The reference to my age should have been followed by one about the pace of change in the Orthodox Church.
I should have spelt that out otherwise it looks pretty random.
As an aside, on @Gramps49's observation about phyletism and ethnocentricity ... the OCA emerged as Orthodoxy spread from Alaska down the western coast of North America and into the US. As in Orthodoxy in Australia there was a hope that there'd be a pan-ethnic jurisdiction for the whole continent rather than individual ones for Greeks, Russians, Serbs etc.
That didn't transpire and ethnocentric jurisdictions sprang up.
Historically, the Antiochians have proven to be more multicultural and more open to 'Western' converts than some of the other Orthodox jurisdictions. In the UK there aren't many Syrian or Arabic Christians in Antiochian parishes other than in London.
They famously received an entire Protestant evangelical group of around 2,000 people back in the 1980s.
In the US at least, they've also started receiving some more virulently right wing conservative evangelicals and fundamentalist types, much to the dismay of people in the OCA and other jurisdictions.
Doh!
The Romanians are planting churches left right and centre at the moment and often drawing Romanian people from existing Orthodox parishes, whether Russian, Greek, Antiochian or other jurisdictions. We've lost a good few people to a new Romanian parish but some flit between the two. I can understand it because they are hearing the Liturgy in their own language rather than in English.
We still have a good number of Romanians partly because they want their kids to hear the Liturgy in English and partly because some of them find the Romanian tradition very legalistic. I've heard of Romanian priests who refuse communion to people who smoke, for instance.
I've heard that the Romanians update the language of their liturgies fairly regularly, unlike the Greeks and the Russians, but many Russian parishes use English as do a growing number of Greek parishes.
@Gamma Gamaliel I think outreach to young women from the Orthodox in the UK would also be a very helpful thing if newcomers are so heavily weighted towards men. Working with uni chaplains and that sort of thing - from what I remember of chaplaincy outreach/campus events, the Orthodox were never part of those.
Orthodox outreach would be a good idea full stop. Unless, like Ruth you want to see the whole thing fizzle out along with the RCs.
We haven't just had an influx of young men. We've had some families and now some young women. We haven't gone out looking for them. Most enquirers turn up because they've found something about Orthodoxy online and not always from reliable sources. A lot that purports to be Orthodox online is anything but.
Orthodox chaplains have tended to minister to students from Orthodox-majority countries as and when required and so haven't tended to get involved with outreach/campus events.
The Orthodox approach to evangelism has tended to be to simply serve the Liturgy and see if anyone turns up.
There have been some striking examples of Orthodox mission historically - in Japan and Alaska where it tended to be a slow-burn 'presence' thing.
'Who is this weird foreigner living in the woods on Spruce Island? He must be a shaman. Let's suss him out ...'
St Nicholas of Japan resolved not to preach to anyone until he'd first fully learned about Japanese language and culture.
I'm not 'idealising' these initiatives and the Russians did learn from Protestant missions in the Pacific but they did take a comparatively organic approach.
It's still very early days for the Orthodox in the 'diaspora' and non-Eastern European settings.
Not if you're still putting your aesthetics over women's humanity.
What do you think you achieve with your diatribes? If you have anger issues you may be better shouting at a wall rather than picking fights with people on a religious discussion forum
Bloody hell -- read the room. You are in a Hell thread, FFS. That said, suggesting anyone here has 'anger issues' is wildly inappropriate. Arrogantly and ignorantly pseudo-diagnosing people is not the flex you think it is.
A follow-on comment concerning your deacon's wife, @Gamma Gamaliel: I realize I do not fully know her position about ordaining women. I am just saying she might be a person who would be willing to discuss it at least on the parish level. That is just based on what you have said about her.
That 'one specific failing' is killing women. Is it not sadder that a woman felt so unsafe in the church that she felt that she had to leave?
Also well said.
Women are dying because surgeons are unwilling to apply medical judgment to these decisions in case they are second-guessed by legal judgments in those US states which have introduced anti-abortion laws.
If you study the Catholic position carefully, it includes Aquinas’s understanding of the principle of double effect. That does allow for a procedure under which the woman’s life is protected by surgery which, incidentally, leads to the death of the unborn child. The intention is not to abort but it is an unavoidable consequence.
I do not know if any of the state legislations have been examined by Catholic theologians to see if they are consistent with the complete Catholic position on abortion. And whether they make it clear when such life saving surgery might be permissible, exceptionally. I haven’t heard of any such analysis.
And to make my own position clear, I think the principle of double effect is a pretty blunt instrument anyway to apply to medical judgments about the advisability of continuing a pregnancy. When Aquinas enunciated the principle, he could not possibly have foreseen 21st century medical dilemmas.
A follow-on comment concerning your deacon's wife, @Gamma Gamaliel: I realize I do not fully know her position about ordaining women. I am just saying she might be a person who would be willing to discuss it at least on the parish level. That is just based on what you have said about her.
Thanks but it goes without saying that a deacon's wife - a diakonisa - a deacon, priest, reader or anyone actively involved in parish life would be the right people to discuss this or any other issue with.
It's not as if there are taboo subjects. It's not as if it's an elephant in the room we have to skirt around.
FWIW the wives of priests - presbytera and deacons tend to have a very prominent role in parish life. Our deacon's wife believes she functions as a 'deaconess' without the 'ordination' that goes with it - and I agree with that. She's very keen on female roles in the Church but imagine she'd stop short of wanting to see female priests but that's an assumption on my part.
Whatever her views the key thing is for me to support her and her husband however I can as he trains for the priesthood as they are bearing the heat and burden of the day as our parish priest grows older and more frail. He's always been older than his years and has all sorts of health problems. God willing, our deacon should be ordained priest next Easter.
There's a general principle within Orthodoxy that the priest be chosen from within the parish where possible rather than helicoptered in from outside.
The deacon has reduced his working hours but has loads to do juggling paid employment with family life and theological study, running the catechesis group and much else besides. This couple are the mainstay within our parish and it'd be disastrous if they burned themselves out.
Many Orthodox clergy in the UK have jobs and some shoot around hither and yon to cover for other priests or to take services where no other priests are available. In Greece they have an arrangement where someone reads the prayers and shares 'pre-sanctified' elements in the absence of the priest without having the necessary training and qualifications to preach or hear confessions. That way people in remote villages can receive the Eucharist in between priestly visits.
We do have forms of service where a priest isn't required and we don’t need anyone specially 'ordained' to lead those and people take it in turns to chant or read.
I help edit an ecumenical publication which has a policy of not using gender specific pronouns to refer to God and that doesn't cause a great deal of difficulty in the editing process. Sometimes we have to jiggle the wording of some contributors' submissions to conform to the house-style but it's not an onerous task.
Er… the contributors do know what they’re getting into with that, right? Do they know their words are going to be changed?
For many (if not all) of us who believe it is more than that, we don’t believe we can mess around with the liturgy however we like, change words however we like, ordain whomever we like, etc.
