Women in the church

[Simon_Templar]

"I do not"

That's St. Paul talking, not the Holy Spirit.

In addition, he's talking about a particular circumstance for a particular area. His letters are not catholic but place-specific.

In addition, back then, men were considered the dominate gender. For a woman to teach a man was considered cultural taboo.

For Jews, it was thought that women were considered lesser because Eve was tricked. Fact of the matter is, they were both tricked. Yet, it is because of this, that women were under greater scrutiny in Judaism than men.

Thanks to Christ, all that is meaningless.

But what of St. Paul's meaning? Like I said: particular problem in a particular area.

Women deacons have been mentioned in Scripture. And before someone says, "no, deaconesses," by that logic, all the ladies in this forum, guess what? All of you are not really teachers, scientists, accountants, or anything else, you are teacheresses, scientesses, and accountantesses.

Hate to say this, but what really blocked women's rights was the same logic used to deny women clergyhood. A man educator is a teacher and a woman a teacheress. Women can only teach other women and are not equal to a teacher. That's the same logic.

Its "logic" I reject.

Both genders are equal in Christ, and St. Paul was exactly right. Why? Both were created equally in Genesis 1. Men and women. Women and men. It could be worded either way and have the same meaning. Both are equally human. The entire Genesis 2 was the basic for the ritual/holiness laws that said men are unclean for X whereas women are unclean for X+5. As Christians, we are not under those laws. Judaizers think we are, but that was declared heresy in the 1st Century by the Council of Jerusalem.

The Law may be intact, but only in the way God meant it to be, and He made it easier by summing it up in two ways: The Two Great Commandments and, of course, the other way is none other than Christ Himself.

Ladies, you are not teacheresses but teachers. You are not soldieresses but soldiers. You are not engineeresses but engineers.

Ladies, you are not deaconesses but deacons; not priestesses but priests; not bishopesses but bishops; and what has been proven today, not primatessesbut primates.

give me a break. Your entire argument here is premised on two things #1 denying the inspiration of scripture
#2 muddling the linguistic distinctions within the english language between words which have specific masculine/feminine forms and those which do not. There is no substance in any of this.

Wether or not you call a woman a deacon or a deaconess is simply a matter of if you use correct grammer or not. It has nothing to do with ordination. Likewise, we don't call women "teacheresses" because its incorrect grammer, the word teacher doesn't have a specific feminine or masculine form. Some words do.

What is seen here is the fact that feminism has even gone so far as to attack language itself in its crusade to destroy the identities of both masculine and feminine.

 

[higgs2]

give me a break. Your entire argument here is premised on two things #1 denying the inspiration of scripture
#2 muddling the linguistic distinctions within the english language between words which have specific masculine/feminine forms and those which do not. There is no substance in any of this.

Wether or not you call a woman a deacon or a deaconess is simply a matter of if you use correct grammer or not. It has nothing to do with ordination. Likewise, we don't call women "teacheresses" because its incorrect grammer, the word teacher doesn't have a specific feminine or masculine form. Some words do.

What is seen here is the fact that feminism has even gone so far as to attack language itself in its crusade to destroy the identities of both masculine and feminine.

No way. I think Paladin has a good point. I don't believe that his explanation denies inspiration of scripture.

Have a flower.

 

[Simon_Templar]

No way. I think Paladin has a good point. I don't believe that his explanation denies inspiration of scripture.

Have a flower.

Thank you for the flower

But "this is Paul talking not the Holy Spirit" means that you do not think that particular statement was inspired by the Holy Spirit.
The only reason to say this, is to call into question the authority of the passage. Which is evidenced later on as PV attempts to construe the entire passage as simply Paul's way of dealing with specific cultural issues. Further suggesting that the passage is no longer relavent or authoritative.

What PV is doing here is avoiding the real crux of the argument.
For example, he makes a huge issue out of calling women Deconesses as opposed to deacons. This, however, is irrelevant to the real issue. The fact that its evident in the history of the church that the church appointed women to serve other women in the church in order to prevent circumstances where male servants (which is what deacon means) were put in inapropriate situations. This fact doesn't change wether you call women deacons, or deaconesses.
Insisting that women be refrenced with masculine terms is just a subterfuge to escape the real issue. Calling a woman "man" doesn't mean she is going to have more testosterone, likewise calling a man "woman" isn't going to enable him to give birth. Its just an attempt to get around the fact that the sacrament of ordination, both in scripture and in church tradition has only ever been confered upon men by saying that women should be addressed with masculine terms.

Further this kind of logic (because paul said "I do not" means its not the Holy Spirit) would essentially invalidate most of the scriptures.

 

[PaladinValer]

He appeals to Genesis, which is about as Universal as you can get.

