Enough Women’s Ordination Gnostic Nonsense – Fr. Dwight

Enough Gnostic Nonsense​

I seem to have been added to the email list of a women’s ordination activist. From time to time I’ll get an amateurish graphic or a passage of shallow theology speak from this guy. I don’t argue with him because I’ve learned that arguing with ideologues is a waste of time, but as far as I can remember this is what the latest mumbo jumbo consisted of something like this:

God is not male and not patriarchal
Before he was incarnate God the Son was not male and not patriarchal
The Holy Spirit is not male and not patriarchal
Therefore the church is not patriarchal and should ordain women.

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I call this Gnostic Nonsense because the gnostics were those early heretics who were “spiritual but not religious”. This self indulgent sentimentality is abhorrent. It exchanges the solid, concrete, dogmatic rock of the Catholic religion for vague, saccharine, feel good spirituality. I call it “Coca Cola Catholicism”–a sweet tasting, bubbly confection with no nutritional value that doesn’t actually quench your thirst and may become addictive.

How to answer this theological sleight of hand? Yes, yes, we all agree that God does not have a penis and xy chromosomes. But God the Son did and he was ascended into heaven so we must admit that in some mysterious way the physical realities are now part of the spiritual realm. Which leads to an interesting speculation: how and in what way and to what extent is heaven “physical”?

Continued below.