded or prescribed. For example, there is the command to GO ... (Mark 16:15), and such a command is generical regarding the MODE of travel: walking, riding, driving, flying, sailing, etc. All of these would be equally acceptable ways of obeying the precept. Also it would be acceptable to use any incidentals or expedients which would be used in obeying the precept, like shoes, horse, car, bicycle, motorcycle, plane, ship, etc. Generic authority authorizes everything within the genus (provided they in particular be not contrary to God's written word) and all other lawful expedients that happen to be grafted on. But Specific Authority is far more stringent: it not only commands certain acts to be done, it also deprives those who are thus commanded of the entire liberty of doing what is not so explicitly specified for the purposes of obeying the precept, not because these other things are intrinsically evil or shameful, but merely because they are not the things that the precept had specified. For example, when God commanded that Noah should build an ark (Genesis 6:14), He excluded the entire liberty of building any other kind of building, including a frigate or galleon. Then God commanded that the Ark should be built of gopher wood - this excludes iron, cobalt, concrete, cement, plastic, vinyl, Bakelite, Teflon, Steel, Aluminum, Rubber, Caoutchouc, Gutta-percha, etc. He also specified that the wood of the Ark is to be gopher wood - this excludes every other type of wood.

But the object of the precept is entirely negative. Generic negative authority is universal and generally applies to every all and singular subspecies of the particular thing named. Specific negative authority, just by the enumeration of one special case, exempts all other cases of the same level of specificity from the lawful jurisdiction of the precept. For example, it is written in the Torah no less than 3 times, Thou shalt not seethe a kid in its mother's milk. But this prohibition is limited to just one single specific case, and it is precise, exact, specific, minute, and fully defined: Thou shalt not seethe a kid in its mother's milk, but the prohibition goes no further, but on the contrary, the specification of that one particular case is the decisive and definitive proof that that is the only case intended, and Expressio Unius Est Exclusio Alterius (the specification of one thing is the exclusion of everything else) - according to even English Common Law. Or else, it cannot be a precise and truly specific prohibition!

For the Apostle's precept to be truly specific, it must not just specify one particular case: this very specification would also have to be the decisive and definitive proof that that case alone is intended, and all other cases at the same level of specificity are exempted from the prohibition. It would need to be precise enough to distinguish between what is called public speaking (i.e. publicly addressing the assembly or talking loud and individually enough to publicly address the assembly) and merely taking part in the congregational singing and congregational liturgical responses, and such liturgical responses as may be prescribed by a Liturgy book for Candidates in Baptism, Matrimony, Confirmation, etc, just as if neither the act of taking part in the congregational singing, nor congregational liturgical responses, nor such liturgical responses as may be prescribed by a Liturgy book for Candidates in Baptism, Matrimony, Confirmation, etc, had been a form of lalein (which is the NT Greek word Paul uses to name the very act FORBIDDEN to women in 1 Corinthians 14:34/35, and which is translated into English as SPEAK). But if Paul the Apostle had intended such a distinction, he could have used either the more specific word agoreuein or else the more specific term demegorein so that nobody could mistake it for forbidding any form of women's vocal participation in the Liturgy except publically addressing the assembly (includes of course, preaching, teaching, exhortation, liturgically reading the Bible, leading in public prayer, prophesying, speaking in tongues, exorcism, ...) and/or putting forth questions loud enough to publicly address the assembly: for the Greek is a far more precise language than the English. But the Holy Spirit, knowing the true and accurate meaning of all three of those Greek words, inspired St. Paul to use the more generic word lalein to name the very act forbidden in church!

