The 21st-Century Debate on Women in the Priesthood Part I: Dangerous Feelings
Alaina Mabaso | Friday, October 14, 2011 Reflecting on the dialogue about women in the ministry heard at the 2011 General Assembly, Alaina highlights the double speech circulating on this issue. While the some of the clergy praise women's sensitivity to feeling as their singular virtue, they silence this perception and prevent it from participating in the formal discussion of women in the priesthood. This is the first essay in our series called: Women as Ordained Priests (or Not). The seoncd essay, also by Alaina, is called Part II: "Side Notes" and Tradition. -Editor.
“The Writings are clear that the priest represents the Lord. The Lord is male. No-where in the Word do we see a ‘Mother God’. Therefore women are biologically not equipped to be priests.”
This, a New Church minister said in a small group discussion at this year’s General Church Assembly, is the “best reason” for denying ordination to women. The body she was born in cannot represent the Lord.
Our group waited for further explanation, but the minister took our expectant silence for agreement. He settled in his chair and folded his arms. “I rest my case,” he said.
The question of whether we should also deny that the Lord could be seen in a garden, a cathedral, the birth of a child, or any number of things that are not a human male is a vital question for another day. Upon hearing this brief but authoritative ruling on the spiritual limits of my female biology, the questions that ate at me went deeper than a doctrinal lesson.
“As you say that a woman could never represent the Lord, have you ever truly considered how you would feel about that statement – how it would affect you - if you weren’t a man?” I asked.
He shrugged. “No,” he said immediately. It was the calm, self-evident answer to an irrelevant question. “I’m not capable of thinking of how a woman would feel.”
I attended three 2011 Assembly sessions about female religious leadership because I thought this represented an unusual openness in the General Church about this perennially controversial topic. More than learning what the current positions are on a female priesthood, both in General Church policy and among its members, I was curious to explore the debate in the 21st Century.
Well over one hundred attendees gathered for a session led by Rev. Frank Rose, in which participants broke into small groups to list and present reasons it is important to discuss the issue of ordaining women.
“We can’t decide a question of this magnitude based on how we feel,” said one priest, warning that emotions or cultural trends are not important next to strict doctrinal study. Many others, both in seminars and in personal discussion, made similar comments about the importance of referring to doctrinal study and debate, rather than to our emotions, will, intuition, “wants”, or cultural influence. There was a consistent warning against the “danger” of referring to our feelings on the topic.
This shows an admirable commitment to doctrine versus popular sentiment, and may frame the exclusion of women from the priesthood not as bigotry but as a desire to live according to the truth one perceives.
On the other hand, this approach showcases an enduring irony in this debate.
As ministers and many others insist that women are unfit for ordination, their arguments for an exclusively male spiritual leadership are tempered with assurances that this does not imply male superiority. Conjugial Love 125 is often invoked to explain that while men are naturally elevated into a higher realm of understanding, or “light”, women are naturally elevated to a higher realm of will, or “heat”. This means men and women, equally important, complement each other.
Therefore, many New Church ministers self-consciously strive to emphasize women’s value. Rev. Willard Heinrichs, offering a handout of his own doctrinal interpretations to accompany Rev. Rose’s Assembly session on female priesthood, insists that the Lord discourages women from preaching so that their “precious femininity, so needed and important in so many areas of human life” will not be damaged, because that would be “a very sad loss to the church and humanity generally.” Other ministers tout the value of women’s “affectional” nature and the importance of the proper feminine emphasis on affections and the will, versus the intellect or understanding.
However, when ministers declare that they value women’s affectional nature, and then announce that people must divorce what they “feel”, or what they observe in the world around us, or what they “want”, from the question of a female priesthood, ministers devalue what they themselves term the feminine perspective in favor of a traditionally male perspective. Women’s voices are praised and then shut out of the debate, all in one breath.
This avoidance of a practical, traditionally feminine approach that admits both living experience and emotional realities, versus an approach strictly limited to doctrinal scholarship – exclusively male scholarship, at that – comes out in a number of ways. In Rev. Rose’s session, opinions were color-coded, and participants were told whom to gather with, when to speak, and the order in which their views could be aired. A chime was to control the duration of each exchange. At the end of the session, participants were encouraged to pick up a photocopied package of doctrinal excerpts – which emphasized reasons that women should not be ordained.
Rev. Rose is in favor of ordaining women, and expressed many brave and sensitive ideas. He emphasized the importance of a “structured discussion” that “maximizes understanding” and “minimizes misunderstanding”. In other words, keep everything as rational as possible, and, I infer, keep difficult emotions at bay.
