Let me preface this by admitting that I am ambivalent about Anglican women priests: I think there are good arguments on both sides.
That being said, I find it very difficult to sympathise with a binary gender category that, having attained the status of their polar opposite binary gender category in every regard other than filthy Mammon and inappropriate touching, is still whining that they are paid less and touched more (or, perhaps, touched less?) than their polar opposite binary gender category.
I thought being an Anglican priest was a calling, a vocation, not an ecclesiastical rendering of capitalist profiteering. And I would really like to know the ratio of priestly female/male inappropriate touching incidents. Have you ever encountered a female priest you longed to touch inappropriately? Me neither.
From here:
Four decades after the first women were ordained in the Anglican Church of Canada, much progress remains to be made, say female priests who profess to have struggled with everything from unequal pay to inappropriate touching by some parishioners. Last week (28 November to 1 December), 40 female priests from the Anglican Church of Canada gathered at St James Anglican Church in Stratford, Ontario, for “Unmasking the Feminine,” a conference marking the 40th anniversary of the ordination of women in the church. For participants, the event seemed an occasion both for celebrating the achievements made in advancing the rights of women and being mindful of the challenges many say yet remain.
Well lets open up 1 Timothy:11&12, and see what the Word of God has to say about this matter. Discuss amongst yourselves, while I go to the Men’s Room.
That is, 1 Timothy: 2:11&12.
Men’s Room? Don’t you mean Binary Gender B room?? 😉
I have suspected for a long time that you were ambivalent.
Being at the secular level a disciple, so to speak, of George Orwell, who thoughts on the political use of language can be extended to how we deal with spiritual matters, I am bothered by language such as “For participants, the event seemed an occasion .. for .. being mindful of the challenges many say yet remain.” An occasion for being mindful about something many say, it seemed. A general purpose platitudinous vacuity. Dear friends, as we go forward with our diversities of opinions, let us together with a joint resolve maintain a compassionate, considerate and cooperative commitment to be mindful of what many have said. Once you get the hang of it, such sentences almost write themselves. And, as Orwell pointed out, when you hear or read such verbiage it is likely a smokescreen for what is really going. A military metaphor for sure, but were we not told about spiritual warfare ?
But sadly is a very effective method of lulling the majority into a compliant slumber…
Female priests and bishops remain a divisive issue in the Christian Church. Are most people wrong?
For a church that spends so much time worrying about “diversity” and “inclusion”, that certainly is a diverse and inclusive group. As for the substance of their complaint – I was a Warden in an ACC parish when had a female and then a male priest…..we paid a “cost of priestly services” to the Dioceses (which would also include support smaller parishes that couldn’t on their own afford a full time priest). We as a parish never negotiated or knew our priests salary – my understanding is that the Dioceses had a salary grid.
It is true women in general receive lower wages than men in many jobs of equal value. But, in the Anglican Dioceses I know, there is basically the same stipend scale for male and female priests.
It is funny that we don’t call male priests men priests. Yet, most of us call female priests women priests.
Another observation: In the 1960s, we didn’t call any priest “Father” unless he is from the High Church tradition. Since the ordination of female priests in the 1970s, more and more priests prefer to be called “Father”. Perhaps, they know very well that a female priest cannot be called “Father”. Is this a form of discrimation?
I never knew that male priests are referring to themselves more and more as “father.” If you are correct that is very insightful of you. I did know a former Anglican Canadian Forces chaplain, Dana Dean who would introduce himself to soldiers as “Father Dana or Father Dean,” but at that time, I thought he was more of the exception rather than the norm. If what is happening today is as you ask, an attempt to distinguish themselves from female clergy is a very good question. And why are they doing that?
Most male pastors I know think that the ordination of women in my Lutheran church is a failed experiment but not because women should not be pastors but because the majority of women we know who are pastors are awful at their jobs. It is becoming more and more a second career now for middle-aged women, many who are divorced with severe eating disorders who were not very good at what they were doing before they were pastors, Most male pastors I know who do not think it is a failed experiment are those who have political aspirations, or as what lay people would call-suck ups, or they fear the wrath of those women in the Church who now have authority or they are just naive and are blind to the facts.
I am a Lutheran who is fed up with the what is happening within my own denomination under the leadership of Susan Johnson who uses nepotism and bullying to keep herself in power. But I am too much of a coward to leave and it would look too much like a divorce to me if I did.
