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Deliberately with Intent
During Colonial times, the story is told of a benevolent woman who dedicated her life to providing medical service in the country of Haiti. While she was much loved by the Haitian people, she was still a foreigner. She was the outsider who came with superior skill and resources to “help” those deemed less capable and knowledgeable. And she kept close control over these resources.
Even after there were Haitian medical Doctors working in her clinic – she kept the key to the drug cabinet on a chain around her neck. If an operation were needed in the night, she would be wakened and taken to the clinic where she would open the cabinet for the physicians.
Colonialism kept people in their place. It was a whole culture which assumed the natural superiority of those in control. It was a belief system that maintained God had ordained certain groups with the right to make decisions and exercise control over those whose circumstance of birth and place in life made them unfit to rule or govern.
Paternalism, like colonialism, keeps people in their place. Paternalistic systems have dominated the religious world for centuries. Father knows best. Father will care for you.
Dangers of Paternalism
In order for paternalism to work in religion, it must rely upon the exercise of overt power and authority purportedly communicated from God. Early on with the separation of a priestly class from the common worshiper, access to the Holy and to desired spiritual benefits were strictly controlled. In Jesus’ day the rabbi’s relied on a multitude of rules and regulations to keep the people in line. And they benefitted from the exorbitant prices charged for temple sacrifices the people believed they needed to secure God’s blessing.
In the medieval church, priests maintained control by limiting or denying access to the sacraments. Even the use of the church’s cemetery for burial was restricted to the faithful. With the reformation came the motto of “the priesthood of all believers”. Nonetheless it was male clerics who dominated the pulpits of Protestant churches. Threats of hell fire and damnation were used to cower the sinner, entice them to walk the sawdust trail and fill the pews. Abuse of authority and power has been the prerogative of men whenever religion is institutionalized and sadly the word of God has been used to defend the existing ecclesiastical structure.
Paternalism Repudiated
Human beings, male and female, were created in the image of God and given authority to exercise dominion over the fish, the birds, and over every living thing EXCEPT one another! The ability to govern, to direct the activities, to initiate policy and implement change were to be shared jointly by both men and women. Collaborative rulership was to be the norm. God’s delegation of dominion to humankind was not carte blanche for exploitation and one-sided authority. Dominion is a service word.
God, in describing the patriarchal structure that would exist after sin, said to Eve, “You will desire a relationship with your husband but he will lord it over you.” Jesus repudiated this paternalistic system when he said, “The Gentiles lord it over you, but it shall not be so among you.” When Jesus took the towel , wrapped it around himself and knelt before his disciples, he reversed the hierarchical, top down, male only, “power over” authority of the religious leaders of his day.
As the men and women disciples prayed together in the upper room, the Holy Spirit came upon all who were present. In the early church, spiritual gifts, including the gifts of administration and leadership, were given without discrimination to all believers, regardless of their gender.
The recognition of the equality of all believers as having the God-given responsibility to exercise dominion is at the heart of the three angel’s message. The call to worship the Creator God must draw attention to the original design of humankind. In Genesis, God blessed THEM and gave THEM dominion.
The Christian church should be a model of God’s government on this earth. The Adventist church with its end time message should be at the forefront in promoting Jesus’ kingdom principles in its organizational structure. A blatant eyesore on our denomination’ structure is the continued denial of women’s equality in service. Our unwillingness to ordain women to the gospel ministry reduces all women to second class status by reserving top administrative functions, governance, decision and policy-making determination in the church to men only.
It would not be accepted by other cultures
The rational often given by the Adventist church for not ordaining women is that such an action would not be acceptable by other paternalistic cultures.
Recognition of the human rights of women and children is being strongly urged by governments and nations worldwide. It is in the news daily. This is an issue whose time has come. Does it not behoove us as a worldwide church to seriously consider the implications of our church’s position on the role of women and our policy regarding this issue? Do we really want to continue to kowtow to the “culture” argument?
Even Islamic cultures ruled by Sharia law are under attack by their own people who recognize that many of the repressive cultural requirements are not according to the Quran but merely rules imposed by males to keep females in subjection.
The Time is not right
This argument presupposes that ordination of women is a valid ordinance for the church – which will – at a future date – become the accepted practice – just not yet. Once ordination of women is an established practice in the Adventist church most folks will wonder why it took so long to recognize its validity.
“The time is not right” is a poor argument to delay ordination in today’s world. What is the worst that could happen? Some less informed and/or prejudiced individuals might leave the church and take their resources with them? People with integrity make moral decisions because they are the right thing to do – not because they are the politically expedient, popular or financially motivated.
We first need a “theology of ordination”
For a church which decries the need for creeds or catechisms this is really a lame excuse. It is basically saying, let’s refer this issue back to a study committee so that we do not have to deal with it.
Ordination is simply a public rite in which the elders of the church place their hands in blessing on individuals who have been called to service. It is not hocus pocus. It is not some magical conveyance of power. It is not a sacerdotal action that changes a person from laity into clergy. It does not signify the initiation of the recipient into a 2,000 year old club for men only.
What is does mean is that the church, as a body, recognizes the activity and work of the Holy Spirit in its midst. When it becomes evident that the Spirit has called and gifted an individual for public ministry it is then beholden on the members to add their blessing by the laying on of hands.
The employment Issue
In today’s world ordination has also become an employment issue involving credentialing. As an employer churches are empowered to authorize individuals to function on their behalf. These individuals then can sign certain legal documents, claim certain legal exemptions, and accept positions outside the church in agencies needing chaplaincy services. Non-church employers can require credentialing (i.e. ordination) by a recognized religious entity in addition to educational criteria and professional experience.
I remember applying to work as an Academy Bible teacher in 1978 only to discover that while I had the educational qualifications to be hired, in order to advance or get a raise in pay I would need to be ordained. Today, non ordained women are hired as Bible teachers and as Adventist ministers. These women pastors perform most of the same duties and functions as that of ordained men. Nevertheless they are still barred from moving up the organizational ladder into leadership positions, from sitting on policy- making boards or from holding church administrative titles.
Women are also prohibited from legally organizing a church. To say that an individual may plant a church, nurture it, dedicate its infants, baptize and marry its members but that they must be male in gender in order to legally give a church birth is as ludicrous as it is paternalistic.
For a religious organization to intentionally and deliberately deny credentialing to qualified and employed individuals who are performing the essential functions of a job is unconscionable.
For the Body of Christ to intentionally and deliberately deny the activity and work of the Holy Spirit by failure to lay its hands in blessing on women borders on blasphemy.
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Sat, 09/08/2012
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San Diego Adventist Forum
Sigve Tonstad, MD, PhD, Associate Professor of Religion, Loma Linda
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Preach it Sister!
As in "Animal Farm" - some are "more equal than others."
It is very enlightening to realize that it is not just the "ordination" rule that is causing problems, it is all the hedge of issues in which not being ordained then prevents one from participating. Even if, for whatever reason, they can't "ordain" women, at least they should remove the secondary, implied barriers. The fact that they don't tells me that there is a fundamental bias at work and that the issues you point are are indeed excuses. But I believe it is coming. Slower than we would like. But it is coming.
Donna, this is a superb and most persuasive argument if there ever was one! It is nothing short of cowardly for the male-ordered church to hide behind the "world church" because they have not yet removed the shackles of their patriarchial culture. Wasn't it the church's prophet who said we should not be the tail? By refusing the recognize the great contributions of more than half the church, it is operating on 19th century society's structure. How can the leaders, in good conscience, continue to lord over the women working alongside them in every respect except in the rite of ordination? Where are the men "who will not be bought or sold"? The excuses are transparentlyh seen as males folding under pressure. While claiming to maintain the "unity of the world church" they are forefeiting its future with the young men and women who will no longer maintain such inequality. For shame, that the church which claims to be led by the Holy Spirt, denies, in effect, that the Spirt moves where it wills, and does not bypass women but bestows its gifts equally.
Elaine
One of the EGW quotes I was required to memorize in college was the one that went like this:
"The greatest want of the world is the want of men -- men who are neither bought nor sold; men who in their inmost souls are true and honest; men who do not fear to call sin by its right name; men whose conscience is as true to duty as the needle to the pole; men who will stand for the right though the heavens fall."
That quote has no time element: you're to do the right of which you're convicted all the time.
Another passage I later read while researching the American separate conference system included the following rationalizations for ethnically separate congregations:
"This plan is to be followed until the Lord shows us a better way... The time has not come for us to work as if there were no prejudice." And with that, EGW quoted the Pauline phrase, "All things may be lawful, but all things are not expedient."
That passage mitigates The Right by appeals to context and circumstance: it may be Right, but if it's Right Now, it's Wrong.
We have to acknowledge that our organizational history is full of both approaches. Yes, the complex might be maddening, but for the last 150+ years the Adventist tradition has laid both kinds of egg. It's not going to disown one and pursue the other.
Personally and privately, I no longer believe the Adventist denomination is going to reform itself and lead the change charge on any major social or moral issue affecting my generation -- including the ordination issue. But in coming to that sense, I've also chosen not to defer my own moral judgment or conscience to the organization.
Females who've been called to serve serve wherever they can. Some serve without equitable institutional recognition in this denomination. Others serve outside it. They are forced to make that difficult determination based on their unique callings and I don't envy them the task.
@Elaine (and Donna?) -- while there may be males in the church who "lord over" their female peers, I don't personally know any who do. I know of several who are at best apathetic about the situation, not believing that it's within their remit to change, and many others who actively lobby in their spheres for a different order, fully supporting the ministry of their female peers in the meanwhile.
I'm not prepared to discount the congregational- and college-level activity of the second group simply because they're not all public with their opinions and not influential enough to change the policies. There are many kinds of ally.
I just don't think the international administration or the GC-level hierarchy is an ally.
"Dominion is a service word."
That's kind of a hard sell, I think, Donna.
And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
H7287 dominion
רדה
râdâh
raw-daw'
A primitive root; to tread down, that is, subjugate; specifically to crumble off: - (come to, make to) have dominion, prevail against, reign, (bear, make to) rule, (-r, over), take.
Equal rights to "tread down, subjugate and crumble off" the natural world leave me cold, even though the primeval pair weren't supposed to "tread down, subjugate and crumble" off each other.
It's hard to deny that the human race has run with this text and laid a monumental egg on the natural world, so making it a service word is going to take some fancy footwork, it seems to me.
Ordination seems to be some unexplainable Magic Pixie Dust that only males confer in Adventism, and what it conveys is money and status.
Why not just get rid of the Magic Pixie Dust and pay people for the jobs they are already doing?
Maggie -- that's not an option this administration is willing to countenance, but I think you know that. :)
But it felt so good to say it....
The English Strong's might render dominion as subjugation and subservience, but several of the Jewish explanations I've seen so far cast dominion in terms of care, responsibility, and domestication, not exploitation.
Jewish discussions of environmental ethics all address this question upfront; as indicated, it's an important premise.
Maggie said: But it felt so good to say it....
------
I bet it did! :) Totally understand.
Donna,
It is a rare thing indeed to behold power-packed manifestos such as this that champion human rights in the SDA church. Thank you Spectrum for providing a place for Christians who would rather think for themselves rather than allow high-profile front-men-Rev-Seminar-evangelists do it for them.
You are one courageous woman, Donna. I have so much respect for you! Thank you for being a voice in the SDA wildnerness who is not fearful to set the clarion call of Love and Equality for all.
I am again reminded of just how small the SDA church leadership is in it's thinking when I read words such as yours. You convictions mark a stark contrast between where the church IS and where God intends it to be.
Dominion is Service......!!! YES!
You go girl!
Ps The story you recounted of the controlling physician in Haiti really shows how elitism not only causes train wrecks - it's subtlety is hard to detect thus easy to wield. Your article here blows the covers off what abusive power really looks like up close and personal and not just in some ivory tower way "over there."
What Abusive Power really looks like up close and personal:
1: When someone sues you and takes your coat....
2. When someone strikes you on one cheek....
3. When someone nails you to a cross....
4. When someone is stingy with the Magic Pixie Dust....
"Although from the beginning He had the nature of God He did not reckon His equality with God a treasure to be tightly grasped."
On second read, I'm glad that Donna chose to describe a controlling female in her opening story: it illustrates that the kind of attitude she has described is not gendered.
But of course the effects have been gendered in this case.
Maggie, thanks, also for the reference to Matthew. Church members do have a range of possible responses to injustice. And many of the women who've found themselves defined out of the MPD have responded by heaping fire on the heads of their ministerial peers. Some serve only in children and family ministries even though their calling is larger. Some may have withdrawn entirely. But I wouldn't want any of them to be caricatured as vengeful or out of Christ order. I don't think that would serve us well.
I think the question is, in which world is our kingdom?
Obviously, I don't believe in Magic Pixie Dust, but I really question whether a woman completely dedicated to God can have her ministry truncated by Pixie Dust Witholders.
But she might have to drive a cheaper car....
Excellent. Puts the boot squarely over the throat of the 'good 'ole boys' club at the high levels of pastoral ministry. The modus-operandi now is to keep it there and slowly grind it, crushing the wind out of the discriminatory paractice of excluding women from ordained ministry.
Jan Paulsen, a man who I am greatly missing right about now, was pro-women's ordination. Not only that, but the former ministerial director James Cress (R.I.P) was also pro-women's ordination. Two key people in just the right positions and they couldn't make this thing happen already? Come on! Paulsen just wasn't aggressive enough to push this issue and do the right thing. He could have stood firm against the haters and said this is going to happen whether you like it or not. Instead he kowtowed in fear to the likes of chauvinistic, patriarchal Sam Koranteng Pipim and the agenda of the rabid right and the female oppressive third world constituency. He defaulted to trying to pacify them to preserve some sort of tenuous 'unity' between the pros and cons that doesn't even exist. Add to that mix Doug Batchelor's recent amazingly offensive and carefully calculated (and timed with Wilson's inevitable election) broadside on female clergy and you have the creation of a formidable force that will not be taken down easily.
Now, the opportunity is gone. Now we have good old Teddy at the helm and you can bet the farm it is going to happen any time soon over his dead body. This is a man who Sam Pipim has in his back pocket. Wilson not only sympathizes with that segment, he has strong African ties. Wilson takes it a step further and believes women should not even be elders.
The dream is all but lost. It seems not even worth pursuing until the next five years are up and we can get rid of this present administration for a more tolerant, gender friendly one. But until then, we can agitate the issue and make Wilson's term the most unpleasant ever, and keep the controversy roiling until he sees we are not going to go away and bow to his anti-female pastor agenda.
Maggie -- it happens. Hard to believe, but yes.
How a woman in that situation works around the human and policy obstacles is her challenge to resolve, and I genuinely think each resolution will be unique.
Involved in all of this is how people define ministry, how they relate church policy to God's will, how they imagine conflicts between their heart convictions and church policy should be resolved, and who they might have around them to affirm or deter them either way. I don't blame someone who believes that what the GC votes in session is The Will of The Creator and therefore feels tied; their premise sets them up for that.
Sure we can thank God for hinderers; they can help build our character. But they can also cause us a lot of harm. It's fair to recognize both possibilities.
City Lights -- the whole of the right is not rabid, and the whole of the third world is not female oppressive.
Perhaps you don't realize this yet.
Yes, the "hinderers" caused Christ a lot of harm, didn't they? Yes, they truncated His ministry. He was young and could have served humanity many more years, surely that would have been better.
Do you believe that?
The question is not how "people define ministry" but how God sees our individual ministry, it seems to me.
How the abusive religious power brokers of Christ's time "defined ministry," and brought about his actual death, only furthered His earthly ministry, and completed it, wouldn't you say, KM?
"Till now you have not given your blood in your fight against sin...."
"He who humbles himself shall be promoted."
"A servant is not greater than his master."
While this is more an issue with Adventists I can say from the Catholic perspective that the reservation of ordination to men alone has absolutely nothing to do with patriarchy, lack of equality, or any of the other reasons stated in the article. For us it is a matter of fidelity to the deposit of faith given to us by Jesus himself. That is not blasphemy.
Some of Christ's hinderers killed him. Another managed his funds and then betrayed him; another called him the Christ, walked on water, denied him, and later led the group's first mass evangelism campaign. Hinderers serve a range of functions in our lives.
I don't believe that Jesus' and John the Baptist's paths were better than those of John the apostle, Gamaliel, Nicodemus, or Shaul/Paul simply because their public work was short and they were killed quickly. Nor were the latters' better for being long.
So, do you believe that not having Magic Pixie Dust can truly hinder a person's ministry in the eyes of God, the only eyes that matter?
Certainly the religious power brokers withheld it from Christ.