I think the “if not all” there is a hefty overstatement. Many Christians who would say the church is more than a construct are in non-liturgical traditions, do not believe in apostolic succession (at least as understood by RCs, Orthodox or Anglicans), and do not believe that ordination confers any special status or is necessary for valid sacraments.
Agreed, but regardless, I don’t think they believe they can change things however they like. Even in the most non-liturgical, non-apostolic-succession-believing, non-sacramental (one or more of the above) churches, they surely believe that they are constrained by their understanding of Scripture, of theology, and/or so on? They may have much more leeway in certain areas (liturgy, for instance) than the other kinds of churches, but there would still be some things they’d regard as non-negotiable, surely?
The question I'm left with is about why someone would choose to want to continue associating themselves with an organisation that treats them in this way. It clearly is not because he is himself a bigot, or unkind, or childish, or an unbeliever.
I think the answer is complex but is something about the sociology of belief and belonging.
In some cases, it may not be about sociology, but about theology. If the person believes that that particular denomination, despite its failings in this area, or the possibility that it will grow in ways that he will agree with more but is not there yet, is still the most orthodox church or in some cases, the “one true” Church, then there may be nowhere else to go in his mind. In my case, there are only a few denominations open to me because of my understanding of the Sacraments, for example, so if I had to leave the Episcopal Church for some reason, unless those beliefs changed for some reason, I’d only have a few open to me, and (I think) all of which are more restrictive in some ways than the Episcopal. (I don’t expect that to happen, certainly not in my lifetime and hopefully not ever, but I’ve wondered about it. Back in the 90s, I did wrestle with it, but decided to stick with the Episcopal.)
I didn't agree with all the points @ChastMastr made on the inclusive/exclusive language thread but if my memory serves his preference for traditional language and forms was more of an aesthetic consideration than anything else.
Shoot me down in flames but I didn't see it as a denial of female humanity.
That is the problem. That's the problem right there. The words of men who've been dead over 1500 years matter more than the life experiences of living women.
I'm an Episcopalian. I too want my worship to be traditional, dignified, and beautiful. If you find that the occasional gender-neutral pronoun, or changing one or two words of a 2000-year-old hymn, disturbs your sense of tradition so much that you start a lengthy thread about it on the internet, you are valuing aesthetics more than people.
Actually, no, one is not. Even if one claims that this is only about aesthetics rather than lots of other things, including the value – the intrinsic value as some of us believe – of tradition itself, which is a different matter, it would be about the aesthetics that one holds versus the aesthetics those other people hold. It’s not about “valuing aesthetics more than people.”
Re “The words of men who've been dead over 1500 years matter more than the life experiences of living women”—or living men, yes. So? Those would include the words of all of the Scriptures, all of the early Church, and—apart from His Resurrection (since He was dead for 3 days, not for over 1500 years since)—Jesus Himself. His words and the rest must matter to me more than my own life experiences. Where there may be difficulties with some writings, that has to be wrestled with, but yes, absolutely, the wisdom of the early Church, of the Creeds, of Scripture, and of God Made Flesh Himself, mattering more than the life experiences of those few (of whatever gender) who happen to be currently living on Earth, within generally a hundred-year period at any moment? Definitely.
People's actual experiences and realities will always matter to me more than doctrines, traditions and scriptures. If the latter flounder on the rocks of the former then it is those doctrines, traditions and scriptures that must be wrong, unless we gaslight ourselves.
If a book says grass is blue, it's the book that is wrong, not the grass.
I help edit an ecumenical publication which has a policy of not using gender specific pronouns to refer to God and that doesn't cause a great deal of difficulty in the editing process. Sometimes we have to jiggle the wording of some contributors' submissions to conform to the house-style but it's not an onerous task.
Er… the contributors do know what they’re getting into with that, right? Do they know their words are going to be changed?
Contributors are sent details of our 'house-style' with the commissioning letter and payment details form. They also know that we may edit if a piece overruns the allotted number of words or for clarity.
We go back to contributors to discuss any substantial edits before we make them.
It's rarely difficult to make adjustments if the contributor uses exclusive language despite the clear instructions not to do so. I can only remember several occasions in almost a decade's involvement where any great effort was required to rectify that.
I help edit an ecumenical publication which has a policy of not using gender specific pronouns to refer to God and that doesn't cause a great deal of difficulty in the editing process. Sometimes we have to jiggle the wording of some contributors' submissions to conform to the house-style but it's not an onerous task.
Er… the contributors do know what they’re getting into with that, right? Do they know their words are going to be changed?
Contributors are sent details of our 'house-style' with the commissioning letter and payment details form. They also know that we may edit if a piece overruns the allotted number of words or for clarity.
We go back to contributors to discuss any substantial edits before we make them.
It's rarely difficult to make adjustments if the contributor uses exclusive language despite the clear instructions not to do so. I can only remember several occasions in almost a decade's involvement where any great effort was required to rectify that.
I can back this up.
Not only that but house style is used across publishing. Dickens was so strong in house style he changed some contributions a good deal.
Thanks but it goes without saying that a deacon's wife - a diakonisa - a deacon, priest, reader or anyone actively involved in parish life would be the right people to discuss this or any other issue with.
It's not as if there are taboo subjects. It's not as if it's an elephant in the room we have to skirt around.
FWIW the wives of priests - presbytera and deacons tend to have a very prominent role in parish life. Our deacon's wife believes she functions as a 'deaconess' without the 'ordination' that goes with it - and I agree with that. She's very keen on female roles in the Church but imagine she'd stop short of wanting to see female priests but that's an assumption on my part.
I know vicar's wives who have always been appalled by the assumption that they have a "role" that is defined by virtue of being the wife of a vicar.
That's different because in the Anglican tradition the clergy person's spouse or partner isn't necessarily expected or required to have a 'role' - although many do of course.
In Orthodoxy there is an expectation that they will.
It doesn't mean we'd expect that to be the case elsewhere.
There are things that have developed as expectations that aren't necessarily 'official' as it were. For instance, the diaconate now tends to be seen as a step towards the priesthood. That wasn't always the case historically.
I expect that to change as priests burn out or become too old or ill to function, which is happening all over.
Thanks but it goes without saying that a deacon's wife - a diakonisa - a deacon, priest, reader or anyone actively involved in parish life would be the right people to discuss this or any other issue with.
It's not as if there are taboo subjects. It's not as if it's an elephant in the room we have to skirt around.
FWIW the wives of priests - presbytera and deacons tend to have a very prominent role in parish life. Our deacon's wife believes she functions as a 'deaconess' without the 'ordination' that goes with it - and I agree with that. She's very keen on female roles in the Church but imagine she'd stop short of wanting to see female priests but that's an assumption on my part.
I know vicar's wives who have always been appalled by the assumption that they have a "role" that is defined by virtue of being the wife of a vicar.
And yet many vicar's wives have embraced it. I seem to recall that in some Orthodox cultures there is a tradition of some women specifically looking for a man in training for ordination to marry.
