What’s Wrong with the World

Well, I haven't read every word, but I've read most of every paragraph. I think it's a good article--well-written and right-headed. I would be inclined perhaps even a little more than he is to emphasize the complete incompatibility between the clear biblical notion of male headship and a female clergy. St. Paul expressly says that a man should be chosen for the ministry based in part on how well he governs his own family! So the headship of the male within the family is inextricably bound to his pastoral office in the church, in the sense that his exercise of male headship in non-church roles is a kind of test of his ability to do it in a pastoral role.

You know, in discussing the issue of women's ordination with conservative Catholics and conservative Protestants, I've noticed limitations to the argument on both sides that I think can to some degree be overcome by combining the two approaches. On the conservative Protestant side, I see a tendency to rely _solely_ on individual Scripture verses, without (always) drawing in the many other passages in Scripture that support a "patriarchal" view and the many other ways in which Christianity is traditionally not egalitarian. This allows supposedly "conservative" and "biblical" Christians to use the pick-apart approach--"Oh, it's just those couple of verses," etc. Hutchens nails this limitation very well.

On the Catholic side, I've noticed sometimes in conversation a tendency to emphasize the sacramental objections to women's ordination so narrowly as positively to rule out more general objections. I had one conservative friend tell me that women's ordination is impossible _solely_ because in the consecration of the Sacrament the priest represents Christ. She explicitly rejected the additional, hierarchical, argument that a woman should not be the "pastor" over a man, and she therefore (consistently) held that Protestant female ordination is just fine, since Protestants have no true Sacrament anyway.

Both sides can benefit from a broader understanding of tradition and natural law and of the way that male headship is woven pretty thoroughly into the warp and woof of a thoroughgoing Christian worldview, so that the prohibition on women's ordination is not justified on some one narrow ground, either of a few verses here or there or of a specific eucharistic theology.

She explicitly rejected the additional, hierarchical, argument that a woman should not be the "pastor" over a man

She sounds like my wife.

Lydia and William (or William's wife, perhaps):

For two reasons, the women's-ordination (WO) issue is somewhat different for Catholics than for Protestants. First, since the latter recognize no infallible teaching authority, they can recognize no interpretation of Scripture as infallible even when they are convinced on grounds other than such authority that Scripture rules out WO even today. Therefore, they must allow that any particular interpretation could be wrong, even if this-or-that church is totally convinced it's right. From this point of view, the case against WO must be made without appeal to authority, even Scriptural authority; for there is no authority to determine whether Scripture must be read today on this point as it was for many centuries until recently. That is why, even though I agree with (e.g.) CS Lewis' criticisms of WO, he could not offer them as anything more than opinion. Leaving such a matter to opinion does not seem to me enough.

Second, few Protestants share the Catholic or Orthodox understanding of ordained ministry to begin with. Hence, few would agree with the older traditions about what WO would be ordination to. For most Protestants, appeal to Tradition or dogma about the nature of the "sacrament" of Orders is ruled out ex hypothesi. So once again, we are back to competing interpretations of Scripture; and there are as many such interpretations as there are thinking Christians.

Still, there is a fundamental question which all Christians can and should consider in common: is there an inherent, symbolic structure of divine revelation which rules out women having spiritual authority over men? Hutchens' answer is yes, but I think it's easier to make that case in Catholic or Orthodox terms than in Protestant.

Best,
Mike

R.L. Dabney is interesting on the matter.

is there an inherent, symbolic structure of divine revelation which rules out women having spiritual authority over men?

I think there's an inherent, symbolic structure of *human nature* which rules out women's having spiritual authority over men. At least on anything like a routine or normal basis as opposed to in some odd, unforeseen, exceptional circumstances.

I'm inclined to agree with you about that, but in today's culture it's very difficult to make the case purely in natural-law terms. The same goes for many solid ideas and precepts that used to be considered "natural." In the West, only the Catholic Church consistently makes that kind of case now. Of course, it is dismissed as outmoded and sectarian.

