Interesting that you think the CofE is 2,000 years old. Well, from the date of its modern foundation (the Elizabethan settlement) it did well, especially in the nineteenth century. But it has benefitted greatly from the introduction of women priests and without them we would have a shortage of clergy and miss out on some very talented people
I cannot believe that you are equating the alleged "disintegration of the family" in this country (and presumably elsewhere) with the appointment of women priests. You are exempting "secular professions" from your arguments, but presumably you are also pointing the finger at them: women are now in higher paid jobs, positions of authority, etc., so have to make child care arrangements. Whether this has anything to do with the so-called disintegration of the family, I doubt. But women priests should not be linked with this. One of our part-time women priests has three young children. She is a good priest and, I am sure, a good wife and mother. PS, if you must give me a label, please could it be "liberal catholic", not "posturizing post-modernist".
To be fair it wasn't you but the movement behind the smothering of gender that I've called the posturing post-modernists. You had some of the same posture, to wit, semi-mockingly reducing the Nature of Masculinity to 'genitalia', and caricaturing people on this side of the issue almost as unibrow Neanderthals. However, I honestly don't think you're 100% for it as much as being so surrounded by it as to make any contraries seem odd. I intended to reprehend those others, the authors and fountainheads of these opinions, and I'm sorry if any of that landed on you as I genuinely didn't mean it. On the question of the disintegration of the family, it's not the women priests that have caused this disintegration, but rather the 'posturing post-modernist' movement that's been equally behind both. The family is destroyed, and the good people at Church cannot receive the clergy that God ordained them to receive and be fatherely-nurtured by. In fact everyone tells them that this mother in front of them is really a father. Or the same thing as a father. Do you see the post-modern posturing in that? No she's not as good as a father. She is something else and only a father is as good as a father.
I) I am not being mocking or semi-mocking, but the nature of masculinity is epitomised in genitalia (no inverted commas needed). That's what makes a man and a woman different. iii) I don't use a Neanderthal caricature. You just read that into my posts - wrongly. iv) But presumably you are using the "posturing post-modernist movement" as a caricature, possibly of the CofE. v) The family is not destroyed where I live. vi) Nor is everyone (or, I suspect, anyone) telling anyone that a mother is a father. To put this in context, I live on a small estate. There are about 25 houses, and the age range is from babies to people approaching 80. We have Anglican and RC churchgoers and plenty of non-churchgoers. To the best of my knowledge, none of the families are being destroyed nor are mothers portrayed as fathers. Perhaps you get a skewed vision of England from television soaps. You certainly resort to sweeping statements.
You think you don't but you do, all liberals do they do not like the Scriptures as written. You have on this very board affirmed this by questioning the creeds in your Doubts post and further go away from Scripture and Christ by doing things that are not in there lie female ordination
I'm not sure that Christ said anything about female ordination. Anyhow, this is an Anglican forum, and (most of) the Anglican Communion, not least the CofE, have accepted female ordination. Thank God, because we have benefitted greatly from it. Reversing it would be very difficult. What are you suggesting? Large scale defrocking (with generous compensation schemes, no doubt)? Presumably CEC is not in the Anglican Communion.
I am suggesting a return to the Bible and Tradition and it has been pointed out what God's rules are for minsters i.e. the husband of one wife. It is never to late to return to God. We at the CEC are not part of the CofE or the ECUSA but we are Anglican
No, it isn't. It is in our approach toward reality and has nothing directly linked to the genitalia at all. This can be seen among other ways in the nature of God who is masculine, as well as Second Person, who was the Son from before the foundations of the world, long before he became Jesus. Oh and the Holy Ghost is also masculine. Francis of Assisi was said to have run into a thorn bush to fix his lusts of the flesh, and that did stop them, which presumably means he became disfigured, but that doesn't mean he ceased to be masculine, not that I'm advocating what he did. St. Paul was celibate his whole life and there's no manlier figure in the whole Bible, aside from our Lord himself. You've bought into the liberal propaganda my friend. Everything is not alright. We in the modern world have absolutely no idea what masculinity means, see e.g. articles like this one: Where have the real men gone Time for flippant, feminine modern man to stop hiding Does Britain need more 'manly men'? "British boys are suffering from a lack of masculine role models who exhibit old-fashioned values of bravery and resourcefulness, according to the historian Neil Oliver." Mostly it's the Episcopalians and modernist Roman Catholics here in the States. I'm just trying to give a helpful warning about steering clear of such people across the pond. I don't see the relevance of quoting your neighborhood. Statistics for divorce and children out of wedlock about the UK are well known. Indifference to masculinity and disregard for fathers is well known in the West as a whole. Ah but they are, by saying that a woman is a Minister and a Priest of God.
