#ordination of women

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Peter Smith at AP:

From its towering white steeple and red-brick facade to its Sunday services filled with rousing gospel hymns and evangelistic sermons, First Baptist Church of Alexandria, Virginia, bears many of the classic hallmarks of a Southern Baptist church. On a recent Sunday, its pastor for women and children, Kim Eskridge, urged members to invite friends and neighbors to an upcoming vacation Bible school — a perennial Baptist activity — to help “reach families in the community with the gospel.” But because that pastor is a woman, First Baptist’s days in the Southern Baptist Convention may be numbered. At the SBC’s annual meeting June 11-12 in Indianapolis, representatives will vote on whether to amend the denomination’s constitution to essentially ban churches with any women pastors — and not just in the top job. That measure received overwhelming approval in a preliminary vote last year.

[...] By some estimates, the proposed ban could affect hundreds of congregations and have a disproportionate impact on predominantly Black churches. The vote is partly the culmination of events set in motion two years ago.

That’s when a Virginia pastor contacted SBC officials to contend that First Baptist and four nearby churches were “out of step” with denominational doctrine that says only men can be pastors. The SBC Credentials Committee launched a formal inquiry in April. Southern Baptists disagree on which ministry jobs this doctrine refers to. Some say it’s just the senior pastor, others that a pastor is anyone who preaches and exercises spiritual authority. And in a Baptist tradition that prizes local church autonomy, critics say the convention shouldn’t enshrine a constitutional rule based on one interpretation of its non-binding doctrinal statement. By some estimates, women are working in pastoral roles in hundreds of SBC-linked churches, a fraction of the nearly 47,000 across the denomination. But critics say the amendment would amount to a further narrowing in numbers and mindset for the nation’s largest Protestant denomination, which has moved steadily rightward in recent decades. They also wonder if the SBC has better things to do.

[...] The amendment, if passed, wouldn’t prompt an immediate purge. But it could keep the denomination’s leaders busy for years, investigating and ousting churches. Many predominantly Black churches have men as lead pastors but assign pastor titles to women in other areas, such as worship and children’s ministries. “To disfellowship like-minded churches ... based on a local-church governance decision dishonors the spirit of cooperation and the guiding tenets of our denomination,” wrote Pastor Gregory Perkins, president of the SBC’s National African American Fellowship, to denominational officials. The controversy complicates the already-choppy efforts by the mostly white denomination to diversify and overcome its legacy of slavery and segregation.

Amendment proponents say the convention needs to reinforce its doctrinal statement, the Baptist Faith and Message, which says the office of pastor is “limited to men as qualified by Scripture.”

The fate of Southern Baptists permitting women to serve as pastors in any capacity will be resolved at the upcoming SBC Annual Meeting this week, as the messengers are likely to vote to fully ban women pastors from the denomination.

[religioused]

Being filled with the Holy Spirit was considered to be a sign of God’s acceptance in the early Christian church. That same sign can be used as we consider the ordination of women and LGBT plus people. 

[trendynewsnow]

The Struggle for Women's Voices in the Catholic Church

When Pope Francis made the groundbreaking decision last year to allow women to vote for the first time at the upcoming global meeting of bishops, many within the Catholic community viewed it as a significant stride toward achieving greater equity within the Roman Catholic Church. However, even before the synod commenced this month, the Vatican made an unexpected announcement that left many…

[romcathchrist]

Ordination of Women In the Church

Before I get going on the ordination of women, I just want to be clear that I am not against female leaders. In fact, I believe they bring views, experiences, and skills into the world of leadership that complement, and sometimes rival, their male counterparts. However, I am against women and men who try to usurp Jesus’ authority by pushing worldly ideologies, and this article will reflect my…

[subcultureblues]

I have a. Weird hobby. I buy old magazines on EBay. Mostly to read about bands I like whose articles and interviews haven’t been well archived on the internet. An unintended side effect is getting a glimpse of subconscious cultural narratives from 20, 30, 40 yrs ago.

You can tell so much about the state of a society and how they view people like me, from the most random innocuous magazine articles. Their callous disregard for queer people, the mischaracterization and mythologizing of woman, the blasé absence of POC artists and creatives.

It should be disheartening but it isn’t. Society was sick. And in a few short decades we’ve managed to flip the script almost entirely. The society that wrote these words is almost unrecognizable to me now. We’ve come so so far, from such a dark place. And we’ll do it again. And again if we have to. We’ll come back from this dark place too, not through the natural forces of entropy, but by biting and clawing and fighting anyone who dares treat us as less than

[bookishbrigitta]

Did this scene remind anyone else of their priest giving communion to the little kids? Ordinary time vestments. Just me?

Happy 50th anniversary of women's ordination in the Episcopal Church!