In this case, though, we're ostensibly talking about a Christian audience. Christian audiences are supposed to be, and to some extent probably still are, less detached from an understanding of human nature than non-Christian audiences. In terms of the low-Protestant groups, I really think a big part of the problem is wrong-headed reaction against fundamentalism. I was raised as a fundamentalist, and I mean that term merely literally and descriptively. I was raised by people who *called themselves* fundamentalists, 30 and more years ago. Now, one thing fundamentalists were was conservative. This usually meant that they had what we would call a traditionalist understanding of social matters and human nature, and this usually included male-female nature. (It also included sex outside of marriage and homosexuality, for example, as well as modesty.) While they might have _said_ that they were opposed to women's ordination because of x or y verse, and might have made it sound like that was the _only_ reason, in reality they were anti-feminist across the board. What's happened since then is that the churches have reacted against that past and tried to be more progressive, in the process throwing out what really was a fairly deep-seated understanding of human nature. Getting that back is part of the conservative project within Christianity uberhaupt, and it requires among other things a willingness to say that certain things are common sense even if common sense is no longer so common--in other words, these things aren't actually esoteric. As Lewis once said in a letter, "Would you _want_ to live in a matriarchal world?"

Lydia,

I had one conservative friend tell me that women's ordination is impossible _solely_ because in the consecration of the Sacrament the priest represents Christ.

I think there's an inherent, symbolic structure of *human nature* which rules out women's having spiritual authority over men.

What is "spiritual authority" outside of the sacramental argument?

As Lewis once said in a letter, "Would you _want_ to live in a matriarchal world?"

I already do.

What is "spiritual authority" outside of the sacramental argument?

What she said before: I think there's an inherent, symbolic structure of *human nature* which rules out women's having spiritual authority over men.

Hesperado, I think there can be spiritual authority in the sense of having a kind of almost parental responsibility for guiding, or trying to guide, the other person's spiritual development. (St. Paul says something about people in authority who "watch after your souls.") I suppose a Catholic would think of this in terms of someone's being a "spiritual director." I know that is often connected in the Catholic world with the sacrament of confession and penance, but I suppose in some given instance it wouldn't have to be. From a Protestant perspective, we're talking about having, for example, the authority to present to the congregation the idea of kicking someone out of the church. (That's an extreme instance.) The pastor is supposed to be the shepherd of souls. If, for example, a woman were the pastor of her church and her husband a member, she would be his spiritual shepherd. This is just a mix-up in itself.

Okay, I'm not a professor of philosophy, nor have I acquired a doctorate in biology, so perhaps some of the fellow commentators here could help fill out this argument.

Feminist theory demands a hopelessly weak and incompetent, and thoroughly myopic God. This is completely incompatible with core Christian theology.

Okay, now I know enough that God's properties according to Christianity include:
- Omnipotence over all creation at all times
- Omniscience of all events in creation including past, present, and future
- Immutability
- Perfection
- Though spirit, reveals Himself in the masculine, including incarnation as a man

Furthermore, we know of creation:
- Created good (by which means are open for debate elsewhere)
- Humanity was also created good
- Humanity was granted free will
- Humanity is damaged by a perversion of free will as a result of original sin.
- All of creation suffers consequently

The most used attempt of feminizing Christianity is to declare that Jesus was a man, and the Apostles were men, because society was chauvinist.

Biology, however, shows that God did not create man and woman out of accident or by necessity. There are numerous forms of reproduction that are just as valid, that would curtail patriarchy from being established. For instance, humanity could have been created to be hermaphroditic (both simultaneous and sequential), parthenogenic, or any other way devised by the infinite mind of God.

Since God knew what was coming, God still decided upon the outcome of the human form, including its reproduction. As such, that God still insists masculine identity in revelation, even though He exists prior to the creation of masculinity, God made no mistake.

As such, I cannot see egalitarian or gynarchial feminism anything other than a heretical rebellion against the Christian God.

Agreed, Patrick.

First, since the latter recognize no infallible teaching authority, they can recognize no interpretation of Scripture as infallible even when they are convinced on grounds other than such authority that Scripture rules out WO even today. Therefore, they must allow that any particular interpretation could be wrong, even if this-or-that church is totally convinced it's right.

That doesn't logically follow. There are plenty of places where the Bible is not 100% clear, but Paul did not mince any words when speaking against WO. You should also bear in mind that your own church is filled with a great many people who don't even pretend to care what it says on doctrinal issues, so that alone should suffice to show that an "infallible teaching authority" is meaningless to those who won't accept it. Say what you will about us, but at least Protestants tend to be better at acknowledging the fact that people will seek out the message most comfortable to them, not what is true.

Of course it's clear that Paul opposed WO. However, the majority of Protestant denominations do not believe that Paul's position is binding today. So the relevant question is not what Paul meant--which nobody disputes--but rather twofold: whether what Paul meant is binding today as a matter of doctrine, and whether one can answer that question from Scripture alone. Some Protestants say yes: the ones, that is, who claim that the clear sense of Scripture, when that can be ascertained, is eo ipso binding in perpetuity. But many others say no, because they see nothing in Scripture which says that the clear sense of Scripture is binding in perpetuity just because it is the clear sense of Scripture. They think other considerations apply. The passage of mine you quote was meant to suggest that, short of an infallible teaching authority, there can be no answer which binds all the faithful as a matter of doctrine. Thus they remain a matter of theological opinion.

