23 thoughts on “Indeed, indeed, a very interesting question”
Steve
Women priests and bishops are here to stay, says Linda Hurcombe
Empty pews says no.
However, unity within the church is a high price to pay for a culture that so often suppresses opportunities for so many gifted and talented minorities due to gender, class and sexuality that we now see dominant in our church.
See, when this kind of dopey moo talk is tolerated in your organisation, it’s already too far gone to save.
When I moved to a large evangelical church, I was relegated to doing the things no one else wanted to do, and never, in any circumstances, being allowed to preach. Everything was done with a smile, but it was clear that I was not considered to be a real priest, and I felt spiritually destroyed.
You have no monstrance, no thurible, and no holy relics. You are a woman, twisted by feminism and bon bons into a crude mockery of apostolic priesthood. Demons laugh at you behind your back. You will never be a real priest.
Sam Vara
My wife is completely accepted as an Anglican priest by her parishioners. The worst she has experienced is a few “Vicar of Dibley” type jokes from elderly chaps. Her congregation is growing.
Our Bishop “supports” female priests, but will not personally ordain them nor accept the sacraments from them. His published reasons for this looks like living proof that clever barristers once mated with the slipperiest of eels.
The Meissen Bison
I was not considered to be a real priest, and I felt spiritually destroyed.
She really doesn’t have a clue if she believes that spiritual destruction lies within the power of man. Perhaps she ought to give the LibDems a try instead.
Steve
Sam – I’m sure your wife is a wonderful and holy woman, but if I need an exorcism or the last rites I’m going to insist on a man. Preferably an old man – possibly Irish – with white hair and a hip flask of holy water.
Can’t mess around with this kind of thing, souls are at stake.
Southerner
My faith in priests was destroyed when I followed him into the sacristy and there was no ice-cream.
Grikath
“His published reasons for this looks like living proof that clever barristers once mated with the slipperiest of eels.”
Sam… It’s a high-up Priest you’re talking about.
Parish priests ( an religion/denomination) generally have Faith ( and preferably compassion). It’s their tools of the trade and they’re on the workfloor. Like any tradesman their tools/skills have to be good to be in any way passable.
Bishops ( or any high priest in a structured monolythic organisation ) are career Managers and Politicians. With the not quite unexpected results when it comes to their personalities…
You can find this distinction ( and the associated grumbling ), for the current UK, as far back as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles.
Trick with no sleeve
Organised religion – old men with beards and funny hats exercising power. Bugger all to do with faith.
jgh
Nae priests, Nae bishops, Nae hierarchy!
Sam Vara
Steve:
We’ve got a near match in the next parish. Welsh, but most of the other stuff. Not allowed to do exorcism, though; that’s a specialist job.
Grikath:
Agreed, we could spot the future bishops a mile off when we were at theological college. And a lot of them were women.
Recusant
Absolutely null and void……..
Ottokring
Sam
Does your missus have a decent hairdo? Nearly all women whom I have encountered, involved directly in religion have terrible hair. There is probably an epistle by St Paul warning against having a nice perm.
Sam Vara
Ottokring:
Well, I like it, and I can’t imagine her getting a perm. When “on duty” in the chancel it’s normally a ponytail because of the risk from candles or dunking it in the chalice. But yes, lots of female priests do look a fright.
jgh
Taking the specific point about female Imams, Islam is a congregationalist religion, the individual congregation is sovereign and makes its own decisions, so by definition it’s impossible for there to be a universal policy on anything.
dearieme
There are people who are so gullible as to believe the rubbishy bits in the Gospels.
You know, Yahweh shagging Mary just as if he were really Zeus; both nativity yarns (which are contradictory and therefore can’t both be true); perpetual virginity (of a woman who perhaps bore four boys and three girls), et bloody cetera.
And yet they somehow can’t cope with the idea of a woman priest. Because, well, “tradition”. It can’t be because they know all about how early Christian churches were managed because precious little is known about that. So “tradition” it presumably is, a word meaning “made up long ago to suit the purposes of some devious bugger who was probably in search of power”.
Am I wrong to suspect that it’s the very Charlies who try to incorporate a cult of a fertility goddess into their religion who are the ones most likely to recoil at actual women being ministers of religion? Very rum!