Maybe you just think women SDA clerics should drive as good cars as men clerics? I agree, but of what importance is that in the Big Picture?
Not every person's call is to work without the walls. Jesus' call was.
I suppose your insistence that MPD doesn't matter goes back to your earlier quip that no one should get it. Fair enough if that's what you deeply believe.
Are you being deliberately sarcastic?
I've said nothing about cars or material trappings.
Not that no one should get MPD, but why should anyone even want the blasted stuff?
Women are lowering themselves just hankering after it, it seems to me. It's just a glamour. It can't even be defined in Adventism, as our Catholic friends point out.
No, I'm not being sarcastic at all. If religious power brokers cannot prevent God from using a person any way He pleases, then the only thing MPD confers is money and status, temporal things of limited value.
But maybe you think religious power brokers can prevent God from using a person any way He pleases, even though Christ said It is finished?"
If you don't want it, that's fine, Maggie. I don't need it to do my work either. But none of that invalidates the fact that there are women in the Adventist denomination who feel called to minister as pastors and who realize at some point or another that under the current order they will not be recognized by their community in the way that their peer congregants or classmates will, notwithstanding ability, activity, or value to the whole, and solely because of their gender.
Perhaps you might benefit from talking with a few of the ladies in that situation. Have you ever done that?
I'm all for equal pay for equal work, as I said. This has nothing to do with an undefinable MPD that supposedly only men can confer.
If these women feel "called" to work in ministry, then God is in charge of their calling, and nothing can stay His hand.
Jesus was despised and rejected. He said all men would hate us. He said, "Follow me." Was He talking only to men?
Shirley Huffman Ponder, pastor at Loma Linda church, was my college roomate. I never dreamed back then that such a position would be open to her. Go Pastor Shirley!
http://www.lluc.org/article.php?id=108
There are a whole world of reasons why I'm not persuaded by appeals to the status quo. Most of those reasons are related to my background and the fact that I don't dissociate "this world" from "the world to come" in my head or heart.
I can understand why people who anticipate a very distinct demarcation between "the world" and "Christ's kingdom" might feel more comfortable withdrawing or dissociating in theory or fact.
I can understand it but can't co-sign it.
As I recall, it was only because of a civil court judgment that this church began offering female administrative employees equal pay for equal work. Until then, the bible and "God's will" were the refuge of the status quo. Hard to see how anything has changed there except the topic.
I think Jesus didn't come to serve the status quo!
One may follow Christ within an organization and follow him outside of one. I don't believe I'm qualified to judge on your behalf whether you or any other soul should stay or go, or how to stay or go.
Whether you were roommates with a female minister wasn't what I asked. I offered the suggestion of discussion because you have said you don't understand the reasons someone might seek community affirmation in the form of ordination. If you've discussed it with your friend and still don't get it then perhaps you might talk to others. Perhaps you'll never get it no matter how many people you speak with. That's a possibility too. Then what?
Hopefully you'll be able to get on with your own calling regardless of whether you understand others'.
The fatal mistake killing women's ordination was at Utrecht in 1955 (?) when the G.C. made the decision to only ordain women when the entire world church could, uniformly, approve such a measure.
This probably forever sealed, or doomed, women's hope of ordination. Had they allowed each union or division to ordain or not ordain so as not to limit the church's mission in those areas, we would likely have had women's ordination in most of the first world countries many years ago. It is the tail now, that swings the tiger.
Elaine
Yes, valid points, KM. As I said, I'm not saying they shouldn't want community validation. I'm suggesting they consider the substance, meaning and worth of that validation.
My point is that nothing can hinder a person's ministry who is dedicated to God, and expecting community validation may be unrealistic at best, considering the path Christ has called us to.
If Shirley wants that validation, I'd never tell her she shouldn't get it, and the equal pay part is a no-brainer, it seems to me. And I'm not surprised that Shirley got where she did - she is the most lovely, giving person you'd ever want to meet - her personality requires no validation! And I'm definitely an old sour puss, and she knows it. :) I've seen her beautiful backyard garden, and it is the perfect expression of the beauty and magic of her soul.
And I'm just saying this discussion is very parochial, but why shouldn't it be, really?
But I'll be quiet now.
Just one more thing - some men have said that their own ordinations seem less meaningful because women are excluded. See, I think that the men will be the ones to lead here, not women "standing up for their rights." The Cross will always be a scandal.
There are former SDA ministers who are now serving as pastors in non-SDA churches, as they feel called by God to "minister" to people, not in merely promoting the unique SDA doctrines, which after all, is a very small and limited part of any minister's duties. Much more time is spent in church administration, consoling the sick, conducting funerals, performing wedding and baptisms, etc. If a poll were taken, it might show that only a very small portion of their time is spent in giving Bible studies or promoting SDA doctrines.
Chaplains are not allowed to "push" doctrinal views, but offer a unique service for people who are truly in need. A good friend, a sometime contributor to Spectrum blogs, a graduate of another theological school, has long been serving as hospital chaplain. "Sunday churches" as they are often called, are not operated by the Devil, in spite of some SDA labels as "Babylon harlots."
Elaine
We had baptisms all this week @ my local church, with our only female elder ever in our history performing one of them. We are, if not the most conservative Hispanic church in the conference doing this for the first time. This would have never happen with the past administration. It was a very especial moment of reflection. It took couples years to ripe for the moment. The church become open to the Idea and most of them have not oppose it. Most local churches have autonomy on many issues and are not interested in what the world church is doing. I do not consider my self a liberal by no means. I do have a parachute mentality when it comes to issues that could divide the church.
..." the reservation of ordination to men alone has absolutely nothing to do with patriarchy, lack of equality, or any of the other reasons stated in the article. For us it is a matter of fidelity to the deposit of faith given to us by Jesus himself."
================================
Fr Jim's claim is a bold one, but does it hold up? To claim that the various practices of the Church that subjugate women to second- or third- class members of the Kingdom has " nothing to do with patriarchy" is indefensible. What does Jim think patriarchy is, if not the cultural use and justification of the subjugation of women to men's ends?
It would be better for him to argue in favor of patriarchy and then claim that Jesus's leadership practices, the customs of the early Christians, and the ongoing functions of the Church fit and give legitimacy to that model. That would be coherent and consistent, and we could begin the discussion again.
In the meanwhile, Donna, your argument is built on the ground of the historical relativity of patriarchy, and the illegitimacy of paternalism (your strongest assumption, as I read it). You will need to defend that position as well against those who argue that biblical and cultural models from the ancient world still hold... if not, why not?
In the interests of clear and compassionate discussions that affect the lives of millions....
Culture cannot be separated from religion as both are structured by men. Too close investigation can reveal the secretive attitude to power wherever it is practiced.
As someone has said: " It is best not to watch sausages and laws being made." To that, should be added religion. The process is both messy and corrupting.
Elaine
Leaders in the world headquartes use a racist arguments to explain their sexist views: now that is rich.
______________________________________________________________
Carolyn Parsons
Graeme, part of the problem is that most of the people who argue as you do have never bothered to consider the reasons why the Catholic Church only ordains men. You assume, using modern secular categories, that the reasons are nefarious. I cannot answer for why the SDA church does what it does, but I can give the Catholic reasons based on our own faith.
I refer you to:
http://www.ewtn.com/library/curia/cdfinsig.htm
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_letters/documents/h...
Your model is one based on power and subjugation, see your own terminology. Ours is not. The Holy Father states clearly that the Church doesn't have the power to ordain women.
I feel a little like this is the same discussion some have on gay marriage and minority voting. "Why do gay people want to get married? It's just a piece of paper." "Why do minorities want to vote? If you're not rich and white your vote doesn't count anyway."
Both questions divert attention from the facts of inequity and create a false dilemma in which one can either redress imbalances or contribute to the evolution of systems -- but not both.
Each person will learn to frame and reframe their individual relation to their communities on their own timeline and in their own way. I'm not comfortable presuming that people want to participate equitably in an organization only because they haven't yet thought about the value of community opinion relative to God's opinion or internal conviction. I can allow for the possibility that they have already thought about it and come up with a different meaning metric for it than I have, or will if they do.
Community change is not the sole responsibility of those who currently hold power, or of those are disenfranchised. I actually can't think of any social movement in which it has been the primary responsibility of one subgroup. Always, change has been the fruit of conflict and cooperation among accommodaters, assimilationists, radicals, and inconveniently assertive minorities. In every movement there have been those who say "Softly softly," those who say "Nothing's wrong; it's God's will," those who say "This is nonsense," and those who say "Maybe the next generation will do it." Why would that change? I don't know.
I don't think it has to.
I appreciate your points, and I can't argue with them, KM.
Can you find any Scriptural support for standing up for one's rights, male or female? Any at all?
Okay, I said I'd be quiet....
But, please, someone, talk about this magical ordination thing, what power it confers, where that power comes from, and why women don't get any of this sacrosanct stuff - whatever it is - Magic Male Pixie Dust, it would seem.
It's the elephant in the room!
If it's this tainted, why want it?
I mean - wouldn't it be like mainlining testosterone, or something?! :) (That was supposed to be funny...sorry....)
I think this whole issue could die an ignominious death if people just saw that the ordination emperor has no clothes.
Then we could have a sensible discussion about equal pay for equal work.
Thanks.
One more thing - one of the things I most remember about Shirley in college was how she loved Pollyanna, and how optimistic and outgoing she was, compared to my bleak, withdrawn, depressive outlook - poor Shirley, having to live with me! But she was always her bubbly self, and never judgmental.
It seems to have worked out well for her.
Moses appealed to Pharaoh not once, not twice, but ten times. The people could have left without engaging the hierarchy at all. They could have left before any plagues ensued. They did not. Lots of suffering.
The Israelite army was not a defense force. It was an aggression force that asserted tribal rights over the Canaanite natives with incredible conflict and bloodshed along the way.
Elijah called down fire on two captains and their charges before the third saw smoke and asked nicely. And the Carmel showdown was not the work of a retiring soul.
I would say Elisha established his right to community respect via his prayers against the boys. At cost for the boys and their families.
John the Baptist asserted his right to speak and baptize as an itinerant rather than officiate as the priest he otherwise would have been. He could have just had a nice quiet hermit life in the wilderness, without drama or visibility. He did not.
Paul spends countless passages in his letters reaming off his authority and credentials, along with the community responsibility to support those who serve them.
It's part of the storyline even if you choose not to imitate it.
The discussion about ordination may well strike you or others as fruitless; if so, participating in that discussion is optional. I do feel it's disingenuous to say "Meh, it's stupid -- let's talk about something completely different" when the subject at hand is clearly important to many people, including the OP. "Equal pay for equal work" is not "ordination". They are distinct subjects and it would be helpful to dissociate them in this thread.
"the reservation of ordination to men alone has absolutely nothing to do with patriarchy, lack of equality, or any of the other reasons stated in the article. For us it is a matter of fidelity to the deposit of faith given to us by Jesus himself."
================================
Fr Jim's claim is a bold one, but does it hold up? "
I believe it does hold up and I seldom find myself in agreement with Jim. Incidentally many of the answers on the subject can be found here if you are willing to read them. Seldom, if ever, do find anyone engage in trying to refute the truths described in these articles. Because they are much too compelling?? No blasphemy at all, Donna. Is it an unwillingness to accept God's plan for our lives? WO is totally unrelated to equality -- it is properly related to function.
http://www.adventistsaffirm.org/article.php?id=7
KM, please notice - I'm saying talk about ordination! Puleeze talk about ordination! What is this magical thing that is supposedly such a prize? See where it leads you! Do you dare?
Who is dedicated to the staus quo here?
And I'm talking about asserting personal rights, not theocratic injunctions to murder and mayhem coming down from on high.
Paul sort of consigned his credentials to the dungheap, as I recall.
Taping fingers together now....
Donna talked a lot about ordination in her OP.
I listed individuals, bar the army.
In one passage, he said he would count his heritage as loss. In others he insisted on his right to speak and adjudicate among the believers.
We can totally have different opinions about that.
Deal. :)
But there has to be a bit of "hocus pocus" in determining which "individuals" (read "men") have been called to what service, it seems to me.
Who gets to decide that, and where does that power come from? Hocus pocus, I would say, or some sort of SDA Apostolic Succession.
If it's hocus pocus, the rite is meaningless at present. No? If the Holy Spirit were actually deciding, then women would be ordained. No?
Does the Holy Spirit ordain abusers? Apparently, in my experience. Or else they were ordained by hocus pocus. The "Holy Spirit" seems to promote them, rather than un-ordain them. Or maybe hocus pocus promotes them.
Believe in SDA Apostolic Succession?
Shut up, Maggie, just shut up.....
A comment that builds on Genesis injunctions from R. Samson Hirsch:
The earth was not created as a gift to you. You have been given to the earth, to treat it with respectful consideration, as God's earth, and everything on it as God's creation, as your fellow creatures, to be respected, loved, and helped to attain their purpose according to God's will... To this end, your heartstrings vibrate sympathetically with any cry of distress sounding anywhere in Creation, and with any glad sound uttered by a joyful creature.
Your Friend's comment references the question of gendered purposes. There are some biological ones -- incubation being one. But he, and some other commentators, go beyond biological gendered purposes to propose additional social gendered purposes. This, despite the various approaches to both sex and gender worldwide, the multitude of social orders across cultures, the variation in our own Christian religion to sex, gender, and social roles, and the variation over the last 150+ within Adventism on the subject.
Maggie, you don't have to shut up. But if you would stop editing your posts, especially after new comments have been made, and instead add new posts to the bottom of the thread as additional thoughts occur to you, that would make the whole conversation easier to follow.
At least it would be helpful for me.
Cheers. :)
""This, despite the various approaches to both sex and gender worldwide,.." And this is supposed to alter our view of Scripture? Unrelated to the question at hand, totally.
And have you read my references?
Your Friend, our view of Scripture is not sealed off from our culture, our cultures are shaped and reshaped by our views of Scripture, and both views and cultures change over time.
The complex path of the Jewish community from antiquity to today is quite the testament to that.
Since it can be hard to see one's own shadow, it can be useful to trace the development of other communities and see the patterns at work there too.
Donna,
What a great job of fleshing out what I learned from Graham Maxwell in the early sixties.
Richard Ludders
Not everything is as complex as certain persons, including some theologians, would like to make it. And Scripture does not change. We may wish to change its truths by weaving into it the ambiguities that the devil would have us weave into it. Its truths are forever an anon.
Isn't it human nature to find the paths of least resistance that favor our own inclinations and ignore a thus saith the Lord?
There is no "magical pixie dust" deposited at ordination. But there is such an out-moded topic as equal pay for equal work, and that seems to have become entangled in the discussion of ordination. Public recognition is not so much desired as the court-ordered idea of equal pay for equal work, and non-discrimination based solely on sex Yes, churches are exempt, yet they are also beneficiaries of tax-free operation but this does not apply to all church institutions, per the Merikay Silver case. Ordained ministers receive extra stipends not given to females who do the same ministry. That's a good example for a religious institution?
For those who are comfortable with being limited solely because of their genital organs (that's the only distinction possible) there hasn't been too much of a demand for their usage in the ministry so why should it be so important in a job description that does not require their use? Am I missing something?
Elaine
KM - sorry - won't do that again! I usually try to do that only if my post is still on the top.
"Public recognition is not so much desired as the court-ordered idea of equal pay for equal work, and non-discrimination based solely on sex."
If that's true, who is admitting it, Elaine?
Everything seems centered around the Magic Male Pixie Dust, as far as I can see, which muddies the issues hopelessly, it seems to me.
Pay scales and job opportunities are administrative functions.
Confirming the Holy Spirit's calling is a vastly muddy issue.
Must one admit, or confess to wrong-doing before it becomes wrong? Tell me how that works. For most conditions, evidence, undisputed, is the necessary evidence needed, not admission or denial.
Yes, we understand that pay scales are administrative functions, but if an administrator is limited in his (not her) ability to make decisions based on the duties and qualifications, all is well. But, unlike most positions today where applicants' sex and age are not permitted, the church has unlimited discretionary powers to hire and fire at will. Of course, I can't imageine why anyone would want such an employer, but the Holy Spirit as an employer signs no pay checks, nor do food stores and gas stations barter in less than cash today. Yes, it was an entirely different economic system in Jesus' time. But with different times, different rules. If Jesus were here today he would not be allowed to carry his mission as he did then, so any suggestions that those are the standards we should live by would be most inappropriate to follow today. .
Elaine
Well, Shirley is already doing the work she is obviously called to do, so if she's not getting paid fairly for doing work ordained men get paid more for, she should be, obviously.
She's the last person I would expect to agitate about it, though - she started out volunteering, after all. But we haven't talked recently, or in depth ever, about these issues.