It's certainly true that many people "will seek out the message most comfortable to them, not what is true." Even Scripture recognizes that (2 Peter 2). That is why every major church harbors many "pickers and choosers," for whom the old, un-PC term was "heretics." But it would be a manifest and cynical overgeneralization to say that all people are like that. Speaking for myself, I'd be a lot more "comfortable" as a liberal Protestant than as an orthodox Catholic. I could free myself from uncomfortable moral strictures and, just as important, pastor my own church. In the Catholic Church, I'm just one more Joe-Schmoe sinner in the pews, and that's all I'll ever be--a status I am hardly "comfortable" with. But I am certain that being an orthodox Catholic is good for me because I am certain that the Catholic Church is...well, the Church.

You and I presumably agree that what matters is truth not comfort. What matters is the question which propositions belong to the deposit of faith "given once for all to the holy ones" and which are merely (good or bad) opinions. I returned to the Catholic Church of my youth because, after many intellectual peregrinations, I found the Church's way of answering that question more credible than the alternatives. From a logical standpoint, that is completely unaffected by the fact that many Catholics ignore it. If it's true, then it's true regardless of how many nominal Catholics prefer their own comfort zone. In that respect and others, the New Israel is rather like the Old.

William Luse:

Me to Lydia:

What is "spiritual authority" outside of the sacramental argument?

What she said before: I think there's an inherent, symbolic structure of *human nature* which rules out women's having spiritual authority over men.

What she said before hardly explains what I am asking be explained: it is merely an implied assertion that there is spiritual authority outside of the sacramental argument -- it is not yet moved to the level of clarifying what that spiritual authority is.

Look at it this way, Hesperado: Maybe you would acknowledge that good Christian parents have spiritual authority over their children, even though they do not have sacramental authority. Try to imagine the fact that some of us think that a good pastor has something like a spiritual father relationship to his parishioners, which therefore obtains even if he doesn't have sacramental authority.

Lydia, your analogy not only doesn't adequately support your position, it tends to support the different position -- i.e., that spiritual authority is like the relationship of parents to children, and parents last I heard were mother and father, not just father. You're probably familiar with those Biblical passages that use a maternal analogy: e.g. Matthew 23:37 -- "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings"; etc.

I do think women's ordination is impossible purely for sacramental reasons. God has made the ordination of women impossible. But there is the additional question of if it was possible would it be a good idea? Now saying the answer is "Yes" seems to make God inconsistent. God made WO impossible. He must have made women and men in such a way so there is a good reason for it to be impossible. This is where feminism and Christianity collide. If somebody is a good Catholic and takes the dogma against WO into their thinking they will find it demolishing some of the foundations of feminism. In fact, it will destroy many of the modern assumptions about what it means to be a man or what it means to be a woman. Essentially it will profoundly change the way you think about yourself.

Dogmas are that way. They tend to have a huge domino effect that leaves your entire world and life view in ruins. The challenge we have as Catholics is to allow it to do that. To say that the dogma must stand no matter what else falls. Then to go back to sacred tradition and learn how to think all over again. We give God permission to mess with our minds and He does it. The good news is we end up being more saintly.

H., if a woman can be a pastor, then she can be her husband's pastor. There is obviously a problem there. There is not a similar problem with a husband being his wife's pastor. You know, though, I'm just _beginning_ to get an inkling that you are a contrarian for the sake of being a contrarian, so I should probably stop wasting my time.

Randy, what I meant by saying that WO is wrong for more reasons than sacramental reasons is just to ask Catholics to consider that even Protestants shouldn't have WO, even though Protestants don't have sacraments. This is related to what you say about the falsity of feminism, so perhaps you would agree.

H, I think Lydia is right, but I am not sure I can state it as clearly as I would like.

One tack to take (only partly staying away from the sacramental issue) is to explore why it is that God chose to arrange the Church so that WO is impossible. One answer (maybe not the only one) hangs on what a sacrament is. We all know that a sacrament is an outward sign of an inward reality. One of the charisms of the ordained hierarchy is that of authority. Authority to establish the liturgy, and to authority to teach.