Chris Miller
Islam is a congregationalist religion, the individual congregation is sovereign and makes its own decisions, so by definition it’s impossible for there to be a universal policy on anything.
That’s true of Sunni Islam, but Shi’as have their Ayatollahs.
Nautical Nick
1 Timothy 2:12 How can there be female priests anyway? Shows the whole church is a nonsense.
(But we knew that already….)
Ottokring
One of the great theological mysteries, which I don’t think has ever been resolved to my knowledge is :
Do nuns shave their legs ?
Bloke in North Dorset
Does the church have the equivalent of:
Oxford PPE > Spad > safe seat > MP > minister ….
Under no circumstances must real life experience get in the way of a career in politics.
Chester
Ayatollah is an honorific. In practice it means nothing other than that you agree with the guy.
The “empty pews” argument against female priests would have more validity if the Catholic churches pews were full. (They are in NZ, but only because we have so many Fillipinos, Chinese and Islanders. Whites are dwindling.)
jgh
Ayatollah essentially means “elder”, the ones that stay behind to put the chairs away, lock up, and do the accounts. While I happily put the chairs away, I’m fighting to avoid doing the accounts.
dearieme
@NN: But Timothy is fake: Paul didn’t write it. WKPD:
“Most scholars believe that Paul actually wrote seven of the Pauline epistles (Galatians, Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Philemon, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians), while three of the epistles in Paul’s name are widely seen as pseudepigraphic (First Timothy, Second Timothy, and Titus).
Whether Paul wrote the three other epistles in his name (2 Thessalonians, Ephesians and Colossians) is widely debated.”
I suspect Jesus, Peter, Paul, James, and company did exist. It’s God who doesn’t. They were wrong about Him.
Wonko the sane
Faith in priests to do what exactly? very difficult to spot any difference between the male variety and the female variety. Particularly given the garb they wear. The followers of the prophet M are more akin to the Spanish Inquisition, and the Anglican church seems to have found faith in Karl Marx!
Chris Miller
Ayatollah is an honorific. In practice it means nothing other than that you agree with the guy.
Ayatollah essentially means “elder”, the ones that stay behind to put the chairs away, lock up, and do the accounts. While I happily put the chairs away, I’m fighting to avoid doing the accounts.
Women priests and bishops are here to stay, says Linda Hurcombe
Empty pews says no.
However, unity within the church is a high price to pay for a culture that so often suppresses opportunities for so many gifted and talented minorities due to gender, class and sexuality that we now see dominant in our church.
See, when this kind of dopey moo talk is tolerated in your organisation, it’s already too far gone to save.
When I moved to a large evangelical church, I was relegated to doing the things no one else wanted to do, and never, in any circumstances, being allowed to preach. Everything was done with a smile, but it was clear that I was not considered to be a real priest, and I felt spiritually destroyed.
You have no monstrance, no thurible, and no holy relics. You are a woman, twisted by feminism and bon bons into a crude mockery of apostolic priesthood. Demons laugh at you behind your back. You will never be a real priest.
My wife is completely accepted as an Anglican priest by her parishioners. The worst she has experienced is a few “Vicar of Dibley” type jokes from elderly chaps. Her congregation is growing.
Our Bishop “supports” female priests, but will not personally ordain them nor accept the sacraments from them. His published reasons for this looks like living proof that clever barristers once mated with the slipperiest of eels.
I was not considered to be a real priest, and I felt spiritually destroyed.
She really doesn’t have a clue if she believes that spiritual destruction lies within the power of man. Perhaps she ought to give the LibDems a try instead.
Sam – I’m sure your wife is a wonderful and holy woman, but if I need an exorcism or the last rites I’m going to insist on a man. Preferably an old man – possibly Irish – with white hair and a hip flask of holy water.
Can’t mess around with this kind of thing, souls are at stake.
My faith in priests was destroyed when I followed him into the sacristy and there was no ice-cream.
“His published reasons for this looks like living proof that clever barristers once mated with the slipperiest of eels.”
Sam… It’s a high-up Priest you’re talking about.
Parish priests ( an religion/denomination) generally have Faith ( and preferably compassion). It’s their tools of the trade and they’re on the workfloor. Like any tradesman their tools/skills have to be good to be in any way passable.