Maybe Adventist women are squeamish about calling themselves feminists, you think, Elaine? Maybe they should be?
Fr JIm says: "You assume, using modern secular categories, that the reasons are nefarious.... Your model is one based on power and subjugation, see your own terminology. Ours is not. The Holy Father states clearly that the Church doesn't have the power to ordain women."
=================================
Actually, I think the reasons are historical and cultural, not "nefarious." I have never written about my "model" in these columns, so you have never read it (I think). I agree that the Holy Father doesn't have the power to ordain women. And I've read the links you suggest and other RC discussions, and taken several classes in RC theology from RC teachers.
How do I agree?
Let's take a short primer on social succession models. The model of authority, descent, transmission and generation which prefers or demands (there's a range) a strict male lineage--whether familial/biological or apostolic--is known as patriarchy. Models in which the line of transmission occurs through women we call matriarchy. Models which prefer a non-lineal narrative, or ones which prefers historical linkage of ideas or spiritual likeness, etc. usually but not necessarily include members of both sexes, such as royalty, have different names, and are often "mixed" in effect. (This is not just a Christian issue.... Islamic traditions are split into Sunni and Shi'ite factions on a similar basis. Then there's Sufism.)
The RC pattern of apostolic succession and its practices of male-only ordination are clearly patriarchal, not matriarchal, and not a mixed model. That is all I am claiming.
Do you agree?
Graeme
Well-argued, Donna. And, I might add, the world church is ready for this, if the survey conducted last summer at the General Conference session is at all representative. Fully two-thirds of the more than 1000 people interviewed were in favor of women's ordination, including many from countries that were thought to oppose it. We were told it was the leaders who were in opposition, because they were afraid women pastors would take positions away from male pastors.
Carrol,
That's probably a legitmate fear. The old saying "a woman has to work twice as hard, be twice as good, and she might have a chance at doing what any man can do." Freud was probably right, except in reverse: men have a primal fear of being castrated (symbolically, of course) by a woman.
Elaine
Jesus chose women to be the His first witness after the resurrection, “It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and several other women who told the apostles what had happened” (Lk 24:10 NLT). He empowered women to tell male disciples the resurrection story, without which there would be no church or Christianity. Women were the first preachers of the Good News that Jesus conquered death.
The action of Jesus in choosing women is permissive for a change of order from temple male priesthood to included women. This lesson of Jesus was not random but he intended to teach a new principle that carries theological implications.
The disciples were did not perceive this new order that women can receive a call from God to minister to men. They followed the Hebrew, Greek and Roman model of male leadership as Elders of the church, their culture influenced their counsels as recorded in their letters, as is ours today.
How would the history of Christianity be re-written if women were equal partners? Would there be less bloodshed over theology? What would the “law of being” in England look like that put male priest at the top and women at the bottom? How many women would have been saved from a harsh life servitude to men? Would Christian history be kinder, sweeter and more gentle if women carried a equal voice beside men within the church. The fact is we need both to be balanced. Agree?
Frank, this is complicated, as I'm sure you're aware.
Jesus did not "choose women" to be among the twelve disciples whom He gave "authority" to. Women are simply actors in the Jesus story - He didn't overtly choose or empower them, that I can see (correct me).
And I really think that women don't inherently handle power any better than men. The news has been telling us of the three women who pushed us into this war (a rose by any other name) with Libya, for example.
The danger isn't "paternalism," as I see it, the danger is "power over," and I think Dr. Philip Zimbardo would agree. Dominion in the book of Genesis can only be made a "service" word through fiat.
It is a "power over" word in Hebrew (correct me), but be that as it may....
The SDA church hierarchy is an old boy's club (correct me). Ordination is used as a power-over tool of exclusion, and as such is tainted, and its pedigree is confusing, it seems to me.
David Hamstra: "Ordination," a term our pioneers adopted, is loaded with unintended theological baggage. It is originally a Catholic term that implies an elite class of ministers, which is contrary to the Priesthood of all Believers principle. In many local contexts, Adventist ordination comes with un-Christlike authority that I would not want men exercising over me, to say nothing of women. This suggests that we may need to rethink the language we use to set apart full-time ministers of both genders. (cf. Matt 20:25-28)
http://www.atoday.com/elevating-our-conversation-about-women%E2%80%99s-o...
Letting women into the old boy's club...well...why is this desirable? Is that going to suddenly make ordination a holy instrument, when it has been used as a power-over instrument? Is that going to make a priesthood-of-believers culture?
Or maybe we don't really want a priesthood-of-believers culture?
Maybe the hierarchical structure of the church is the root of this, and making women hierophants... well...maybe we want women hierophants that reinforce the existing hierarchal SDA structure?
Donna Haerich: "Early on with the separation of a priestly class from the common worshiper, access to the Holy and to desired spiritual benefits were strictly controlled. ...
Abuse of authority and power has been the prerogative of men whenever religion is institutionalized."
Raymond F. Cottrell: "At the local conference level the Seventh-day Adventist church has a representative form of government, above that level the polity of the Seventh-day Adventist is hierarchical: authority flows downward and members in local congregations have virtually no voice.... the Seventh-day Adventist church is a closed, self-operating, and self-perpetuating system, similar to the Roman Catholic church, in which those in authority are not responsible to lower echelons. Above the local conference level, those in authority are not elected by, representative of, or administratively accountable to, local congregations or the membership at large."
(Raymond F. Cottrell, former Associate Editor of the Adventist Review and the Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, in Spectrum (Journal of Association of Adventist Forums), vol 14, #4, March, 1984, p 42).
http://www.everythingimportant.org/SDA/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=527
[Elaine - our old friend Eugene. :) ]
So now, Donna, when women are ordained into the SDA hierarchical institution, the abuse of power and authority can be their prerogative also? What's to prevent it?
Is this what we're seeking deliberately and with intent?
Or, more likely, maybe we're just inadvertently stumbling into it....
Well, one thing is certain: Donna's article has received the most comments in one day than any other here (Alexander will correct if this is in error).
The men vs. women discussions will never end. As long as men are in power, they will decide. I am always reminded of Lysistrata who used the only powers then available to her and her fellow sisters, to "rock" her world. What if men gave the orders and women simply didn't "hear" them? That seems to have been the policy used when women were first appointed as pastors: never ask permission; never explain" as the Nike motto: "Just do it." In "blind" job applications, when only initials were used, women came out ahead of their male cohorts; demonstrating that qualifications alone are not always that crucial. At least, according to the latest statstics (see the latest Newsweek cover article "The Beached White Male," it is the men who are losing ground and unable to find work as quickly as women. Are employers now realizing something that we women have known for years?
Rather than "ordination" how about "coordination" between equals in the ministry?
Elaine
The problem is systemic, as I see it, Elaine. Women are already in ministry. They want administrative positions closed to those not ordained.
Why? Why?
This whole hierarchical system is a dinosaur, and a very expensive, top-heavy and abusive one that gobbles up so much of the hard-earned tithe money that one simply can't baptize it holy!
"Although the SDA denomination is Protestant, it has ironically developed a Roman Catholic style hierarchical system. This is in sharp contrast to a Congregational form of church management, which is far more Gospel friendly than the Roman Catholic model.
The SDA's do not like to advertise the fact that they have developed a hardcore, top-heavy hierarchy, because they know this is not a legitimate form of church organization for any Protestant denomination. So they dishonestly claim to have a "representative form of church government" when in fact that have something far different that has little to do with democracy or a "representative government."
But they don't seem to care about such a point because a hierarchy is the best way for the few to control the many. So they try and disguise how they really operate. But no one should be fooled by the fact that they are some similarities with a genuine democratic process. This hardly makes them anything but what they are: a hardcore religious hierarchy that is trying to pretend it is something else."
http://en.allexperts.com/q/Seventh-Day-Adventists-2318/hierarchy-Seventh...
[Our old fire-breathing friend Tom Norris, Elaine. :) ]
I think women have a role to play in remedying this, but not by joining the old boy's club.
But it's really none of my bidness, I guess....
Maggie, it's not my business either, but sexism in ministry is one of the last holdouts for male control.
Only one of the reasons I refuse to belong to a club that so discriminates against more than half its members, and has been since the Christian church began. They don't need me and I don't need the church to follow the Golden Rule; plus I have no fear for the future. Without the fear of hell, where would the church be today? It has always been their best trump card.
Elaine
I'm not for sexism in ministry, either, Elaine, but I think if we don't seat this issue in the larger systemic picture, we'll just perpetuate the power-over problems and keep investing in a dinosaur system, while thinking we're solving something.
Women are not immune to abusing power! The SDA system can't help but abuse power because of its structure, IMO (not because hopelessly bad people are in charge), and I think Philip Zimbardo would agree. Women can't fix a system that is doomed by investing in it.
David Moberg talks about the life cycle of churches:
1. Incipient organization
2. Formal organization
3. Stage of maximum efficiency
4. Institutional stage
5. Disintegration
http://img.forministry.com/1/1B/1BC1FB5D-28D9-44A3-8892BFFCE67463C6/DOC/...
I give it another generation before the young people who are, almost entirely, against such discriminations either in or out of the church. At that time, it is no longer "their" church, and when it becomes so, they have no vested interest in seeing it continue in the status quo. One needs only to see the devastating loss of young people in the first world nations to see where any church is headed. When the costs exceed the benefis, it's over, folks.
Elaine
So agree Maggie with the dinosaur system. Never could understand why women fight tooth and nail to be part of the 'old boys' system, although i do understand the fight against sexism Now, in politics alone, woman are proving to be just as 'old boy' as the ' old boys'. In my naivety I didn't think it would happen.
Elaine...so agree with the trump card...it's wobbling now and when it finally collapses, all hell will break loose....lol
Graeme, no. Our reasons are theological.
Fr. Jim, I agree with your analysis and reason for the church in which you serve. However, for many Protestant churches, they have had no problem of ordaining women and have been doing so for years.
It is the Adventist church that does not ordain women, but has repeatedly stated that there is no theological reason for not doing so; only an expedient one that they fear would fracture the church. Same results, different reasons.
Elaine
MaGGIE
You have it entirely backwards. We are the fire fighters. The fire eaters are the fire breathing dragons of orgainized faux religion who have the Mark of the Beast on their bumper "My Way or the Highway!" Those guys write "The Truth shall set you free" and then want you under their thumb.
We say "No way Jose!" Tom Z.
Here is my conundrum. Today most Christian faiths, liberal and conservative, have come to the conclusion that women should be recognized as clergy and they use the Bible as the basis for their practice. Two major holdouts being Catholicism and Southern Baptists. As Fr. Jim has shared, Catholics follow church tradition as defined by the pope; Southern Baptists rely on a literal reading of what they believe to be inerrant scripture. Adventists fall into neither camp – or do they? Hence my conundrum.
"Adventists fall into neither camp – or do they? Hence my conundrum."
Old. Boys. Club. One of the world's most sought-after camps, even, puzzlingly, by women.
Elaine, I am only referring to my Church. Most of this has to do with Adventist theology and I have no dog in the fight over who they ordain. I am trying to keep it brief and only when it refers to the Catholic Church, which is what Graeme is talking about. My main point is that we don't do what we do because of sexism, patriarchy etc.
Maggie: "He didn't overtly choose or empower them, that I can see (correct me)."
Women were the first to honor the resurrection, “Jesus met them (women) and greeted them. And they ran to him, grasped his feet, and worshiped him. Then Jesus said to them, ‘Don't be afraid! Go tell my brothers to leave for Galilee, and they will see me there’” (Matt 28:9-10). Why did Jesus not go himself to the disciples instead of sending women? I believe that he had a purpose in mind, he desired to involve women. They were not just bystanders who happened to be handy. Jesus chose them. He broke with Jewish and Roman custom, a male dominated society—and send women to ministry to apostles. What Jewish Rabbi would receive instruction from women? Women were given permission to instruct men!
An angel gave women the command “go and till His disciples…” (Mk 16:7). I believe it is compelling evidence giving authority to women to share the Good News. A new religious society was to be formed a more dynamic church with joint leadership. In this new society there were no clerical rules for Levities only. The “go” (Matt 28) commission to baptize appears to have been given to many people, because “some doubted.” The Holy Spirit on Pentecost empowered equally men and women (Act 1).
Notice a “servant girl” (Mk 14:69) twice corrected Peter. Again, although minor, God used this woman to lead Peter to be honest; a danger male leadership is prone.
A church with joint male and female leadership is like a good marriage, to deny women a place at the table is to promote celibacy, a very dangerous condition.
OK. I sure not everyone will agree, these just my ideas.
"...send women to ministry to apostles....
You just said it all in six words, Frank: women as go-fers. :)
Go-fers can be real "involved."
It's pretty hard to get "joint leadership" out of that.
I'm all for joint leadership, but not in top-heavy, intrinsically abusive hierarchical systems.
I am reminded of an essay by former US President Jimmy Carter published back in 2009 on why he was severing his ties with the Southern Baptist Convention.
The truth is that male religious leaders have had - and still have - an option to interpret holy teachings either to exalt or subjugate women. They have, for their own selfish ends, overwhelmingly chosen the latter.
Their continuing choice provides the foundation or justification for much of the pervasive persecution and abuse of women throughout the world. This is in clear violation not just of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights but also the teachings of Jesus Christ, the Apostle Paul, Moses and the prophets, Muhammad, and founders of other great religions - all of whom have called for proper and equitable treatment of all the children of God. It is time we had the courage to challenge these views.
--Robert Jacobson
Maggie said: The problem is systemic, as I see it, Elaine. Women are already in ministry. They want administrative positions closed to those not ordained.
Why? Why?
Some women have been gifted by God to be pastors, and others have been gifted to be administrators. Why not allow them to use the gifts they have been given to the glory of God? It seems to me you are judging people based on your perceptions.
“Eve had been perfectly happy by her husband's side in her Eden home; but, like restless modern Eves, she was flattered with the hope of entering a higher sphere than that which God had assigned her. In attempting to rise above her original position, she fell far below it. A similar result will be reached by all who are unwilling to take up cheerfully their life duties in accordance with God's plan. {AH 115.2}”
Enron had administrators, Carol - probably even gifted, visionary ones, but the problem was systemic. :>)
What I'm saying is that the top-heavy, hierarchical structure of the organization can only produce abuses at one level or another. The endemic sexual abuse problems in Adventism and Catholicism are systemic because of the structure of the systems, it seems to me.
Did anyone see the PBS special the other night about the sexual abuse problems in Catholic churches in native villages in Alaska? Heartbreaking.
What percent of the NAD budget goes to upkeep & running of the GC building (someone talked about that recently)? Why do sexual abuse complaints get routed to Risk Management - or at least used to (absolutely horrifying to experience!)?
"I was a suicidal sixteen year old child. They sent me to Risk Management? Was I really such a risk? I needed to be 'managed?'”
http://www.kellyclarkattorney.com/news/milo-academy-faces-lawsuit-over-s...
Yeah, that's how I felt.
Is anyone called to administer the rearranging of the deck chairs on the Titanic?
You're right - that's my perception - the only one I have access to. :)
I think women have a lot to offer at every level from pastoring to administration, and especially at home, but this SDA hierarchical system is not redeemable, IMO. It is an anachronism.
the NT clearly shows believers are empowered to change existing rituals and create new ones
/bevin
http://www.theelders.org/womens-initiatives
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/10/opinion/10kristof.html?_r=1
Maggie, the problems you cite are terrible & obviously can't be fixed by women's ordination or any single silver bullet. But neither are these problems better because we maintain gender inequality.
Yes, Bevin!
Hopeful, but the system is the Borg that is everyone's enemy! The Borg will assimilate everyone!
"You WILL be assimilated!"
here is a big Christian leader who is glad he is not a woman
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouVK6csCFY4&feature=related
"Your Friend," that's such an interesting quote given Ellen White's own life--writing inspired counsel, preaching, leading, managing secretaries/literary assistants, & travel which required leaving her children in the care of others. And let's not forget, Prophetess, & our most important church pioneer.
Maybe, if enough women were integrated into administration they would graduallly redeem the heirarchical system... There are certainly a lot of (NAD) men, including many pastors, who would be in favor of that.
good luck
It's amazing to me how some are still clinging to this dream by their fingernails. That they could maintain such a optimistic outlook even in the face of one of the most oppressive, cloistered, intolerant administrations ever is incredible. Really? Serious wake-up call is on order here I'm afraid.
