tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9031852996869768738.post4795111558991167089..comments2024-03-29T08:14:29.603+01:00Comments on The Ugley Vicar: Women's ordination and the other elephantAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03590979027426082714noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9031852996869768738.post-74556309703870510772010-02-26T13:41:38.683+01:002010-02-26T13:41:38.683+01:00Anonymous, as I wrote, "Most laypeople, I sus...<a href="http://ugleyvicar.blogspot.com/2010/02/womens-ordination-and-other-elephant.html?showComment=1267186458602#c444020525535348474" rel="nofollow">Anonymous</a>, as I wrote, "Most laypeople, I suspect, take the former view," so you'd be in the other category - the minority (I suspect) who have thought more about it.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03590979027426082714noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9031852996869768738.post-4440205255353484742010-02-26T13:14:18.602+01:002010-02-26T13:14:18.602+01:00Well, as a layman I've never taken your first ...Well, as a layman I've never taken your first approach (that's the way it is now, has been, and forever shall be, amen). I've always been one to question the status quo, especially as there seems to be so little biblical support for it.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9031852996869768738.post-74442451249549317992010-02-25T18:34:58.139+01:002010-02-25T18:34:58.139+01:00Well, Don and Father Greg, if "gender differe...Well, Don and Father Greg, if "gender differentiation is not ontological", surely that does away with the argument that women are ontologically incapable of being priests, of representing the humanity of Jesus which is ontologically the same as theirs.Peter Kirkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13395635409427347613noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9031852996869768738.post-59279274839435268052010-02-25T16:06:25.546+01:002010-02-25T16:06:25.546+01:00For reasons that neither I nor Father Greg (ACCA) ...For reasons that neither I nor Father Greg (ACCA) understand, he had difficulty in posting a reply. He asked me to pass along the following:<br /><br />"Peter, I think the issue is that gender differentiation is not ontological. IOW, human is human, regardless of whether said human is male or female. Remember that Christ, while male himself, assumes humanity from a woman, his virgin mother, and Paul classifies gender along with economic and ethnic distinctions, which are clearly not ontological.<br /><br />Craig+, I will leave it to others, or even to history, to determine whether or not we are "Orthodox". However, we are most definitely "orthodox". That aside, Don is right. Metropolitan Anthony and Elisabeth Behr-Seigel, both of happy memory, advocated ordaining women to the priesthood, and others today in Byzantine circles, including Bishop K. Ware and Fr. Thomas Hopko, refuse to rule it out. Among the mainstream Oriental Orthodox Churches, I would suspect that sooner or later, the Indian Church will be the first to ordain women to the priesthood."<br /><br />His own blog is at<br /><br />http://vagantepriest.blogspot.com/Donhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14520020316466378352noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9031852996869768738.post-33313978459781039572010-02-23T21:30:49.164+01:002010-02-23T21:30:49.164+01:00Craig, if Christ saves male and female, then by th...Craig, if Christ saves male and female, then by the "what Christ doesn't take onto himself, he doesn't save" argument the human flesh that he took on is both male and female, or rather not gender differentiated. That implies that there is no need for any gender differentiation among those who represent him as priests, indeed that it is wrong to make any such differentiation because it means that the priesthood is only partially representative of Christ.<br /><br />Of course the argument you put forward about the woman serving only applies in the context of a society in which women are generally expected to serve more than men. In today's largely egalitarian society it falls. So the whole issue can legitimately be revisited in a new cultural context.Peter Kirkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13395635409427347613noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9031852996869768738.post-23546214505522505852010-02-23T20:45:09.002+01:002010-02-23T20:45:09.002+01:00make that "conversation". Although maybe...make that "conversation". Although maybe it was an ecumenical "conversion!Craig+noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9031852996869768738.post-84062427268619152822010-02-23T20:31:21.366+01:002010-02-23T20:31:21.366+01:00Thanks for your naming of the "elephant"...Thanks for your naming of the "elephant", well another "elephant" in the room. <br /><br />Don, the "orthodox priest" that you refer to is not orthodox at all, and is a member of a very tiny group called Antiochian Catholic Church.