Here in (Sydney Anglican) Oz clergy wives are expected to embrace their role as parochial helpmeet. Note Sydney Anglicans are in bed with Forward in Faith as regards OOW. It is no surprise that Sydney ordinands are almost 100% married (or else engaged) at the onset of their formation and that wives/ fiancees have their very own courses to help them learn their places in parish life.
Thanks but it goes without saying that a deacon's wife - a diakonisa - a deacon, priest, reader or anyone actively involved in parish life would be the right people to discuss this or any other issue with.
It's not as if there are taboo subjects. It's not as if it's an elephant in the room we have to skirt around.
FWIW the wives of priests - presbytera and deacons tend to have a very prominent role in parish life. Our deacon's wife believes she functions as a 'deaconess' without the 'ordination' that goes with it - and I agree with that. She's very keen on female roles in the Church but imagine she'd stop short of wanting to see female priests but that's an assumption on my part.
I know vicar's wives who have always been appalled by the assumption that they have a "role" that is defined by virtue of being the wife of a vicar.
And yet many vicar's wives have embraced it. I seem to recall that in some Orthodox cultures there is a tradition of some women specifically looking for a man in training for ordination to marry.
I've not heard of that but then I'm not au fait with what goes on in Orthodox cultures beyond what I encounter in the 'diaspora'.
Some Anglican clergy have husbands or same-sex partners of course so 'vicar's wives' doesn't cover all eventualities.
I've come across male partners of female clergy who don't share their partner's faith or who don't want to become involved in parish life beyond supporting their partner through moral support.
Nobody listened until they started blowing up postboxes and breaking shop windows.
Yikes. That’s messed up for them to have done, in my view, then. The ends don’t justify the means.
This is an appalling thing to say. They blew up postboxes because they had already tried more legal means, and nobody listened. They had no choice. Being denied the right to vote is something that requires urgent action because the right to vote is such a fundamental human right. You also were not there at the time - who are you to say what they should have done? You are a man whose right to vote has never been in question. You will never be in their position. You will never have to make those decisions. Perhaps have some empathy here.
Even for "less serious" issues like (cishet) men and women's romantic interactions, it does not take much for general everyday sexism to take on a much more toxic and less easily shaken form when religion is introduced. We are seeing from the SBC [Southern Baptist Convention, I think the largest single denomination in the US?] the damage that comes from churches where men's needs very explicitly come first and the priority is getting women victims of male abusers to forgive their abusers, rather than appropriate discipline for the abusers.
The Presbyterian Church in America, which is a very conservative group, not affiliated with the PCUSA of which @Nick Tamen a member, has just voted not to allow women to become members of their diaconate. But this group had formed in opposition to women's ordination in the first place, according to this article.
Even for "less serious" issues like (cishet) men and women's romantic interactions, it does not take much for general everyday sexism to take on a much more toxic and less easily shaken form when religion is introduced. We are seeing from the SBC [Southern Baptist Convention, I think the largest single denomination in the US?] the damage that comes from churches where men's needs very explicitly come first and the priority is getting women victims of male abusers to forgive their abusers, rather than appropriate discipline for the abusers.
Sorry for double post, the time grinch caught me.
It should be noted that the SBC has had significant declines in their membership numbers, falling to levels not seen since 1973. Some see women's disillusionment a significant part of that decline.
I for one have seen some of those women join the ELCA and taking on pastoral roles. This is interesting because they have to accept infant baptism and the ELCA understanding of the Lord's Supper.
How does anyone know whether I'd find Ruth telling me to 'fuck off' any more or less abrasive because she's a woman than I would if she were a man?
I can't have been that upset or offended otherwise I wouldn't still be posting amicably here.
I use the Tony Compolo thing about saying 'shit' fairly often and remember hearing him say it at Spring Harvest back in 1981.
I think it was only @Enoch who objected to the use of the word 'fuck'.
I wasn't addressing all that to you, FWIW -- it was @Basketactortale, mostly, plus other folks objecting to my tone, which you have not done if memory serves.
The reference to my age should have been followed by one about the pace of change in the Orthodox Church.
Yes, how many hundreds of years will it take for the OC to wake up and smell the coffee? And how many women's lives will in the meantime be damaged or even sacrificed on the altar of Tradition?
In the US at least, they've also started receiving some more virulently right wing conservative evangelicals and fundamentalist types, much to the dismay of people in the OCA and other jurisdictions.
Again, the Nazi bar metaphor is apt. If Nazis start showing up at your bar, you need to look at what about your bar makes them think they could find a home there.
And to make my own position clear, I think the principle of double effect is a pretty blunt instrument anyway to apply to medical judgments about the advisability of continuing a pregnancy. When Aquinas enunciated the principle, he could not possibly have foreseen 21st century medical dilemmas.
Exactly. In general my objection to slavish adherence to traditions is that it doesn't accommodate the real lives of people living today.
I didn't agree with all the points @ChastMastr made on the inclusive/exclusive language thread but if my memory serves his preference for traditional language and forms was more of an aesthetic consideration than anything else.
Shoot me down in flames but I didn't see it as a denial of female humanity.
That is the problem. That's the problem right there. The words of men who've been dead over 1500 years matter more than the life experiences of living women.
I'm an Episcopalian. I too want my worship to be traditional, dignified, and beautiful. If you find that the occasional gender-neutral pronoun, or changing one or two words of a 2000-year-old hymn, disturbs your sense of tradition so much that you start a lengthy thread about it on the internet, you are valuing aesthetics more than people.
Actually, no, one is not. Even if one claims that this is only about aesthetics rather than lots of other things, including the value – the intrinsic value as some of us believe – of tradition itself, which is a different matter, it would be about the aesthetics that one holds versus the aesthetics those other people hold. It’s not about “valuing aesthetics more than people.”
Baloney. It's not one aesthetic vs another. It's your aesthetics vs wording that includes women in the church as children of God, which is a theological position, not an artistic one. Your theological position is that women's humanity isn't important enough to be recognized in church.
Re “The words of men who've been dead over 1500 years matter more than the life experiences of living women”—or living men, yes. So? Those would include the words of all of the Scriptures, all of the early Church, and—apart from His Resurrection (since He was dead for 3 days, not for over 1500 years since)—Jesus Himself. His words and the rest must matter to me more than my own life experiences. Where there may be difficulties with some writings, that has to be wrestled with, but yes, absolutely, the wisdom of the early Church, of the Creeds, of Scripture, and of God Made Flesh Himself, mattering more than the life experiences of those few (of whatever gender) who happen to be currently living on Earth, within generally a hundred-year period at any moment? Definitely.
The Bible was written by men who have been dead for a long time. Women alive today matter more. If the church hadn't closed the canon I'd be more open to giving a shit about its writings, but they drew a line a long time ago and said, "This is IT. We're done." As if God, who had been pretty communicative, if scripture is to be believed, suddenly just shut up at some point in the late 1st or early 2nd century.