This got lost in my drafts and now it's the last Ordinary Sunday of the year, so my last chance to post! Coming in under the wire as usual!

[orthopunkfox]

No Girls Allowed: Why the All-Male Priesthood is Archaic and Stupid

I find the arguments of women/female ordination increasingly tiring. The theological arguments are incredibly shallow, revolving mostly around "Jesus chose only male apostles and the Church has always upheld the tradition." Even if I believe that Christ only chose male apostles "we've always done it this way" is hardly a sound piece of theology on which to build an entire clerical order.

But did Jesus choose only men? Let's look at the passage from the Gospel of Saint John which is commonly cited as Christ establishing the priesthood (or episcopate):

On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.”

Saint John doesn't tell us specifically who was there (except that Thomas wasn't). He doesn't even specify that only the 12 were there. We do know however that Mary Madeleine had just spoken with Jesus that morning and had run back to the upper room to tell the disciples about the encounter. In fact, this passage begins with "on the evening of that day" because the passage immediately preceding details Saint Mary Magdalene's encounter with Christ and her returning to the upper room to tell them about it. Saint John doesn't give us the full account of the conversation but it's reasonable to assume that she didn't say "I have seen the Lord!" and the rest of the disciples responded "Really? Well good for you, Hey we're hungry. Can you run by Herod Burger and get us some food?" and then while she was gone, Jesus appeared. Or (even more far fetched) "Now Jesus knew that Mary Magdalene was there, but waited until she left so that He would only breathe on biological males to ensure an all-male priesthood."

It's therefore reasonable to assume that if all of Jesus's disciples were there hiding from the Jews, Mary Magdalene was there also since she had conversed with the disciples earlier that day. Therefore she was part of the receiving of the Holy Spirit. And when you have the title given to her of Equal to the Apostles as Saint Mary Magdalene is called in Holy Orthodoxy (along with at least 7 other women), the claim that Jesus chose only all male apostles becomes weaker.

And of course all of these theological arguments take place inside an assumed gender and biological binary, which we know does not exist. In fact, we don't know if all of the supposed male apostles in the room that day were 100% biologically male. Is it possible that some priest some time in history was intersex? Are intersex people allowed to be priests so long as they have a penis? Who's job is it to check? Where is it written "the candidate for ordination shall remove his pants before the bishop, and, upon verification that he is in possession of a penis, be allowed to the sacred order of priests." What if they have male chromosomes but not all-male anatomy? We're going to start seeing posters in parishes that read "Real Priests Have a Bulge!"

Of course I'm being a bit sarcastic here, but only to make a point on how ridiculous these arguments are! I have known many priests in my life, men and women and other, and have learned from and been cared for by all of them. In fact the only ones that ever made me uncomfortable were the men. Point of fact, Orthodox theologian and religious scholar David Bentley Hart remarked in an interview I saw recently that women by far statistically make better priests then men, and went on to half jokingly remark that he is at the point in his life where he is beginning to believe that the priesthood should be limited only to women.

So if the theological argument is so shallow and women are perfectly able to fulfill the duties of priestly vocation, why then do these arguments persist? The honest answer is "we've done it this way for 2000 years [allegedly]. Why stop now?" And indeed most mainline churches have no idea at all what to do with women. Even mainline Orthodoxy who reveres the Theotokos so fervently is still shaken by the ordination of a deaconess, an office which has existed for centuries yet has fallen out of practice in recent history and the negative reaction to its reinstatement in places where it's needed further reveal the reality of "we've always done it this way" being the true bone of contention.

In summary, hiding behind a facade of piety and theological tradition so that you can limit the priesthood to one specific set of genitalia is silly.

Photo: Deaconess Angelic Molen embraces a parishioner after her ordination to the diaconate at St. Nektarios Mission Parish near Harare, Zimbabwe. She was ordained by Metropolitan Serafim on Holy Thursday May 2nd after a unanimous vote by the Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria and All Africa to restore the order of deaconess to assist in the needs of Orthodox Christians in Africa.

[jameslmartello]

Synod on Synodality Rules Out Women Deacons | EWTN News In Depth October...

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Emily Finn at NewsNation:

(NewsNation) — In a historic vote, the Southern Baptist Convention rejected a formal ban on women serving as pastors. This year’s Southern Baptist Convention in Indianapolis is centering around the role of women in the church, including a vote on formally banning churches with female pastors. In an unexpected turn of events, members voted against the formal ban which would have strengthened the ability to enforce rules against female pastors. Nearly 10,000 church members have gathered for the meeting and on Tuesday, 92% of the messengers, which is what the group calls representatives, voted to expel a Virginia congregation that believes women can be in the pulpit. The First Baptist Church in Alexandria, Virginia, allows women to serve in pastoral roles, though there has been some debate over women serving in associate pastor positions rather than senior pastor roles. But according to Southern Baptists’ beliefs, women are not allowed to serve as pastors.

