This is Life!: Revolutions Around the Cruciform Axis

I blogged on this same article back on June 15. http://scandalofparticularity.blog-city.com/read/653682.htm

"Accordingly, since women are as human as men, God could have incarnated as a woman. A female Christ could have restored the human race to its original unity with God."

See, this absolutely goes against the idea we were discussing back in June, that the male is the primary and representative human being and the woman's image of God is somehow a derivative. I absolutely agree with Lemmons' quote above. As for the idea of the gender mission, that's interesting, but she doesn't even mention the other mission of Christ, to reconcile Jews and Gentiles. "For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one." And only a Jewish person could do that, only one who was a part of the covenant could break down the diving wall between Jews and Gentiles. Thus I could argue we should only ordain Jewish people – I suppose only Jewish converts or Christians who can claim some Jewish ancestry.

It's an interesting article, and I agree with some parts and disagree with others, but as a female commentator said on my blog "But at any rate, it's pretty rich to suggest that the solution to male dominance over women is that only men can be church officials."

Re: Jews and Gentiles

You bring in an important consideration, but I'm not so sure your application is consistent with the principle enunciated by the author, nor, for that matter a defeasor of the argument.

I think all of us would say that the sex distinctions are a much deeper reality than is that of Jew and Gentile. On the one hand, sex distinctions go to the core of who men and women are. The Jewish-Gentile distinction cannot be viewed as a matter of genetics/race*, it seems to me, because the binary is not exact (as it is in the case of men/women). In other words, the opposition of men and women is equivalent. That of Jew/Gentile is not, if viewed in racial terms, because it's one race over against a multitude of races. Rather, the Jewish/Gentile opposition must, it seems to me, be viewed in terms of covenant covenant people over against non-covenenat people. This is an equivalent binary opposition.

So it's not Jesus' Jewishness as race or ethnicity that is important, but rather his status as a member of the covenant people. And indeed, staying consistently within this dynamic, Jesus himself is the Covenant, and it is in this capacity as a member of the covenant people and simulataneously as in himself the covenant, then he is in a unique position to demolish the dividing wall and unite the previously non-covenant people and the previously old covenant people into a new covenant.

Since this union of opposed-covenant people has been fulfilled in Christ in a new covenant, it's not necessary for any Christian to be either Jewish or Gentile. On the other hand, our maleness and femaleness is ineradicable (at least prior to the consummation; I know there's dispute on this post-consummation), and an ongoing and necessary reality of fallenness and redemption into which we've been born. Being Jewish or Gentile is only tangentially related to fallenness and redemption now that Christ has brought covenantal union.

Admittedly, my thoughts are not fully formed here, but this is my initial resposne.

*with regard to the phonomenon of race, i think I'm currently in the camp of the author(s) of (IIRC) African Exodus.

Hmm...I kinda like this, but it raises a few questions for me. They may be obvious, but there you go.

Chauvinism—as a consequence of Original sin—required that the Christ be a man. Due to chauvinism, a female Christ would not have been recognized by men as being their lord, their rabbi, their savior. Christ exemplified sacrificial love, which chauvinism identifies as a weakness and as a peculiarity of women. According to chauvinism, maleness is about power, independence, and control. Not so, taught Christ. Rather, masculinity is for the sake of pouring out one's life for another in love, not for the sake of dominating self-gratification.

Okay, cool. So is the church in a state of redemption or sin? Both? Is the eucharist to proclaim redemption or sin? Both? Could it be argued that ordaining a woman would actually proclaim the kingdom, the erradication of Original Sin through baptism? Perhaps Baptism has nothing to do with original sin. I dunno.

I wonder these things, one, because I think ordaining women actually proclaims the Kingdom (given that Original sin brings about patriarchalism), and that Jesus, as God incarnate, is still Himself. Welcome to the Reformation, but unless I am Christ at the moment of eucharist, I am transubstantiated somehow, then there is no need for masculine only ordination and it couold be a greater reminder of our sin aand not our redemption.

Like you, these are incomplete thoughts. Good post today, Cliff.

"I think all of us would say that the sex distinctions are a much deeper reality than is that of Jew and Gentile."

In my individual experience, that's true, but as far as biblically, I don't think it is. In other words, I think if we can speak of the Bible as having an overarching "salvation story", it's about Jews and Gentiles, or covenant people/non-covenant people, and their ultimate reconciliation in Christ. The "gender mission" in the article is interesting, but I see it as speculation. I acknowledge Paul's letters and other books of the Bible do have something to say about gender, but it's not as central to the point of the salvation story as the Jew/Gentile issue is. You said the Jew/Gentile distinction has been eradicated but not the male/female. What's the point of Galatians 3:28 then? Obviously I still have my gender. But I'm also still an Irish/Polish Gentile. I am those things, but in regards to salvation, those differences/barriers are (abolished? not sure that's the right word...broken down?) through the Jewish man, Jesus. The scandal of particularity, right? But precisely because salvation came in a particular form, it's now open to all. We both agree on that, the issue is how is this related to ordination?