It is never going to happen people. Not on Wilson's watch anyhow. We can huff and puff and fight for it all we want, which we should do, but the reality is no one should ever seriously entertain the absurd idea that it could actually ever happen. Know this: The Sam Pipim brigade with its legions of followers from South America and Africa will NEVER ALLOW IT TO HAPPEN. PERIOD. Every single time it arises at a CG constituency meeting it will be VOTED DOWN again and again. Why? Because it is never even close when the results are tallied. Paulsen brought it to the floor at the last session knowing full well it was going to hit the dirt by a landslide. Pipim and his ilk have the majority vote and they will ALWAYS challenge it and fight it and campaign the anti crowd to drum up the tons of votes they need. Never mind the fact that Paulsen is the last we will see of woman's ordination ever hitting the constituency floor again. To Wilson it is a non-issue and not even under discussion. He will never allow it to be voted on again while he is in power. That anyone could even think for a moment woman's ordination will pass by a majority vote and be sanctioned across the board worldwide while Wilson is on deck defies belief.
No, the answer is clear. We all know what should be done but nobody seems to want to say it. The NAD has to follow in the footsteps of the Southern California Conference and basically tell the administration and the rest of the world church to take a flying fig on this issue and go ahead and do what they want. To hell with this ridiculous notion of 'unity' and waiting until the whole world-wide church agrees on the issue and is 'ready' to move ahead with it! Are we completely stupid or what? THIS WILL NEVER HAPPEN. The third world constituency and Pipim's cronies will NEVER be 'ready' to 'move ahead' with the issue! Why? Because the issue for them is THEOLOGICAL not cultural. Pro-woman's ordination advocates will have to fight them for every inch of ground they want to secure on the matter and fight them bitterly. They are ready to go to war on the issue. Are we?
NAD needs to do what is best for their constituency. This has gone on long enough and is it completely ridiculous we are still hashing and deliberating this matter with the women-oppressors in the church in the 21st century!
Break out of Wilson's patriarchal clutches and ORDAIN THE FEMALE PASTORS OF THE NAD. And tell the whining divisions who cry about how our doing this 'negatively affects them' (oh please) that they need to deal with it because this IS GOING TO HAPPEN.
There. Was that so hard? Problem solved.
Maggie, that 's quite a pessimistic view! One to which you are entitled, but one that I would think no one who is employed by the church would be inclined to agree with. Those who work for the church are not blind to its flaws, but (only speaking for myself at this point) seek to be the change they want to see. Working from the inside provides a greater opportunity to effect change.
As for the MPD, no one believes that it does anything "special". However, how can we claim to be a church that values everyone equally if we don't demonstrate that in practice. It would be just as well to get rid of it altogether and give it to no one at all. However, from a pratical standpoint, that won't happen. Ordination DOES have legal and taxation implications. It really SHOULD be discussed in terms of the employment implications instead of as MPD. But as for right now, ordination is what is conferred to those who have credentials to do certain things in the ministerial work--which is fine--but we shouldn't act as if it is MPD. And we definitely shouldn't act as if being suited for it is a matter of anatomy.
1) Some believe reform is possible. Some believe they can utilize their administrative gifts for God's glory. Yes some may abuse it. There are good female leaders and bad female leaders, just like there are both good and bad male leaders. But the belief that "women will abuse it too" is not a good enough reason to continue excluding women. I can think of at least 2 women who would be excellent conference presidents--who believe that they can make positive change, who have administrative gifts, who have proven themselves to be spiritual and level headed. Yet the current criteria for the MPD would preclude them from demonstrating how God might use them in those positions.
2) The way we treat women (which is quite a public statement) is a witness to our churched and non-churched neighbors, our families (including MY OWN family) who observe and wonder about our denomination, and our young girls who develop alot of self-worth from school, home, and church. If those girls go to church school, 2/3 of their sources of self-assessment tell them that they're valuable...just not QUITE as valuable as the boys around them.
Ordination is a small thing, women can and do continue to minister without it, but the church's stance on this issue (and many others) make it inconsistent and a bad witness.
If you break out of Wilson's patriarchal clutches you will still be in...patriarchal clutches.
Because that's the system that is set up.
And if you integrate women, you will have assimilated women into a system that is top-down and not accountable to the grassroots.
You know I'm right.
C. Ray, okay, if I'm pessimistic, name a single top-down power system that has voluntarily dismantled itself from within to be more democratic (and not just bloated itself into implosion).
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mountain_ear/118960209/
I'm not saying there aren't any - maybe there are. Are there?
Who was it that was recently talking about taking out a level of the bureaucracy in Adventism? Did I dream that?
Raymond F. Cottrell: "At the local conference level the Seventh-day Adventist church has a representative form of government, above that level the polity of the Seventh-day Adventist is hierarchical: authority flows downward and members in local congregations have virtually no voice.... the Seventh-day Adventist church is a closed, self-operating, and self-perpetuating system, similar to the Roman Catholic church, in which those in authority are not responsible to lower echelons. Above the local conference level, those in authority are not elected by, representative of, or administratively accountable to, local congregations or the membership at large."
*******************
And this is where the problem finds its genesis. We have an administrative clergy that is divided from the laity. I have argued on other threads that this is a hold over from the medieval church and totally at odds with the priesthood of all believers. I was told that I was reading this into the issue and into the NT.
Well, apparently Raymond Cottrell was doing the same . According to him, we have a system that mimics that of Roman Catholicism...a priesthood not accountable and divided from the body of believers, who have no say in its operations. We don't believe in any ontological change and don't call them priests, but other than that, we operate on a similar administrative and leadership basis.
How can we expect the Spirit to work freely, when we have institutionalized his presence to the margins?
Thanks...
Frank
Exactly, Frank, and women will just be assimilated by the Borg.
KM thought I was championing the status quo, but really I'm championing a breakout revolution by women, and anyone else who doesn't want to be assimilated by the Borg.
This is not a liberal versus conservative issue!
Thanks...
Maggie
http://www.everythingimportant.org/SDA/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=527
"Working from the inside provides a greater opportunity to effect change"
Posted by C. Ray - Sat, 04/23/2011 - 19:58
------------------------------------------------------
Sorry C. Ray, but as an ex-employee of the SDA church (at Division level), I just don't agree. Evidence would suggest that even a GC president has limited capacity to effect change - Jan Paulsen didn't manage to break through on women's ordination. I do admire your spirit though, thanks for your post.
Thank you, Fay, for this enlightening clip - it should be required viewing! This is the mindset of many, even in our own church.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouVK6csCFY4&feature=related
Maggie, the Borg say "assimilate"; the Daleks say "exterminate".
This subject has always held a special spot in my heart. My oldest sister Nancy Eastman Marter was very active in working towards WO and other womens advocacy issues right up until her death in August 2008. She was such a humble yet powerful example and advocate at all levels of the church. Although she got discouraged at times she NEVER let that slow down her mission of spreading the gospel !!! Whether that was in Africa or Washington DC she always said and lived the creedo "keep looking up for our redemption is near !!! "
As most will agree, this subject objectively makes "no sense" currently and I'm sure when we get to the other side we won't be worried about it but the " injustice" continues to reflect "badly" on our representation and understanding of God !! That is the real problem, it undermines our spreading of the gospel because we "talk the talk but don't walk the walk" so to speak. I believe we should continue to be engaged in trying to bring change BUT we need to KLU and continue to spread the gospel at the "grassroots" level as this is the only effective way to do it anyway. I believe that the reason the "medical work" is the right hand of the gospel is not by accident but rather it brings God to people in a very practical/understandable manner. My daughter is just finishing her 2nd year at LLU Med School and 50% of her class are women. This is not by accident folks. In her situation God plucked her from a totally different field of study and put her in med school I believe by design. Although she doesn't know why exactly she has felt God's very clear leading at every critical decision point in this process.
The MPD is not necessary to be effective in ministry. Unfortunately its absence says more about our church than it does about the individual.
Don't let the MPD issue sideline our talented women or our real mission of "spreading the gospel" and "speaking well of our God" !!! I think in the end it will be much greater to be called a "friend of God" than an ordained minister!!! (male or female)
As Nancy said to me on her death bed "Keep looking up"!!!
All the best to you all and Happy Easter!!
Fred
Frank, "...Roman Catholicism...a priesthood not accountable and divided from the body of believers, who have no say in its operations." That is not true and is calumny. I am certainly accountable and I am not divided from the body of Christ. Laity do have a say through a variety of bodies. In my own parish I have a parish council and a finance council. I listen to them carefully. I suggest you actually read what we teach about the nature of priesthood.
Fr. Jim, the Adventist, Catholic and Mormon churches, as well as the Boy Scouts have abysmal records when it comes to their sexual abuse and cover-up records. This is not calumny, this is fact. Accountability without litigation is zilcho.
Attorney Kelly Clark says these are organizations trying to do good in the world, but the only way to make Adventist, Catholics and Mormons accountable is to sue them.
Kelly Clark Compares Mormon Adventist and Catholic Clergy Sex Abuse Cases
"We find the same emphasis on secrecy/confidentiality emphasized in Mormon and Adventist cases, as we find in Catholic cases. I call it secrecy, the Churches call it Privacy or Confidentiality. They end up being sued not just for child abuse but for coverup as well.
"Another common theme is, 'Our work is too important to have our name smudged with child abuse claims.' Another similarity in Mormon, Adventist, and Catholic Church sex abuse cases is institutional blindness.
"The Catholic Church is safer today, not because bishops got the Holy Spirit, but because they got sued over and over and over again."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmiY2nJ1WGw
FRONTLINE |"The Silence" Excerpt | PBS
"Frontline examines a little-known chapter of the Catholic Church sex abuse story -- decades of abuse of Native Americans by priests and other church workers in Alaska.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8z__N6dCxBA
When I tried to report sexual predation by an SDA Conference President, I was immediately and shockingly referred to Risk Management. When I told them I didn't want to sue, they told me they were too busy to talk with me. That was the extent of pastoral and moral concern. If I wasn't going to cost them money or embarrassment, I was a write off, as far as they were concerned. They weren't even curious about the identity of the person. (This was long before the Internet was dreamed of, of course.)
I am not saying that's because the SDA or Catholic or Mormon Churches are populated by horribly and unusually bad people. This is a human-nature issue, not a particular-religion issue, I think.
I am saying that these kinds of authoritarian social structures produce conditions in which these abuses and cover-ups can take root more easily than in more open social structures.
As Robert Sonter suggested, changing organizations from within the bureaucracy has a snowball's chance in hell of working.
M.I.T. lecture on The Lucifer Effect by Dr. Philip Zimbardo
http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/459
That's why I'm suggesting (fomenting?) that Adventist women lay the ax to the root of the authoritarian tree, rather than to quixotically and self-destructively, IMO, struggle to be assimilated by the Borg.
The issues are systemic when abuse victims are "risks" to be "managed."
There are some clubs that aren't good for anyone to belong to.
Maggie, the BSA bans homosexual scoutmasters and that has reduced the problem to virtually nothing. A coincidence? I think not. But you won't touch that aspect of the problem will you? The pink elephant in the living room is untouchable.
Child abuse is a societal problem, not the preserve of one Church. Many use it as an opportunity to bash Catholicism and don't care about the rampant abuse among teachers. They use it to attack various Catholic teachings that have no bearing on the issue, such as ordination. Oddly they don't deal with abuse by female teachers or nuns. But I thank you for illustrating for such a revealing and bigoted response to my post. I always enjoy being insulted at Easter.
Fr. Jim, please read my post again. I said this was a human-nature/social-system issue, not a particular-church issue, though certainly one might be forgiven expecting higher moral behavior among the clergy of various churches than among secular teachers.
"A bad system produces bad situations in which people act badly without even necessarily knowing why.
Social psychology has shown this time and again. And, time and again, authoritarian systems and those who run them have rejected the findings.
http://www.lucifereffect.com/about_reviews_times.htm
Wow, Donna, I just listened to that youtube bit by the supposed "pastor" Schaap. What a pathetic specimen of manhood he is! Not to mention a sad sad representation of God.
I was so outraged by his view of women that I just had to dig up the contact information for his church and let him have it. No words spared. Somebody's got to stand up to people like this. Not that I expect it will do any good for this particular person.
It is odd. One church suggests praying to a woman and the other suggests a 19th century woman is near canonical. Yet neither will set aside a woman to a full-time ministry equal to that granted a male. I an only guess--a woman's place is in the home not the pulpit!! Right out of Archie's play book. When the Adventist Church falls behind even the Calvinists--that is radical conservatism.
But then a contemporary cave man has the the prevailing logic What an Amazing Fact. Tom Z.
I don't see the essential differences between characterizing women as inferior, calling a man a pathetic specimen of manhood, ridiculing a church for praying to a woman, or ridiculing a church for thinking a woman inspired.
It all seems to come from a similar caliber of thinking to me.
The salient issue that stands out to me is that once you embrace such characterizations, a whole cascade of thinking, words and actions proceed from that, e.g., withholding Magic Male Pixie Dust, calling someone up and letting him "have it" for being said pathetic specimen of manhood, calling a church the Whore of Babylon, or derisively writing off a church founder whom many esteem for her gifts.
I want to make it clear that when I talk about the Borg, or churches' sexual abuse problems, or whatever, I am not characterizing the people involved as on an inferior moral plane to myself, which would really be getting down there, actually - most people couldn't be as weak as I naturally am if they worked at it 24/7.
What I'm saying is that we're all made of pretty flimsy stuff, the ground is level around the Cross, and when we create social structures which make it convenient to indulge our flimsy stuff and then hide it, we are in big trouble, whether at Abu Ghraib, the Third Reich, in our authoritarian homes with our children, or in our authoritarian churches. There is a lot known about this now, and it behooves us all to appropriate that knowledge, I believe.
I would never suggest that Catholics should dismantle their authoritarian system, but I'm just feisty enough and have enough experience with Adventism to embolden myself to suggest that the women of the church currently have a lot more power than they realize to dismantle this authoritarian empire from the ground they now stand on, and that it is going to implode of its own bloat if they do not. There is not a lot of time to play with.
If the women's highest vision is to blend with the bloating system, then they will implode with it, I think. None of these authoritarian systems are going to survive. The handwriting is on the wall, seems to me.
Anyway, here is another PBS special about discrimination:
"One day in 1968, Jane Elliott, a teacher in a small, all-white Iowa town, divided her class into blue-eyed and brown-eyed groups and gave them a daring lesson in discrimination. This is the story of that lesson, and its enduring lesson decades later:
Divided
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/divided/
Well meaning though we are, our authoritarian systems divide us, against all the protests of the better angels of our natures. This is not what Jesus prayed for in John 17. Anything that stands in the way of that prayer is going to be crushed by the Rock not hewn by hands.
Maggie said: I don't see the essential differences between characterizing women as inferior, calling a man a pathetic specimen of manhood, ridiculing a church for praying to a woman, or ridiculing a church for thinking a woman inspired.
the difference, Maggie, is that I am not addressing a general group. I am addressing a specific situation and a particular individual who should not be leading a congregation astray with that kind of rhetoric. To stand by and do or say nothing to him personally, is to condone the evil. It's easy enough to complain behind someone's back. Another thing to talk to the person yourself.
If this "pastor" happens to fall into the category of a poor specimen of manhood, and if he is vitriolic in teaching his flock disrespect for women, then he should be addressed. There's just too much talk and too little action when it comes to addressing the wrongs in society. Maybe my approach could have been softer, but at least it was an attempt to do something about a specific action by a specific individual.
And no, I don't consider myself better than him or anyone else, just because I choose to call him on his behavior. Mercy, I am known to be quite wrong in various areas of my life, so much so that I too can often appear to be a poor specimen of Christianity. At such times I would appreciate it if I would get called on my behavior. But this is one time that I don't think I was wrong to address the situation the way I did. Maybe I may repent later....pray for me....
Anyway, for now, the bottom line, as I see it, is: less talk, more action. Maybe you can write to this preacher, too, and speak to him in (hopefully) kinder language than I dished out to him. More power to you.
I believe in freedom of speech and religion, Thomson. And, btw, I don't think you're any kind of poor specimen, either.
I used to go to a Bill Gothard church for several years so I've been around this kind of thinking a lot. Trust me, they aren't about to take a woman's word for anything.
And since he's a preacher, he's higher up on the "chain-of-command" scale than you are. He gets his stuff straight from God, and you are supposed to get your stuff from him, if he's anything like the people I've been around.
People have a right to teach and believe these things. The alternatives to freedom of speech and religion are even more horrendous, I believe. Please see: church history.
I can warn people about this kind of thinking, but expecting people to give up power on demand, especially power they fancy comes straight from God, is not realistic, IMO.
When have people ever given up power/authority on request?
I can perhaps be a resource to refugees from such fellowships, but I, personally, wouldn't go in and try to set my Bill Gothard men friends, or the gentleman in the video, straight doctrinally.