Bishops ( or any high priest in a structured monolythic organisation ) are career Managers and Politicians. With the not quite unexpected results when it comes to their personalities…
You can find this distinction ( and the associated grumbling ), for the current UK, as far back as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles.
Organised religion – old men with beards and funny hats exercising power. Bugger all to do with faith.
Nae priests, Nae bishops, Nae hierarchy!
Steve:
We’ve got a near match in the next parish. Welsh, but most of the other stuff. Not allowed to do exorcism, though; that’s a specialist job.
Grikath:
Agreed, we could spot the future bishops a mile off when we were at theological college. And a lot of them were women.
Absolutely null and void……..
Sam
Does your missus have a decent hairdo? Nearly all women whom I have encountered, involved directly in religion have terrible hair. There is probably an epistle by St Paul warning against having a nice perm.
Ottokring:
Well, I like it, and I can’t imagine her getting a perm. When “on duty” in the chancel it’s normally a ponytail because of the risk from candles or dunking it in the chalice. But yes, lots of female priests do look a fright.
Taking the specific point about female Imams, Islam is a congregationalist religion, the individual congregation is sovereign and makes its own decisions, so by definition it’s impossible for there to be a universal policy on anything.
There are people who are so gullible as to believe the rubbishy bits in the Gospels.
You know, Yahweh shagging Mary just as if he were really Zeus; both nativity yarns (which are contradictory and therefore can’t both be true); perpetual virginity (of a woman who perhaps bore four boys and three girls), et bloody cetera.
And yet they somehow can’t cope with the idea of a woman priest. Because, well, “tradition”. It can’t be because they know all about how early Christian churches were managed because precious little is known about that. So “tradition” it presumably is, a word meaning “made up long ago to suit the purposes of some devious bugger who was probably in search of power”.
Am I wrong to suspect that it’s the very Charlies who try to incorporate a cult of a fertility goddess into their religion who are the ones most likely to recoil at actual women being ministers of religion? Very rum!
Islam is a congregationalist religion, the individual congregation is sovereign and makes its own decisions, so by definition it’s impossible for there to be a universal policy on anything.
That’s true of Sunni Islam, but Shi’as have their Ayatollahs.
1 Timothy 2:12 How can there be female priests anyway? Shows the whole church is a nonsense.
(But we knew that already….)
One of the great theological mysteries, which I don’t think has ever been resolved to my knowledge is :
Do nuns shave their legs ?
Does the church have the equivalent of:
Oxford PPE > Spad > safe seat > MP > minister ….
Under no circumstances must real life experience get in the way of a career in politics.
Ayatollah is an honorific. In practice it means nothing other than that you agree with the guy.
The “empty pews” argument against female priests would have more validity if the Catholic churches pews were full. (They are in NZ, but only because we have so many Fillipinos, Chinese and Islanders. Whites are dwindling.)
Ayatollah essentially means “elder”, the ones that stay behind to put the chairs away, lock up, and do the accounts. While I happily put the chairs away, I’m fighting to avoid doing the accounts.
@NN: But Timothy is fake: Paul didn’t write it. WKPD:
“Most scholars believe that Paul actually wrote seven of the Pauline epistles (Galatians, Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Philemon, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians), while three of the epistles in Paul’s name are widely seen as pseudepigraphic (First Timothy, Second Timothy, and Titus).
Whether Paul wrote the three other epistles in his name (2 Thessalonians, Ephesians and Colossians) is widely debated.”
I suspect Jesus, Peter, Paul, James, and company did exist. It’s God who doesn’t. They were wrong about Him.
Faith in priests to do what exactly? very difficult to spot any difference between the male variety and the female variety. Particularly given the garb they wear. The followers of the prophet M are more akin to the Spanish Inquisition, and the Anglican church seems to have found faith in Karl Marx!
Ayatollah is an honorific. In practice it means nothing other than that you agree with the guy.
Ayatollah essentially means “elder”, the ones that stay behind to put the chairs away, lock up, and do the accounts. While I happily put the chairs away, I’m fighting to avoid doing the accounts.
Salman Rushdie would like a word.