Snippets from the Life of a Hospice Chaplain

Her interfaith training and background with the Writings of Swedenborg combine to provide Julie with an ability to reach out to and serve people of many denominations in her role as a hospice chaplain. Julie shares this week about some of the wonderful people she has met and the some of the reasons she feels blessed to be doing this work. -Editor.

I feel truly blessed to have spent more than 4 ½ years as a hospice chaplain. I am with people in some of the most difficult moments of their life, both for those on our service and those who love them. It’s a profession some people might find morbid. I am with people who are either very ill, very frail, or no longer able to communicate, either because of dementia or other illnesses, and who are not expected to live longer than six months. Yet it’s a profession to which I believe I’ve been led. Most of our people are in facilities, but a few are in their own homes, living with a friend or family member, or occasionally in hospital.

So why do I feel so blessed? Firstly I get to be with the best team of people I have ever worked with: physicians, nurses, aides, volunteers, social workers, my chaplain colleague and the admin team who keeps the business running. We have a simple goal: to support people, and their families, on hospice and give them comfort, dignity and quality of life for their last moments in this world, whether that’s literally a few moments or 2 ½ years.

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5. The Role and Purpose of the Clergy

Brian Smith and Kristin Coffin offer a dialogue-style collaborative piece dealing with five subtopics as follows:

1. The ramifications of an all-male priesthood.
2. Systemic sexism in the Church.
3. The burden of proof and the status quo.
4. Doctrinal arguments.
5. The role and purpose of the clergy.

This is the fourth piece in the series: Women as Ordained Priests (or Not). -Editor.

Brian speaking to the Purpose of the Priesthood

The purpose of the priesthood is articulated several times in the Writings along similar lines as the following: “the priest who teaches truth and leads to good for the sake of truth and good exercises charity” (Arcana Coelestia 8121).

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4. Doctrinal Arguments

Brian Smith and Kristin Coffin offer a dialogue-style collaborative piece dealing with five subtopics as follows:

1. The ramifications of an all-male priesthood.
2. Systemic sexism in the Church.
3. The burden of proof and the status quo.
4. Doctrinal arguments.
5. The role and purpose of the clergy.

This is the fourth piece in the series: Women as Ordained Priests (or Not). -Editor.

Brian's Doctrinal Arguments

My primary goal in presenting some quotations from the Writings is to make sure that these are readily available for readers to consider. I will simply have to neglect the work of tying these passages together with arguments and my interpretations due to the limits of my current scope and space. I will also wholly ignore arguments people have offered regarding the masculine form as the representation of the Lord in His divine human (such as New Church Life 1995 pg. 196, 252, 299).

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3. Burden of Proof and the Status Quo

Brian Smith and Kristin Coffin offer a dialogue-style collaborative piece dealing with five subtopics as follows:

1. The ramifications of an all-male priesthood.
2. Systemic sexism in the Church.
3. The burden of proof and the status quo.
4. Doctrinal arguments.
5. The role and purpose of the clergy.

This is the fourth piece in the series: Women as Ordained Priests (or Not). -Editor.

Kristin, speaking on the burden of proof

I’ve heard several people voice the following in the last few years: given the gravity of the consequences, if the General Church persists to exclude women from its spiritual leadership, there had better be very good reasons for doing so. Both sides of the debate tend to agree that our best understanding of doctrine needs to come before any consideration of convenience or natural pragmatism

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2. Systemic sexism in the Church

Brian Smith and Kristin Coffin offer a dialog-style collaborative piece dealing with 5 subtopics as follows:

1. The ramifications of an all-male priesthood.
2. Systemic sexism in the Church.
3. The burden of proof and the status quo.
4. Doctrinal arguments.
5. The role and purpose of the clergy.

This is the fourth piece in the series: Women as Ordained Priests (or Not). -Editor.

Kristin, speaking on systemic sexism

You’ve expressed your doubt that my grievances can be conclusively linked with the all-male priesthood. All I can say is, I perceive it to be so. I won’t spend many words trying to convince you; maybe our readers can offer some evidence one way or the other. I agree that it is an oversimplification to say that all the sexism in the church can be blamed on this policy.

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1. Ramifications of an All-Male Priesthood

Over the next two weeks, Brian Smith and Kristin Coffin offer a dialog-style collaborative piece on the subject of the ordination of women in the General Church. Brian presents arguments in support of an exclusively masculine clergy while Kristin argues for the inclusion of women. The dialog ranges over 5 subtopics as follows:

1. The ramifications of an all-male priesthood.
2. Systemic sexism in the Church.
3. The burden of proof and the status quo.
4. Doctrinal arguments.
5. The role and purpose of the clergy.

They have also chosen to ignore material that Swedenborg did not publish himself in order to side-step any additional argument related to the validity of these posthumously published theological works. This is the fourth (set of) essay(s) in the series: Women as Ordained Priests (or Not). -Editor.

Kristin, speaking on the ramifications of an all-male priesthood in the General Church

Before we discuss anything else, I think it’s important to establish that the General Church’s policy of the all-male priesthood comes with some very serious consequences. Among these consequences, I see

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