At the SBC Annual Meeting in Indianapolis today, 61% of the messengers voted in favor of a measure to codify a ban on female pastors serving in any capacity with that title.

Since that fell short of the required 2/3rds of passage, the Law Amendment that would have codified the ban on women pastors failed.

See Also:

AP News: Southern Baptists narrowly reject formal ban on churches with any women pastors

[thebirdandhersong]

sometimes I think I simply was not born with a mind for theology because I'll listen to two friends separately argue about women's ordination (one side: "new creation theory: after the Resurrection, women were allowed/given the right to be witnesses (women's witness accounts not being valid in OT times) as well as evangelists, therefore: it's a new order! therefore women ordination = good and valid"; the other: "women's ordination is the reason why we have so many problems in the ACNA right now; it literally snowballs into other issues we're having; women in the priesthood is not a Win for women because it assumes that the priesthood is the Best Calling for everyone which it isn't; the priesthood should reflect Christ + Church and therefore the priest should be male i.e. to reflect Christ; allowing women into the priesthood invalidates/ignores the other roles of spiritual leadership that are particular to women in the Church" first friend: "are you saying women should only do women's and children's ministry" second friend: ??????) and the only thing I can contribute is: you guys my head hurts

[not-so-superheroine]

deseret book is more persistent than duolingo.

i ordered 2 books for a church research project on Black saints in the early Church and also in the Reorganization, on which the one book had a small section us and all had info from the our shared early church history, and it was an ebook too!

and i get physical mail from them once a month. i have no idea how to cancel.

herald house, the community of christ publishing house, contacts me much less, and i buy books from them all the time.

and oh their church book app reminds me to read my scriptures and the words of their prophets regularly if it's not in sleep mode.

i have to admire the effort behind it, ngl.

[thislittlekumquat]

Saw the trailer for the hulu special about conversations with the pope... and the spouse showed me also a bit where a nonbinary person asks him about queer people and he said he can't kick anyone out of the church and then went on to literally call bigots who use christianity to spread their personal agendas "interlopers" and Idk if I'm PMSing or what but I almost cried.

[eternal-echoes]

Ana Fereira:

Good evening, Holy Father. Thanks. I would like to say any number of “thanks”. Thanks for having brought so much joy to Brazil, and thanks also for responding to our questions. We journalists really like to ask questions. I would like to know, since yesterday you spoke to the Brazilian bishops about the participation of women in our Church... I would like to understand better, what this participation of us women in the Church would be like. Also, what do you think of women’s ordination? What should our position in the Church be like?

Pope Francis:

I would like to explain a bit more what I said about women’s participation in the Church. It can’t just be about their acting as altar servers, heads of Caritas, catechists… No! They have to be more, profoundly more, even mystically more, along with everything I said about the theology of womanhood. And, as far as women’s ordination is concerned, the Church has spoken and said: “No”. John Paul II said it, but with a definitive formulation. That door is closed, but on this issue I want to tell you something. I have said it, but I repeat it. Our Lady, Mary, was more important than the Apostles, than bishops and deacons and priests. Women, in the Church, are more important than bishops and priests; how, this is something we have to try to explain better, because I believe that we lack a theological explanation of this. Thank you.

- PRESS CONFERENCE OF POPE FRANCIS DURING THE RETURN FLIGHT, 28 July 2013

[hardoncaulfield]

snooping thru the tags of the xtianity quiz and read “if quakers had the aesthetics of catholicism” which i found really funny bc from my v limited understanding of quakers, if they were to adopt catholic aesthetics (the stained glass the icons the statues the fancy robes and bells etc) they would no longer be what makes them quakers (ascetics). i wish they would tho can you imagine it

Yeah, this ideal religious space I'm imagining is not, like, theologically sound but I've been to quaker meetings and I love their approach to worship and the idea that everyone is equally worthy of giving ministry and being listened to & that God doesn't need an interpreter. HOWEVER, the room looks like a fucking doctors office and it makes me upset. My problem is that I love ritual and ornamentation but I dislike hierarchy (unless of experience & scholarship¹) but you don't really find ritual separate to hierarchy (from my limited experience of Christian denominations)

1. I mean like, the hierarchical relationship of teacher to student is one I respect, based on the idea that a teacher is a person who's studied the field longer than you and so knows more than you by virtue of their work and experience. I mistrust titles as a rule, however.

[panicinthestudio]

Further reading:

HKFP: Hong Kong Women Workers’ Association to stage march following police ‘verbal’ approval, March 2, 2023

HKFP: Hongkongers wearing face masks at protests risk prosecution, says gov’t advisor as anti-mask law set to stay, March 3, 2023