As a result, we have churches stuck hundreds and hundreds of years in the past with theologies and moralities frequently incapable of dealing with how people live today and upholding social structures that oppress women (and a fair number of men).
The Bible is okay with slavery. Why aren't you busy defending that?
Even for "less serious" issues like (cishet) men and women's romantic interactions, it does not take much for general everyday sexism to take on a much more toxic and less easily shaken form when religion is introduced. We are seeing from the SBC [Southern Baptist Convention, I think the largest single denomination in the US?] the damage that comes from churches where men's needs very explicitly come first and the priority is getting women victims of male abusers to forgive their abusers, rather than appropriate discipline for the abusers.
The Southern Baptists are the second-largest denomination in the US. The Catholics are the largest. Add the rest of the conservative evangelicals, and we've got ourselves a whole lot of people signed up for abusive structures. The SBC got serious about expelling churches that ordained women after the convention had a big sex abuse scandal because it was women pastors who were pushing for reforms (Religion News Service: how women pastors became public enemy #1 in the SBC).
Re “The words of men who've been dead over 1500 years matter more than the life experiences of living women”—or living men, yes. So? Those would include the words of all of the Scriptures, all of the early Church, and—apart from His Resurrection (since He was dead for 3 days, not for over 1500 years since)—Jesus Himself. His words and the rest must matter to me more than my own life experiences. Where there may be difficulties with some writings, that has to be wrestled with, but yes, absolutely, the wisdom of the early Church, of the Creeds, of Scripture, and of God Made Flesh Himself, mattering more than the life experiences of those few (of whatever gender) who happen to be currently living on Earth, within generally a hundred-year period at any moment? Definitely.
Interesting to hear from you again, Screwtape! And what an interesting new tactic you've taken. Convincing living women, for whom Christ died, that your particular antifeminist stance is synonymous with the gospel... well, that's just genius. It's having effect everywhere, where women are tired of patriarchal bullshit contaminating faith. I suppose you'll be up for a commendation for this.
FWIW the wives of priests - presbytera and deacons tend to have a very prominent role in parish life. Our deacon's wife believes she functions as a 'deaconess' without the 'ordination' that goes with it - and I agree with that. She's very keen on female roles in the Church but imagine she'd stop short of wanting to see female priests but that's an assumption on my part.
What other option does your deacon’s wife have?! None, right? Right. She’s not her own person, she’s… The Deacon’s Wife. Sondheim alluded to this plight in A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC: “Every day a little death,” and “The Miller’s Son.” As usual, The Arts are way out front. If it’s not Science, it’s The Arts, and the Church begrudgingly gets dragged forward.
There are ROLES in a church. That’s it. That’s the post. Everything else is a manmade manacle. They got you out here saying “female roles,” for Christ’s sake.
I use the word manacle to keep @ChastMastr from having to endure the less-traditional term, “handcuffs.” Small kindness, I say. Stars in my crown,
Where there may be difficulties with some writings, that has to be wrestled with, but yes, absolutely, the wisdom of the early Church, of the Creeds, of Scripture, and of God Made Flesh Himself, mattering more than the life experiences of those few (of whatever gender) who happen to be currently living
Well, I’ve lived to see it said. Bloody hell. Wrestle with them, must we? So poetic. So like Jacob, are we? Just a-wrestlin’ with God? What does that actually accomplish in the face of longstanding, ongoing, institutionalized, casually rationalized injustice and wrongdoing? Just how long should we expect the wrestling to take? What are its tell-tale evidences? AND, what happens after?
Wait! I know this one!!! We just say (as easily as you please) We’ll Just Have To Agree To Disagree, and Peace Be With You, and then we just keep doing what we always did for the same weighed & wanting reasons! Yay Jesus!
@ChastMastr, it's not as if male suffrage has always been universal nor is it the case that men agitating for it in times past always did so peacefully. The force-feeding of hunger-striking Suffragettes and the way they were treated in prison makes grim reading. You might be advised to look some of that up.
@The_Riv, well it's not as if her husband decided to become a deacon without her consent. She was very active in parish life before and that hasn't changed.
All that's changed is that her husband is now a deacon and she gets a 'title' that is meant to 'honour' the role she plays, both of which she is happy to accept.
She's not here to speak for herself but that doesn't make her 'not her own person.'
Also, nobody seems to have noticed that ChastMastr has said that he does believe in women's ordination although he didn't at one time.
This is an appalling thing to say. They blew up postboxes because they had already tried more legal means, and nobody listened. They had no choice.
I know people say that nothing happened until they started breaking shop windows, but as I understand it, nothing happened after they started breaking shop windows either? The heyday of the WSPU was before the First World War, and women's suffrage wasn't achieved until after the war.
Maybe serious discussion should go in Epiphanies.
There is something about what you are saying about your deacon's wife that bothers me @Gamma Gamaliel.
In your response to my last point, you wrote:
[She's very keen on female roles in the Church but (I?) imagine she'd stop short of wanting to see female priests but that's an assumption on my part.
Later you mention, she is not here to speak for herself.
Then, don't speak for her!!
That said, even if she is not at this point ready for female priests, it does not mean she won't explore the idea of female ordination, like past practices vs current needs.
There is nothing wrong with a conversation at the parish level about the role of women in the church, is there?
Nobody listened until they started blowing up postboxes and breaking shop windows.
Yikes. That’s messed up for them to have done, in my view, then. The ends don’t justify the means.
This is an appalling thing to say. They blew up postboxes because they had already tried more legal means, and nobody listened. They had no choice. Being denied the right to vote is something that requires urgent action because the right to vote is such a fundamental human right. You also were not there at the time - who are you to say what they should have done? You are a man whose right to vote has never been in question. You will never be in their position. You will never have to make those decisions. Perhaps have some empathy here.
We always have a choice. It was still wrong. My gender is simply irrelevant to the morality of these actions. And I could equally tell you to have empathy regarding the people whose stuff and livelihoods were damaged or destroyed by those immoral actions.
Getting into whether "the right to vote is such a fundamental human right" in the first place--though I agree that everyone in a society with voting should have it--could be its own thread.
Nobody listened until they started blowing up postboxes and breaking shop windows.
Yikes. That’s messed up for them to have done, in my view, then. The ends don’t justify the means.
What strategy do you think they should have adopted, @ChastMastr?
I don't know. Not one like that, certainly. I can't really see even far, far worse things justifying randomly blowing up postboxes or smashing store windows.
@ChastMastr, it's not as if male suffrage has always been universal nor is it the case that men agitating for it in times past always did so peacefully. The force-feeding of hunger-striking Suffragettes and the way they were treated in prison makes grim reading. You might be advised to look some of that up.
