How liberal am I, actually? And, the evils of misogyny

The Liturgist · Aug 30, 2021

I am apparently considered a liberal, I have found out in the past 24 hours, in part for my Evolutionist interpretation of Genesis ch. 1 and in part because I reject the penal substitutionary atonement and satisfaction atonement of John Calvin and Anselm of Canterbury respectively, as well as precursors of the doctrine found in St. Augustine and the Scholastic interpretation in Thomas Aquinas, in favor of a soteriological model based on the Eastern Orthodox concept of theosis and the hypostatic union of God and Man in the incarnation of Christ.

And furthermore, because I agree with CS Lewis that the gates of Hell are locked on the inside, and with his conceptualization of Hell as a place where people who love the world live in self-inflicted misery, but variously won’t leave voluntarily or will return rather than stay in the heavenly realm, and with Metropolitan Kallistos Ware and other Eastern and Oriental Orthodox theologians that God’s wrath is a metaphor for the experience of His omnipresent uncreated light by those who do not love Him, that the suffering of the condemned is essentially because sometimes when we cannot love someone, it hurts us, and the image of God the Angry Father demanding the violent death of his only begotten son as the only possible condition under which He would forgive some of us, selectively and arbitrarily in Fundamentalist Calvinism, is detrimental to Christianity and is responsible for many atheists remaining atheists, because they are horrified by a caricature of Western Christianity as depicted in the media.

For that, two members accused me of being a liberal, one of whom is a flat Earther, who posted a link to the NRSV saying it agreed with my “scientific” interpretation of Genesis 1, which he rejects as he believes science is evil and a source of falsehood.

Also, in the past, I severely criticized members who attacked @Paidiske in an offensively personal way for being a female Anglican priest, and am opposed to conversion therapy, even though I am traditionalist when it comes to sexual morality. So I expect taking heat from that.

But given that I admire classical liberalism as a political system, in the form of the late, great Whig Party in the US and UK, and see conservatism as a derivative of this concept developed by Edmund Burke, MP, I don’t take offense at being called a liberal Christian. To (loosely) quote the computer Alpha 60 from the dystopian science fiction film Alphaville by Jean Luc Goddard, “this is true, if we acknowledge that words change their meanings, and meanings their words.”

I was distressed by @Methodized ’s alarm at an apparent increase in misogyny since he last posted here (if true, we need to do something about it), and I noticed this forum was unusually quiet, so, I figure, without wishing to seem immodest or self centered, but in the absence of other ideas for a topic which covers these points, we might as well seek to start it up by evaluating the extent to which my theology corresponds with liberal theological concepts. And concurrently, since I refuse to condone personal criticism of pious female clergy such as @Paidiske, and I venerate the St. Mary as the Mother of God and St. Nino, the female Armenian Apostle to the Georgians, with particular devotion, and am opposed to misogyny generally, what forms of misogyny liberal members are encountering in addition to the shameful abuse that was hurled at @Paidiske in threads on the ordination of women, so that we can respond to those threads with a loving Christian egalitarianism.

Tolworth John · Aug 30, 2021

The Liturgist said:
e image of God the Angry Father demanding the violent death of his only begotten son as the only possible condition under which He would forgive some of us, selectively and arbitrarily

It is acharacture of what the bible actually says.
There is a penalty for sin, we can accept our responcibility and pay it ourselves by being ecluded from Gods presence, or we can accept that Jesus willingly paid the penalty for our sins for us.

bekkilyn · Aug 30, 2021

If you wish to see what seems like endless examples of misogyny, you could try searching for any post anywhere on the site that begins with something like this statement: "Are women allowed to _______?"

In fact, you could probably search for any subject headers that even include the words "woman" or "women" or "female" or "females" and find numerous examples.

Practically anywhere the topic of women is found is subject to abuse. Even the Egalitarian forum is not immune because it doesn't matter if you post a disclaimer at the top of your post with something like:

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>THIS IS THE EGALITARIAN FORUM SO PLEASE READ THE TOS BEFORE POSTING <<<<<<<<<<<<

You will still get riddled with misogynistic posts from people who have disregarded or who have claimed not to see the forum they are posting in or even more commonly, people who just can't bear not to respond with their anti-women rhetoric with something like, "I know this it the Egalitarian forum, but I just have to say that if women want to go against God for __________" (and it only gets worse from there) or even "I never said that women aren't equal to men, BUT they simply have different and lesser roles" along with all the usual complimentarian drivel, and somehow get offended when it's not welcome.

