Women bishops and gays ? That's the church for me

Times Online ^ | June 22, 2006 | Mary Ann Sieghart

[beaversmom]

What do I have to do to join the American Episcopal Church? It sounds great now that it has a woman, the Bishop of Nevada, the Rt Rev Katharine Jefferts Schori, in charge and an openly gay bishop in Gene Robinson. That, for me, encapsulates all the best Christian virtues of tolerance, diversity and acceptance.

A woman at the head of a Church! Who would have thought it? All we need now is a female Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Oh, and a President too, but that may not take too long either.

I may cheer, yet all the talk of schism in the Anglican Communion rests on the premise that what the Americans have been doing is unacceptable. In fact, there are plenty of us who think it is wholly admirable. It’s just that we tend to be less vocal and less harsh in our language than the conservatives.

Here is the conservative Bishop of Pittsburgh, for instance, who said this week: “For the Anglican Communion worldwide, this election reveals the continuing insensitivity and disregard of the Episcopal Church for the present dynamics of our global fellowship.”

The idea that electing a woman is provocative is highly insulting to those of us with XX chromosomes. How would men feel if we refused to accept their authority, if we begged the Archbishop of Canterbury to be our leader instead because she (yes, doesn’t that sound odd?) didn’t have a beard?

You have only to look at it that way round to see how insensitive, how deeply unChristian, such views sound.

And, yes, I know it’s not exactly the same for gays, as there is some scripture in the Old Testament (though not in Christ’s teachings) that forbids homosexuality. Yet there is some pretty rum stuff in the Old Testament, Leviticus in particular.

Are women still to be deemed “unclean”, “impure” and untouchable for seven days in every month? Are priests with a physical disability to be banned? After all, God instructed Moses to tell Aaron: “No man among your descendants for all time who has any physical defect is to come and present the food of his God. No man with a defect is to come, whether a blind man, a lame man, a man stunted or overgrown, a man deformed in foot or hand, or with misshapen brows or a film over his eye or a discharge from it, a man who has a scab or eruption or has had a testicle ruptured.”

I bet there is a bishop or two in the Anglican Communion with misshapen brows or filmy eyes.

Leviticus also prohibits tattoos, beards with the edges shaved, and garments woven with two kinds of yarn. That puts paid to polycotton vestments then. We should not eat meat that has any blood in it, or any meat from camels, rock-badgers, hares or pigs. Shellfish are out too, but locusts are fine.

It is all very well for conservatives to say that we liberals cannot pick and choose what teachings we follow from the Bible. But they do the same. How many of them abjure prawn cocktails? Do they refuse to take out a mortgage or put money on deposit because of the injunction against usury? Do they wear no clothes with added Lycra?

Many thousands of years since Leviticus was written, we live our lives very differently. We are no longer nomadic tribesmen, herding our sheep, goats and camels. What should endure from the Bible are the eternal messages, those that can apply to all societies at all times.

We no longer make burnt offerings of oxen to the Lord. But we can all still try to love our neighbours as ourselves. And that fundamental stricture should apply whether our neighbour is male or female, gay or straight — even if he has misshapen eyebrows.

[Aquinasfan]

Ah, but it does say "in Christ there is neither male nor female"...

The Third Person of the Trinity took on a male human nature and selected only men as his Apostles. The bishops, the successors of the Apostles, act in the person of Christ when they dispense the Sacraments. So it is impossible for women to represent Christ as priests. Paraphrasing the previous pope, "The Church does not have the authority to make women priests."

[Vanders9]

"The Third Person of the Trinity took on a male human nature and selected only men as his Apostles."

True..but that doesn't neccesarily mean He wouldn't select women now.

"The bishops, the successors of the Apostles, act in the person of Christ when they dispense the Sacraments."

Christ, in whom, there is no male or female (or freeman or slave either but thats irrelevent to this discussion)

"So it is impossible for women to represent Christ as priests."

Hmm...God chose a male human nature to reveal Himself. But that Person also died at 33, was a circumcised Jew, and was a jobbing builder. By your logic then, wouldn't that mean old men, Gentiles, and the unemployed could also not be Priests?

"Paraphrasing the previous pope, "The Church does not have the authority to make women priests."

The church doesnt have authority to make ANYONE priests. Thats a prerogative of God Himself.

[Aquinasfan]

"The Third Person of the Trinity took on a male human nature and selected only men as his Apostles."

True..but that doesn't neccesarily mean He wouldn't select women now.

Christ eternally possesses a glorified male human nature in union with his divine nature. That will never change. So when priests act "in the person of Christ," they must be male, since Christ's human personhood is male. That is why he chose males as His Apostles.

Christ, in whom, there is no male or female (or freeman or slave either but thats irrelevent to this discussion)

This refers to the mystical body of Christ, more of a participation in Christ's divine nature (which is pure spirit and sexless) than a participation in His glorified human nature.

Hmm...God chose a male human nature to reveal Himself. But that Person also died at 33

Yes, but the Third Person of the Trinity is eternally united with a glorified male human nature.

...was a circumcised Jew, and was a jobbing builder. By your logic then, wouldn't that mean old men, Gentiles, and the unemployed could also not be Priests?

See above.

"Paraphrasing the previous pope, "The Church does not have the authority to make women priests."

The church doesnt have authority to make ANYONE priests. Thats a prerogative of God Himself.

Christ acts through His Church, "the pillar and foundation of truth." Christ is the ultimate head of the Church.