<br /><br />As per the icon... It was explained to me in an ecumenical conversion. The icon is, at its best, one in which a man, who usually is served, must, before God and the community at the table, humbly offer himself in service to all. Something, they would say that woman do all the time.<br /><br />For what the orthodox fathers would say, what Christ doesn't take onto himself, he doesn't save! Which of course, he saves male and female alike!<br /><br />Peace.Craig+noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9031852996869768738.post-87777501071130572582010-02-23T00:43:15.915+01:002010-02-23T00:43:15.915+01:00"Between the two, the Catholic objection is a..."Between the two, the Catholic objection is actually easier to present. For the traditionalist Catholic, what matters is the embodiment of the truth in the person of the priest, and the validity of that priest’s sacramental ministry. For Catholics who oppose the ordination of women, the problem is not that a woman should not be a priest but that a priest stands as the eikon of Christ — the embodied representation of the Son of God."<br /><br />Familiar with that argument, I was taken aback when an Orthodox priest (in the Syriac tradition) informed me that <a href="http://www.vulcanhammer.org/2009/12/11/more-on-the-eucharist-churches-and-priests/#comment-37156" rel="nofollow">his church was in fact ordaining women priests (if not bishops.)</a> Anglicans who oppose this may not find the Orthodox as univocal about this as they would like.Donhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14520020316466378352noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9031852996869768738.post-3559991541372937192010-02-22T20:50:45.167+01:002010-02-22T20:50:45.167+01:00Interesting comment on the ministerial fundamental...Interesting comment on the ministerial fundamentalism of theological liberals. They are also inclined to be liturgical fundamentalists, which shows that their mindset is essentially legalistic and institutionalist. <br />When Southwark Provost Colin Slee was a candidate for Bishop of Christchurch in New Zealand, he laid great stress on the fact that he insisted on the exact rubrics regarding clerical dress in his cathedral. So never mind the teaching in sermons or the personal lives of clergy; as long as they're in their canonicals of a Sunday, we have our priorities right.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9031852996869768738.post-14695247743156075322010-02-22T10:19:51.114+01:002010-02-22T10:19:51.114+01:00John, you really should move away from this awful ...John, you really should move away from this awful Blogger, which just ate a long comment I wrote, despite my deliberate attempt to save it. WordPress is much better. I'll try to rewrite my comment.<br /><br />Thank you for taking on this important subject, which is indeed the elephant in the room of our previous discussions here and elsewhere, including my exchange here with Edwin.<br /><br />I disagree with you that most lay people take your former view. Some may do, because they have read Anglo-Catholic literature or have been instructed in that view by their priest etc. But perhaps as many may take the evangelical view for similar reasons. However, surely for the great majority of lay people the whole subject is incomprehensible mumbo-jumbo. They may believe (as I did as a teenager with no real informed faith) that the priest has semi-magical powers to perform rituals. But I'm sure they take no view on whether current ministry arrangements are of the essence of the church or merely expedient for it.<br /><br />Surely Newman in his hymn intended "man" in a gender generic sense. He was probably echoing 1 Timothy 2:5 KJV, and must have known that there it represented the gender generic <i>anthropos</i>. So anyone using this hymn as an argument for a male only priesthood has completely misunderstood it. I really don't understand the view that "the iconic status of Christ requires a man for its present embodiment", the only basis for which I find in a misunderstanding of "man" and "brother" in passages like this one and Hebrews 2:17.<br /><br />The Anglo-Catholic view that I do understand is that by tradition priests are male only and the tradition should not be changed without agreement of the church of Rome and the Eastern Orthodox churches. But I reject this view, which gives the Pope a veto over church practice, as fundamentally anti-Anglican. This argument also implies that there is no fundamental theological objection to women priests, but that it is something which the church has authority to change.Peter Kirkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13395635409427347613noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9031852996869768738.post-25689486714090337092010-02-22T00:22:06.222+01:002010-02-22T00:22:06.222+01:00Hi John
Your presentation is very clear. Thank you...Hi John<br />Your presentation is very clear. Thank you. It is interesting pondering the possibility of reversion to the days of apostles so that bishops become advisory and not directive!Peter Carrellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09535218286799156659noreply@blogger.com