Oh, I know about it, and it was really horrible, absolutely agreed. That doesn't mean that blowing up postboxes and breaking people's windows as a protest for the right to vote was right, though. Two or more wrongs don't make a right. (Nor would it have been right for when men wanted the right to vote.) There are even rules about what is morally acceptable in literal wartime. If you're physically fighting people who are physically attacking you, that's very different, of course. But destroying postboxes (hopefully blowing them up didn't hurt anyone personally) and shop windows of strangers? No.
Your theological position is that women's humanity isn't important enough to be recognized in church.
Bullshit. It's nothing of the sort. But I don't expect us to see eye to eye on any of this.
I'm honestly sick of this thread. Not because the issues aren't important, whatever one's beliefs are, but the bad-faith assumption that people on one side are all evil for thinking as they do, and the vicious insults and the other crap. I know--it's the Hell board--so it's to be expected, and I'm literally not sure the matters could be discussed on the Epiphanies board because I think any position on all but one side would simply be forbidden, if I understand it correctly. So screw it. I've said what I think relevant, true, and helpful, and I guess that's it. Maybe I'll come back to the thread, maybe not. Despite the explosion of venom that we're all swimming in here, I wish everyone here well (YES, I KNOW, SOME PEOPLE DON"T BELIEVE ME BECAUSE I DON'T THINK THE WAY THEY DO, BUT I WISH EVERYONE WELL ANYWAY, AND NO ONE CAN STOP ME!! MUHUHUHAHAHAHÅHÅAÅ!! THE WELL-WISHING SHALL CONTINUE REGARDLESS!!), and have a good night.
The Presbyterian Church in America, which is a very conservative group, not affiliated with the PCUSA of which @Nick Tamen a member, has just voted not to allow women to become members of their diaconate. But this group had formed in opposition to women's ordination in the first place, according to this article.
Opposition to ordination of women was one of the stated reasons for the formation of the PCA when it broke away from the Presbyterian Church in the United States (aka, “the Southern church”) in the early 1970s. Increasing liberalism/moderate liberalism and ecumenism in the PCUS were other stated reasons, as were efforts toward reunion with the United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (aka “the Northern church”), which did happen in 1983.
The reason generally not stated at the time but definitely very present was opposition to the Civil Rights Movement and desegregation, coupled with changing views of race in the PCUS and willingness of many in the PCUS’s leadership to join in Civil Rights Movement. The PCA maintained the emphasis on the teaching of “the spirituality of the church,” which said that the church’s role was to engage in spiritual, not political matters. Southern Presbyterians had traditionally used that teaching to justify silence (and therefore tacit approval) with regard to slavery and Jim Crow laws.
It is probably not coincidence that the year after the PCA was formed, the General Assembly of the PCUS, for the first time in its 110+ year history, elected an African American as moderator.
I'm honestly sick of this thread. Not because the issues aren't important, whatever one's beliefs are, but the bad-faith assumption that people on one side are all evil for thinking as they do, and the vicious insults and the other crap.
Learn to read. Learn to think. No one's making assumptions about you. We're making judgements. The insults aren't vicious at all compared to what you think women should accept so that you can have your preferred aesthetics.
Despite the explosion of venom that we're all swimming in here, I wish everyone here well (YES, I KNOW, SOME PEOPLE DON"T BELIEVE ME BECAUSE I DON'T THINK THE WAY THEY DO, BUT I WISH EVERYONE WELL ANYWAY, AND NO ONE CAN STOP ME!! MUHUHUHAHAHAHÅHÅAÅ!! THE WELL-WISHING SHALL CONTINUE REGARDLESS!!), and have a good night.
You're damn right I don't believe you. You don't wish me well at all. You want me and every other woman to be treated badly. You can't cover this up with platitudes. Maybe it makes you feel better about yourself to say these things, but it makes you look worse. And you already look pretty bad.
Sexism and misogyny have real consequences for real people and you don't care about that. You want a church that fits your lifestyle -- including something to do with leather, which seems like a very niche kind of thing to wish for in a church -- but not a church that acknowledges and values women's humanity, one that treats women like children of God.
You care more about minor property destruction than the real damage sexism does to women's lives. Your priorities are massively fucked up.
I'm honestly sick of this thread. Not because the issues aren't important, whatever one's beliefs are, but the bad-faith assumption that people on one side are all evil for thinking as they do, and the vicious insults and the other crap.
Learn to read. Learn to think. No one's making assumptions about you. We're making judgements. The insults aren't vicious at all compared to what you think women should accept so that you can have your preferred aesthetics.
Despite the explosion of venom that we're all swimming in here, I wish everyone here well (YES, I KNOW, SOME PEOPLE DON"T BELIEVE ME BECAUSE I DON'T THINK THE WAY THEY DO, BUT I WISH EVERYONE WELL ANYWAY, AND NO ONE CAN STOP ME!! MUHUHUHAHAHAHÅHÅAÅ!! THE WELL-WISHING SHALL CONTINUE REGARDLESS!!), and have a good night.
You're damn right I don't believe you. You don't wish me well at all. You want me and every other woman to be treated badly. You can't cover this up with platitudes. Maybe it makes you feel better about yourself to say these things, but it makes you look worse. And you already look pretty bad.
Sexism and misogyny have real consequences for real people and you don't care about that. You want a church that fits your lifestyle -- including something to do with leather, which seems like a very niche kind of thing to wish for in a church -- but not a church that acknowledges and values women's humanity, one that treats women like children of God.
You care more about minor property destruction than the real damage sexism does to women's lives. Your priorities are massively fucked up.
I fail to see why the existence of stupid rules in organisations one isn't even a member of is so important. I will never understand this.
If you don't like the religion join another. If women within the religion are asking for support join them.
Despite the explosion of venom that we're all swimming in here, I wish everyone here well (YES, I KNOW, SOME PEOPLE DON"T BELIEVE ME BECAUSE I DON'T THINK THE WAY THEY DO, BUT I WISH EVERYONE WELL ANYWAY, AND NO ONE CAN STOP ME!! MUHUHUHAHAHAHÅHÅAÅ!! THE WELL-WISHING SHALL CONTINUE REGARDLESS!!), and have a good night.
There is something about what you are saying about your deacon's wife that bothers me @Gamma Gamaliel.
In your response to my last point, you wrote:
[She's very keen on female roles in the Church but (I?) imagine she'd stop short of wanting to see female priests but that's an assumption on my part.
Later you mention, she is not here to speak for herself.
Then, don't speak for her!!
That said, even if she is not at this point ready for female priests, it does not mean she won't explore the idea of female ordination, like past practices vs current needs.
There is nothing wrong with a conversation at the parish level about the role of women in the church, is there?
Ok. Point taken.
I shouldn't have 'spoken for her'.
Nobody is saying there is anything wrong with discussions about the role of women in the church at parish or any other level.
I fail to see why the existence of stupid rules in organisations one isn't even a member of is so important. I will never understand this.
If you don't like the religion join another. If women within the religion are asking for support join them.
The wealth of large religious organisations is measured in billions of dollars (or equivalent), if not trillions - the Catholic Church is one of the world's largest landowners.