Some things just ain't happenin' in any known universe.
PS: Several years ago some Gothard references showed up on the GC web site and I kicked up a huge fuss online and the references soon disappeared. I just checked again:
Results matching “Gothard”
No results found for “Gothard”.
I don't know if I had anything to do with it, but I'm gratified the references disappeared.
Maggie, for us it is not a sociological issue, but a theological one. For those who believe in original sin and concupiscence we know that human nature has been severely damaged. Ordaining women will not stop child abuse. I tire of people bringing up the scandals so that they can disagree with something Catholicism teaches that has no connection to the scandals. It is disingenuous at best.
Fr. Jim,
You say " Ordaining women will not stop child abuse."
Well, has the Catholic church ever tried ordaining women? How can they be so certain unless it has been tried?
Just the same for pedophilia. No, I am not at all claiming that the male, celibate priesthood is tantamount to child sexual molestation, but again, unless there have been other conditions tried, how can there be such certainty? Whether there is more pedophilia in the Catholic priesthood than Protestant clergy has never been studied, that I'm aware of, but the shame of pedophiia in the priesthood has probably only been barely revealed, as every day, new revelations are unturned, many extending back as long as 50 years when all was silenced. All clergy do have a unique power over immature children and the possibility of being taken advantage makes then an easy target, as the predator is imbued with special power--just as a family relative takes advantage of an easy prey.
Elaine
Maggie said: I believe in freedom of speech and religion, Thomson. And, btw, I don't think you're any kind of poor specimen, either.
oh, I believe in freedom of speech and religion, too, Maggie. This is not about that at all. I was certainly not trying to force "Pastor" Schaap out of office. I was just using my share of freedom of speech to let him know how I view his intolerable pomposity.
I let him know that I thought he was a small, small, little man who needed to sit down and shut up if he couldn't represent God aright or lead his flock aright. I said that I felt sorry for his mother and his wife, if this was the way he viewed women. I shared a few more like nuggets, not because I thought it would do much good, but because something needed to be said, out of the principle that to be silent in the face of wrong is to support that wrong.
I suppose there are more important battles to fight than to stand up for equal treatment for all human beings...........are there?
Elaine, if you wish I will start to post stories of women abusing children. I can post hundreds if that is what you want. I will then state that it shows that women should not be ordained or even allowed near children. Will that prove my case?
I will also post stories of homosexuals abusing children. In fact that is the real issue that most won't deal with. Child abuse has NOTHING to do with Catholicism, our theology, celibacy, or the ordination of men. To say that it does is simply bigoted and ignorant. It uses the issue of child abuse to attack a religion. It is the Left's version of portraying the Pope as the anti-Christ.
I note how often for women this is made into an issue of "power." In my previous church we did have women clergy. They were the most power hungry and clerical people I have ever met. God help you if you dared disagree with them. So I have experience in dealing with women clergy. SDA's can do what they like, I have no say in the matter. But these vicious attacks on Catholicism are hateful, false, and the equivalent of calling us the Beast. Stop it.
NOTHING?????
Fr. Jim,
All you say is true. My contention is that there were no ORDAINED women in the Roman Catholic church served as priests, so could not have been involved in abuse. That women can be abusive, is not disputed; nor is power hungy found only in one sex; that, too, we know.
My comments were never intended to be "vicious attacks" but only to state what should be obvious:
with no women clergy, there can be no women as priestly abusers. Surely, you can only feel disgust at Roman Catholic priests abusing children. Stating the truth: many priests have been guilty of sexual abuse, should in no way be called "vicious attacks." Would you keep silent with such action within your church? The specific religion makes no difference to me when children are absued--they are the most evil of all people who would hurt children and Christ had his most scathing remarks about this sin.
Elaine
Elaine, we have had nuns abuse children. There are female clergy who have abused children. I am disgusted that people use child abuse as a club. In a sense they abuse the children again for these use their pain to forward an agenda that has nothing to do with abuse. It is fashionable now to comment on this every time Catholicism comes up. The Pope could personally cure cancer and someone would bring up child abuse. Stop it!
If you want to argue from scripture etc. that the SDA's should ordain women then be my guest. But do NOT segue over to us and imply that abuse is somehow a result of our theology of ordination.
Here is the 20/20 documentary on sex abuse in the Independant Baptist church, which really initiated this Jack Schaap Rant. It is worth your while to watch and I hope that when you get to the end you will be open to the idea that there may be a correlation between religious misogyny and sexual abuse. In secular circles it is now viewed that those who are abusers of animals is a red flag that children will be abused also. In my mind it's not a big leap to go from there, to misogyny and child abuse.
http://galatiansfour.blogspot.com/2011/04/2020-expose-on-ifb-churches-ca...
Posted by Fr. Jim - Mon, 04/25/2011 - 16:27
"Maggie, for us it is not a sociological issue, but a theological one. For those who believe in original sin and concupiscence we know that human nature has been severely damaged. Ordaining women will not stop child abuse. I tire of people bringing up the scandals so that they can disagree with something Catholicism teaches that has no connection to the scandals. It is disingenuous at best."
Fr. Jim, I didn't say or imply that either priestly celibacy or not ordaining women or any other Catholic doctrine causes child abuse so I must assume you were speaking to someone else.
My entire point involves authoritarian social structures (of which there are myriad, religious and non-religious) being hotbeds for abuses of all kinds to develop far from the light of day. For example:
http://home.comcast.net/~reevaluation-counseling/roots.htm
I have nothing whatsoever against Catholics having a celibate priesthood or not ordaining women, or any other Catholic doctrine, including original sin, as long as it is in the context of freedom of speech and religion, which, as I said, I wholeheartedly support, so I must assume you are speaking to someone else about that also.
As I mentioned before, I've joyfully said the Rosary, genuflected before the Host and worshipped with Catholics many times.
Fr. Jim, what do you think causes the horrible sexual abuse and cover-ups in the churches I named as examples, and how can it be stopped without the victims having to go to court?
Will parents be able to trust their children with pastors and priests, and other religious personnel of both sexes, ever again?
Thanks.
Fay and Maggie, yet female teachers have been abusing children. Is that misogyny? Is there a connection between being a female teacher and abusing children? Recently a mother just drove her car into a lake and drowned herself and her children. This has happened before. Maybe there is a correlation between being female and drowning children?
Where is the authoritarian system there? And btw, we don't see our system as authoritarian. You see what you want to see.
We are solving the problem. Last year there were only 7 new cases that were pursued by the police. There were a significant number of false accusations. Children are safer with a priest then with their teacher. How did we do it? We tightened discipline, especially in seminaries. In particular we prohibit the ordination of homosexuals. That has worked.
The fact is that abuse has NOTHING to do with ordination of men only and we shouldn't even be discussing it in this context. The fact that we are discussing it is an example of the anti-Catholicism that pervades our culture. Prove your case using theology, the Bible, or Ellen White's writings. If you can't then the SDA church is unlikely to change. Leave us out of it.
It is in domination that all sorts of violence occurs: The powerful can, so they attack the weak. In all societies, children and women are the weaker, so for anyone who cares to dominate, there are your potential victims.
In the third-word countries, domination is practiced as rape, and it has always been practiced in wars when the powerful country invades and captues the citizens, both men and women have been raped. Absolute power corrupts those who are eager to take advantage of the situation. Wherever those conditions prevail, domination will be found.
Elaine
Elaine, the issue being debated is whether the SDA church can and should ordain women. You are arguing that it is domination and virtually rape not to do so. You present no arguments from Adventist tradition or scripture. Instead you take at face value feminist diatribe and expect that to suffice. Do you think it will? Don't you think that some who honestly disagree with you for theological reasons will be angered and insulted by such accusations?
It certainly has nothing to do with the reasons that the Catholic Church has for not being able to ordain women. It has nothing to do with domination. For us it is a matter of fidelity.
Fr. Jim, again, you must be speaking to someone besides me - I never used the word misogyny.
My subject all along has been authoritarian systems, and how women are not immune to abusing power any more than men are. I understand that this must be an uncomfortable subject for you, but you are addressing me as though I'm arguing for things I haven't even mentioned.
"And btw, we don't see our system as authoritarian. You see what you want to see."
Fr. Jim, this is a Catholic web page:
Church Hierarchy
"The Roman Pontiff, by reason of his office as Vicar of Christ, and as pastor of the entire Church has full, supreme and universal power over the whole Church, a power which he can always exercise unhindered."
http://www.catholic-pages.com/church/hierarchy.asp
The online dictionaries I consulted all call that authoritarian, Fr. Jim - "favoring complete obedience or subjection to authority as opposed to individual freedom."
By those terms, Adventism doesn't approach Catholicism in the level of authoritarianism, but perhaps you have a better explanation of Catholic hierarchy.
You yourself said the problem was dealt with by "tightening discipline."
Elaine is not saying it is virtually rape not to ordain women, as I read her. She is saying that abuses occur in authoritarian situations where there is a power differential that is exploited by the powerful. This is surely self-evident in history, ancient and modern, secular and religious.
I'm really not scolding the Adventists, Mormons and Catholics for being bad people and sexually abusing people.
I'm supportive of everyone's fidelity to conscience, Catholic, Adventist, everyone. What I am taking issue with is power structured in such a way that makes it easy to nourish and hide abuse.
What I am saying to Adventists is that if you start ordaining women, it will be into a system that is authoritarian and abusive and unless you do something about that power structure, your women will just be sucked into an inherently unhealthy system along with the men, which can hardly be considered a promotion, IMO, no matter how much money/power is accrued in the dubious transaction.
This isn't just about women - Jim Coffin knows very well how things work, along with lots of others of us who have been put through the grinder. Hell will freeze over before anyone gets "justice," or even a decent apology from a system like this.
In addition, it seems to me, the financial handwriting is on the wall. If the dollar is abandoned as the world's reserve currency, which seems inevitable, the bloated SDA bureaucracy will be unsustainable and will implode, taking everyone down with it.
If women want to save the church, I think they need to look at the big and immediate picture here, and couch this thing in current events...but I could be wrong, of course, and hope I am....
Donna is admirably calling for the equality of believers, but I think that cannot happen in the Adventist system the way it is now constituted.
Can the will be summoned to pare it down and make it equitable before the tsunami hits? I don't know. If anyone can help, it is the disenfranchised women, I think. The men could not help but be affected if the women gracefully declined to support the status quo. I guess I'm a dreamer, but I hate to think about what is going to happen to the church if it doesn't reorganize in time.
Fay, thank you so much for that link to the Independent Baptist Church documentary - I watched all three parts! And yes, that was very much the kind of atmosphere I found myself in - it was like God picked me up by the scruff of the neck and literally dropped me into total Bill Gothard immersion for several miserable years. The humiliation was just off the charts, and trying to integrate Bill Gothard with Ellen White nearly drove me insane.
When I saw the word "Gothard" on the GC web site it was like an air-raid alert in my mind. Danger! Danger! They had us beating our kids with quarter-inch dowels. I am so ashamed to even say that. How could I have fallen for this!? A relative's daughter had a pastor break a dowel on her behind in school. It was so insane, but yet so compelling somehow, especially to a mixed-up, terminally disillusioned Adventist. I can't explain it. I can't explain how totally and completely stupid and vulnerable I was.
The thought of Adventism being assimilated by the Gothard Borg is too horrible to contemplate!
Anyway, I wish all of you the best, Catholics, Adventists, ex-Adventists, Gothardites, everyone. May God's countenance shine upon you all.
I bow to you all. Namaste.
THE EXERCISE OF SUPREME POLITICAL POWER: THE GENERAL CONFERENCE NOMINATING COMMITTEE
By Ervin Taylor and Elwin Dunn
"While the Seventh-day Adventist Church is about 140 years old, the main elements of its current political structure date to the opening decade of the 20th century. Ironically, given the vitriolic anti-Catholic stance of early Adventism, the organizational arrangements that the Adventist denomination has evolved in its relatively short history have their closest analogue in the Roman Catholic hierarchical system.
In addition, the current Adventist system of decision-making at the highest levels of its bureaucracy continues to bear a strong resemblance to the authoritarian political systems previously in place in the old Soviet Union and the “People’s Republics” allied with it. (...)
While Adventist Today recognizes the legitimate need of church leadership to express concerns about individuals that are proposed for high church in executive sessions of the Nominating Committee, the present mode of operation of this powerful committee is inconsistent with the need for transparency and accountability to the laity who fund the General Conference bureaucracy."
http://www.atoday.com/news/atnewsbreak/2005/07/06
“Iron Law of Oligarchy” and Tithing
by Ervin Taylor
"In 1932, the German sociologist Robert Michels coined the term the "Iron Law of Oligarchy" (in German, of course) to describe what he viewed as the inevitable tendency of political parties to become centralized, bureaucratized, and eventually conservative and sometimes reactionary.
There have been many calls for the downsizing of the Adventist clerical bureaucracy by consolidating local and union conferences. Almost all of these calls have been either ignored or studied to death in a committee. The reason is clear. It is one of the corollaries of the "Iron Law of Oligarchy" that "All other things being equal, no bureaucrat-secular or religious-is going to vote to have his position in the hierarchy eliminated." It is not at all a matter of these individuals being devious or ungodly. Far from it, most (regretfully, there are exceptions) are sincere, honest, hard working members of the clergy. But they are human.
Only under great pressure does major change happen in any large, institutionalized, bureaucratic system. In the modern world, almost the only circumstance that will force major changes is a lack of resources, i.e., funds, i.e., money. Since the overwhelming source of funds that keeps the Adventist ecclesiastical bureaucracy functioning are the tithes and offerings of it members, the only realistic path of reform of the Adventist political system is if a large group of ordinary lay person redirects his tithing to other worthy causes.
It is here proposed that the most worthy cause would be the local Adventist Church.
http://www.atoday.com/content/%E2%80%9Ciron-law-oligarchy%E2%80%9D-and-t...
The New Adventist Boogieman: Congregationalism
"I believe that Adventist structure was meant, originally, to equip and facilitate local (congregational) ministry. Now, however, the structure seems to be an end in itself.
Should we, theologically, be more concerned about "congregationalism" or "hierarchicalism?"
Is there any way to convert the Adventist structure from a ruling/governing role back to an equipping/facilitating role?
Where is Adventism's proper place on the continuum between 'congregationalism' and 'hierarchicalism?'"
http://blogthefuture.blogspot.com/2005/09/new-adventist-boogieman.html
I personally think Adventist women could really shine as leaders and change agents cutting path into this new/old paradigm that is so much more responsive to individuals, but that's more than enough out of me....
Maggie and KM,
I've just read the beginning of this discussion and would like to suggest that the two of you are talking about two different things. Of course ordination doesn't matter a bit when it comes to doing God's work. Ordination is an organizational tool designed to keep the church under control. It has nothing to do with being qualified to preach or lead. It simply means that some guy has been through the maze; learned the proper responses; and is willing to take orders - and is willing to lay every aspect of his life on the chopping block.
Women who would like to dedicate their lives to the same sort of life style should be able to do it too; however, the problem is that the only areas of the world where the church is growing, also regards women as second class citizens. The church can't afford to be seen to take a stand that opposes the culture of these places. It's bad enough that the Sabbath is such and issue. Add to it the equality of women, and the church would have yet another obstacle to surmount.
Quite a few posts on this tread disappeared.
While the spooks were whacking the site for their spooky reasons (which could include being authoritarians and trying to shut people up, but I guess that's one of the definitions of hackers and authoritarians, isn't it?) I discovered Madelynn Jones-Haldeman:
"It would be regrettable if any would propose that progressive Adventism should be associated with some specific set of propositional statements that purport to redefine, using contemporary vocabulary, some specific tradition of Christian or Adventist religiosity.
Rather, I hope that progressive Adventism will be primarily associated with vision of a free and open servant church and the "priesthood of all believers."
More importantly, it would be helpful if progressive Adventists would work for the day when the Adventist church will be mature enough to welcome and affirm equally the conservative, historic, traditional, evangelical, cultural, ecumenical, and progressive Adventists-and members of the Friends of St. Thomas.
http://www.atoday.com/magazine/2001/09/progressive-adventism
I have no idea who the Friends of St. Thomas are, but the rest is basically what I've been saying here, if by ecumenical one means spiritually, socially and emotionally inclusive (and not ecumenical in the sense falling under the authority of the RC Church).
As I said, I believe that authoritarian social structures are demonstrably hotbeds of abuses of all kinds, and I hope Adventism decentralizes power ASAP before the collapsing economy does it for them.
I think women could play a pivotal role in this decentralization of power.