A session on developing (rather than debating) female ministry, led by the women of New Church Live, emphasized a very different approach from the start, unfolding as a free-flowing, group-wide emotional, practical and experiential sharing, in which both men and women were welcome to speak. While he was warmly welcomed to attend by the presenters, a man left the room when he learned that the session would not be a forum for him to debate the female leaders on the merit of women’s ministry.
Of course, there is a wealth of written material on this topic, as well. In 2002, Rev. Jeremy Simons presented a paper to the Council of the Clergy on the hazards of ordaining women. It is a thorough, thought-provoking piece, and though the paper is dedicated to excluding women from a New Church office, women are not meant to read it: “this paper is written for the clergy and not for general distribution,” Rev. Simons specifies. “Several of these passages are harshly worded, and can cause people to be offended and react, rather than consider their message.”
Again, there is the fear that emotions, legitimate or not, are not appropriate to the issue. In this instance, even if his teaching affects people in a hurtful way, the writer begs freedom from emotional implications that could jeopardize his message.
“All religion is of life,” Swedenborg explains in Spiritual Diary 6023, as he describes the spiritual fate of people who deny that your place in heaven depends on how you live your life, not the faith you recite. This phrase strikes me in separate but related ways. It reminds me that faith is no good unless you marry it to your actions. But to me, it also seems to say that religion can be attached to the business of life in all sorts of unexpected ways – it does not bide only in church or in scripture – it applies all the time, no matter what you’re doing.
This is one reason General Church clergy and members should not stake major questions of policy exclusively in the realm of papers and tightly controlled intellectual debate. A female priesthood, or the prevention of a female priesthood, has all sorts of real-life implications which strike church members deep at home – not just in their literal homes, where religious and cultural dogma consigned women for decades, but in their emotional core.
Even for those staunchly in favor of a female priesthood, emotions can seem like a minefield – an impediment to their message. Bryn Athyn College alumna Hannah Reynolds led an Assembly session about her life experiences, and the call she feels to become a General Church minister.
She told her life story – an extraordinarily tough one for a young person. She suffered family tragedies as well as abuse and sexual assault, and struggled with alcohol and drug addiction. She sees beautiful providence in a series of events that brought her to school at Bryn Athyn College, revealing the Lord’s call to her. Earnest, lucid, and compelling, she briefly shared her favorite New Church doctrines, with special emphasis on the need for faith joined to good works.
She applied to three schools: divinity programs at Harvard, Princeton, and the Theological School at Bryn Athyn College.
“I got into two,” she said. But after visiting both Harvard and Princeton, she felt more than ever that the Bryn Athyn Theological School – and New Church ministry - was the right place for her.
She said that many have suggested that she join another church, enter the Master of Arts in Religious Studies program, or pursue ordination at the hands of the New Church Convention, since a woman’s ordination in the General Church is impossible.
At this point in her presentation, tears welled in her eyes.
“I was not going to get emotional,” she choked out, as if to herself.
She held her ground, and her emotions washed through the audience. “This is my church, too,” she said, her voice shaking with repressed feeling. “This is my church, too.”
Instead of derailing or invalidating the session, her personal vulnerability gave a poignant, challenging immediacy to the truths and experiences she shared. The General Church may watch her leave for one of the nation’s top theological schools. Meanwhile, Reynolds’ perspective on the essential marriage of works and faith, and good and truth, are as fresh and clear and real as a glass of water in my hand.
The truth is that even with our best efforts to proscribe uncomfortable or messy parts of this discussion on female priesthood, Church policy about this will continue to affect us at all levels. A denial of the policy’s practical and emotional effects – evidenced by doctrinal scholars who avoid listening in person to those whom their teachings exclude - is tantamount not just to a tacit, widespread marginalization of women: it’s a kind of faith alone. It’s a denial of what really happens when teachings come off the page and into our lives.
All religion is of life.
A pastor can write a paper promoting the continued ban of women from the priesthood and stipulate that the general public not read it, because of our failure to be dispassionate about “harsh”, exclusionary terms. But lay-people may still find it, read it, and discuss how they feel about it. We can call for stoutly organized discussions, with timed allotments for ordered talk. But in practice, as happened in my own discussion group at the Assembly, the structure inevitably gives way to an organic exchange. It’s rife with awkward chuckles, speech out of turn, uncomfortable silences, and heated repartee, everything that brings a debate to life, both in the sense of making it interesting, and in the sense of applying what you’ve learned once the session is over.
Structured debate and analytic study have their place in any important topic. Especially, as with the large group Rev. Rose presided over, a sturdy structure can be necessary to getting a charitable chat off the ground. But difficult, unpredictable and sometimes emotional interactions are also needed. It saddened me to hear a clergy leader as he was invited to participate in an Assembly discussion group about female priesthood.
“I hate groups,” he said, and left the room.