The moderators do usually remove these posts in the Egalitarian forum after complaints, but it is like that game where you are using mallets to beat the hedgehog back into the hole only to have two pop up in another hole directly afterwards. On the rest of the site, most of the anti-woman threads don't get shut down until long, long after great harm has been done because it's "biblical" to keep informing women that they're crap provided that scripture is quoted in support of the view.

The misogyny, abuse, and hatred of women is non-stop on these forums as well as within much of Christianity as a whole when women refuse to go along with the roles that MEN have proscribed for women in the name of God and/or misuse of scripture.

PloverWing · Aug 30, 2021

For what it's worth, based on your posts, I would never have mistaken you for a liberal.

CF is an oddly "conservative" place. I've put "conservative" in quotes, because I don't mean that it's reflective of the long, deep history of traditional Christian theology. But I don't have another word for it. Among Protestants, I see creationism, disbelief in climate change, opposition to Christian tradition (!), and a simplistic kind of sola Scriptura that means "me alone reading the Bible in English". Among Catholics, I see surprisingly often the view that the Pope isn't nearly Catholic enough and needs to be opposed by the Catholic faithful. And, of course, there's the belief that women shouldn't be priests and women should submit to their husbands, which connects to the misogyny you and bekkilyn have described.

Against that backdrop, people might identify you as "liberal", but only with the meaning that you dissent from their kind of "conservatism". Used with this meaning, "liberal" isn't a useful word at all; it's just a generic insult that means "You disagree with me, so I don't like you, and I think God doesn't like you either."

Based on what you've written, I'd say you were influenced by Orthodoxy (a tradition way older than American Fundamentalism) and by science (which is just, well, empirically verified true stuff).

As to misogyny, I think it's here to stay on CF. Belief in the inferiority of women is widely, explicitly taught in several large branches of Christianity. I think it comes from misogyny in the ancient world being drawn up into early Judaism and Christianity -- and I wish those two faiths had been more critical of their cultures on this point -- but whatever the cause, it's here in Christianity in official statements of faith. So we do have egalitarians on CF, but the egalitarians are minority dissenters. We can report a post if it crosses the line too far into personal attack, but a post can't be banned just because it says women are inferior to men; that's orthodoxy in the largest groups that make up CF.

Paidiske · Aug 30, 2021

I was astonished, when I was new here, to find I was considered liberal, because I always considered myself pretty straight-down-the-line orthodox. But what I found is that irl, in Australia, "liberal" would mean something like, rejects the Creeds or the basic tenets of Christianity. (What Sir Humphrey Appleby might call "modernist, Prime Minister.") But on CF "liberal," as you have found, seems to mean well-grounded theology which is integrated with the best insights of other disciplines, or anything that's not incredibly socially conservative, or both.

My sisters above are right; this site is saturated in misogyny and sexism, and all but the most blatant seems to be accepted as part of the Christian landscape. The Egalitarian forum was created to be a haven from that, and having it is better than not, but it's a long way from really addressing the problem.

The Liturgist · Aug 30, 2021

bekkilyn said:
If you wish to see what seems like endless examples of misogyny, you could try searching for any post anywhere on the site that begins with something like this statement: "Are women allowed to _______?"

In fact, you could probably search for any subject headers that even include the words "woman" or "women" or "female" or "females" and find numerous examples.

Practically anywhere the topic of women is found is subject to abuse. Even the Egalitarian forum is not immune because it doesn't matter if you post a disclaimer at the top of your post with something like:

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>THIS IS THE EGALITARIAN FORUM SO PLEASE READ THE TOS BEFORE POSTING <<<<<<<<<<<<

You will still get riddled with misogynistic posts from people who have disregarded or who have claimed not to see the forum they are posting in or even more commonly, people who just can't bear not to respond with their anti-women rhetoric with something like, "I know this it the Egalitarian forum, but I just have to say that if women want to go against God for __________" (and it only gets worse from there) or even "I never said that women aren't equal to men, BUT they simply have different and lesser roles" along with all the usual complimentarian drivel, and somehow get offended when it's not welcome.