A central aim of many religious organisations, especially Christian organisations, is to transform the lives of people both inside and outside the organisation.
The idea that religious beliefs only affect the people who believe them seems pretty naive.
I fail to see why the existence of stupid rules in organisations one isn't even a member of is so important. I will never understand this.
If you don't like the religion join another. If women within the religion are asking for support join them.
The wealth of large religious organisations is measured in billions of dollars (or equivalent), if not trillions - the Catholic Church is one of the world's largest landowners.
A central aim of many religious organisations, especially Christian organisations, is to transform the lives of people both inside and outside the organisation.
The idea that religious beliefs only affect the people who believe them seems pretty naive.
Explain some more about how Orthodox practices of ordination directly affect you.
I think the view would be @Basketactortale that the very fact that the Orthodox don't ordain women legitimises sexism and misogyny on a societal level and that affects us all and clearly women in particular.
On @ChastMastr's recent posts, I think it is fair to remind everyone once again that he does support women's ordination and if I understand him correctly, has done so for some considerable time.
Whether that gets lost in the cross-fire about inclusive or exclusive language in traditional hymns I don't know but it appears it may have done.
I fail to see why the existence of stupid rules in organisations one isn't even a member of is so important. I will never understand this.
If you don't like the religion join another. If women within the religion are asking for support join them.
The wealth of large religious organisations is measured in billions of dollars (or equivalent), if not trillions - the Catholic Church is one of the world's largest landowners.
A central aim of many religious organisations, especially Christian organisations, is to transform the lives of people both inside and outside the organisation.
The idea that religious beliefs only affect the people who believe them seems pretty naive.
Explain some more about how Orthodox practices of ordination directly affect you.
Can I care only about things that directly impact me? Wouldn't that get me off caring about earthquakes, famines, plagues, wars and purges as long as they happen far enough away not to affect me? Or indeed by that measure why would I care if Restore got in here and started mass deportations?
Comments
I should have spelt that out otherwise it looks pretty random.
As an aside, on @Gramps49's observation about phyletism and ethnocentricity ... the OCA emerged as Orthodoxy spread from Alaska down the western coast of North America and into the US. As in Orthodoxy in Australia there was a hope that there'd be a pan-ethnic jurisdiction for the whole continent rather than individual ones for Greeks, Russians, Serbs etc.
That didn't transpire and ethnocentric jurisdictions sprang up.
Historically, the Antiochians have proven to be more multicultural and more open to 'Western' converts than some of the other Orthodox jurisdictions. In the UK there aren't many Syrian or Arabic Christians in Antiochian parishes other than in London.
They famously received an entire Protestant evangelical group of around 2,000 people back in the 1980s.
In the US at least, they've also started receiving some more virulently right wing conservative evangelicals and fundamentalist types, much to the dismay of people in the OCA and other jurisdictions.
Doh!
The Romanians are planting churches left right and centre at the moment and often drawing Romanian people from existing Orthodox parishes, whether Russian, Greek, Antiochian or other jurisdictions. We've lost a good few people to a new Romanian parish but some flit between the two. I can understand it because they are hearing the Liturgy in their own language rather than in English.
We still have a good number of Romanians partly because they want their kids to hear the Liturgy in English and partly because some of them find the Romanian tradition very legalistic. I've heard of Romanian priests who refuse communion to people who smoke, for instance.
I've heard that the Romanians update the language of their liturgies fairly regularly, unlike the Greeks and the Russians, but many Russian parishes use English as do a growing number of Greek parishes.
But that's all by the by and it's all very messy.
The reference to Antiochians receiving an entire evangelical group was a US example not here in the UK.
We haven't just had an influx of young men. We've had some families and now some young women. We haven't gone out looking for them. Most enquirers turn up because they've found something about Orthodoxy online and not always from reliable sources. A lot that purports to be Orthodox online is anything but.
Orthodox chaplains have tended to minister to students from Orthodox-majority countries as and when required and so haven't tended to get involved with outreach/campus events.
The Orthodox approach to evangelism has tended to be to simply serve the Liturgy and see if anyone turns up.
There have been some striking examples of Orthodox mission historically - in Japan and Alaska where it tended to be a slow-burn 'presence' thing.
'Who is this weird foreigner living in the woods on Spruce Island? He must be a shaman. Let's suss him out ...'
St Nicholas of Japan resolved not to preach to anyone until he'd first fully learned about Japanese language and culture.
I'm not 'idealising' these initiatives and the Russians did learn from Protestant missions in the Pacific but they did take a comparatively organic approach.
It's still very early days for the Orthodox in the 'diaspora' and non-Eastern European settings.
It's a questionable tactic to claim 'nobody' about anything, even if you're doing it to be expressive.
Bloody hell -- read the room. You are in a Hell thread, FFS. That said, suggesting anyone here has 'anger issues' is wildly inappropriate. Arrogantly and ignorantly pseudo-diagnosing people is not the flex you think it is.
Well said.
@Pomona
Also well said.
Women are dying because surgeons are unwilling to apply medical judgment to these decisions in case they are second-guessed by legal judgments in those US states which have introduced anti-abortion laws.
If you study the Catholic position carefully, it includes Aquinas’s understanding of the principle of double effect. That does allow for a procedure under which the woman’s life is protected by surgery which, incidentally, leads to the death of the unborn child. The intention is not to abort but it is an unavoidable consequence.
I do not know if any of the state legislations have been examined by Catholic theologians to see if they are consistent with the complete Catholic position on abortion. And whether they make it clear when such life saving surgery might be permissible, exceptionally. I haven’t heard of any such analysis.
And to make my own position clear, I think the principle of double effect is a pretty blunt instrument anyway to apply to medical judgments about the advisability of continuing a pregnancy. When Aquinas enunciated the principle, he could not possibly have foreseen 21st century medical dilemmas.
Thanks but it goes without saying that a deacon's wife - a diakonisa - a deacon, priest, reader or anyone actively involved in parish life would be the right people to discuss this or any other issue with.
It's not as if there are taboo subjects. It's not as if it's an elephant in the room we have to skirt around.
FWIW the wives of priests - presbytera and deacons tend to have a very prominent role in parish life. Our deacon's wife believes she functions as a 'deaconess' without the 'ordination' that goes with it - and I agree with that. She's very keen on female roles in the Church but imagine she'd stop short of wanting to see female priests but that's an assumption on my part.
Whatever her views the key thing is for me to support her and her husband however I can as he trains for the priesthood as they are bearing the heat and burden of the day as our parish priest grows older and more frail. He's always been older than his years and has all sorts of health problems. God willing, our deacon should be ordained priest next Easter.
There's a general principle within Orthodoxy that the priest be chosen from within the parish where possible rather than helicoptered in from outside.
The deacon has reduced his working hours but has loads to do juggling paid employment with family life and theological study, running the catechesis group and much else besides. This couple are the mainstay within our parish and it'd be disastrous if they burned themselves out.