If this gets you whacked again, feel free to ban me - but of course you don't need my permision. :)
PS: But let's call intimidation by its right name if what I said got you whacked, okay?
If what I said got you whacked, we're talking about money and power, not Jesus.
Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein, two humorist columnists, graduates from Harvard, wrote a Book entitled Plato and an a Platypus explaining different types of philosophic thought. In the Chapter entitled Soical and Political Philosophy they tell this story:
" On a transatlantic flight, a plane passes through a severe storm. The turbulence is awfal, and things go from bad to worse when one wing is struck by lightning.
One woman is particular loses it. She stands-up in the front of the plane screaming, "I'm too young to die!" Then she yells, "Well, if I'm going to die. I want my last minutes on earth to be memorable! No one has ever made me really feel like a woman! Well, I've had it! Is there anyone on this plane who can make me feel like a woman?"
For a moment there is silence. Everyone has forgotten his own peril, and they all stare, riveted at the desperate woman at the front of the plane. Then a man stand up in the rear. He's a tall tanned hunk with jet-black hair, and he starts to walk slowly up the aisle, unbuttoning his shirt. "I can make you feel like a woman." he says.
No one moves, As the manapproaches, the woman begins to get excited. He removes his shirt. Muscles ripple across his chest as he reaches her, extends the arm holding his shirt to the trembling woman, and says, "Iron this!"
Tom Z
Love that story, Tom. :)
Sirje Walkowiak - Fri, 04/29/2011 - 12:26
"Ordination is an organizational tool designed to keep the church under control. It has nothing to do with being qualified to preach or lead. It simply means that some guy has been through the maze; learned the proper responses; and is willing to take orders - and is willing to lay every aspect of his life on the chopping block."
Exactly, Sirje. And I was therefore encouraging (fomenting? inciting? agitating?) you SDA women to contemplate why this rite is so important to you.
Anointing Ceremony - England's Monarchs Are Gods On Earth
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xYaaz_x5Xo&feature=related
It reminds me of theater in the Russion Gulag performed by prisoners:
Alexei Morov: "Our salvation lies in the fact that we can devote ourselves entirely to the work. We should forget that behind the stage there's a man with a machine gun. Our work, our art is everything. The role, the notes, the music."
No, Adventist women, you should not forget the man with the gun behind the stage, IMO. If he lets you perform, it's because he gave you permission to perform and is appropriating your talents. Do you want permission from, and, at length, orders to perform from the man with the moral machine gun?
Have you considered the nature of the organization you so want break through the glass ceiling of? Do you really think you can change the nature of an abusive authoritarian organization from the inside? Is that your highest vision? Or...do you really think it is not an abusive organization? Do you really think authoritarianism and abuse don't go together hand in glove? Have you really thought this through and connected all the dots that you are not even supposed to think about, much less connect?
Margaret Heffernan: Willful Blindness: Why We Ignore the Obvious to our Peril
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fTpf_nXl7M
Colm O'Gorman on Breaking the Conspiracy of Silence: "Responding to the past is not simply about addressing a historic hurt. It is also about acknowledging a source of ongoing trauma for victims of abuse by ending their enforced silence and the widespread, political and social denial of their hurt.
So this is not simply a matter of making real a past denied; it reveals the impact of that past today, on the lives of those who were abused and their families. In dealing with the past, as difficult and frightening as it is, we will find a way to name it, respond to it and learn from it."
http://colmogorman.com/?p=715
Colm O'Gorman: Beyond Belief
http://colmogorman.com/?page_id=16
O'Gormon says Ireland was being run like a theocracy. What Colm O'Gorman says about the Catholic Church applies equally to the Adventist Church, the Mormon Church, guru ashrams, dictator regimes, abusive parents and every other form of authoritarian tyranny inflicted on vulnerable people. Ban me from this site, but do not expect me not to say this. It is not promoting real "community" to create a wall of silence around abuse. God save us from this hellish "community" where we turn a blind eye to tyrannical power turned on vulnerable people by the hundreds.
Jessica Stern's DENIAL: A Memoir of Terror
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQzfmTxyXR8
Connect the dots. There are lots of dots to connect. Don't let anyone tell you that you shouldn't notice anything you notice or that you shouldn't speak about what you notice.
Individuals are not the enemy. The enemy is a diabolical system that we Adventists have created, like many other groups, that assimilates us like the Borg. A bad barrel creates bad apples, as Dr. Zimbardo repeatedly says:
The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil
http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/459
We created this system and we can dismantle it voluntarily and become more present and responsive to each other and become a template of best practices for other groups.
Authoritarian social systems are the dinosaur beast that is devouring the world. Its days are numbered.
Women, stand your ground.
Maggie,
Exactly right, too. However, not all women, not all SDA women, feel this way. Looking at the situation from another angle - pastoralship (is that a word?) is a vocation. People choose to place themselves under that gauntlet, just as people choose to work for any organizational machinery by whatever corporate name. True freedom of thought and action belongs to no one. Every working man (or woman) has to operate within someone's parameters. It's pretty much a question of semantics. That being the case, women aught to have the same choices within the SDA machinery. Don't you think? I think you're mixing rotten apples with oranges.
Sirje, nowhere did I say Adventist women shouldn't do what Adventist women truly want to do.
I believe in freedom of conscience and religion!
I also believe in connecting dots, especially proscribed ones!
I'm just doing my darndest to put the thing in a broader persective so that we don't have these atomized "issues" that don't relate the parts to the whole.
You could say the parts and the whole are apples and oranges, but they're very important apples and oranges to compare!
There's way too much water under the Adventist Authoritarian Bridge for us to just let this Borg system to flush all of it down the Memory Hole, which is what authoritarian systems reflexively do.
If you join the Borg System, you will be expected to be a flusher!
If you think you can transform it from within, talk to David Dennis and some of the rest of us flushees, and consider carefully what you're praying for, because you might get it.
http://www.truthorfables.com/david_dennis.htm
Jus' sayin'....
Maggie,
Why stay and try to work within any system when it will always be totally at odds with any such proposals that are not suggested from the top? The need to belong to such groups is to continue with the cognitive dissonance that destroys one's self worth. Just as some join, or vote with one political party or another, there is no need to publicly affiliate with either as the ability to be independent and switch votes when one desires, is the wonderful gift of freedom to choose. How can one choose to be part of any group which is in direct opposition to their stated beliefs and desires is unexplainable. Can someone offer a cogent explanation?
Elaine
Well, maybe some/most/all Adventist women who want to integrate with the authoritarian system are being led by God and I'm all wet. I can't say how God is leading someone else.
But if self worth is something we want, don't go either begging for it from someone or trying to wrest it out of someone's hands who is supposedly keeping it from you, I would say. Own it.
The situation is unequal and unstable; Adventist women are tremendously gifted and powerful right now, if they saw it, but severely undervalued.
The only power the System has is the power we've invested in it.
It's not like political parties in that women really don't have a vote in Adventism, they only have a vote about whether to be in Adventism.
Their power has to come from somewhere else, from within, from vision for what the Body of Christ can be free of authoritarian systems.
Oh well...what do I know....?
Jan Paulsen: "It seems to me that our history as a church, together with personnel changes that have occurred, have moved us past the time that a blue-ribbon committee [on David Dennis' allegations] would be a positive move for the world church. We have suffered the pain! I think we have learned some important lessons, and healing is taking place.
I sincerely believe it is time to leave this chapter behind and move on with the true work of the church, taking the Gospel to the world."
http://www.truthorfables.com/david_dennis.htm
Barack Obama: "We're still evaluating how we're going to approach the whole issue of interrogations, detentions, and so forth. And obviously we're going to look at past practices. And I don't believe that anybody is above the law.
On the other hand, I also have a belief that we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards.
And part of my job is to make sure that for example at the CIA, you've got extraordinarily talented people who are working very hard to keep Americans safe. I don't want them to suddenly feel like they've got to spend all their time looking over their shoulders and lawyering up."
http://blogs.abcnews.com/george/2009/01/obama-leaves-do.html
Let's take the Gospel to the world!
Let's keep Americans safe!
Let's bury our victims in shallow graves and court costs and the Memory Hole!
LET'S MOVE ON!!!
That apparently didn't get posted.
Maggie. PLEASE leave the Catholic Church out of this. O'Gormon is not an Adventist. We are not a tyranny, that is simple bigotry. Prove your case to the Adventists and don't mention us.
Fr. Jim, this is America. Freedom of speech is a First Amendment right
Abusing children is tyranny no matter who does it, Adventists, Catholics, Mormons, Boy Scouts, gurus, dictators, doctors, parents, anyone.
What O'Gorman said is applicable to all of us:
"So this is not simply a matter of making real a past denied; it reveals the impact of that past today, on the lives of those who were abused and their families.
In dealing with the past, as difficult and frightening as it is, we will find a way to name it, respond to it and learn from it."
http://colmogorman.com/?p=715
If we're not allowed to name it, we can't learn from it.
Why shouldn't Adventists learn from the Catholic experience? Why can't we all weep and learn together? Adventists and Catholics and Mormons have a similar dynamic at work - why shouldn't we talk about that? It's to all of our advantages to find a way to heal our brokenness together.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmiY2nJ1WGw
Child abuse thrives in a culture of secrecy and willful blindness.
Are you going to tell Margaret Heffernan who wrote Willful Blindness to expunge the pages about the Irish Catholic situation from her book? Is nobody to talk about that part of her book?
I thought Catholics believed in democratic principles.
According to Jesus, we owe allegence to the things that are civil and to God the things that are theologically correct. As a young collegiate student, I joined a fraturity. I soon learned my allegience was else where and dropped my membership in the fraturity. I have never been exclusive since.
We are all under the same condemnation and have the same invitation to Grace.
Fr Jim and Maggie--we don't live in the past. We live in the full expectation of the Parusia:.let us join hands and praise God from whom all blessing flow. For sure the Gospel cannot be told without full mention and praise to the two Marys of the Gospel Story. Then there are John and Paul to make it all crystal clear and readily avaiable. Praise be to God for His unspeakable gift.
I have a sister-in-law being buried today 40 miles north of Green Bay Wisconsin. Age prevents my attendance. The homily was given at the Beaver, Wisc. Lutherian Church. She will be buried next to her first son who died at an early age due to a birthing injury. It is a sad/happy moment for me.
Without the Christ event it would be a hopeless moment. Let the dead past bury its dead, live in the living present with Christ overhead. Tom Z.
Tom Z.
The victims of child abuse and their families are in pain in the present. Let us be present with them.
Let us find a way to create social community where this never happens again, and where abuse victims aren't doubly traumatized by having to be silent and ostracized to protect the guilty. No more telling them to suck it up!
Let us create community where abuse victims have a voice and a place.
We can't do that if we don't face it head-on and talk about it.
Where should we bury this priests victims? he stole a mil of church funds and based on his negotiated plea doesn't have to pay it back, the money funded his lavish gay fun, and now he gets to spend 3 yrs in taxpayer housing with free room and board probably doing what he enjoys anyway. How does any employer much less a church miss this going on for years?
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/us-priest-gets-3-years-stealing-more-1m-1308529...
'US priest gets 3-years for stealing more than $1M to pay for male escorts, lavish lifestyle' on Yahoo! News. WATERBURY, Conn. - A Roman Catholic priest in Connecticut has been sentenced to three years in prison after pleading no contest to stealing more than $1 million in church money
is that better than altar-ing little boys?
One wonders if the constantly recurring evidence doesn't suggest that the RCC's system is skewed toward a certain type of people being attracted to "serve".
where there's a will and a heavy counterbalance, there's a way.
http://www.wimp.com/mastbridge/
The way out of the PR nightmare that the various churches face is not suppression of the evidence and the victim's voices!
The way out is in creating social community where such abuses just can't grow under cover of the tyrannical forces of authoritarian darkness.
tyranny
1. arbitrary or unrestrained exercise of power; despotic abuse of authority.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/tyranny
The way out is not more tyranny and suppression; the way out is growth and nothing else will suffice!
Disempowered and undervalued Adventist women are a deep well of creativity. I know they can find a way, deliberately and with intent!
Mahshallah!
Maggie, I have had enough. You absolutely have the right to be a bigot and make false statements. I find your comments repellent. In no way is child abuse caused by not ordaining women. In fact we have found that homosexuality is a common thread, but you don't touch that with a 10 foot pole. Abuse is not a Catholic or a religious issue. I have posted about women who abuse, but apparently their victims don't count for you. Some abuse is more equal then others eh? It is now common among anti-Catholic bigots to immediately bring up abuse regardless of the issue being debated. John here illustrates that beautifully. You are in good company with those vile bigots.
The fact is that you want women's ordination because you think it will give you what you want...POWER. You can get back at all those evil men and impose your will on everyone else. In fact you want a matriarchy with you at the top of a new hierarchy. You are willing to lie to get it. You don't give a damn about child abuse, it is just a handy way to bash those who don't agree with you. Democracy? You would support it...unless you lost the vote. So don't try to act all innocent and like you want to change the system. That is false. You want to run the system and impose your own tyranny.
It is obvious that you have nothing that can convince the Adventists, so you resort to name-calling, impugning Catholics (an Adventist vice it seems for every occasion), and accusing those who disagree with being child abusers. So yes, free speech all the way. And I use my right of free speech to accuse you of bigotry, ignorance, and abuse. Yes abuse, you abuse those children by making their pain a weapon that you think will get you ordination. You are a very sick person. How's that for free speech?
John, if you wish I would be happy to post some nice Adventist stories where your clergy have done similar things. Or don't you care?
Fr. Jim, I am not even an Adventist (I had my name removed from the church roles in the mid-80's), and I therefore have no idea who your remarks are supposed to be addressed to as they speak to arguments I have never made, wouldn't wish to make, and in fact have argued against. I have confessed to abusing my own children in my brokenness. I'm not above anyone else in this discussion.
If you'll notice, I repeatedly ask the Adventist women why they would even want to be ordained into an abusive authoritarian system. I would express myself more clearly if I just knew how!
I don't think being homosexual makes one a pedophile, or a pedophile suspect, by the way. My homosexual friends are certainly not pedophiles. Pedophiles are CRIMINALS, so that seems unfair to equate. And certainly many little Native American girls in Alaska were abused by priests, according to the PBS special:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/the-silence/timeline/
I understand your wanting me to be quiet though. When I used to be an Adventist, I reacted in a similar fashion when anyone brought up uncomfortable facts about my church at the time.
I believe we can heal, Fr. Jim. All of us. Together. In the Light of Day.
Blessings,
Maggie
Wow!!!!
I had hoped my comments would cool the air. How wrong I was. The human race is under indictment--all save One. He came and took our form, our guilt and borne it all and tasted hell for us all--denomination, church, self-denial, not excepted. There is no end to the game--"Can you top this?" I delivered newspapers to a Seventh-day Adventist who spent three years in the Michigan Prison system for taking $3,000.00 of church money as treasurer of the Lake Union Confernce. I delivered newspapers to a Seventh-day Adventist who lost his career, his wife, and family because of a sexual encounter with an academy girl who confessed during a week of prayer while the man was deliverling the homily at the E.M.C. church.
We are at the edge of time. personally and collectively. There is only one heaven and one hell.
Choose ye this day who has your heart, your soul, and your hope and confidence. Every last one of us need the covering of Christ's Righteousness. Except for the Grace of God, we would all be doomed.
All the Holy Water and all the vegetables in the world will not save one soul. Only the Blood of Jesus Christ---once for all. Some rightly and some wrongly are invited to fill the pulpit---but none are denied redemptiion. It can only be refused. Satan chose a woman to decieve the world and God chose a woman to bring forth the Savior. Now who bears the burden of the laying on of hands is of little consequence. The hands that formed us were nailed to a cross to redeem us. So all praise is to Him: now and forevermore. So Adam blamed Eve and Eve has been blaming man ever since.
Enoght already! Tom Z.
Talking about things and blaming are two different things, Tom.
It is an Adventist impulse to sweep everything under the rug where it can never get healed. That has never worked and never will, for Adventists, Catholics, Mormons, Boy Scouts, families - it flat won't work. Some things are just not sweepable.
It's not about specific religions, it's about being human, it's about history, it's about the present, it's about community and healing. When God looks down on earth, he doesn't see political or religious boundaries; these are ARTIFICIAL BARRIERS. He sees hurting people who need love. God grant us such vision.
We had a talk about Weimar that cleared the air, remember, Tom?
I believe in universal restoration so I figure we may as well hash it out now as later, since I can't depend on God burning up people I disagree with.
PS: Fr. Jim, call me anything you wish (I am pretty sick, actually), just call me for supper. :)
Maggie
You have an excellent memory, except. In the case of Weimar the President of the General Conference was commenting how he wished all SDA colleges and universities were like Weimar.