The moderators do usually remove these posts in the Egalitarian forum after complaints, but it is like that game where you are using mallets to beat the hedgehog back into the hole only to have two pop up in another hole directly afterwards. On the rest of the site, most of the anti-woman threads don't get shut down until long, long after great harm has been done because it's "biblical" to keep informing women that they're crap provided that scripture is quoted in support of the view.

The misogyny, abuse, and hatred of women is non-stop on these forums as well as within much of Christianity as a whole when women refuse to go along with the roles that MEN have proscribed for women in the name of God and/or misuse of scripture.

Well, I myself really like the moderation team for CF.com, which consists largely of women, and since these forums are ecumenical, it seems there is a need to tolerate the full spectrum of opinions. Traditional Theology has a problem similiar to the Egalitarian forum, in that aliturgical, non-denominational charismatic Word of Faith fundamentalist megachurch members occasionally pop up and attack us for following “traditions of men” and accuse us of using doctrines not in the Bible, or of idolatry, et cetera, and it takes the mods a day or two to remove the posts when they become problematic (we try to not be hostile to outsiders, so if someone comes in and doesn’t read the SOP for us, at first, it is an opportunity to teach Traditional Theology, and then if they continue to troll, someone will report them and the mods will deal with it). Perhaps such an approach could work in the Egalitarian forum? @Paidiske and @hedrick would know as they are among the regulars in Traditional Theology.

I am solely interested in constructively tackling unpleasant trends and posting tendencies like misogyny, or to use another pet peeve of mine, people mindlessly bashing all of the liturgical churches due to ignorant attacks on Roman Catholicism, like the popular myth that St. Constantine founded the Roman church, or that Easter is a Pagan holiday connected to Ishtar (nevermind the early Church called it Pascha and in other languages like Dutch, the word is Passen), by posting threads factually debunking these errors, and then going beyond that, by posting threads on somewhat advanced liturgical or traditional theological or oriental Christian topics, for example, a recent post in Denomination Specific Theology addressing the Byzantine-Slavonic theological influence on John Wesley via his interactions with the Moravians and the Greek Orthodox, and his Anglican liturgical sensibilities and preferred worship practices for the Methodist church. So basically, posting threads that go above and beyond the negative material.

I propose a similar approach with misogyny. For example, I can prove from my knowledge of history that women exercised critical ministries in the early church, that several including St. Mary Magdalene (not to be confused with St. Mary of Bethany), St. Theclas, who ministered with St. Paul, and St. Nino, evangelist of the Kart’velians (of Georgia, basically), are venerated by the Eastern churches as Equal to the Apostles owing to the extreme importance of what they did, in addition to serving in the diaconate, and I can enumerate various aspects of the early church that made it highly appealing to women, such as prohibiting husbands in the church from exposing infants deemed defective or undesirable, as had been their right under the cruel and misogynistic laws of ancient Rome before the Edict of Milan and the de-paganization program under Theodosius I. There are other threads that can be posted to counter the abuse, just as posting threads specific to traditional theology facilitates a shift in that direction.

bekkilyn · Aug 30, 2021

The Liturgist said:
Well, I myself really like the moderation team for CF.com, which consists largely of women, and since these forums are ecumenical, it seems there is a need to tolerate the full spectrum of opinions. Traditional Theology has a problem similiar to the Egalitarian forum, in that aliturgical, non-denominational charismatic Word of Faith fundamentalist megachurch members occasionally pop up and attack us for following “traditions of men” and accuse us of using doctrines not in the Bible, or of idolatry, et cetera, and it takes the mods a day or two to remove the posts when they become problematic (we try to not be hostile to outsiders, so if someone comes in and doesn’t read the SOP for us, at first, it is an opportunity to teach Traditional Theology, and then if they continue to troll, someone will report them and the mods will deal with it). Perhaps such an approach could work in the Egalitarian forum? @Paidiske and @hedrick would know as they are among the regulars in Traditional Theology.