Jennifer is on to something. Why the highlighting of gender? I wondered to myself about the paralleling of the Genesis "curse" with the ministry of Christ...how things are re-set in their original ordering (pre-fall) by the Passion.

Okay, I will concede some differences between gender. Fine. I give! But ordaining women does not have to be some kind of gnostic neutralizing of gender either. I am thinking of the same passage of Paul's thoughts as well. Cannot, through ordination, the church recognise the return to paradise, the in-breaking of the Kingdom by ordaining women? It would even follow the logic of the author to some appreciable degree. Christ has redeemed men and women from their particular curses. Huzzah! Now, everyone, male, female, slave, free, Jew, and Gentile can stand as redeemed people. Yes, there is theosis, but there is nothing about an ordination/a priest that suggests completed sanctification (Donatism?) either.

Unless, the sin of "genderhood" is a sin that cannot be overcome except beyond the final Judgment. There's a cheerful thought.

So, I think that the logic of this article is faulty.

The problem with using the verse in Galations to support women's ordination is, that this is NOT what this verse is talking about. It is talking about the body of Christ, the law being abolished, and the new Covenant being established.

Interesting post, Mr. Healy.

Alana, the passage can inform how we understand the incarnation of the new covenant. So, the covenant can be demonstrated through the ordination of women because the curse (again Genesis) has been reversed through baptism.

It is always interesting to note that this issue never even EXISTED until it became culturally "relevant" in our post-feminist movement society/world. How does revelation and truth and it's application suddenly, overnight, change?

Considering that this movement is built upon the blood of innocents, this is a dangerous thing for christians to embrace.

Christianity did not spring up in the 20th or 21st century, and would say that it's relevance in this post-modern era lies in addressing precisely the same issues that it did 2000 years ago. The human problem has not changed, and neither does the medicine.

Is it possible that the role of the Theotokos as the new Eve is meant to shed more light on what it means for the curse to be "reversed", than in neutralizing the very necessity of man AND woman together in their unique roles, representing the imago Dei?

The feminist movement is not built upon abortion, if that's what you're speaking of. The earliest suffragists were all opposed to abortion. The organization Feminists for Life documents this well. I call myself a feminist because I am very appreciative towards all those women throughout history who made it possible for me to enjoy the things I have now. The right to vote, the ability to attend graduate school, the ability to have a career, the right to own property, etc. I am not going to let the pro-choice movement hijack the term feminist.

The issue of women's ordination existed in the early church; otherwise they wouldn't have come down against it. In America, the first ordained woman was the Rev. Antoinette Blackwell in 1853. So I don't think it's an overnight change. I'll admit it's a change, though, and as a Protestant my understanding of tradition and the Holy Spirit is different from yours.

I know Gal 3:28 is about the body of Christ, that's why I wondered what the connection between ordination and salvation is and argued that Jew/Gentile is a more important distinction than male/female.

It could also be important to note attitudes towards women in general. Even thoug it may not be clearly documented as some attitudes, knowing that desert ammas perceived theosis as making them masculine in character is telling. This is but one example of the kind of sin that existed. No time has ever been free from sin. Perhaps our not hearing about an explicit argument was because there were other concerns about?

Would a British woman from the 16th century looked toward ordination? Doubtful as one of the debates at the time was whether or not women even had souls. So, as absurd as this all is, somehow the context of teh argument makes sense.

If one assumes that 17th-19th century America was patriarchal (a sinful attitude, as Cliff agrees), a fairly safe assumption (all the advantages women now have), the issue of ordination would have to come to the fore. Even if one still believes it is inappropriate, it is a logical direction for the conversation to turn.

If one has been told. or assumed that one could not be ordained because women are "dirty," then what happens when that attitude changes? Now why not ordain women? The question has to be posed.

Another thing that this touches on, and what informs my own thinking to a great deal of the femninism versus non-feminism issue is that I see Christ and the Church to be the true liberator of both women and men. My struggle for theosis is not dependant on my "right" to do anything...whether that be to vote, to own property, or any of the other things you mentioned.

Is my life better for the work of the early feminists and the suffragists, or not? Well, which life? The material life? The spiritual life? I can't say, but I do feel the struggle and the pull of worldly things on a daily basis. Is it harder for me to walk the narrow path with more rights as a human being, or fewer rights? Never having been stripped of those rights, I can't say. But were I to be stripped of those rights, and it surely could happen (just ask many of the new martyrs of the Soviet Gulag who were stipped of many things), I trust God's grace will preserve me there as well. The point is, the narrow path is open to all , and has been open to all.

Show me early Church documented sources of where the ordination of women was in issue and where the early Fathers of the Church came down against...show me the "power play"! Show me! I'd love to see those writings.

I don't think they exist. Lots of feminist writings like to show the early Fathers as utter misogynists, but when the whole context is considered, when the "New Eve" who was never far from the Fathers' minds, is accounted for, the whole tone of what is written about women changes.