My contention is, there can be no just and scriptural warrant for exempting the act of taking part in the congregational singing, nor congregational liturgical responses, nor such liturgical responses as may be prescribed by a Liturgy book for Candidates in Baptism, Matrimony, Confirmation, etc, from the scope of this precept found in 1 Corinthians 14:34/35 unless firstly, on the grounds of the very reason that the Scriptures itself adduces for its rulings: "but they are commanded to be under obedience, also also saith the law" (quoting Genesis 3:16), and secondly, more specifically on the grounds that these latter acts of vocal participation in public worship [i.e., congregational singing, congregational liturgical responses, especially those prescribed by the Book of Common Prayer for Candidates in Baptism, Matrimony, Confirmation, etc.], unlike the act of publicly addressing the assembly or publicly haranguing there, is not a violation of the prescribed subordination of the female sex.

 

Not so: You need a better example.

Strongs Dictionary Definition; h8392. תֵּבָה ṯêḇâ; perhaps of foreign derivation; a box: — ark.
AV (28) - ark 28; - ark vessel which Noah built, basket, vessel in which Moses was placed. Ark of the Covenant in which tablets of the Law were placed.

An "Ark" is any kind of vessel which will float on water or contain other objects. In the case of Noah's boat, ship, vessel, box etc. it's dimentions are stipulated but not its shape. Since it did not need to make progress through the water or be steered, it was probably box shaped. The easiest shape to build for a person who had no experience of building ships.

The mind picture you may be imagining is merely the product of artists impressions you have seen since a small child and probably bears little resemblance to the box that Noah was instructed to build, or the construction that finally emerged from his efforts.

It obviously does not include prophesy and probably not some or even all of the other functions you mention too. 1 Cor.11:4-5. This permits or even encourages women to prophesy wearing a head covering and discourages men from doing so while wearing anything on their head. This may have been appropriate, even advisable or necessary in 1st century Corinth but I don't see any good theological reason for imposing such rules upon 50% or more of our Anglican congregations today. What the men in other less enlightened congregations decide to do to their women is their business though.

I hope you would equally prohibit public haranguings of Anglican congregations by either men or women. WE don't appreciate such aggressive behaviour in church. The Anglican ecclesia isn't a regular non-conformist mob.
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Begging your pardon, but could you 'dumb it down' for me? The sentences in your third and fourth paragraphs are so lengthy and convoluted, I can't tell what position you are taking.

 

I've read Legal Contracts from Apple and Google which are more comprehensible and less 'wordy'. It does seem very like the language of 'Legalese' jargon that the legal profession everwhere use to bamboozle the unitiated doesn't it.

I can figure out though that he's in favour of gagging women for everything except singing hyms, saying Amen where indicated on the service sheet or relying to questions at the baptisms of the infants they carried and brought into the world.
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This advice works great for so many situations. I call this the First Law of Conservatism, and equate it to much of what Burke had to say. Conserve what you can in your own domain, but do not attempt broad scale social engineering (in this case, in the Church). If there are places that need priests and the people are ok with giving women the job, let them. If something is the right development, it won’t be able to fail; if it is wrong, it can’t possibly succeed (long-term), and requires no outside intervention. My own experience is that this has been a good thing.

 

The authority of divine laws in which people are told what to do (these are called Affirmative Precepts), is of two kinds which I have called generic and specific.

The first kind tells you to do something but gives you the freedom to do it anyway you please (provided of course it be not contrary to some other part of the Word of God or article of the Christian faith).

The second kind is stricter: someone is told not just to do something, but the command is so precise, exact, and particular, and therefore he is automatically denied the entire freedom of doing it in any manner not particularly specified in the command. Any manner which is not specified in the precept is automatically unacceptable for obedience. And that is the difference between the two kinds of authority.

However, Negative Precepts are precepts which instead of commanding that certain things be done, forbid certain acts from being done; again the authority is of two kinds, generic and specific.

The first kind applies to every species of the thing that is named as forbidden, and also to every aid or expedient employed in getting it done. Every species of the thing that is named as forbidden automatically renders you guilty, and so does every act of using any aid or expedient either with intent to do the thing named. Also, every action which guarantees or tends to cause the occurrence of the thing named in the precept also makes you guilty of breaking the precept.