I simply pointed out that such was a very bad idea and a very poor model for Christian Education--it was mind control of the order you continuely object to.
Seventh-day Adventists endorse Arminian view of redemption which Calvinists claim leads directly into Universalism. I read more and more in Spectrum blogs that lead in that direction. The words of Jesus in Matt. 25 alone would disabuse any of that nonsense.
I do agree that God is inclusive not exclusive. But according to your testimony, the very one's you are holding up for contempt will be restored. So what is your beaf with Rome then and now?
Tom Z.
..."your (sda) clergy have done similar things. Or don't you care?"....
of course I care....wrong is wrong, anywhere, anytime. including that time God is alleged to have massacred Egypts innocent firstborn kids to impress the Pharoah, or that time He is claimed to have commanded Moses and Joshua to kill everybody, including any women who have had sex, but to save (and presumably "USE") the virgins.
that one I chalk up to ancient people justifying their actions, either before or after the massacre to obtain a homeland. They even made up a tale about Lots incest in the cave to justify killing the offspring of that concocted illegitimate myth who were squatting on the "promised Land" as SOBs, and therefore divinely able to be earthly dispossessed and divinely killed.
it is my guestimated opinion that protestant religions which allow their pastors to marry do not have the same level of problem as the RCC which requires its priests to be celibate, something which I personally have found is near impossible.
mof, SDA ministers are EXPECTED to be married.....meaning they should have wives to satisfy their emotional and biological needs. The Priest does not...or at least is not expected to. at least today, tho the practice of having "Nun" apparently was de rigeur in Antigua , Guatemala, the center of the New World Inquisition. ** This difference alone seems likely to weed out, ah, pardon me, limit the number of heteros and encourage the number of non heteros who want to enter service which is supposed to limit their social networking to the same sex members of the order, the monastery or the convent because of their imagined "marriage" to Jesus/
Protestant and SDA pastors also do not "train" altar boys to "assist" at services. Does being married keep them from straying ? not necessarily. God created the procreative urge too well.
But its rare that the Protestant problem is that of Ted Haggard....more likely the other crying preacher who tried to keep the secret by buying favors from willing women.
Who knows what the percents are.....But I read somewhere that until recently the percent of homosexuals in Catholic Seminary was far higher than the national average. Does that make them abusive? No. Does "training" little boys in close proximity offer temptation? youbetcha!! and isn't that why the seminary was changed?
add the prohibition against marriage and that may be where the source of the problem could be changed. The Apostle Paul opined against marriage, primarily because he thought the end was near, and one should concentrate on spreading the gospel, and not have a wife and family that the enemy could use against you. I just read about an Al Qaida jihadist who had himself injected to suppress his desires for the same reason.
my only point is not that catholics are bad, or deluded to pray to saints and statues, and buy indulgences for themselves or candles to improve their dead relative's position from purgatory to limbo to heaven, or that the Pope is the SDA bogyman, the 666 Antichrist.....*** but that the very system may be the problem behind the past abuses. and that needs changing.
the good news? at least the Pope agrees that the world is older than Bishop "Ussher said, putting the RCC a generation ahead of SDA's there!!!
** in '66 I was returning from Honduras as an SDA "Student Missionary" and hitched up the Pan Am Highway...stopped in Antiqua, and got the tour en espagnol from locals angry that the US CIA had recently overthrown an elected government, and angry at the RCC for stealing the gold from their ancestors. They took me on underground tours into tunnels which ran in triads, connecting several churches, with a convent, and a monastery together....inside of which had been found hundreds of baby skeletons inside earthen jars which had been cast about them. Putting a huge question mark on the churchs position on birth control vs abortion!!! Now that the RCC thru the military is back in charge, you won't find guides there telling the same story!!!!
***just try googling....Obama 666, or EGW 666
where there's a will and a heavy counterbalance, there's a way.
http://www.wimp.com/mastbridge/
"But according to your testimony, the very one's you are holding up for contempt will be restored. So what is your beaf with Rome then and now?"
I don't hold anyone up for contempt, and I have no "beef" with Rome, Tom.
I must be the world's worst communicator.
I hope that we can all grow and create safe communities where openness and love prevails and no child is ever abused in any setting ever again.
Children tend to be abused in authoritarian settings, and that abuse is assiduously covered up. Surely this is not even arguable! We need to do whatever it takes to make sure that never happens again, ever. We're talking about hellish, destroyed lives and families, and yes, I am vehemently against destroying children and their families by anyone, anywhere.
We don't have to wait for heaven to begin reconciliation and restoration with each other and those whom we have harmed, whether they are children, the elderly whose property is taken manipulatively, whistle blowers or dissenters. No more sending dazed, suicidal people to Risk Management, ever again, please!
I don't hold hope that the Adventist church can create safe, equitable social community with its present hierarchical, authoritarian system, because abuse is endemic where accountability is lacking.
I hope that Adventist women will catch a vision to birth a safe and healthy social environment for the children to grow and develop in.
If Adventists do that, they won't have to worry about how best to grow churches, or how best not to shoot themselves in the foot.
I think Adventist women can birth that and the world will beat a path to their door.
May God bless us all to that end.
Maggie, being a Catholic or disagreeing with women's ordination doesn't make one a pedophile. The Catholic Church's form of government does not create pedophiles. But you make those claims. We are not an "authoritarian" system. You have no idea what our ecclesiology is.
You once again ignore the fact that plenty of women, often female teachers, abuse children. How does that fit into your scheme? It doesn't, so you ignore it. You use child abuse as the universal club that you imagine gets you off the hook of having to prove your case. I see that all the time. I am debating Marian devotion and winning then suddenly the guy says, "hey what about child abuse." As if that means I have to surrender immediately. You don't have a case, so you assassinate the characters of those who disagree with you. Just like the Amazing Facts people do. You are still an fundamentalist Adventist.
You are very quiet about women abusing children, the homosexual link to child abuse, and your own Catholic bigotry. You do need healing of your bigotry.
Tom, I get so angry when people abuse children. Including when they use that abuse to bash Catholics.
John, you are very wrong. Plenty of Protestant pastors have been caught out. See www.reformation.com. That includes many Adventists. You "read" about the number of homosexuals in seminary? I didn't notice that many where I went. Although when I was in the Protestant seminary I could have pointed out quite a few. You mention Paul, he was celibate. Jesus was celibate and even encouraged it among his disciples, so do you think he was homosexual or a pedophile?
If the Catholic system causes pedophilia then how do you explain it happening in non-Catholic settings among non-Catholic people? Why does it happen among Protestants?
Your little story of aborted baby skeletons is a Jack Chick favorite that has been around a long time. Old lies keep getting passed on. And of course you make it impossible to verify. You are neither right nor persuasive. Peddle your falsehoods to someone else.
How far this blog has drifted from its initial issue. The proposition is: Is gender a qualifier for ordination to the ministry of the Seventh-day Adventist Church or not?
I think not! But beyond this blog, nobody has asked for my imput or suggestions.
The sins of power are not limited to one gender or the other, nor are the sins of religious orders limited to one or even a few. Sin is pandemic. So let us make a case for Christ Centered Witness regardless of our Curriculum Vitae, vestments, and ecclesiastical approbations.
The Centrality of the Cross must be our focus, if we are to call ourselves Christian. I like Fr. Jim--he has taken on a task long needed within Adventism and each and all religious bodies. Each has a full time job in keeping their own house in order. No soul has been saved by pointing fingers.
The Gospel is made upon the merit of Jesus Christ and no other: I am of a mind that there are women who can make that case as well or better than some men. I for one have had the benefit of godly women's witness in home, in school, in professional life, and in church.
Furthermore, I think it a blessing and not a curse, that godly women are not under the fiscal and mind control of institutional ordination. The home with table talk and the classroom are much more effective in reaching the heart and soul than the pulpit.
It is my opinion that the situation will not change within the next five years within the Seventh-day Adventist Church. So ladies don't quit your day job just yet. Tom Z.
I happen to agree with you Tom....but I think it's the whole principle of the thing and the other ugly sisters that are concommitant. It all comes with that certain aroma
From a recent article in the WaPo:
"Recently Jimmy Carter spoke on the subject at a religious conference. “The discrimination against women on a global basis,” he said,” is very often attributable to the declaration by religious leaders in Christianity, Islam and other religions, that women are inferior in the eyes of God.”
Since god most probably does not exist - he cannot hate. He was invented by man - i.e. males, in cultures where men dominated and females were subserviant. Since religion is part of human culture it reflects the cultural values of its inventors. Hence it is pro male and down on women. This is yet another reason to reject old religions ( i.e. all of them) in favor of Humanism. Frankly, I cannot understand why any woman, gay person, or Black person would ever be part of any of the Abrahamic religions. They are all dismissisve of these groups and are the main cause of their continued abuse low status. check out Humanism: www.americanhumanist.org for a modern replacement for religion.'"
How can it be denied that religion, whatever or wherever it is practiced has been the main contributor of women's subordination. Which, of all the world's religions have ever seen both women and men as full equals or designated where and how they are allowed to serve?
Elaine
Posted by Fr. Jim - Sat, 04/30/2011 - 17:00
"Maggie, being a Catholic or disagreeing with women's ordination doesn't make one a pedophile."
I absolutely agree, Fr. Jim.
"The Catholic Church's form of government does not create pedophiles."
I absolutely agree, Fr. Jim.
"But you make those claims."
Please quote me, thanks. People with those tendencies may be attracted to systems that protect such behaviors from public view, but clearly not all people in authoritarian settings become pedophiles - there has to be some tendency there that the setting allows to manifest.
"We are not an 'authoritarian' system."
authoritarian
1. favoring complete obedience or subjection to authority as opposed to individual freedom: authoritarian principles; authoritarian attitudes.
Example:
Roman Catholic Womenpriests
"Roman Catholic Womenpriests is an international movement within the Roman Catholic Church. The mission of Roman Catholic Womenpriests is to primarily spiritually prepare, ordain, and support women from all states of life, who are theologically qualified, who are committed to an inclusive model of Church, and who are called by the Holy Spirit and their communities to minister within the Roman Catholic Church."
http://www.romancatholicwomenpriests.org/
Automatic excommunication for women priests
"Women who are ordained as priests will now incur automatic excommunication according to a new decree published by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith."
http://www.cathnews.com/article.aspx?aeid=7419
Womanpriests face excommunication for disobeying their higher authority; "complete obedience or subjection to authority" is expected.
"You have no idea what our ecclesiology is."
I'm no expert, for sure, but the information is on the internet to read. And ideology itself is not at issue to me, but the secretive social climate that accompanies hierarchal social structures across the personal, secular and religious board is my concern.
"The canonical rule of obedience: The superiors
By Divine law, religious persons are subject to the hierarchy of the Church; first to the pope, then to the bishops, unless exempted by the pope from episcopal jurisdiction. This hierarchy was instituted by Christ in order to direct the faithful not only in the way of salvation, but also in Christian perfection."
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11182a.htm
"You once again ignore the fact that plenty of women, often female teachers, abuse children. How does that fit into your scheme? It doesn't, so you ignore it. You use child abuse as the universal club that you imagine gets you off the hook of having to prove your case."
I used myself as an example of a former authoritarian parent who used a quarter inch rod to beat my children, due to my perceived chain-of-command status taught in a Gothard church, and of course the Biblical injunctions about beating children, to my grief and shame. My weakness was exacerbated and hidden by the environment I was in. Clearly though, men do most of the child sexual abuse in the world. Women do a lot of emotional and physical abuse, beyond a doubt, and some sexual abuse, of course.
"I see that all the time. I am debating Marian devotion and winning then suddenly the guy says, 'hey what about child abuse.'"
I agree that that is a non sequitur in that instance, however in the context of SDA women's ordination it is impossible for me, in trying to look at the big picture, not to discuss hierarchichal authoritarianism and the abuses that accompany it, and I have certainly highlighted those SDA abuses here and elsewhere. I don't see SDA abuses as qualitatively different from Mormon or Catholic abuses. However, Catholic abuses are a case study for the rest of the world to learn from because they are so very, very public, and it can never be otherwise now. Learning from painful history in order to stop abuses is not character assassination. We can all learn together in the information age.
As if that means I have to surrender immediately. You don't have a case, so you assassinate the characters of those who disagree with you.
The only way I need to "win" is to have my points understood, which I have failed at so far, hence this long post.
I wouldn't want you to surrender to anything. I'm not trying to silence you. I have no authority to do so, and I wouldn't want to. I am pointing out how inarguably very dangerous it is to be a child in hierarchal social systems.
http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2010/03/30/priests-pedophilia-what-a...
This isn't a Catholic issue, it is a human issue, but the Catholics have been exposed for the world to contemplate. I am appealing to Adventist women to look at the issues from a broad perspective and treasure the lessons learned from the heartbreaking Catholic distress and act from that perspective to not perpetuate their similar SDA hierarchal social system and its similar abuses.
"Just like the Amazing Facts people do. You are still an fundamentalist Adventist.
People have called me many things over the years, which doesn't concern me. I'm more concerned that you think I'm trying to tear down your church. I want your church and all its people to be blessed by God in every way. The abusing priests are no less precious to God than the abused children. They are grownup children who have been socially damaged themselves and are just as deserving of compassion for that. They are not villains or monsters in God's eyes or mine. If you can find a way to make a safe environment for children, and heal the broken priests, while retaining a hierarchal, top-down authority system, I can only rejoice. I think this is going to be extremely challenging, but I wish you Godspeed.
"You are very quiet about women abusing children, the homosexual link to child abuse..."
As I pointed out earlier several times, women are not immune to abusing power in authoritarian social structures, be it homes, schools, governments or churches, and of course homosexuals are not immune either. Hierarchical social structures and mindsets create a template where men, women, straights and gays find their weaknesses coming to the surface with a protective shield from the public eye enabling them to act out those weaknesses in a very human way that has nothing to do with religious beliefs and everything to do with psychology, IMO.
"...and your own Catholic bigotry. You do need healing of your bigotry."
I hope you will pray for me. Thank you, Father Jim.
Elaine, the subordination of women is always accompanied by the even lower status of children, which puts them in literal danger, and this is the large issue I'm trying to highlight. Incorportating women into the hierarchal power structure still will not provide protection for the children, IMO, which I think only a more democratic social community can accomplish.
Just my opinion.
Blessings all - sorry so long, I wanted to address Fr. Jim's statements - signing off.
Maggie you addressed it with all courtesy and forthrightness. Whether it is accepted is not up to you.
Elaine
Thank you, Maggie, for your concluding comments. I think you summed it up well.
Tom, I have repeatedly tried to move the conversation back onto track. But there seems to be a knee jerk reaction that leads to unjust attacks on Catholicism. Old habits die hard I guess.
Elaine, North Korea is utterly atheist. Do you think its treatment of women is superior to that of societies that are predominantly Christian? Where would you rather live?
Maggie, who is bring up the issue of child abuse? Not me. If you say that this has nothing to do with Catholicism, our government, or ordination then why do you insist on bring the issue up as if it did? Last year there were 200,000 cases of reported abuse and only 7 were about Catholic clergy. So how does that indicate a "tendency?" You are trying to force a round peg in a square hole.
As I pointed out to you in canon law the Church does respect individual freedom. But it also respects the rights of the Church. The Church does have authority. Individuals do not have a veto right over the faith. Even the Pope is bound to follow the deposit of faith. He can't suddenly declare that Jesus is not divine.
The women priest group is not in the Catholic Church. They choose to follow their conscience right out of the Church. But they can't impose their authority on everyone else. The women priest group has been unable to prove its case either. I remember after an Anglican woman priest was asked about those who disagreed with her ordination, she responded they should leave the Anglican church. If you don't believe in a religion then you should leave it. I did when I converted. I didn't insist my former denomination adopt Catholicism, that would have been unfair of me.
Excommunication latae sententia can be incurred if a woman pretends ordination. This is a complex matter for non-canonists. There must be imputability. But if someone pretended to be an ordained Adventist minister and they were really not one I expect the SDA church would object. Those who belong to the women priest group do not incur the excommunication unless they attempt ordination or if the excommunication is incurred for another delict. So you are wrong on that one. If someone does get ordained in a church then every church expects them to follow the same rules. If someone is elected to Congress we expect them to follow the law.
If you want some incite into ecclesiology then I suggest Lumen Gentium from Vatican II. It does mention hierarchy and not all hierarchy is evil. You have not proven that. Not all authority is evil. I suspect you would avail yourself of police protection or you would go to court to defend your rights. You almost seem to have an adolescent rebellion against any authority. Okay, try not paying your taxes and see how the US government likes that. But you know what, you should pay your taxes so it isn't wrong of them to force you to do it.