I am solely interested in constructively tackling unpleasant trends and posting tendencies like misogyny, or to use another pet peeve of mine, people mindlessly bashing all of the liturgical churches due to ignorant attacks on Roman Catholicism, like the popular myth that St. Constantine founded the Roman church, or that Easter is a Pagan holiday connected to Ishtar (nevermind the early Church called it Pascha and in other languages like Dutch, the word is Passen), by posting threads factually debunking these errors, and then going beyond that, by posting threads on somewhat advanced liturgical or traditional theological or oriental Christian topics, for example, a recent post in Denomination Specific Theology addressing the Byzantine-Slavonic theological influence on John Wesley via his interactions with the Moravians and the Greek Orthodox, and his Anglican liturgical sensibilities and preferred worship practices for the Methodist church. So basically, posting threads that go above and beyond the negative material.

I propose a similar approach with misogyny. For example, I can prove from my knowledge of history that women exercised critical ministries in the early church, that several including St. Mary Magdalene (not to be confused with St. Mary of Bethany), St. Theclas, who ministered with St. Paul, and St. Nino, evangelist of the Kart’velians (of Georgia, basically), are venerated by the Eastern churches as Equal to the Apostles owing to the extreme importance of what they did, in addition to serving in the diaconate, and I can enumerate various aspects of the early church that made it highly appealing to women, such as prohibiting husbands in the church from exposing infants deemed defective or undesirable, as had been their right under the cruel and misogynistic laws of ancient Rome before the Edict of Milan and the de-paganization program under Theodosius I. There are other threads that can be posted to counter the abuse, just as posting threads specific to traditional theology facilitates a shift in that direction.

I sincerely wish you luck with that. It's been my experience in the multitudes of the anti-woman threads that such well-thought out and researched posts are going to be met with something to the equivalent of "nuh uh" and the same three or four bible verses cherry-picked out of context to supposedly back up the "nuh uh". You're spending a great deal of quality time while they are spending three seconds completely disregarding it and then going back to calling the women in the thread bitter, disobedient Jezebels.

Paidiske · Aug 30, 2021

I do somewhat agree with Bekki. Often I post in such threads in the hope that the bystanders might see the value in our "side" of the argument, (and because really, I hate to see the blatant hateful stuff allowed to stand uncontested) but I seldom have found many people open to being persuaded.

The Liturgist · Aug 31, 2021

Paidiske said:
I do somewhat agree with Bekki. Often I post in such threads in the hope that the bystanders might see the value in our "side" of the argument, (and because really, I hate to see the blatant hateful stuff allowed to stand uncontested) but I seldom have found many people open to being persuaded.

Part of the reason why I am developing my CF blog is to have a sort of Quick Reference Handbook like those used by airline pilots for troubleshooting, with posts that address common errors I encounter on CF.com, that I can refer to via links, or quote, and by having a multitude of such articles, when people repeat the same nonsense, or variations of it, I can reduce the workload of replying to them without engaging in the inane copy pasting from polemics/apologetics sites written by 3rd parties, or videos posted without a description (I think that was finally made against the rules), that I have grown to disdain. So, if I make a post about the Theotokos, a woman, being the only human born of natural reproduction who did not sin, and how this should refute any idea that women are Biblical, and then someone makes a predictable post about how the idea of Mary as the Theotokos and also the Council of Nicea and the Catholic Church is a Pagan conspiracy, the design of Emperor ~~Palpatine~~ Constantine in league with dark forces, I can refer via a link or quotation to my ChristianForums blog where an article debunking that will in due course exist, and also another article defending the doctrine of the Councils of Nicea, Constantinople and Ephesus as integral to the faith, so the workload is reduced to replying to those ideas they have which are unique or original or unusual or which require personal attention.

However, just posting naked links to my CF blog in response to posts where are a mere “nuh uh” would be just as spammy, and besides that, it is improper for a clergyman to post naked links on a public forum. ^_^

bekkilyn · Aug 31, 2021

That sounds like a good plan as you're only needing to do everything once. Even if it doesn't end up getting through to the anti-woman crowd, they will have a much more difficult time trolling you to waste your time.

The Liturgist · Aug 31, 2021

bekkilyn said:
That sounds like a good plan as you're only needing to do everything once. Even if it doesn't end up getting through to the anti-woman crowd, they will have a much more difficult time trolling you to waste your time.

That’s the idea.

This one angered me to the point of threatening my equanimity: Is it sin for a Christian mother to have a career outside the home?

bekkilyn · Aug 31, 2021

The Liturgist said:
That’s the idea.