The sooner church members and clergy admit that disagreements over the ordination of women have a relevant personal and emotional side – a side that should be discussed face-to-face, not only in doctrinal papers - the sooner they can talk about the merits or dangers of a female priesthood in a way that includes everyone. Until they acknowledge all of the everyday repercussions of women’s ongoing exclusion – such as what some women term the “apartheid” in the General Church, and other women call a “closed door” between them and the Lord - and the complex, legitimate feelings this provokes in people of both sexes, the debate will not be balanced or productive.
One male attendee of the 2011 Assembly shared with other attendees his experience of this challenge.
“I was irritated,” he said, on seeing multiple sessions about women’s spiritual leadership. “I thought, why can’t we just leave this subject alone?” But his curiosity got the better of him, and his perspective began to shift. From believing that the movement to ordain women was limited to perhaps a “small group meeting once a month,” he realized for the first time that it is a movement with widespread support, encompassing priests, laypeople, and men and women of all ages. This was leading him to re-examine the source of his own convictions.
Rev. Andrew Dibb heads the Theological School at Bryn Athyn College. He attended Hannah Reynolds’s session, listening quietly and intently. This simple act resonates deeper than Rev. Heinrichs’s advice in the paper accompanying Rev. Rose’s session: “one will only feel comfortable in their response to questions and challenges [about female priesthood] after they have done their own thorough study and reflection on the matter.”
This is true in more ways than one: Rev. Heinrichs is right that thorough study is vital to a well founded debate. But this statement also reminds readers that silent, individual scholarship can indeed be much more “comfortable” than face-to-face connections with people of differing opinions.
Rev. Dibb’s attendance at Reynolds’s session shows the courage and the courtesy we need, from people on every side of the debate. Questions about the real-life impact of these teachings should never be met with a quick exit, a shrug, or the assertion that we’re incapable of imagining how someone else might feel.
Alaina Mabaso
Alaina is a Philadelphia-based freelance writer whose work appears in several venues. She also writes and illustrates humorous real-life essays on her blog at Alainamabaso.wordpress.com, where you can find information about her book, “The Conjugial Culture: A Derived Doctrine of Sex in the New Church.” Alaina is currently working on a second book for Swedenborgian audiences, about the intellectual life of New Church women.Wondering about the inspiration for this article? Look up the New Church, which is based on the theological writings of Emanuel Swedenborg.
emotions, feelings, male vs. female, ministry, ordination, organized religion, uses, women
Reader Comments (42)
Alaina - Great piece.
What strikes me about the anti women-in-the-clergy argument is that so often it bears a stark resemblance to the arguments people made against women's suffrage 100 years ago. The idea of women being primarily "feelers" and men being primarily "thinkers" (or the separate spheres) is not unique to the New Church, and has been used by cultures around the world for centuries to prevent women from having the same rights as men.
Fortunately for Americans, we tend to be more forward thinking than most of the world in terms of women's rights. People--take a look at history, specifically the history of American civil rights and the women's movement. This issue will not be laid to rest until things change, like they are changing in most of the world.
Bronson
Bronson,
Though there are connections to be drawn between arguments used in women's suffrage and in the question about ordaining women into the clergy of the General Church, I think you are presenting context which doesn't necessarily apply.
The General Church is one small organization, which currently says it wants male players for its team of primary employees. This does not match the scope of national suffrage nor does it have the exclusive implications which result in disenfranchising a citizen from equal process and opportunity in civil government. The boy scouts don't allow girls. (Though this has been changed in Canada). The American women's soccer team doesn't allow men. These are organizational decisions with very little impact outside of the organizational scope. This is not to say that there is no impact, nor that there is no reason to look at making a change. It is just a very different scope.
I think there is a difference between women's rights broadly and an organizational decision which excludes women. There are a variety of reasons for which one gender may be excluded from a certain role, not all of which have to do with denigration of that gender. I don't fault people who don't see a distinction here, but I do think its a key part of understanding where supporters of the current General Church position are coming from. Its not necessarily that they are enamored with a power trip or that they think it is fun to box and restrict women.
Brian
Brian, your response to Bronson is clearly thoughtful, but it's muddying the simple point Bronson is making. He's not comparing female ordination in the General Church with women's suffrage as a movement: he is simply saying that similar arguments against women's equality existed in each situation, namely, that men are objective thinkers while women navigate life through subjective feelings.
I concede that the movement to ordain women in the General Church has nothing on the sheer scope of the women's suffrage movement in the early 20th century. But your argument that excluding New Church women does not have implications of "disenfranchising a citizen from equal process and opportunity in civil government" is downright wrong. No, it's not civil government in this case (thank goodness), but it is the rules and policies that shape the core part of many people's lives: their church society. And women in the General Church are completely excluded from the debate and decision-making that goes on among the clergy - this is a clear and legitimate bone of contention with many people who argue for female priests: all women are barred from the shaping of General Church policy at the highest level. The all-male group setting the policies that will shape the lives of all the Church's members bears no comparison to the examples you offer, such as men being barred from a women's soccer team. The women's soccer team is not making a policy that affects core aspects of the excluded men's lives.