Now take the complementary roles between husband and wife. God designed marriage to last permanently - well, "until death". When two free adults live together and make decisions about important matters, they will inevitably have disagreements. When they have each tried to convince the other and failed, there are only two possible options: one must give way to the other in spite of not being persuaded, or they MUST part ways. There is no other choice. (This holds true of every voluntary association: people stick together as long as they think the decisions that regulate with respect to the community will further the common good for which they have come together, but they split out on their own as soon as they perceive that such decisions can no longer serve that common good.)

Since God intended marriage to be permanent, parting ways is inconsistent with His design. Therefore, there must be in God's plan that one party give way to the other.

But if the subject matter is grave enough, (but still only a prudential matter, not a matter of sin) there can be no giving in unless some higher principle applies, something more than merely "Ok, this time I will allow you to have your way because you gave in when we decided the color of the car." On a matter of real gravity, for one party to voluntarily give up his/her choice for the other without just cause implies a failure of moral good. There must be built in to the marriage itself a principle of order by which one party can say "my point of view on this matter, even though right, is not the one we will follow" without violating his or her conscience, "my spouse's point of view shall rule us together." This is nothing other than accepting that the spouse shall rule. Thus either there is a spouse whose stance in this case is authoritative to which the subordinate spouse can morally submit in clear conscience, or that submitting spouse would be obliged to ignore the other's point of view and act in favor of his/her own stance. And since both spouses would be acting equally in defiance of the other, this then would destroy the community of the family.

Now again, this recognition of one spouse that he/she may submit to the other morally, even though convinced the other is in error, can be one of two things: either "my spouse's point of view shall rule this time only", or "my spouse rules in these cases generally". If the first, then there must be an additional criterion given that says why this time particularly. I have NEVER heard a realistic suggestion as to what that criterion might be. I don't think one exists. Which leaves the second choice - that one spouse generally has the authority and responsibility in such cases to decide on behalf of the couple, on behalf of the whole family.

Again, there are two possibilities: either the authoritative spouse is determined separately and by choice by each married couple in some fashion, or the determination is given by God and by nature. While Sacred Scripture is totally silent about some theoretical provision by God for granting the couple the right and privilege to make this choice for themselves, and suggesting methods thereof, it is not at all silent about what God and nature have erected. I believe that if one accepts that there must be an authoritative spouse in marriage for marriage to be permanent, the only reasonable conclusion from both nature and from Scripture is that the husband is it (for better or worse).

There are lots of theoretical reasons one might try to argue why and how nature provides this. I don't intend to try. I will only say that given that God designed nature this way, it is impossible for a woman to symbolize authority in a truly effective way.

Please note: I do not say that it is impossible for a woman to wield authority in a truly effective way. I believe that part of becoming holy is becoming wholly human, which means capable of employing those parts of your human character that are not the easiest or most readily accessible aspects your character, including those aspects that are often more accessible to persons of the other sex. Thus there are men who become good at some pursuits that women find easy to be good at, and some women who can be very successful in pursuits that more often men find easy to be good at. The variation of human character, and the variation of God-given talents and graces, ensures that.

However well a few women may effectively wield authority outside the family, if by nature order all women are subject to their husband's authority within the family, then by nature women cannot be an effective symbol of authority for the supernatural order of the Church.

There, I have gone and painted myself as irretrievably male-chauvinist.

Yes, I must be a contrarian because I don't back down and continue to find flaws in my interlocutor's attempts at argument. The "I think you're a contrarian" response has got to be one of the laziest most scurrilous ways to slink out of a debate.

Tony:

Your analysis of the authority issue in marriage is brilliant. The reason most people today wouldn't accept it is the deracinated Cartesianism underlying the modern liberal ideology that is becoming the regnant moral consensus. At least in the Western world, most people have ceased to believe that any sort of social role is a natural "given" for people. The more "educated" classes, and increasingly the rest, tend to think of the "self" as a res volens so autonomous that even the biological givens of sex should not be permitted to fetter self-constituting "choice." That's the basic idea behind "egalitarian" as distinct from "gynarchial" feminism. That same-sex "marriage" and transsexualism have also become accepted within living memory is simply the outworking of the liberal worldview as it dissolves and replaces the traditional Judaeo-Christian consensus.

I believe that is one of the main factors making marriage so difficult today. If spouses are simply two co-equal res volentes who happen to have different reproductive plumbing, then there's nothing inherent in their sexuality which would suggest that one sex is to have authority over the other. If there is to be such authority, it can only be established by mutual agreement without reference to any sexual "given." Since there are as many strong women as weak men, the authority would just as often be the wife as the husband. In fact, given how confused many men are these days about what it means to be a man, such authority often devolves to the wife almost by default. Ironically, then, egalitarian feminism is giving way to gynarchial feminism without anybody but a small, "third-wave-feminist" coterie consciously advocating the latter as opposed to the former.