Martin Luther said, that even if it is a rascal is presiding over the sacrament, it is still the sacrament. It is God that is at work in the sacrament and not the presiding minister and that is the only reason I stay.
Ultimately, Jesus Christ is the only true Minister.
Luther never supported women’s ordination because it never had Christ’s command (eg 1 Cor 14:34,37). Luther states, ‘it must be a competent and chosen man. Children, women, and other persons are not qualified for this office’ (LW 41:154-155). He was referring to male rascals. The issue with Luther (and in the Donatist controversy) was the lack of meritorious conduct not gender. A failure to separate these categories leads to an erroneous confusion of corrupted human nature with the female person that God has created in His image.
I spent most of my adult life believing that the ordination of women was a good thing – for those who are called, not those who see it as a career or a feminist cause. Watching the circus around celebrating SSA unfold has changed my mind. It has forced me to acknowledge that concessions were made around the traditional understanding in scripture that should not have been made and that have paved the way for heresy to flourish and keep flourishing. I earnestly believe that there are good, godly and sincere women in ordained ministry, but I now wonder what wonderful ministries they might have taken on if they had chosen to serve in a non-ordained capacity. Only God knows.
In 1985, a female pastor joked to me about one of her elderly male parishioners who had a “crush” on her. He would constantly buy her gifts ie dresses, flowers, chocolates etc and proposed marriage to her on more than one occasion.At one time he even tried to kiss her which was probably rather gross because he usually had a mouth full of snoose (chewing tobacco). She never felt threatened by the old man and found his behaviour at best, amusing and at worst, strange. She was there for less to than two years, leaving that parish for a short gig at the new national church office in Winnipeg.
What is strange about this whole story is that shortly after she went to work in Winnipeg, she outed herself as being a lesbian and left the Lutheran Church and joined the United Church because of their perceived more open attitude at that time to her lifestyle choice. Her same sex preference was the worst kept secret in the Lutheran church. It became obvious to everyone except to those in authority that the woman was breaking the rules at that time about gay and lesbian clergy when her female “roommate” joined her shortly in the parsonage after her installation as the pastor and when they whined so bitterly when the local co-op would not let them have a joint account there like they gave to married couples.
My point is that female clergy, in general, have not had it as hard as some claim they had. The opposite is more likely the case with the higher Church bureaucrats turning a blind eye to their shenanigans more than they probably would for a male pastor. Any mistreatment they received, in my opinion was for the most part, imagined or self-inflicted or they had it coming because of their laziness or incompetence or their professional and personal dishonesty..
J. I. Packer opposes women priest, while John Stott changed his position in the early 1970s.
However, Packer sees the ordination of women as a secondary issue:
Unfortunately, some people consider same-sex relationships as well as female priests as a secondary issue also.
I think John Stott was in favour of women priests if they were under male headship.
Okay, I realize this is going to generate some pushback, but women – regardless of age and beauty – are exposed to a lot of frightening behaviour which may be hard to believe for those who haven’t witnessed its reality.
A few examples. Many priests work with rough urban populations and both men and women priests have to sit face to face with those who may be mentally ill or intoxicated or abusive. But in my experience, when the priest is a woman, some ‘down-and-out’ men will keep pushing the boundaries to try to get physically close in any way they can. And for a woman, that can be a really scary scenario, especially in parishes where there isn’t a strong staff/volunteer base to ensure she isn’t alone in this sort of work.
Women priests also have the bizarre situation of having to take confession from some men who are specifically looking for a captive (female) audience so they can speak in detail about sexual perversion. Imagine for a moment how awkward that can be to navigate. If there is even a small doubt about whether such a person may be sincere, the priest will likely feel an obligation to continue to hear these ‘confessions’.
Moreover, women priests get hate-mail which can also be frightening. Those who are not attractive get email and voicemail from trolls attacking them for not being attractive (no joke). Those who are attractive get messages of another nature, suggesting a stalker-mentality which is genuinely frightening.
I have a feeling none of this is a part of the sales pitch when we try to recruit women to be priests. It can be a rough job and require a great deal of interpersonal steel, particularly for women. So I do think some compassion is in order, although there are many women (and people generally) who are simply unsuited to many posts.
There are many solutions to the problems you describe.
Firstly, they should never work with someone who is drunk or showing symptoms of an untreated mental illness. They are wasting everyone’s time if they do. They are priests, not addictions counsellors, doctors or therapists.