The second kind, is so specific that just by the fact that it names one thing automatically shows that no other thing at the same level of specificity, however similar to the thing named, is included in the prohibition.

That position which you have caricatured as "gagging women for everything except singing hyms, saying Amen where indicated on the service sheet or relying to questions at the baptisms of the infants they carried and brought into the world" just happens to be the historical position of the entire Church of England for at least the first 400 years of its existence, and also the historical position of all the Church Fathers.

Straw-man. What I meant by "haranguing" was simply the act or role of individually addressing a public assembly (for example, when a person publicly leads in prayer, or preaches in church, or lectures in church without the rest of the congregation joining in vocally, but listening passively) as opposed to congregational singing, choir singing, solos, special music, and congregational liturgical responses, especially those prescribed by the Book of Common Prayer for Candidates in Baptism, Matrimony, Confirmation, etc. I did not mean ranting and raving like a demagogue or agitator!

 

That doesn’t matter. Don’t forget the Fact/Law Distinction. As we discussed in another thread, the Church has the authority to alter its Discipline. The only reason this is even an issue is because of Anglo-Catholic revisionism. Relying on sound exegesis of the Scriptures allows for a much broader view of the subject, and that should be the default Anglican starting point, not Roman Catholic assumptions about the nature of the priesthood.

 

Exactly, where the Spirit is, there's freedom. If that freedom is abused God will deal with it in His own way.

 

Sounds like an excuse for a stringent kind of legalism when applied to possibly Apostolic advice though. Scripture in the New Testament is not a book of laws and edicts. It is an inspired collection of information and advice for the church.

Traditional behaviour is not necessarily the behaviour approved by God, even if it is behaviour influenced by an ignorantly literalist but piously sincere interpretation of scripture. The church used to burn people at the stake thinking it was doing God's work as advised in scripture. An extreme example doubtless, but nonetheless illustrating a principle of the way in which church praxis should be open to reform by the church, not fixed by a rigid adherance to rules and regulations made by dead people.

What you meant was not what you wrote though, was it. Now we know what you meant though I still think your suggestion is draconian and misguided.
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Also consider this: the Methodists inherited and carried on the Anglican view and practice of the Christian Ministry independently of, and prior to, the corrupting influence of much of Ango-Catholicism on institutional Anglicanism in both Britain and the United States. (That the Methodists and Episcopalians in America were not part of one singular organization following the War of Independence is largely a historical accident.) Yet the ordination of women in Methodism happened much sooner, was accepted far more rapidly (where it didn’t already exist before), and occasioned far less controversy overall, than what occurred in its Anglican/Episcopal counterparts in both the UK and the U.S. That, all by itself, is a very interesting piece of evidence.

 

I invite you all to see my new web topic, https://forums.anglican.net/threads/case-of-conscience-concerning-advowsons.4420/, posing a case of conscience concerning advowsons in the Church of England.

 

There is also something else worth noticing. In 1931, the Convocation of Canterbury and York Commission on Women and the Ministry opposed women's ordination, but here are their reasons for doing so:

http://anglicanhistory.org/women/cu1936.html:

"The public worship of the Church, unlike many of its pagan counterparts, has always been essentially sexless in its character and atmosphere. Like the highest forms of secular representative or symbolic art, it eschews all appeal to passions and emotions connected with man’s animal nature. The traditional rites of the Church, with their attendant forms of music and ceremonial, have an aesthetic appeal which rises above the natural instincts, so that the worshipper finds himself in a supernatural atmosphere where “there is neither male nor female.” We may say that the genius of the liturgical action of the Eucharist, or the solemn recital of the Divine Office, is more akin to that of military ceremonial functions, such as the trooping of the colour, than to the sensuous beauty of grand opera or the Russian Ballet. It is true that instances can be produced of occasions when the Church has fallen short of this high ideal of worship. The introduction of quasi-operatic music (such as the masses of Gounod), the extravagant adornment of the sanctuary, the attempt to achieve a disproportionate appeal to the sense through the elaboration of ceremonial, and the decoration of churches by a vulgar type of statuary, have sometimes led to the degradation of the dignity of the Church’s services. But such aberrations have been merely local and temporary, and have normally had the practical result of creating an individualistic and emotional pietism in the laity, while obscuring the true nature of the corporate act of worship performed by a Christian congregation, whether at “the breaking of bread” or “the prayers.”