That being said, I still hugely appreciate your involvement in this discussion.
Alaina,
This question is important: How significant is the General Church (or any one organization)? This mirrors the conversation about whether the General Church is the same thing as the "New Church."
I say. "its not". I think the General Church, is blessed by relative irrelevance. I would love for the New Church movement to flourish and I would even love for the General Church organization to flourish, but right now it is small. It is very relevant to a few people and meaningless to most.
For me this question of scope is key. Throughout this conversation I expect to remain committed to the right of an organization to make choices based on principles, including the choice to maintain an exclusively male priesthood. We would have a fairness argument if this were coercively imposed on the whole country but not just from a single organization. I'm interested that individuals have a voice, have some rights and the ability to join in conversation. But I'm also interested that organizations can make choices, and maintain positions... and to my mind, the freedom of the individual is protected because they always have room to find or form another group which more closely aligns with their goals and thinking.
Now I still assume that concerned individuals should have avenues for effecting change within an organization like the General Church, and that organizations need to be able to change. But I am interested in doing this without the necessity of revolt, and destruction of the organizational process during the revolt.
Brian
“The Writings are clear that the priest represents the Lord. The Lord is male. No-where in the Word do we see a ‘Mother God’. Therefore women are biologically not equipped to be priests.”
Are the writings really clear about it?
Female images for God (drawn from women’s biological activity)
- God as a Mother:
1. a woman in labor (Isa. 42:14) whose forceful breath is an image of divine power . God is threatening to come against Israel in power, a power likened to the forceful air expelled from the lungs of a woman who is in the final throes of labor. Calvin misunderstood Isaiah’s intent and construed this as an image of maternal tenderness!
2. a mother suckling her children (Num. 11:12)
3. a mother who does not forget the child she nurses (Isa. 49:14-15)
4. a mother who comforts her children (Isa. 66:12-13)
5. a mother who births and protects Israel (Isa. 46:3-4). In contrast to idol worshippers who carry their gods on cattle, God carries Israel in the womb. The message to the people is two-fold: it demonstrates God’s superiority over other gods, and reiterates the divine promise to support and redeem. In short, God’s maternal bond of compassion and maternal power to protect guarantee Israel’s salvation.
6. a mother who gave birth to the Israelites (Dt. 32:18) The biased translation of the Jerusalem Bible ("fathered you") obscures the feminine action of the verb, more accurately rendered "gave you birth":
JB: You forget the Rock who begot you, unmindful now of the God who fathered you.
NRSV: You were unmindful of the Rock that bore you; you forgot the God who gave you birth.
The Hebrew word in the first line can be translated as either "begot" (male activity) or "bore" (female activity); the context must provide the key. The word in the second line can only refer to female activity. Scholars have taken these two lines either as a male and a female image of God back-to-back, or they take both of them as female, due to the way this verse is located in the overall poetic structure of Deuteronomy 32.
7. a mother who calls, teaches, holds, heals and feeds her young (Hosea 11:1-4) This poem is in the first person, where in Hebrew there is no distinction between male and female forms; the speaker can be either male or female. The series of activities are those that a mother would be likely to do: "it was I who taught Ephraim to walk, I took them up in my arms, but they did not know that I healed them. I was to them like those who lift infants [lit., suckling children] to their cheeks [OR: who ease the yoke on their jaws]; I bent down to them and fed them." (NRSV)
Given the context, it is possible that Hosea is indirectly presenting Yahweh as the mother over against the fertility goddess mother figure of the Canaanite religion that he is challenging. The images belong in pairs. Israel is presented as a wife in ch. 2 and as a son in ch. 11, that is, as female and male in tandem. It may be that Hosea is making the point that Yahweh alone is God by presenting Yahweh as the husband in ch. 2 and as the mother in ch. 11.
Other maternal references: Ps. 131:2; Job. 38:8, 29; Prov. 8:22-25; 1 Pet. 2:2-3, Acts 17:28.
Feminine images for God (drawn from women’s cultural activity).
1. God as a seamstress making clothes for Israel to wear (Neh. 9:21).
2. God as a midwife attending a birth (Ps. 22:9-10a, 71:6; Isa. 66:9) (midwife was a role only for women in ancient Israel).
3. God as a woman working leaven into bread (Lk. 13:18-21). This feminine image is equivalent to the image of God as masculine in the preceding parable of the mustard seed.