Secondly arrange the workspace so that there is an actual physical barrier between them and the people they are working with, ie a large desk and make sure that the person is never between them and the exit so they can escape if necessary. If they have to have a stranger looking office where they are sitting next to the door and the person they are working with is deeper into the room, then so be it.
Thirdly, in the rougher neighbourhoods, lock the doors and install a doorbell. Churches have been doing that for decades.
Fourthly, for 99% of that small group of men who try to push the boundaries, a loud “NO” from the potential victim is enough to stop them.
Fifthly, although comments about ones attractiveness or lack thereof is unfortunate, as a man who has been bald since he was thirty who never got any taller than 5’7″, well that’s life. And those getting comments about how attractive they are… ah the struggles of the beautiful… brings tears to my eyes. It is time for all of us to grow up. Life for most people is like a chicken ramp; short and covered with crap.
I also know that private confession is a very rare today. One priest told me that after thirty years he can actually count of one hand the number of times he heard a private confession. Most Anglicans now rely on the corporate form of confession that is part of the Holy Communion service so I think your example is highly exaggerated.
Also I have a question. How do you know what is said to the priest in the confession? Either you were eavesdropping or the priest betrayed one of the core tenants of the sacrament; confidentiality.
Did Jesus baptize anyone? Did Jesus ordain anyone? It seems to me that the early Church was a lay movement of preaching, evangelism and outreach. Why worry about ordination at all?
But Jesus got baptized and gave us the great commission. Remember this? , “ Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you…
And perhaps as importantly, there are enough nutjobs and wackos preaching with both ordination and the discernment process that goes along with that. So try to imagine what it would be like if there was none at all.
Dr. John Sung, Ph.D. in Chemistry from Ohio, was one of the greatest evangelists in China in the 1930s and 1940s. Real ordination comes from God.
There are notable exceptions to everything in life. John Sung did go to seminary, Union Theological Seminary, one of the most respected seminaries in the world albeit for its more liberal aspects which Sung eventually rejected.
But if the Christian Church had no process for determining who can and cannot preach in the pulpits and administer the sacraments it runs the risk of becoming nothing more than a collection of cults each with its own bizarre set of beliefs and practices, falling prey to dangerous charismatic leaders, constantly fighting with each other, more than it already is.
It is true God can use theological colleges to train humans for parish ministry. God can use cause a donkey to speak too. But, the reality is that the church is still has a long way to go. The majority of preaching is no good. The only preacher I appreciated was Harry Robinson in the 1960s when he was the Rector of Little Trinity in Toronto. I had learned so much from him. Many preachers are big jokes. Yes, I may be too critical. Well, what a sad state of affairs!
I think in 1928, Union Theological Seminary sent Dr. Sung to a mental aslym where his theological training was his Bible and nothing else. Dr. Sung was a strange man in many ways. My godfather knew him well until he died in 1944. God used Dr. Sung for His own glory.
Yes Dr. Song was in a mental asylum for nearly 200 days. From the little bit of research I have done on him since you first mentioned his name, there was no doubt that he was a very eccentric man. But everything I read about him leaves little doubt that he was an amazing preacher nonetheless.
Reading about him reminded me of the charismatic/evangelical pastor I once met when I lived in Bentley Alberta back when Stockwell Day was president of the independent (and illegal) Christian school associated with the congregation where he was the pastor. He was an amazing preacher but OMG, he was weird. I hated it when he would approach me in a public setting like the a local coffee shop. It was usually both an embarrassing and creepy experience.
He used to get his more gullible groupies to do ridiculous things like line up outside the local beer parlour and place their hands on the walls for hours on end trying to invoke God to collapse the building. Needless to say, that didn’t work.
But still on any given Sunday, there was standing room only in the church when he preached and the offerings collected each Sunday where as much as what the other mainline congregations would collect for an entire year.
I have just come across this report from VirtueOnline, Viewpoints, March 23, 2018 that in the recent annual synod of the Missionary Diocese of All Saints (MDAS), a diocese in the ACNA, the Rt. Rev. William H. Ilgenfritz, total delegates that he had been “refuffed” when the subject of the ordination of woman was raised, and told to accept “dual-integrity” or “shuffle off to Rome”.
On June 6, the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth (ACNA) published a resolution calling for a moratorium on ordaining women. The female priesthood remains a divisive issue in many modern denominations.