Would you be more likely to join…

[The Liturgist]

They have women preachers.

This is a fallacious argument, which aside from being an Appeal to Authority, and thus not being a reasonable argument in a debate, but rather an irrational and illogical argument which can simply be dismissed outright, since it proves nothing*; would, even if it were not fallacious, be grossly misleading, because firstly, many Pentecostal churches do not have female clergy, and secondly, the growth rate of Pentecostal churches in many countries has slowed or even become negative.

On the other hand, I can say that on a worldwide basis, the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox churches are growing (and I believe this is also true of the Assyrian Church of the East, and some of the sui juris Eastern Catholic Churches). Even in the US, there has lately been a surge in converts, who have come from mainline churches, Pentecostal churches and Roman Catholic churches as they feel alienated by changes in doctrine on human sexuality in the first case, a lack of faith in the Pentecostal system and experiences and the claims of Pentecostal clergy in the second, and in the third case, feelings of alienation relating to controversial aspects of the direction of the RCC after the retirement of Pope Benedict XVI and the repose of his predecessor Pope St. John Paul II, who was in particular a unitive figure who was much loved even by the Orthodox and who certainly earned the respect of traditional Catholics with his opposition to Liberation Theology.

*The argument you gave is a good example as to why Appeals to Authority are fallacious. Because I could have asked you how you felt about the United Methodist Church, in which I was baptized, and then gone onto say that they have had female preachers since 1866. And they are also losing members faster than any other church at the moment, even the United Church of Christ.

 

[seeking.IAM]

Because I could have asked you how you felt about the United Methodist Church...they are also losing members faster than any other church

Schisms tend to do that to ya.

 

[MarkRohfrietsch]

I think the point is to keep bumping the thread with unrelated quips that don't interact with anything that's been said.

Then stop it. LOL

 

[chevyontheriver]

Then stop it. LOL

Bump.

 

[Love365]

Could a priestrix represent the Holy Spirit ?

 

[dzheremi]

"Priestrix"? You silly rabbit...

 

[Love365]

"Priestrix"? You silly rabbit...

“Trix“ at the end of a word in Latin means the female version.

Some people don’t like when you use the word “priestess“.

Some people don’t like when you call women “priests“.

 

[The Liturgist]

Schisms tend to do that to ya.

Indeed so, but the GMC is not schismatic. You cannot regard someone as in schism for resisting a change contrary to the faith of the Early Church Fathers, who were extremely clear about human sexual morality. Ironically, the Patron Saint of the Episcopal parish in San Francisco that uses a Shinto altar in their cremation service, which is obviously a grave error, St. Gregory of Nyssa, along with his brother St. Basil the Great, were among the most specific in this regard, although the most forensic view of how the early church regarded specific practices of sexual immorality can be found in the penitential canons of St. John the Faster, which are severe, but represented about a 50% reduction in what was done before, and nowadays, in the US at least, there has been almost a total reduction in the penances imposed by St. John, so one would have to do something pretty spectacularly unpleasant to be excluded from communion. The most recent case I can think of is the excommunication of Michael Heimbach, who relapsed to the neo-Nazi ideology he had told the priest he had left behind, and had then tried to claim that the Eastern Orthodox believe in segregation along racial lines, which is in fact an anathematized heresy known as ethnophyletism (which was defined after the Bulgarians in Constantinople refused to worship with the Greeks in the 1870s).

 

[seeking.IAM]

Indeed so, but the GMC is not schismatic.

That is not how I see it. If hundreds or thousands leave over differences of belief, I cannot see that as anything but a schism.

Schism (n) - a split or division between strongly opposed sections or parties, caused by differences in opinion or belief.

 

[dzheremi]

“Trix“ at the end of a word in Latin means the female version.

Some people don’t like when you use the word “priestess“.

Some people don’t like when you call women “priests“.

I know. I was just trying to inject a little humor into the discussion.

 

[Paidiske]

“Trix“ at the end of a word in Latin means the female version.

Some people don’t like when you use the word “priestess“.

Some people don’t like when you call women “priests“.

The term is priests; that is what we are. Some people don't like that we exist, but it is better to be honest about our existence, and the correct term for us, than invent words which are never used of us.

 

[MarkRohfrietsch]

Could a priestrix represent the Holy Spirit ?

 

[The Liturgist]

That is not how I see it. If hundreds or thousands leave over differences of belief, I cannot see that as anything but a schism.

Schism (n) - a split or division between strongly opposed sections or parties, caused by differences in opinion or belief.

The church that changed its doctrine is by defintion schismatic. The members of the GMC were left by the UMC, not vice versa. One has no obligation to remain with a church, and indeed I think one should consider leaving a church, that teaches doctrines so contrary to the Apostolic Faith.

The GMC and ACNA are not schismatic. The UMC and ECUSA have traumatized traditional members and in some cases even attempted an action to seize Anglican diocesan property in the case of Fort Worth, where the US Supreme Court ruled against them, and rightly so, particularly since TEC had relied on diocesan authority as its basis for depriving conservative parishes of their buildings in Los Angeles and elsewhere.

 

[The Liturgist]

The term is priests; that is what we are. Some people don't like that we exist, but it is better to be honest about our existence, and the correct term for us, than invent words which are never used of us.

Indeed, Anglican provinces with women clergy have chosen to call female presbyters priests, and this pleases me, because the term priestess has only ever been used, as far as I am aware, in the context of pagans who would more properly be called by words such as hierus and sacerdos, since the word priest is an Anglicization of Presbuteros meaning “Elder.”

 

[seeking.IAM]

The church that changed its doctrine is by defintion schismatic. The members of the GMC were left by the UMC, not vice versa.

That is interesting point of view. In my book, a group that leaves the original body are the schismatics. That applies to the GMC and the ACNA. I reckon we are going to see that differently. What do you think about 1054?

 

[The Liturgist]

That is interesting point of view. In my book, a group that leaves the original body are the schismatics. That applies to the GMC and the ACNA. I reckon we are going to see that differently. What do you think about 1054?

Being that I am a member of the Orthodox Church in America, and have been since 2014, when my Episcopalian friend retired, what do you think I think?

 

[The Liturgist]

In my book, a group that leaves the original body are the schismatics.

In my view, whoever maintains continuity with the apostolic faith is not schismatic. Bishops have no right to redefine sexual morality. Should they dissuade hatred and hateful behavior towards homosexuals as wrong, evil and immoral? Of course, absolutely. But the same ethics that forbid such treatment of people advocated by some on the far right and the far left (consider homophobia in the Soviet Union and most other Communist states) also enjoin the legitimization of sexual immorality, which is sexual relations outside of heterosexual marriage, which furthermore must be monogamous outside the narrow exception the early church provided for receiving polygamist families on the basis of oikonomia.

I see no way that a Christian minister can in good conscience perform any act which might encourage an act that St. Paul warns of as soteriologically dangerous. Now we all commit sins, and we all have to repent of those sins, but we have no right to redefine tnese sins.

By the way:

Apostolic succession, according to St. Cyprian of Carthage, as opposed to the problematic Western view taken from another North African bishop, is contingent on the orthodoxy of the bishop.

 

[dzheremi]

I think you might be missing a "not" before "schismatic" in your first sentence, friend.

 

[Love365]

Women are allowed to read from the Torah.

Women are allowed to light a Menorah.

 

[seeking.IAM]

Being that I am a member of the Orthodox Church in America, and have been since 2014, when my Episcopalian friend retired, what do you think I think?

Forgive me, I did not know you were OCA. You cite such a well-traveled history that I misunderstood your affiliation, and I had an incorrect interpretation of what you profile label of "Generic Orthodox meant."