It is our submission that the outward presentation of Christian worship would be fundamentally altered if the female sex were admitted to the performance of liturgical duties at public services. To assert this is in no way to suggest that the exclusion of women from choir and sanctuary is necessitated by any intrinsic “inferiority” in their sex. It is rather the deficiencies of the male sex which are the motive for the maintenance of this regulation. But we maintain that the ministration of women, whether as servers at the altar, singers in the liturgical choir, or readers of the divine offices, in the face of congregations which include men, will tend to produce a lowering of the spiritual tone of Christian worship, such as is not produced by the ministrations of men before congregations largely or exclusively female. It is a tribute to the quality of Christian womanhood that it is possible to make this statement; but it would appear to be simple matter of fact that in the thoughts and desires of that sex the natural is more easily made subordinate to the supernatural, the carnal to the spiritual, than is the case with men; and that the ministrations of a male priesthood do not normally arouse that side of female human nature which should be quiescent during the times of the adoration of almighty God. We believe, on the other hand, that it would be impossible for the male members of the average Anglican congregation to be present at a service at which a woman ministered without becoming unduly conscious of her sex. As soon as this consciousness makes itself felt, it inevitably lowers the spiritual level of the act of worship and the devotions of the congregation. Practical experience, we believe, bears witness to this. Anglican churches in America frequently maintain a choir of adult women, varying between twenty and forty years of age, who perform that part of the singing which is normally performed in England by a boys’ choir, who are vested in surplice and cassock and occupy the seats assigned to the liturgical choir. It is no mere irrationally conservative or obscurantist outlook which finds this custom inappropriate and outlandish. Both the eye and the ear of the worshipper are disturbed by an element which conflicts with the spiritual quality of Christian worship, and which assimilates the rendering of divine service to the performances of the theatre or the concert hall. We believe, therefore, that there are strong practical grounds for the maintenance of the traditional discipline of the Church which assigns the service of the sanctuary and the places in the liturgical choir to the male sex alone, and the treble parts in liturgical music to the passionless rendering of unbroken male voices."

But what about if the choir is in a balcony above the Narthex of a Church building instead of in the Chancel? Can anybody, using sound evidence from the Bible and from the orthodoxical Anglican writings, produce a proof that to make it an ordinary custom for women and girls to sing in church choirs in communion with the Church of England even though those choirs are located in the chancel or in front of the whole congregation, will NOT "tend to produce a lowering of the spiritual tone of Christian worship, such as is not produced by the ministrations of men before congregations largely or exclusively female"? If such evidence can be produced, well then, I say that the 1931 Convocation's reasons against women's ordination are insufficient as well as fallacious. The REAL and only theologically SOUND, and truly sufficient and actually efficient reason, then, is that the divine law mandates the due subjection of the female sex in the ecclesiastical estate (1 Corinthians 14:34b, 1 Timothy 2:11/12, 1 Corinthians 11:3, 7 - 10) no less than in the matrimonial estate: and furthermore the reasons for this law are moral and founded in the order the Creation of Adam and Eve.

But the ministration of women in the office of administering to the congregation in Word and Sacraments is an act of de facto ecclesiastical authority over the whole congregation. In such planned liturgical meetings, only adult males that have been ordained to Holy Orders are eligible to exercise these authoritative responsibilities. Therefore, it is a deeper dogma of ecclesiological morals that only baptized orthodoxical pious and morally irreproachable adult males are eligible for Holy Orders. And such is an actually efficient reason against women's ordination. And the universal perpetual uniform professing Christian church has historically known this all along.