Calling for the Lord in the Priesthood Part 2

Tomoya adds to his discussion of gender and humanity this week. He presents a different approach to the ownership of the priesthood, suggesting that it needs to be stepped back from, and full ownership handed over to God rather than any humans of either gender. -Editor.

The Ripple Effects from before the Time of the Last Judgment

What the First Commandment addresses, namely the source from which truths ought to be thought of, has been one of the major pillars of inquiries in human philosophy. As a human philosophy, however, it ended up deciding that this source rested with us. Beginning with Descartes's cogito, which is our own immediate self-reflecting selfhood, we have come to see ourselves as a complete whole human based merely on our physical indivisibility, which is the smallest unit of our cogito. This idea was emphasized in the atheistic existentialism of Jean-Paul Sartre in the last century, wherein we were the owner of our own existence and the power of rationality, before being defined by anything else, including the Divine. In its insistence that we must keep the ownership of our own existence, this philosophy did not allow any room for us to ever start from the Divine. So it established itself diametrically against the First Commandment; the truths must not be thought of from any other source than our own cogito.

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Calling for the Lord in the Priesthood Part 1

This week we have the first of a two part article by Tomoya. He takes a step back and looks at the question of the ordination of women by first looking at the ordination of human beings in general. -Editor.

Regarding the topic of women in the priesthood, I have read the articles and the reader comments as well as the most of the papers here in New Church Perspective. The more I read, the more I was drawn to the processes, rather than the products, of proponents’ arguments. I thought that I might be able to contribute to this topic from a different perspective, without exploring anything more about masculinity and femininity. We have seemingly exhausted what needs to be said about these, and I am convinced now that the call for women in the priesthood doesn’t even have much to do with masculinity and femininity, if none at all. Since this is a long article, I’d like to start with a synopsis.

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A Good Bet for the New Church: Use the Internal Sense of the Word

Steve dreams up the ideal website to provide a pleasant and useful way to read, study, and search the Bible and the Writings of Swedenborg in many languages. In describing his vision Steve introduces a website (www.newchristianbiblestudy.org) that is growing steadily to match the dream. Read about the possibilities of the website, and the potential to get involved in this project. -Editor.

The world is home to two billion Christians. Many read the Bible. Many of those Bible readers “get it” that the literal sense must contain an inner meaning, and they’re looking for it.

Here we are in the New Church with an asset that other Bible-explainers don’t have—Swedenborg’s works—which provide a divinely given, true, cohesive, sensible explanation of the real inner meaning.

This is a huge opportunity for the New Church; maybe the best one we have right now. What’s the best way to work with it?

Imagine...

...that people are reading the Word, and decide to look for its meaning. If they happen to have a book of commentary on the shelf, they might use it. Mostly, these days, they’ll go online and search for it.

What will they search for?

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