Genesis 2, which is the basis for Jewish holiness/ritual laws.

As I said however, he also appeals to Genesis 1, which is not the basis for the holiness/ritual laws, but to how God actually did something.

Are we Judaizers or are we Christians? I don't doubt that St. Paul was right in the case he was dealing with, but I believe it was Karen who provided an alternative translation that was linguistically sound that would also fit St. Paul's appeal to Genesis 1.

Are there times in which barriers must be issued? Absolutely; I agree with the desired temporary barrier asked of my ECUSA (heck; I've been saying that for 3 whole years now, though I bet people prejudged me otherwise [no, I'm not saying you did, Colabomb]). However, this is not a universal case and furthermore, with all due respect, you really didn't argue the major points of my case.

give me a break.

Nope.

Your entire argument here is premised on two things #1 denying the inspiration of scripture

That's pure nonsense and you darn well know it. Where in my post did I even imply that?

#2 muddling the linguistic distinctions within the english language between words which have specific masculine/feminine forms and those which do not. There is no substance in any of this.

There is a very good substance in it.

[quote[Wether or not you call a woman a deacon or a deaconess is simply a matter of if you use correct grammer or not.[/quote]

I hope you call all women who hold positions with the suffix -ess, since that is the traditional way of genderizing English words feminine a great deal of the time.

It has nothing to do with ordination. Likewise, we don't call women "teacheresses" because its incorrect grammer, the word teacher doesn't have a specific feminine or masculine form. Some words do.

It is not incorrect grammar. For example, do we not call women sorcerers, sorceresses? That there is actually right from the Hebrew. The Hebrew uses a feminin for sorcerer and many modern translations use sorceress.

What is seen here is the fact that feminism has even gone so far as to attack language itself in its crusade to destroy the identities of both masculine and feminine.

Because in Christ, according to St. Paul, there is no destinction of masculine or feminine in Christ. And if you want to call Christ a feminist, you'd probably be right.

 

[Colabomb]

Are we Judaizers or are we Christians?

We are set free from the Law. Last I checked, Genesis two was not Law, but narrative.

 

[PaladinValer]

It is the basis for gender issues in the Law.

 

[Vasileios]

Forgive me for intruding your board, I was curious about the recent election and its reception in your community so I was reading this thread and I felt like sharing something I read concerning Adam and Eve.

Unfortunately, I do not remember which Church Father it was but he was saying that Eve was deceived as she was the one who listened to the serpent. The serpent chose her to tempt because she had not heard the command of God directly by Him, it was Adam who told her. Adam, having heard the command first-hand would probably not be as susceptible to the temptation.

However, as it was noted here by someone, it is always referred to as Adam's sin. He was indeed responsible for Eve and failed to protect her.

The same Church Father says that Adam was there when the serpent talked to Eve, he was watching. So, not only he could have refused Eve but also tell her (as he should have) that she should not eat.

So, the deception and the first heeding of temptation as it were, was from Eve, as Paul says. Adam, as the head, is responsible.

Being the head and the authority is meant to be unpleasant. A fact overlooked by us, modern Christians, because we instinctively associate authority with power and dominion.

I wont expand on my Orthodox beliefs because I already feel intrusive but in short I think of the authority as any other authority in the church. Like the bishop, who has authority and is responsible of preserving the truth but in his everyday life he is the servant of his flock, must tire and sacrifice his comfort for the sake of the church.

Likewise, a husband should be responsible for the direction of the family (a direction mutually and in the love of Christ agreed however) and sacrifice himself for his family.

I believe that is the role of man. Woman is blessed with the miracle of childbirth. Creating life together with God.
Men cannot experience this even remotely as women.

So, man resembles God as the head (which as Christians means the humility of Christ) and women as creators of life.

My apologies for intruding again, I talked a bit more than I should, if I violated any rules or offended I am sincerely sorry, it was not my intention.

 

[Naomi4Christ]

I think it would be interesting if every woman decided one day to "mind her own business" and completely stay out of running the affairs of the church. It would be very interesting.

Indeed

 

[ContraMundum]

give me a break. Your entire argument here is premised on two things #1 denying the inspiration of scripture
#2 muddling the linguistic distinctions within the english language between words which have specific masculine/feminine forms and those which do not. There is no substance in any of this.

Wether or not you call a woman a deacon or a deaconess is simply a matter of if you use correct grammer or not. It has nothing to do with ordination. Likewise, we don't call women "teacheresses" because its incorrect grammer, the word teacher doesn't have a specific feminine or masculine form. Some words do.

What is seen here is the fact that feminism has even gone so far as to attack language itself in its crusade to destroy the identities of both masculine and feminine.

A-MEN!




Don't let the modern nay-sayers destroy the Christian exegetical rule "theology must conform to the rules of grammar".