Some couples, of course, try to avoid the authority problem by working to maintain an "egalitarian" marriage. For the reasons you give, that rarely succeeds in practice even when the couple believes it does. Some sweep major conflicts under the rug, causing resentments to fester; some resolve them by having the weaker-willed party give way, all the while calling it mutual agreement; and of course still others end up going their separate ways. The number of couples in which it is the case both that the wife is the final authority and each spouse is genuinely happy with that arrangement seems to be quite small. I think that's because women, even more than men, tend to find it unnatural. In practice, gynarchy seems to make few women happy.

In turn, this is one reason why I believe that a resurgence of traditional Christianity is essential to save our civilization. Failure to understand the nature of male "servant-leadership" in marriage makes it impossible to maintain the health and stability of the nuclear family. That in turns spells accelerating social decomposition.

Best,
Mike

I have nothing, brilliant or otherwise, to add to this excellent discussion, but I would appreciate the prayers of those of you so moved as I try to discuss the topic of "feminism" in 60 minutes at Summit East next week . . . I can't do it all, obviously, so I am desperately in need of wisdom in deciding how to approach the topic and what most needs to be said to older high school and younger college students. I also am doing a session with the young ladies on "femininity," and if anyone would like to send me a brief definition of *that* most-misunderstood term, I'd love to hear it. (email: impsonbe @ bryan dot edu)

There's been much said here that's been helpful; I am grateful for a place where the discussion is lively, biblical, and articulate.

In turn, this is one reason why I believe that a resurgence of traditional Christianity is essential to save our civilization. Failure to understand the nature of male "servant-leadership" in marriage makes it impossible to maintain the health and stability of the nuclear family. That in turns spells accelerating social decomposition.

Mike, yes that is exactly true. It is becoming more clear outside of the family as well, that people cannot fathom what it means to be subject to authority. The state and the Church are posterior to the family: if the parents cannot provide an example of authority used properly for the good of the community and of subordinates willingly submitting themselves to authority even when they don't agree on the prudential decision, then the children are not likely to understand how to be properly submissive or properly wield authority in other spheres, nor to recognize the proper limits of that authority.

This helps explain why society year by year becomes less conservative: political conservatism rests in large part on the notion of limited but natural authority of government: those who only see authority as either intrinsically offensive to the autonomous self (extreme libertarianism and liberals on social matters) or as unlimited in principle (totalitarianism) gain more traction than they should, without the resistance of regular people raised in whole and healthy families.

Beth:

I shall email you with the little help I can offer.

Best,
Mike

Thanks so much, Mike!

It is my express opinion that women in the church who support such a concept as the one stated above are usually unremarkable women with no will or ambition of their own looking for a theological excuse to follow and not lead, be told and not tell, and are not valiant or dignified in eyes of God and are therefore fundamentally weak. It has also been my experience that any sort of child of hell find greater footing with poor intentions with thinly veiled suggestions of piety and innocence, that christian men are often fooled by these archaic Dogmas and a religious spirit that HATES women and WANTs them to be oppressed, into calling these women playing on superficial caricatures of righteousness holy and holy women adultresses and harlots. “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” I would also like to remind you that paul in his life had never met Vhrist, and certainly WASN'T hearing the son of Gods own views first hand, but through a filter of how he had previously understood religion. Ancient Jews were not exactly the most enlightened about how they viewed women. Feminism is NOT man hate, nor does it have to be, for the movement started within the church. In the case of Abigail, by going above merely submitting to her foolish husband Nabals "leadership" she saved her own house. I think hell must be full of pious women who never had done a thing but what you have and other christians commanded of them. I rebuke it, and consider it a fallacy. It is truly meet to bless thee, O Theotokos!

although I'm rather comforted to be reminded that this is a dying theology and attitude within the church.

It is my express opinion that women in the church who support such a concept as the one stated above are usually unremarkable women with no will or ambition of their own looking for a theological excuse to follow and not lead, be told and not tell, and are not valiant or dignified in eyes of God and are therefore fundamentally weak.

Yep, that describes me to a T. I'd better not pass this quote on to my husband, who has to deal with me on a daily basis, or he may do some harm to himself laughing.

I come very late to this conversation, but still wish to make this remark in response to Constance. To test your theory about beaten-down women it would be good to examine the lives and attitudes of the grandmothers, mothers, wives, and daughters of bullying patriarchalists like the editors of Touchstone. You would find it enlightening, I think. But in my family it might be dangerous: you would probably get far gentler treatment from the men.