4. God as a woman seeking a lost coin (Lk. 15:8-10).This feminine image is equivalent to the image of God as masculine in the preceding parable of the shepherd seeking a lost sheep. Both Luke 13 and 15 contain paired masculine and feminine images for God, drawn from activities of Galilean peasants.
Additional examples of the divine feminine.
- Female animal imagery.
1. Yahweh is described by an analogy to the action of a female bird protecting her young (Ps. 17:8, 36:7, 57:1, 91:1, 4; Isa. 31:5; Dt. 32:11-12).
The eagle: Dt. 32:11-12: "As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings: so the Lord alone did lead Jacob ...." (KJV). The female eagle, both larger and stronger than the male, does the bulk of the incubation of the eggs as well as the hunting. She is the one who bears the eaglets on her wings when it is time for them to leave the nest. In a sudden movement, she swoops down to force them to fly alone, but always stays near enough to swoop back under them when they become too weary to fly on their own. It is a powerful image of God nurturing and supporting us when we are weak, yet always encouraging us to grow and mature. Cf. Ex. 19:4, "I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself," and Job 39:27-30.
2. The hen: Mt. 23:37 (par. Lk. 13:34; cf. Ruth 2:12): "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not." In his lament over Jerusalem, Jesus employs feminine imagery. Whereas the magnificent eagle is associated with light, sun, height, mobility and exteriority, the lowly hen is "associated with the shadows and darkness of the henhouse, and with depth and stillness and interiority beneath the mothering wings" (V. Mollenkott, The Divine Feminine [Crossroad, 1987], 93). Each image illuminates a different, important aspect of God’s relation to us.
3. God as Mother Bear (Hosea 13:8), a fierce image associated with the profound attachment of the mother to her cubs. God’s rage against those who withhold gratitude is that of a bear "robbed of her cubs."
-. Holy Spirit (in Hebrew, feminine; in Greek, neuter) is often associated with women’s functions: the birthing process (Jn. 3:5; cf. Jn. 1:13, 1 Jn. 4:7b, 5:1, 4, 18), consoling, comforting, an eschatological groaning in travail of childbirth, emotional warmth, and inspiration. Some ancient church traditions refer to the Holy Spirit in feminine terms (the Syriac church used the feminine pronoun for the Holy Spirit until ca. 400 C.E.; a 14th c. fresco depicting the Trinity at a church near Munich, Germany images the Holy Spirit as feminine).
As we seek to follow biblical inclusivity, let us also affirm the consistent witness of the church, namely, that God is neither feminine nor masculine (gender), neither male nor female (sex). God, who is transcendent Spirit, possesses no physical body, yet accommodates to human limitations by using physical, relational, gender-laden images for self-disclosure. Some of those are feminine. Inasmuch as God inspired the biblical authors to be inclusive, who are we not to be?
Alaina,
Great topic. Very engagingly presented!
Thank you for mentioning my 2002 paper on the topic. I'd be interested in your take on some of the main points of that paper. It has not been published and it isn't available online because it is long and, as you noted, written for the clergy. So it is technical rather than accomodated for a wider audience. Still, I'd be happy to send it to anyone interested.
One thing that interests me in several people's comments is the mention of the call to the ministry. I'd love to see something from the Writings about the call to the ministry.
I love the discussion!
Jeremy
Wow! I am blown away by Thomas' post. Thank you so much for those beautiful passages from the Word. It is amazing to see how many times the Lord shows how he is like a woman...and I like your comments about the fact that in both cases--whether The Lord is likening Himself to a man or a woman--He is just coming down to our level to try and relate to US and let us know how HUMAN He is. He is totally and perfectly Human, something none of us will ever be.
These passages helped me to step back from the issue at hand a bit of whether or not women "should" be ministers, and just shift for a minute into attempting to think from the Lord's perspective. The Lord has no bias against anyone, but sees us all as having huge strengths and things to contribute. And I belive His perspective is one of total love and respect for both genders.
Now stepping into the issue at hand...I think that the Lord loves us so much that His greatest desirefor us is that we are happy people, and the way that we get to be happier is by being better people. So His hope for us is that we will freely choose to live good lives and love our neighbor, and reject our inclinations to do hurtful things. The whole point of a church community is to help support us to live this kind of good and happy life. And a church community can do a who bunch of different things to work towards supporting us.