Exegesis and direct verses against women ministering in the Church are very well known from the New testament, as well as form the old. Actually that's a skewed representation. There are around 80 million Anglicans worldwide, and only about 30 in the West as a whole. The majority of the Anglican Communion therefore rejects female ordination. Furthermore there are many Anglicans in the West who reject it as well.
I) Can you be more specific, please. ii) Do you have (m)any statistics to back up this claim. In the CofE women priests are a fait accompli, and soon, please God, we will have women Bishops, a development supported by the great majority of clergy and laity. Anyhow, the churches of the Anglican Community have a great deal of autonomy. If, say, the Anglican Church of Nigeria bans women priests, that's a matter for them.
Are you part of the Anglican Communion? Do your Bishops, if you have them, get invited to the Lambeth Conference? Are you saying that in order to "return to God", women priests will need to be defrocked?
"Our approach". And who are "we" in this context? I am a liberal. And proud to be. Mr Oliver is a strange guy to cite. He's a Scottish television presenter and unlikely to be an Anglican. He studied archaeology at University, not history. Having seen his programmes, Incidentally, having seen his programmes, I'm sure he's not a creationist. I am one of "such people". I speak from first hand knowledge of an ordinary English town. You appear to be saying that women priests are a symptom but not (I hope) a cause of some sort of an alleged decline in family values in England. Actually, the decade when divorces, domestic violence, etc increased most was the eighties, before women priests. OK, we had a woman Prime Minister, but I don't think her gender was the cause of this. Generally, you seem to be a spokesman for some sort of macho religion. "Muscular Christianity" gone wild? I don't look on Jesus Christ as a particularly macho figure, but as someone kind, loving, sympathetic and, yes, liberal. Or are you portraying him as the first century equivalent of the sort of guy who plays rugby, drinks many a pint of beer and sings bawdy songs? Surely not a womaniser? Meanwhile, whether or not our young British soldiers should be in Afghanistan, no-one could accuse tem of being cowardly or effeminate. Neither were the English and Scottish footballers who held their own in eastern Europe last night. Nor the thousands of fans who travelled to support them (except the female ones). But it's interesting: I've heard comments by sports fans which in their context are just as sexist as yours.
Oh? I thought you said that the majority of the Anglican Communion was for women priests? Men. People. Curious. You minimized three articles into one, and raised the bar that a Commentator would have to belong to a particular church, as well as be a historian, in order to comment on masculinity in the West and UK in particular. Here, have another: The Guardian: On masculinity: My father's generation were better at being men There, that's four articles off the bat. You are sure about your knowledge of masculinity, and then proceed to identify it with macho, rugby, and drinking. What can I say? I rest my case.
We are Anglican but not part of the CofE nor the ECUSA. Yes in order to return to Historic Apostolic and Authentic Christianity female "priest" have to go. God did not ordain females to rule over males, He choose males as Scripture and Tradition attest
Well, you can rest assured of one thing. They will not be going from the CofE, that's for sure. Thank God. As for what CEC does, since your "church" does not appear to be part of the Anglican Communion, whether you have women priests or not is of little concern to us.
So you presume to speak for (?all) "Men. People", do you? Oh dear. Are you saying that masculinity is not to do with things like drinking, rugby, machismo, genitalia, etc? Then what is it all about? A kind of Boys Own Paper 1950s dad who goes off to work while his wife stays at home to mind the children, housekeep, cook, etc, while at the weekend he makes a model boat for his son (not daughter) to take to the local pond? That has very little to do with modern Anglicanism, even if, as I would like, they all go to church on Sunday. In an uncomfortable way your agenda seems political rather than religious. At the end of the last century our politicians were coining phrases like, "Back to Basics", "Victorian Values", etc. I can't remember the CofE giving them much (if any) support.
I do find this an interesting syndrome, splinter groups across the globe who claim to be "authentic expressions of historic Anglicanism", yet they so desire communion with Canterbury for their public identity and validity. Jeff