You misquote canon law, again. In our Church "Religious" are vowed members of religious orders such as the Franciscans. So this canon refers specifically to those persons who freely embrace the evangelical counsels, including obedience. You prove you don't know what you are talking about and just spouting off canons that you don't understand.
You admit, but carefully downplay, sexual abuse by women. We are finding it happens more often then we thought. It happens in environments that are non-Catholic and non-authoritarian. This alone disproves your thesis. If it was just occurring in the Catholic Church you might have a point, but the vast majority of abuse takes place elsewhere. You concentrate only on samples that point the direction you like, which any scientist will tell you is a no no. You ignore or dismiss abuse that doesn't fit your model. For example in the Anglican church where they have basically given up all authority. I guess those kids don't count. We weren't even talking about spanking, but nice try to divert the topic.
You have not proven, as I have pointed out, a connection between Church structure and pedophilia. You selective use some essays that you think show that, but in fact most abuse doesn't happen in those structures. Your case study of Catholicism is a minuscule sample of abuse and reflects the cultures ambivalence and bigotry toward Catholicism. You are unable to give substantive reasons from theology, history, or even reason as to what the SDA church should ordain women. So you do the bait and switch routine. You want to stop abuse? Do what we did. We reformed the seminaries and priesthood, largely by expelling those who were homosexual. That seems to have worked. Isn't that what you want? For it to work and abuse to end? Isn't that a win? It has nothing to do with a hierarchical social system. That is not what causes child abuse. It is indeed a human issue, a part of original sin. I notice you don't even try to grapple with that part of it.
When I say you are like fundamentalist Adventists I mean that you immediately attack Catholicism regardless of the issue. It is a mindset that you haven't shaken off. To you we are still the Beast, just from a more liberal perspective. Anti-Catholicism makes for strange bedfellows. Both fundamentalists and radical feminists (fundamentalist in their own way) hate us.
For a more careful consideration of the issue I refer you to: http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/religion/re0534.html. Also his book The New Anti-Catholicism: the last acceptable prejudice (Philip Jenkins) is excellent. He is not a Catholic btw. Now please argue about ADVENTIST ordination policies.
Fr. Jim,
You are introducing N. Korea as a strawman. One thing for certain, it is not professing a humanist approach whatsoever. To equate atheism with humanism is a fallacy. One can be a Humanist and not an atheist. Or were you aware of that difference?
There is a great deal of difference between "organized religion" and one is who either religious or spiritual without belonging to any organization. God does not recognize organized religion, only individuals.
Elaine
Elaine, Hinduism is a non-Abrahamic religion and not very organized. They used to, and still do, burn widows on their husbands funeral pyre. There are polygamists out West who belong to no organized religion and are very individualistic, they marry lots of women and consider them second class at best.
Fr. Jim,
Thanks for making my point: Hindusim is a religion, whether it is comparable to western religions is unimportant. And yes, they burn women because of their ancient beliefs, based on religion. The polygamists are also very religious, it seems to make a difference in your estimation whether a religion is "organized" or not. Those polygamists are not only very organized, the men order all their communities under the guise of religion. Being "very" organized could indict both Roman Catholics and Adventists. Catholics who were baptized as infants may never be part of "organized" Catholicism, so that cannot excuse anyone who is a member of such religions. If one's belief system is based on their interpretation of "oughts," or the Bible as they were taught, what is the difference in behavior if that is the most pervasive reasoning? Most Christians use the Bible only a little less than Muslims use the Koran as their guide, as they understand it.
Elaine
Religion, def:
1. a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, especially when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs.
2. a specific fundamental set of beliefs and practices generally agreed upon by a number of persons or sects: the Christian religion; the Buddhist religion.
3. the body of persons adhering to a particular set of beliefs and practices: a world council of religions.
Elaine
Elaine, Catholicism does not believe women are inferior. Not all religions are the same. I find atheists and humanists are far more dogmatic then most religions. Please show me in our catechism where we teach that women are inferior and should be dominated. http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc.htm is where you can find it online. Good luck finding it.
Fr. Jim, you live by your rules set up by your church, as you should. Nor, if you say that your church does not believe that women are inferior, that is the official hierarchial perspective.
However, not all Christians follow Roman Catholicism beliefs, regardless of claims that the church which you represent is THE Christian church and what are all Protestants? It is difficult historically to show that religion has not been the basis for women's subordinate postition. Christians have used the story of Adam and Eve as the example to be followed ever since; Hebrews being the first, Christians, followed by Muslims. Before the Bible story there was Hindusim and the Eastern religions. What religion has elevated women to equality in every respect with men? This has been the claim always made: women are special and they hold a higher place than women because they are the mothers. This is supposed to placate them, including the unmarried and childless. Any system that has positions not open to women that are open to men cannot claim to practice equality of both sexes.
Elaine
Elaine, you will note that I said that not all religions are the same. I note that you did not produce anything from our catechism that says women are inferior. I knew you couldn't. Your definition of equality is based on false premises. You have not proven your assertion.
[Made comment about disappearing posts. Was on the road last week and wasn't aware of site crash. Disregard. Will repost]
I think the site problems crashed all the posts made in the recent past.
Michael
Fr. Jim,
It is irrelevant whether the official catechism has any statement about the inferiority of women. A person or institution is judged by actions much more than words. Any claims made that are no reflected in practice should be ignored.
If I claimed not to subordinate either sex and yet deny admittance to one sex, that is not equality, regardless of claims made. Claims are easy; practicing them is not always so.
Elaine
I didn't know responses had been made to the thread.
Sirje, thanks for your comment re. Maggie and me.
I agree that work in every organization requires this kind of thinking because there are no perfect work environments. Read one article last night suggesting that women can bypass the whole debate by starting their own businesses and designing them as they wish. That's one approach many people do take. But it's not the only one they might take.
I still think it is for each person to choose what he or she will do.
Elaine, okay. Atheists killed over 100 million people in the last century. I don't care what atheists or humanists say they believe, they are murderers. So why should I consider what such barbarians have to say about who we ordain?
Radical feminists believe that killing children in the womb is wonderful. So why should I accept their definition of equality when they don't think unborn children are equal?
But if equality means "same" then why can't I become a mother and give birth to a child? If we are all the same then why am I discriminated against in such a manner?
The fact is that we teach the sexes are equal, but complimentary. That is heresy to radical feminists. They prefer to ignore it and attempt to IMPOSE secular values on the Church. Let's be honest, you don't care why we don't ordain women or what the reasons are or even if we are right. You just want what you perceive as an avenue of power so that you can enforce an alien agenda on the Church. That is the heart of the matter. Like Pilate you say "what is truth?"
I would vastly prefer that you folks argued with Bill over the issue rather then this ongoing attack against Catholicism.
Elaine and Fr. Jim
I think the place to look to determine the Roman Catholic View on women would be the list of Saints of the Church. What is the ratio between male and female saints?
Another good place would be to look at the power of nuns in the Catholic School System.
The primary issue posed was the reluctance of both the Catholic Church and the Seventh-day Adventist Church to place women in fully ordained positions within the Church with opportunity for advancement to either President of the G. C. or Pope. In this regard, I see no difference.
During the years I held significant posts within the lay structure of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, the only time my wife got any attention in a social setting was when she was at my side. On the way home she generally commented---as far as the Church officers are concerned, I am nobody unless I am standing by you---next time don't wander off without me! I'm not a dead fish. You know it, but I want them to know it also!!!!!. Tom Z.
As a church we claim to get our doctrine from the Bible and the Bible only. As I initially commented (deleted by a site crash), the Bible has been conspicuously absent from this conversation. Lots of talk about alleged power and authority and inferiority, lots of arguments about other churches ... but no discussion of the Bible itself.
1. Jesus had many disciples, male and female. He called 12 men, and sent them in his name and with his authority. He breathed on them after his resurrection and they received the Holy Spirit.
2. After Pentecost, we see many charismatic gifts, as well as some institutional offices. They don't necessarily overlap. People are not called to some offices because of their gifts--they are called personally by the apostles, hands are laid upon them, and through the laying on of hands they receive gifts (e.g., Paul to Timothy).
3. Some offices are created by the church in response to a need--the institution of the diaconate.
4. There are other offices of leadership--episkopoi and presbyteroi. The qualifications for these are clearly laid out in Scripture. A qualification is "husband of one wife." No provision was made for calling and ordaining women to these offices.
5. Episkopoi and presbyteroi were apparently interchangeable in the New Testament. In the post apostolic era these became clearly distinct, as witnessed by Ignatius of Antioch. The episkopos had overall responsibility for the church in a particular city, assisted by the presbyteroi (who have authority to celebrate the Lord's Supper as commissioned by the episkopos) and the diakonoi (who continue the ministry of service they were charged with in Acts).
6. In the middle ages, when the Eucharist came to be seen as a sacrifice that was confected and offered by one with a particular power, the concept of "sacerdos" is added, and episkopoi and presbyteroi are seen as the two offices sharing in sacerdotal power. I use the Greek and Latin words because the English can be confusing ... sacerdos is normally translated "priest," but "priest" is linguistically derived from "presbyter" (which literally means "elder"). An episkopos (bishop) was a presbyteros, with sacerdotal power but with an added jurisdictional authority. Vatican 2 changed this understanding, and gave the Catholic church an understanding (more like the Eastern churches) of the episkopos as having the fullness of the sacrament of Holy Orders, and being truly a separate order. I'll let Fr. Jim correct any nuances here, if he feels it necessary. I'm being very sketchy about complex subjects. The sacrament of Holy Orders came to be seen as something that brought about an ontological change in the person being ordained; he was configured to Christ and given the power for his particular office. An "indelible character" was imparted.
7. My main point in sketching the above is to note what the Reformation changed. It rejected the concept of a sacrificial priesthood (sacerdos), and the ideas that ordination conferred any powers or ontological change. Instead of a priestly office (including priests and bishops) it spoke of a ministerial office (predigtamt, preaching office), with the bishop being a pastor with a wider authority (and as being an office created by the church, like the office of deacon, and thus adaptable to circumstances). The ministry was the office of preaching the Gospel and administering the sacraments. It was taught (Augsburg Confession) that no one should do this without a regular call ("rite vocatus" -- literally called by a rite of call, a setting apart by the church). Luther argued that if a group of Christians were on a deserted island without a pastor, they could set apart one of their own and ordain him--something not possible in Catholic teaching, since the Catholic church taught that one could be ordained only by a properly ordained bishop).
8. So the Reformation did not keep the Catholic understanding, contrary to what some Adventist theologians claim. It retained a Protestant understanding. In keeping with Scripture, Adventists have ordained deacons and elders and pastors.
9. In an interesting twist, though, we have in a way followed the development of the early church in creating a three fold office. Our understanding of an ordained pastor is, in a sense, the equivalent of the office of bishop as described by Ignatius. We have pastors (male and female) who are serving as pastors of local churches, who can baptize and celebrate the Lord's Supper and lead local congregations--they are ordained as local elders. After several years men can be ordained as pastors, women cannot. This ordained minister office can baptize anywhere, can be called anywhere in the world, can be elected to conference office, can ordain local elders and deacons. That's why I suggest that we have adopted a threefold understanding of the ministry.
10. So I suggest the real questions for us to answer are these, and these highlight the real gaps in our theology of ministry.
(a) Why can women be ordained local elder, and function as pastor, and baptize and celebrate the Lord's Supper, but not receive the ordination to the ministry that their male counterparts receive after some years in ministry? If women cannot biblically be ordained, they shouldn't be ordained as local elders or serve as pastors. Period. If we agree they can, then what logical or Biblical reason is there to make a distinction between men and women when it comes to ministerial ordination?
(b) Why do we ordain to the ministry some (like conference treasurers) who do not preach the word or administer the sacraments?
11. And what is the basis for answering these questions? If we are a church of "the Bible and the Bible only," then it alone can provide the answer. Sociological and egalitarian points are irrelevant.
12. At a deeper level, Christological questions are also raised. If a male ministry is inherently sexist and about power and about subordination of women, then Jesus Christ was wrong in calling and laying hands on those he did, and the first generation of apostles, with the fullness of the Holy Spirit, was wrong in doing what they did. If this is so, Jesus becomes just another child of his time, not the eternal Son of God incarnate, and the Holy Spirit becomes merely the Zeitgeist. Those who argue in this way become functional Unitarians.
Hi Bill,
I think you outline all the salient biblical points, I am keen to hear peoples reactions / counter arguments.
On a side note, I think there is much evidence that the Eucharist was considered as a sacrifice from very early on, well before the middle ages - here is a collection a quotes from various church fathers discussing the Mass as sacrifice:
http://www.catholic.com/library/Sacrifice_of_the_Mass.asp
I really am interested to hear peoples response to your biblically rooted analysis and questions,
Tim
Tim - Clement
-------------
Bill
Perhaps it is akin to the commandment where one is to not let the stranger within thy gates work on Sabbath, for example.
God has his ways and requirements, yet though it is plainly written, I have never heard of a sermon or any instruction on how to keep a visitor who is staying in your house from working on the Sabbath.
In order to not seem the religious tyrant we conveniently overlook the stranger in our gates practices. Do we also concede to a certain level of ordination because it is easier for the same reasons?
Does it make it harder to follow a biblical practice and defend it as such when one has already made concessions that are only mild pertinence?
Are these same flaws moving us towards dealing with homosexuality in the same way? Wont the same needs to not be seen as mean old "fundamentalists" hold the same sway eventually?
It seems that in the end, that is what the proponents of both issues do. Vilify the "unfairness" according to humanistic reasoning.
They should have to instead PROVE their positions in the positive from the bible, without any humanistic rational or modern interpitations for our time that are really nothing more than using contemporary thought and morays as justification for what seems right to them.
Michael
The assumption is made that all the rules in the Bible were under the same lifestyle that we live in today. Remember: a sabbath day's journey was a limiting factor when the only means of transportation was on foot; that prohibition against cooking or lighting fires on sabbath was in a very primitive culture, totally unlike today with cars, microwaves, and more.
In addition, the many prohibitions that were given in the same part of the Torah are selectively chosen.
Where are the pastors who obey the orders not to mix two fabrics in their garments? Or that a menstruating woman was unclean for seven days, and likewise a man with emissions?
Does anyone truly limit a guest in his home from doing any "work" on sabbath when he may not be a sabbatarian? Of course, "work" must be defined, and Jesus was accused of "woring" on the sabbath.
Care to define what sort of work is prohibited on sabbath and what is permitted? Adventists have a very unique definition of "work" that is permitted and which is prohibited--and thus the member may remain in good standing if he follows the church guidelines, while another member's "work" is breaking sabbath rules.
Strange games Adventism plays,
Elaine
When was the last time someone rescued his ox which had fallen into a ditch on sabbath?
Elaine
Wow. There's a lot of opinions here. Does anyone ever contact these people online?
Milo Academy
I think a lot of this is simply you'll find what you're looking for. People with like minds group together.
http://www.miloadventistacademymustangs.com
Another thing - sorry, I forgot it earlier.
Paternalism - it has it's place. Even at Milo Adventist Academy. These places are supposed to be kind of like a parent - to teach.
YES, YES, YES!!! There are people in the church like that! Thanks Donna for this article :))
By the way...I am interested in a job...does anybody know where exactly I can get employed? :)) I have the right education for that. :)))
Folks I am looking for a job for months now, but Theology and female are two nouns that does not seem to match very well. The good thing is that I've got a lot of...experience with manhood matrix of the church. I find it interestingly sad!
Perhaps if I get 3 or 4 BA and specialize in some very useful areas..I will get the so wonderful place of pastor assistant, never ordained, of course!
Anonyma,
It is sad, but realistic that for a female with your qualifications looking for employment within Adventism is to see no future at all.
Just as many very highly educated and qualified of both sexes are walking the streets, the only vocations where there is expected to be growth far ahead in the future is--health! With the many different vocations within that area, maybe Adventism was prescient in focusing on the health professions. Adventism has traditionally emphasized ministerial and health, but the former promises less job security while the latter is far more promising.
Just what you need--continue education--but maybe in an entirely different field. Teaching is another possibility but within Adventism there doesn't seem great expansion there, either.
Elaine
Anonyma,
Look for work as a chaplain - outside of the church. Many hospitals and other agencies - even police departments employ chaplain. The state department of Corrections here in Florida employs chaplains. So check your state agencies.
Enlist in the military - as a chaplain. Check out Hospis centers and nursing homes.
Above all realize that you can "minister" and be God's servant in any work situation.
Blessings - and keep us here in the loop as to your success.
Donna Haerich
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