The main things I think of off the top of my head are: (I would be interested if anyone has more things to add to this list)
a) help us to decipher what the Lord is trying to say in His Word
b) give us a venue to talk about and practice the things we are working on in our spiritual lives
c) feel strengthened by being around people who are working towards similar goals
d) getting council
The traditional General Church sermons seemed aimed at letter a); helping people to decipher what the Lord is trying to say in His Word. I have felt comfortable with men preforming the role of writing and delivering these sermons because it seems that in general, their minds are more capable of not projecting their emotions and experiences into what they are saying, and just dicussing the passages and feeding us their best understanding of what they mean. Often when I hear a woman talking I am distracted (I use that word nuetrally) by what is driving her words--her affections and experiences. Her words can be totally coherent and right on, but in addition to the truths she is discussing, I am also recieving her loves bound with those truths. This can be very beautiful, but sometimes it is hard to pull apart and clearly see the truth apart from the emotion and experience. Of course men also project their loves and experiences into what they are saying, but I think they are generally capable of doing so to a lesser degree. If I am coming to church to hear about what the Word is saying, I think that listening to a man try and dissect the Word and teach me some of the truth first without applying it to other things, can help me see the truth for what it is, and then I am in freedom to live my life and discover the unending ways that the truth can be applied to my life and observed in other people's lives. Of course all religion is of life, and truth really does not exsist apart from good, but it seems important to the Lord from all His writing about it again and again in the Writings, that Good and Truth are distinct, yet united. The distinction is important, so I think that we will be in greater freedom if we can see truths clearly first, and then discuss the application.
In summary, I do think that men can more easily aid us in this kind of bare-bones discovery of dissecting the truth from the Word while projecting LESS of their emotions and life experience into what they are saying. I think that the Lord has given them a gift to share with us in this way, and I am grateful for this quality in them.
BUT having said all this, should our sermons be for this end of truth instruction only??? do the Writings say anything about sermons? many people like sermons that are more fleshed-out and include more examples from life and suggestions about how to apply truth, and evoke emotions from the listeners. I love listening to these sermons too, and often feel like I get more out of them.
I guess where I go with the issue next is just questioning what the difference between a sermon and a lecture is, what a doctrinal class is, and what the role of a minister is. I feel like the bare-bones truth instruction is useful in some venue, but I dont see that it has to be in a sermon form. It could be a doctrinal class led by a man. So I maintain that I think men have something distinct and valuable to offer us, but I question what format that happens in. So if we are moving towards having truth and good married in our sermons, women can do that well too, and then it seems quite appropriate that they could deliver sermons.
There are many more functions of a minister in the leadership of a chuch congregation besides sermons, and I think many of these a woman could perform well. I havent yet put much thought into what other things besides sermons would lend themselves to male or female qualities. Enough for now. Thanks for reading.
I guess I don't understand what the General Church is as opposed to the New Church, and I suppose that's its own discussion (one that doesn't interest me very much or seem relevant).
For me growing up in a New Church community, the Church was much more than an organization. It was community, family, education, and it seemed to permeate most parts of my life. Regardless of what the General or the New Church is, the ministers seemed to be at the center of things.
Anyway, however you define the Church, I believe taking a close look at Civil Rights and Women's Rights history gives interesting insight into this issue, and I am convinced that those trying to prevent women from participating in the ministry are fighting a losing battle. It's only a matter of time, and I'd imagine massive attitude shifts have already occurred in the last 10 years. That kind of shift won't stop. People who aren't allowed the same rights as other people (be it on a national scale or in the context of a tight-knit community where the church pervades most parts of life) do not give up or stop clamoring until they get them.
Thank you so much Thomas Rehorst and Janine for your thoughts! Okay, Lord help my words. I feel strongly like Alaina does about the need for women to have a voice on the higher levels of church government. The key word about being in the ministry to me is "ordination" the idea that a person undergoes a ceremony and becomes acknowledged in our world as being "ordained" to serve as a minister in the priesthood. What comes to my mind is the history of priests and nuns in the Catholic church--which I know nothing about. But my point is how I think it would be good to have a way for women to be able to publicly and officially devote their lives to serving the Lord's church on earth in the way that we define a minister's work. I also think of Buddhist monks, who are both male and female (at least in America)--also something I know little about. I was jiving with what Janine was saying, along the lines that men and women are unique and certain minds can carry out certain useful functions better than others. The need for both female and male minds in the priesthood is real! When I think of a woman as a minister, I don't think of her "doing a man's job." I think of a woman serving unique uses that her individual mind is well-suited to.
If the General Church were to ordain women into their priesthood, I think the priesthood would still be able to respect the differences between men and women, and take advantage of the unique capabilities each individual in the clergy has to offer. I think it would be possible to maintain distinction in predominantly male and female roles (however we feel the need to define them in our current society) within a gender-inclusive priesthood. How? I think it would naturally happen in the same way it already does within an all-male priesthood: people could take on the tasks within the priesthood that they feel more talented for. People with a knack for sermon writing and public speaking could do that, others who like to teach in classrooms or do counseling could do that -- and still others who like to care for the sick and dying and do other pastoral care could do that.
There is greater strength in variety and I think the General Church would be stronger if it offered the services of a gender-inclusive priesthood. By having both male and female ministers, the various needs and desires of a diverse congregation could be satisfied.