Many Orthodox clergy in the UK have jobs and some shoot around hither and yon to cover for other priests or to take services where no other priests are available. In Greece they have an arrangement where someone reads the prayers and shares 'pre-sanctified' elements in the absence of the priest without having the necessary training and qualifications to preach or hear confessions. That way people in remote villages can receive the Eucharist in between priestly visits.
We do have forms of service where a priest isn't required and we don’t need anyone specially 'ordained' to lead those and people take it in turns to chant or read.
Er… the contributors do know what they’re getting into with that, right? Do they know their words are going to be changed?
Agreed, but regardless, I don’t think they believe they can change things however they like. Even in the most non-liturgical, non-apostolic-succession-believing, non-sacramental (one or more of the above) churches, they surely believe that they are constrained by their understanding of Scripture, of theology, and/or so on? They may have much more leeway in certain areas (liturgy, for instance) than the other kinds of churches, but there would still be some things they’d regard as non-negotiable, surely?
Yikes. That’s messed up for them to have done, in my view, then. The ends don’t justify the means.
In some cases, it may not be about sociology, but about theology. If the person believes that that particular denomination, despite its failings in this area, or the possibility that it will grow in ways that he will agree with more but is not there yet, is still the most orthodox church or in some cases, the “one true” Church, then there may be nowhere else to go in his mind. In my case, there are only a few denominations open to me because of my understanding of the Sacraments, for example, so if I had to leave the Episcopal Church for some reason, unless those beliefs changed for some reason, I’d only have a few open to me, and (I think) all of which are more restrictive in some ways than the Episcopal. (I don’t expect that to happen, certainly not in my lifetime and hopefully not ever, but I’ve wondered about it. Back in the 90s, I did wrestle with it, but decided to stick with the Episcopal.)
Not the postboxes, oh the humanity!
Actually, no, one is not. Even if one claims that this is only about aesthetics rather than lots of other things, including the value – the intrinsic value as some of us believe – of tradition itself, which is a different matter, it would be about the aesthetics that one holds versus the aesthetics those other people hold. It’s not about “valuing aesthetics more than people.”
Re “The words of men who've been dead over 1500 years matter more than the life experiences of living women”—or living men, yes. So? Those would include the words of all of the Scriptures, all of the early Church, and—apart from His Resurrection (since He was dead for 3 days, not for over 1500 years since)—Jesus Himself. His words and the rest must matter to me more than my own life experiences. Where there may be difficulties with some writings, that has to be wrestled with, but yes, absolutely, the wisdom of the early Church, of the Creeds, of Scripture, and of God Made Flesh Himself, mattering more than the life experiences of those few (of whatever gender) who happen to be currently living on Earth, within generally a hundred-year period at any moment? Definitely.
If a book says grass is blue, it's the book that is wrong, not the grass.
Contributors are sent details of our 'house-style' with the commissioning letter and payment details form. They also know that we may edit if a piece overruns the allotted number of words or for clarity.
We go back to contributors to discuss any substantial edits before we make them.
It's rarely difficult to make adjustments if the contributor uses exclusive language despite the clear instructions not to do so. I can only remember several occasions in almost a decade's involvement where any great effort was required to rectify that.
I can back this up.
Not only that but house style is used across publishing. Dickens was so strong in house style he changed some contributions a good deal.
In Orthodoxy there is an expectation that they will.
It doesn't mean we'd expect that to be the case elsewhere.
There are things that have developed as expectations that aren't necessarily 'official' as it were. For instance, the diaconate now tends to be seen as a step towards the priesthood. That wasn't always the case historically.
I expect that to change as priests burn out or become too old or ill to function, which is happening all over.
And yet many vicar's wives have embraced it. I seem to recall that in some Orthodox cultures there is a tradition of some women specifically looking for a man in training for ordination to marry.
I've not heard of that but then I'm not au fait with what goes on in Orthodox cultures beyond what I encounter in the 'diaspora'.
Some Anglican clergy have husbands or same-sex partners of course so 'vicar's wives' doesn't cover all eventualities.
I've come across male partners of female clergy who don't share their partner's faith or who don't want to become involved in parish life beyond supporting their partner through moral support.
It'll vary case by case I imagine.
This is an appalling thing to say. They blew up postboxes because they had already tried more legal means, and nobody listened. They had no choice. Being denied the right to vote is something that requires urgent action because the right to vote is such a fundamental human right. You also were not there at the time - who are you to say what they should have done? You are a man whose right to vote has never been in question. You will never be in their position. You will never have to make those decisions. Perhaps have some empathy here.
Sorry for double post, the time grinch caught me.
It should be noted that the SBC has had significant declines in their membership numbers, falling to levels not seen since 1973. Some see women's disillusionment a significant part of that decline.
I for one have seen some of those women join the ELCA and taking on pastoral roles. This is interesting because they have to accept infant baptism and the ELCA understanding of the Lord's Supper.
What strategy do you think they should have adopted, @ChastMastr?
I wasn't addressing all that to you, FWIW -- it was @Basketactortale, mostly, plus other folks objecting to my tone, which you have not done if memory serves.
Yes, how many hundreds of years will it take for the OC to wake up and smell the coffee? And how many women's lives will in the meantime be damaged or even sacrificed on the altar of Tradition?
Again, the Nazi bar metaphor is apt. If Nazis start showing up at your bar, you need to look at what about your bar makes them think they could find a home there.
Exactly. In general my objection to slavish adherence to traditions is that it doesn't accommodate the real lives of people living today.
Baloney. It's not one aesthetic vs another. It's your aesthetics vs wording that includes women in the church as children of God, which is a theological position, not an artistic one. Your theological position is that women's humanity isn't important enough to be recognized in church.
The Bible was written by men who have been dead for a long time. Women alive today matter more. If the church hadn't closed the canon I'd be more open to giving a shit about its writings, but they drew a line a long time ago and said, "This is IT. We're done." As if God, who had been pretty communicative, if scripture is to be believed, suddenly just shut up at some point in the late 1st or early 2nd century.
As a result, we have churches stuck hundreds and hundreds of years in the past with theologies and moralities frequently incapable of dealing with how people live today and upholding social structures that oppress women (and a fair number of men).
The Bible is okay with slavery. Why aren't you busy defending that?
The Southern Baptists are the second-largest denomination in the US. The Catholics are the largest. Add the rest of the conservative evangelicals, and we've got ourselves a whole lot of people signed up for abusive structures. The SBC got serious about expelling churches that ordained women after the convention had a big sex abuse scandal because it was women pastors who were pushing for reforms (Religion News Service: how women pastors became public enemy #1 in the SBC).
Interesting to hear from you again, Screwtape! And what an interesting new tactic you've taken. Convincing living women, for whom Christ died, that your particular antifeminist stance is synonymous with the gospel... well, that's just genius. It's having effect everywhere, where women are tired of patriarchal bullshit contaminating faith. I suppose you'll be up for a commendation for this.