This one angered me to the point of threatening my equanimity: Is it sin for a Christian mother to have a career outside the home?

Oh right, I forgot to include the word "mother" in the list of terms to search for when looking for all of the anti-woman threads!

And yet oddly, I don't recall having ever seen a thread on the question of if it was a sin for a Christian father to have a career outside the home. I personally don't see why it would be any different. If working outside of the home is a sin, then it would apply to all of humanity and not just women.

SkyWriting · Sep 10, 2021

The Liturgist said:
and am opposed to conversion therapy, even though I am traditionalist when it comes to sexual morality. So I expect taking heat from that.

You might find polar bears attractive sex partners. Just as long as you remain monogamous, I'm satisfied, and please keep me not informed.

What you do for sex with adults is not my business.
You are free to be traditional or not traditional.

hedrick · Sep 16, 2021

The Liturgist said:
Part of the reason why I am developing my CF blog is to have a sort of Quick Reference Handbook like those used by airline pilots for troubleshooting, with posts that address common errors I encounter on CF.com, that I can refer to via links, or quote, and by having a multitude of such articles, when people repeat the same nonsense, or variations of it, I can reduce the workload of replying to them without engaging in the inane copy pasting from polemics/apologetics sites written by 3rd parties, or videos posted without a description (I think that was finally made against the rules), that I have grown to disdain. So, if I make a post about the Theotokos, a woman, being the only human born of natural reproduction who did not sin, and how this should refute any idea that women are Biblical, and then someone makes a predictable post about how the idea of Mary as the Theotokos and also the Council of Nicea and the Catholic Church is a Pagan conspiracy, the design of Emperor ~~Palpatine~~ Constantine in league with dark forces, I can refer via a link or quotation to my ChristianForums blog where an article debunking that will in due course exist, and also another article defending the doctrine of the Councils of Nicea, Constantinople and Ephesus as integral to the faith, so the workload is reduced to replying to those ideas they have which are unique or original or unusual or which require personal attention.

However, just posting naked links to my CF blog in response to posts where are a mere “nuh uh” would be just as spammy, and besides that, it is improper for a clergyman to post naked links on a public forum.

I tried to do that once. I found that blog posts time out, and the blog isn’t really organized to give a view of all your postings. So you can’t use it for that. That was a while ago, so maybe the software has changed.

hedrick · Sep 16, 2021

Hmmm. I just looked up my blog posts. They’re there.some people have even read them. Since I did them years ago I need to go back and look.

hedrick · Sep 16, 2021

Liberal Christianity has many characteristics. It may be that few have them all. You have some.

You seem to have at least some critical attitude towards Scripture (though not to the extent that you’d find in our seminaries) but less toward traditional theology. You accept full participation by women but not gays. You’re within the range acceptable in mainline churches, but not typical of the leadership. You won’t see actual liberal theology even in this group, because CF won’t permit it., but you’ll see portions of it.

I’m a bit more traditional than some in the PCUSA on worship, but otherwise have most of the characteristics. On worship, communion in my current church is significantly substandard. The PCUSA has a fine Book of Common Worship. I wish we’d use it.

hedrick · Sep 16, 2021

On penal substitution, don’t blame that on Calvin. He has statements suggesting it, but also other theories. His main treatment of the atonement in the Instututes seems close to Rom 6.

Gregory Thompson · Sep 16, 2021

The Liturgist said:
I am apparently considered a liberal,

Everyone's liberal to someone else. Those with no generosity are probably subject to the punishment in the parable of the unjust debtor anyway.

PloverWing · Sep 17, 2021

@The Liturgist : Do you support the ordination of women? I haven't been sure. You've posted several times about how conservative parishes ought to be able to leave the Episcopal Church more easily, and about how you're unhappy with trends in your own UCC, and I had guessed that part of that was disagreement with the ordination of women.

I have seen you post in defense of Paidiske (thank you!) when people were hurling awful insults in her direction, but that could simply be the principle that we shouldn't be mean to each other online. It wasn't clear to me what you thought of the general policy of admitting women to the priesthood.

SkyWriting · Sep 18, 2021

The Liturgist said:
I am apparently considered a liberal,

There is always somebody who calls other other kids names on the playground.
Pay them little attention.

How liberal am I, actually? And, the evils of misogyny

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