Those are some thoughts for now, shared sincerely and humbly.
Just reading this now, and wow -- Alaina, this essay articulates so beautifully the logical contradiction in the official General Church position on this issue. Thank you! Shada, I especially loved your comment, so clearly and lovingly expressed, so wise. I have generally felt in my life that women have been my true priests, in representing God to me, ministering to me, helping me to feel connected to the Lord. I am so grateful to them. I feel sad for the church that it continues to deny itself the amazing contributions these women could make to our organization.
I have been wanting to follow up w/ people's thoughts - my thanks to everyone who continues to mull this over!
Brian - the continued response you give highlights things I think I've seen a few times over in this thread. First, discussing change hand in hand with fears of "revolt", like the change of one policy will degenerate into some kind of coup against the organization. I hope we can find someone to give that a stirring military speech on horseback, perhaps outside the Pastor’s Office? There's lots of room for the troops in the Heilman Hall parking lot. Forgive me for poking fun. I also kind of enjoy the irony of how you express the establishment's position on this: on one hand, the supremacy of the GC organization and its right to maintain its policy according to perceptions of God's word for the world, and on the other hand, how tiny and "irrelevant" that church organization is to the rest of the world. The ban stands from inside the GC because the organization and its rights are so significant. The ban stands from outside the GC because the organization is so INsignificant: no-one's rights are being trampled as long as there are OTHER places in the world that will accept her - why doesn't she just go over there? Why should Saudi women worry that they’re not allowed to drive a car? Saudi Arabia is just one country - it doesn't set the policy for the rest of the world. Those Saudi women should just leave their community for a different one where they’re allowed to drive cars, and then everyone can be happy (forgive me the extreme rhetorical example).
Thomas: your illustrations of female evocations of God blew me away. I had an interesting epiphany the other day. I always secretly wondered what it was like for non-white Christians to worship a Jesus that is always depicted as Caucasian. As I kid I wondered privately why everyone was always so sure that Jesus was white. How would this make me feel if I weren’t white? Suddenly I saw a sort of parallel in my own life, as I realized that all my life in the General Church, the message has been pounded home that God is masculine, and that it’s essential to see God as a man. The logical flipside of this, no less powerful because it may be subconscious, is that as a woman I’m not made in God’s image: I can’t represent Him and He doesn’t represent me. Thanks for this beautiful assurance that God is, in fact, evoked in feminine as well as masculine images.
Jeremy: I think your paper should be broadly available! Its scholarship is remarkable and it’s very well-written, obviously the work of a keen mind. I think my “take” on it should be pretty clear from the two essays I wrote, but we can discuss further if you want. Your convictions (in 2002, at least) on the value of women’s ongoing exclusion should be accessible to the people it affects, not just the ministers at the inner table. That’s a big reason I decided to include your paper in my piece, and I hope you get many requests from folks who want to read it themselves. I’m sincerely pleased that you joined this discussion, and that you support this chat!
Janine – thanks for some nice thoughts. We talk a lot about the distinctions between how a man would preach and how a woman would, the men supposedly offering a more objective track to truth, rather than the resulting emotions or applications. Secretly, I always wondered: if a woman were to write a doctrinal sermon, and a male minister delivered it as if it were his own, would we be able to tell the true author was feminine? Or do we simply layer our preconceptions about men and women on top of what we hear?
Love Chelsea’s words on how the ministry is already naturally divided by the different inclinations and talents of the priests – why would this not also be true if women joined in? There’s just so much teaching, preaching, officiating, administering, speaking, counseling, studying, editing and translating to do…I’m shocked the men don’t want more help.
Manderly – I relate so much to your sadness.
Another danged post got lost, I think...I forgot to say above: Jeremy, another thing I got from your paper is your beautiful articulation of the risks of being a spiritual leader and interpreting God's word. I have even more respect now for all priests who do their jobs well and sincerely. I just can't agree with your assessment that these risks are detrimental to women, but not to men. Thanks again for your participation in this discussion.
Alaina,
I think we continue to see irony differently.
Two concepts:
1) an organization has rights to define itself, its principles, its behaviors etc.
2) the GC is relatively insignificant in terms of numbers and influence.
Do you disagree with either of these?
I think they are independent of each other. They are both true. I don't think the contradict each other. I call on both of them to make two slightly different points.
a) Sometimes organizations will take positions we don't like, and this is ok, they have (limited) rights to do this. (Unless it starts forcing you to comply with its positions.)
b) In the case of the General Church, we see a very small organization with very limited influence. There are other choices in the same market. It is difficult to find distance from this organization.
I think it only becomes ironic if I say that the GC is insignificant and it is significant.