I for one have worked through all this about ten years ago after I finished up my M.Div. Alot of the questions raised by this issue are the reason I am today Orthodox. Because eventually this discussion will lead to: What's our hermeneutic? How is there not a dominoe effect from "In Christ neither male nor female" therefore women ordained (contrary almost two thousand years of history) to "In Christ neither male nor female" therefore same sex marriage, therefore androgyny, therefore alot of things.

One of the lightbulb moments I had was sitting in a Women in Ministry class, about seven months pregnant with my first child, and the professor said: "Its just plumbing, and plumbing does not matter." The H*** it does not matter! Tell that to this living person inside of me who is DEPENDING on this plumbing, which you say does not matter, to survive. I really had to grapple with what it means to be a woman, what it means to be a mother, and what it means to be a Christian. One of the things I have come to, is that inherent in Ordination of the Priesthood, is the role of Father. A father I can never be.

"A father I can never be."

That, IMO, is the cruz of the matter. The Orthodox understanding of the priesthood is inherently linked to distinctly *paternal* nature of the priest's role in the community.

This, BTW, is why many men are not called to ordination. All priests are fathers, but not all men are fathers. And of course, women can't be fathers by definition and design.

I want to address the issue of gender and salvation.

It seems to me that in terms of the origins of salvation history, the fallenness of gender and it's redemption are far deeper and more central to the story than is the motif of Jews and Gentiles. There is no covenant with Israel till near the end of Genesis. And even then the covenant only becomes a reality in Exodus. But at the foundation of the primary promise of redemption, and the pervasiveness of the fallenness of sex we have Genesis 3.

This is reinforced, in a way, by the very nature of the sign of the Jewish covenant: circumcision, which, of course, can only be signified in men.

When Israel falls away from the Lord, in what way is this falling away pictured? By sexual fallenness, adultery.

When we come to the instantiation of the final covenant, how does it come about? Through the absence of the fallenness of sexuality. Christ is born of a virgin.

More, as you note, is given by Paul in more explicit terms, but even Christ himself gives a hint of the healing of fallen sexuality in stating that in heaven there will be no new marriages. Further, now the sign of the covenant is not signified only in male babies, but in all babies, as they are brought by their Christian parents to the font of baptism.

We have, on Paul's words, a twofold expression of the redemption of sex: marriage and virginity. Clearly Paul sees the redemption of sexuality as primarily and proleptically signified in virginity, but he recognizes, too, that such a final redemption has not yet come.

In short, not to downplay the Jewish/Gentile motif, but the fallenness and redemption of sex is equally as pervasive. (One cannot read 1 Timothy 2, the haustafel passages, and so on, and not see that.)

More shootin' from the hip, as it were, but as you can tell, I'm finding a lot in the article to commend itself to us.

There are many underlying assumptions in our discussions, about the role of scripture and tradition and other theological issues that as Protestants and Orthodox we aren't agreeing on (which is why, I guess, I'm Protestant.)

The way Cliff describes the gender mission in the OT is interesting, and there is definitely a marriage or gender metaphor regarding the covenant (Israel as adultress) that carries over in the NT (church as bride). So we're all brides, but only men can be both bride and bridegroom (as priests?)

Von Balthasar (in arguing against women's ordination) says yes: "Thus a fluidity from and between 'femininity' and 'masculinity' is the lot of the man, while, in contrast, woman is only and solely the 'feminine' ..."

And that just does not make sense to me. If there is a fluidity, shouldn't it go both ways? Cliff is saying that male/female distinctions are deeper and thus remain for certain roles (like priests) and I am saying the opposite, so there we are. But thanks for the discussion. And while I disagree with many points of the article, I think that besides arguing against women's ordination, its other main points are that chauvism is a sin, and that "masculinity is for the sake of pouring out one's life for another in love, not for the sake of dominating self-gratification." That part, I liked.

Speaking of I Timothy 2, my bible study group tackled that last night. I think I asked once before on this blog, do Orthodox women teach men in church and in seminaries and was told yes. So if the prohibition against women teaching is scriptural, is it part of tradition as well and if so how do you get around that?

I think the confustion arises in the definition of what a "minister" is, in the protestant sense, and what a priest is, in the Orthodox sense. Never the twain shall meet.

There are of course many scriptural instances of women "teaching" men, such as the myrrh-bearing women proclaiming the resurrection, wich provide a balance to the oft isolated interpretations of single verses. Whole-Church context is everything, in how stuff gets interpreted, and the weight which is put upon it, and there is no better agency to decide what that is than the Church herself. Without this whole witness of the Church, which is Holy Tradition, opportunities for exploitation and scriptural misinterpretation abound.

Because in Orthodoxy the priesthood is linked with Fatherhood, it cannot be said that an all male priesthood is chauvinistic, any more than it would be true to say that restricting fatherhood in a natural sense is chauvinistic. The equal honor bestowed upon women and men who are saints is proof of that. Our goal, as Orthodox Christians, is not to strive for "leadership roles" or "ordination", but rather our goal is sainthood, theosis, union with God.