What other option does your deacon’s wife have?! None, right? Right. She’s not her own person, she’s… The Deacon’s Wife. Sondheim alluded to this plight in A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC: “Every day a little death,” and “The Miller’s Son.” As usual, The Arts are way out front. If it’s not Science, it’s The Arts, and the Church begrudgingly gets dragged forward.
There are ROLES in a church. That’s it. That’s the post. Everything else is a manmade manacle. They got you out here saying “female roles,” for Christ’s sake.
I use the word manacle to keep @ChastMastr from having to endure the less-traditional term, “handcuffs.” Small kindness, I say. Stars in my crown,
Well, I’ve lived to see it said. Bloody hell. Wrestle with them, must we? So poetic. So like Jacob, are we? Just a-wrestlin’ with God? What does that actually accomplish in the face of longstanding, ongoing, institutionalized, casually rationalized injustice and wrongdoing? Just how long should we expect the wrestling to take? What are its tell-tale evidences? AND, what happens after?
Wait! I know this one!!! We just say (as easily as you please) We’ll Just Have To Agree To Disagree, and Peace Be With You, and then we just keep doing what we always did for the same weighed & wanting reasons! Yay Jesus!
@ChastMastr, it's not as if male suffrage has always been universal nor is it the case that men agitating for it in times past always did so peacefully. The force-feeding of hunger-striking Suffragettes and the way they were treated in prison makes grim reading. You might be advised to look some of that up.
@The_Riv, well it's not as if her husband decided to become a deacon without her consent. She was very active in parish life before and that hasn't changed.
All that's changed is that her husband is now a deacon and she gets a 'title' that is meant to 'honour' the role she plays, both of which she is happy to accept.
She's not here to speak for herself but that doesn't make her 'not her own person.'
Also, nobody seems to have noticed that ChastMastr has said that he does believe in women's ordination although he didn't at one time.
Maybe serious discussion should go in Epiphanies.
In your response to my last point, you wrote:
Later you mention, she is not here to speak for herself.
Then, don't speak for her!!
That said, even if she is not at this point ready for female priests, it does not mean she won't explore the idea of female ordination, like past practices vs current needs.
There is nothing wrong with a conversation at the parish level about the role of women in the church, is there?
Not me, but we don't have Dead Horses anymore.
We always have a choice. It was still wrong. My gender is simply irrelevant to the morality of these actions. And I could equally tell you to have empathy regarding the people whose stuff and livelihoods were damaged or destroyed by those immoral actions.
Getting into whether "the right to vote is such a fundamental human right" in the first place--though I agree that everyone in a society with voting should have it--could be its own thread.
I don't know. Not one like that, certainly. I can't really see even far, far worse things justifying randomly blowing up postboxes or smashing store windows.
@Gamma Gamaliel said
Oh, I know about it, and it was really horrible, absolutely agreed. That doesn't mean that blowing up postboxes and breaking people's windows as a protest for the right to vote was right, though. Two or more wrongs don't make a right. (Nor would it have been right for when men wanted the right to vote.) There are even rules about what is morally acceptable in literal wartime. If you're physically fighting people who are physically attacking you, that's very different, of course. But destroying postboxes (hopefully blowing them up didn't hurt anyone personally) and shop windows of strangers? No.
@Ruth said
Bullshit. It's nothing of the sort. But I don't expect us to see eye to eye on any of this.
I'm honestly sick of this thread. Not because the issues aren't important, whatever one's beliefs are, but the bad-faith assumption that people on one side are all evil for thinking as they do, and the vicious insults and the other crap. I know--it's the Hell board--so it's to be expected, and I'm literally not sure the matters could be discussed on the Epiphanies board because I think any position on all but one side would simply be forbidden, if I understand it correctly. So screw it. I've said what I think relevant, true, and helpful, and I guess that's it. Maybe I'll come back to the thread, maybe not. Despite the explosion of venom that we're all swimming in here, I wish everyone here well (YES, I KNOW, SOME PEOPLE DON"T BELIEVE ME BECAUSE I DON'T THINK THE WAY THEY DO, BUT I WISH EVERYONE WELL ANYWAY, AND NO ONE CAN STOP ME!! MUHUHUHAHAHAHÅHÅAÅ!! THE WELL-WISHING SHALL CONTINUE REGARDLESS!!), and have a good night.
The reason generally not stated at the time but definitely very present was opposition to the Civil Rights Movement and desegregation, coupled with changing views of race in the PCUS and willingness of many in the PCUS’s leadership to join in Civil Rights Movement. The PCA maintained the emphasis on the teaching of “the spirituality of the church,” which said that the church’s role was to engage in spiritual, not political matters. Southern Presbyterians had traditionally used that teaching to justify silence (and therefore tacit approval) with regard to slavery and Jim Crow laws.
It is probably not coincidence that the year after the PCA was formed, the General Assembly of the PCUS, for the first time in its 110+ year history, elected an African American as moderator.
Learn to read. Learn to think. No one's making assumptions about you. We're making judgements. The insults aren't vicious at all compared to what you think women should accept so that you can have your preferred aesthetics.
You're damn right I don't believe you. You don't wish me well at all. You want me and every other woman to be treated badly. You can't cover this up with platitudes. Maybe it makes you feel better about yourself to say these things, but it makes you look worse. And you already look pretty bad.
Sexism and misogyny have real consequences for real people and you don't care about that. You want a church that fits your lifestyle -- including something to do with leather, which seems like a very niche kind of thing to wish for in a church -- but not a church that acknowledges and values women's humanity, one that treats women like children of God.
You care more about minor property destruction than the real damage sexism does to women's lives. Your priorities are massively fucked up.
Much, much more than that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suffragette_bombing_and_arson_campaign#
Not Ruth’s “minor property destruction” at all.
I fail to see why the existence of stupid rules in organisations one isn't even a member of is so important. I will never understand this.
If you don't like the religion join another. If women within the religion are asking for support join them.
Or you could instead just write some more here.
I'm well aware of the history.
Yeah, James 2:16.
Ok. Point taken.
I shouldn't have 'spoken for her'.
Nobody is saying there is anything wrong with discussions about the role of women in the church at parish or any other level.
Well yes, you wouldn't want to have to give due heed to people actually impacted by discrimination and oppression. That would be inolterable.
A central aim of many religious organisations, especially Christian organisations, is to transform the lives of people both inside and outside the organisation.
The idea that religious beliefs only affect the people who believe them seems pretty naive.
Explain some more about how Orthodox practices of ordination directly affect you.
On @ChastMastr's recent posts, I think it is fair to remind everyone once again that he does support women's ordination and if I understand him correctly, has done so for some considerable time.
Whether that gets lost in the cross-fire about inclusive or exclusive language in traditional hymns I don't know but it appears it may have done.
Can I care only about things that directly impact me? Wouldn't that get me off caring about earthquakes, famines, plagues, wars and purges as long as they happen far enough away not to affect me? Or indeed by that measure why would I care if Restore got in here and started mass deportations?