But the second is an idea which you added. I don't assume that the organization must be significant in order to earn itself the right to take stands and define itself.
Brian
Alaina,
Thank you for those comments. In the ten years since I wrote the paper no one has put much effort into refuting its wild assertions. This makes me feel as if at least the General Church clergy agrees with me, even though I am taking a different tack than most of the other papers on the topic. Maybe I need to seek a wider audience. Unfortunately the paper is too long to publish in New Church Life. I’m happy to send it to anyone who emails me at Jeremy.Simons@BrynAthynChurch.org.
But it’s not quite true that I say that the risks associated with the ministry affect women but not men. They affect everyone and pose a genuine occupational hazard for ministers. The issue is that, according to many passages, these risks are especially problematic for women. This is not what I say but what I believe the passages say. So the question is whether the passages really say this, or whether I am reading my own bias into them.
Every organisation has the right to define itself, of course. The problem is that where the church is concerned, this church defined itself in the 19th century in 'Words for the New Church', a brilliant manifesto which outlined the functions and the directions of the New Church. I mentioned this elsewhere, but clearly few have read it, and from the perspective of someone who is new to the church, very little of it actually takes place within the church in terms of its functions as outlined there. Hence, one should be mindful of the warning in Revelations of losing sight of our first works.
This mention of Revelations is significant, since it key to our theology. The New Church, with respect to the woman in the wilderness giving birth, is defined as a small church with few members. And given the fact that a new church begins among Gentiles, it is incredible that its teachings are not better known. These essays have surely been the most popular in terms of the comments posted. Does this not indicate that a desire for a new kind of reaching out is going on? Perhaps we should keep in mind the last hours of Christ's life when he cried 'I thirst'. This thirst was for a new church, one that I suspect involves the teachings provided by Swedenborg, for a world in which that thirst is also mirrored by a desire for something deeper and present in the core of our very human existence. Perhaps we should keep this image in the forefront of our minds when considering these matters
Brian: totally get you. Of course organizations can set their own policies. There are entire universities that are women-only, for example. If the policies are within the law, then I've just got to live with it once I've expressed my opinion. The beauty of it is that I don't have to join the General Church, and I haven't. And I never meant to say that an organization can't set its own policies til it's large or significant to the general world. I have policies for what goes on my own blog and I'm the only person that writes there.
But I do still find it humorous that I grew up hearing how important the New Church was to the world - you know, it'll spread through the whole world and it's "the crown of all the churches". Even Comparative Religions courses at the Academy and College always still emphasized the superiority of New Church faith in the end. But when it comes to arguing a controversial policy, proponents suddenly emphasize how insignificant the New Church is to the rest of the world, to assert their right to that controversial policy.
Coleman's probably been sick of me for years, now you're getting a taste. I hope you don't regret publishing these essays!
Jeremy - thanks for continuing to engage. I know you didn't say men are immune to the risks of the priesthood. I'm still just not sold that the risks are so much greater for women, as you say.
Alaina, the New Chuch IS the crown of all churches. The New Church IS essential to the world. The General Church is not.
The difference being that the New Church is the Lord's Revelation and Truth and that is extremely important to the world. The General Church is an organization. I think the organization is relatively important, but in the grand scheme of things it's just an organization.
I have always thought of my church community more like a family. If my brother or sister doesn't like something in my behavior, I think it's wrong to say, "If you don't like it you can walk out." I feel that I owe them some degree of compromise and cooperation...because hey, we're family. We have to try to make it work if we still want to be in relationship with each other.
I think that an organization has every right to determine its own policies, and that the "customers" can choose not to buy the product. But community and family and relationships are a very unique kind of product. I think that the General Church does owe a certain kind of compassion to its children, brothers and sisters. For those of us who grew up in it, love it, want it in our lives--but feel rejected and abused by it--we never wanted a revolution. We want healing for the old hurts, and to prevent new hurt from happening to individuals we love.
Kristin,
I don't intend this to be a confrontational comment. In a family where there is a abuse, those who are abused need to set boundaries and get free of the dysfunction. Sometimes that involves walking away.
I think that people in a family or community can do lots of talking and consider and make compromises. But these compromises are made freely and knowingly, not just out of guilting and cajoling. If the General Church begins to ordain women because it is worried that it has abused women or because it has been nagged or because it has been accused of "failing to provide a home" then I think we are seeing sickness at work. This is the ruining of the organization.
Now, it may be that the General Church should begin to ordain women - but this should happen when it understands that the Lord wants it to take this path. This would make for a functional and enlivening decision, rather than a dysfunctional and enmeshed choice.
Brian
I totally hear you, Brian, and I agree. I guess I've just felt too often like I was being treated as a customer, rather than a member of the family. (This applies to the Bryn Athyn schools as well.)