ViaCrucis
Confessional Lutheran
- Oct 2, 2011
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It's in persona Christi, not in persona Spiritus. Which has never been a thing. Sacred ministers represent Christ as under-shepherds, for Christ alone is the True Shepherd; and every minister as Christ's servant and representative is a shepherd under Him, to reflect and represent Him to the flock. In order that His Word be preached, and that His Sacraments are administered; for in the preaching of the Word Christ speaks; and in His Holy Supper Christ administers His own body and blood. In Holy Absolution it is not the minister who forgives sins, but Christ who said, "Whoever's sins you forgive are forgiven them."
Coming from the Lutheran tradition, I am aware that the general position of Confessional Lutheranism is that only men can be ordained. That said, I have never really encountered what I believe to be good, solid, biblical or theological arguments against female ordination. The one argument that makes sense to me is simply that the Church has never, historically, ordained women; which isn't a biblical or theological argument--but an argument of tradition (which isn't bad); but it raises what I believe to be further questions.
The major theological argument that I see is that since sacred ministers are acting in persona Christi, and since Christ was a man, then only men can represent Him. But couldn't one also, using the same logic, argue that since Christ was Jewish, only a Jewish person can represent Him? This does of course open up all manner of various philosophical pathways: Is biological sex an ontological reality--i.e. is there something to maleness that is more ontologically solid than, say, Jewishness? Would Jewishness be accidental rather than substantial? Whereas maleness is substantial rather than merely accidental? And why? The same Scripture that says "there is neither Jew nor Greek" also says "there is neither male nor female"; and nobody believes that the Jew-Gentile distinction is altogether meaningless, certainly not the New Testament wherein the Apostle still asks, "So is there any benefit to being Jewish? Most certainly!" (Romans 3:1 and onward). So what philosophical argument is there to be made that maleness is an intrinsic ontological truth of the Person of Jesus Christ but Jewishness is not in such a way that that Christ's maleness leads to only men being able to represent Him in the Sacred Office but not in such a way that Christ's Jewishness leads to only Jews being able to represent Him in the Sacred Office?
Now, if, there were a clear teaching in Scripture itself that said that the Sacred Office can only be occupied by men, then all the rest of this no longer matters: Scripture is Scripture and rules over all else. But there is no, that I have ever seen argued convincingly, any explicit prescription that only men are eligible; to wit, "a presbyter must be a husband of one wife" is certainly a prescriptive argument but it argues that one must be a husband of one wife--which if argued to mean only men, then only married monogamous men (unmarried, celibate, and widowers are ineligible). Thus, I say again, I do not see a clear prescriptive teaching in Scripture that only men may occupy the Sacred Office.
In all of this, I'm not arguing that there is no an argument to be made, only that I have not encountered arguments which I find particularly convincing and rising above mere opinion.
-CryptoLutheran
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