Some Standard Wisdom for the Proactive Church Lady

Having highlighted the seedier side of Stone-Campbell views on the prospects and methods for evangelizing the newly freed slaves, let us turn now to a more egalitarian note. This comes from the Querists' Drawer where Errett and his editorial staff answered questions on belief and practice sent in by readers. Here Errett comes to the defense of some women fed up with their unmotivated fellow congregants.

“We met today for social worship and the elder no being present, the deacon and the brethren would not lead in worship; the sisters went ahead and had singing, prayer and Bible reading. Did we do right? Would it have been right for a sister to have led in the breaking bread?”

In our judgment, you did just right. And if you had added the Lord ’s supper to observances, we should still say you did right. If a company of sisters in a neighborhood in which no brethren lived were to assemble for reading and prayer, what would there be to hinder their observance of the Lord’s supper? And if brethren are present and refuse to lead in the worship, no one can charge that the women usurp authority over them, if they go forward in the performance of duties from which the men shrink. Certainly, such men should never complain because the women outstrip them in zeal and faithfulness.

The Ordination of Women: You're Doing it Wrong

I was startled when I saw the front page of the New York Times last Saturday in a grocery store. This was the story:

More than 150 Roman Catholic priests in the United States have signed a statement in support of a fellow cleric who faces dismissal for participating in a ceremony that purported to ordain a woman as a priest, in defiance of church teaching.

The priest in question, who is ordaining women, is associated with some 300 Austrian priests who have signed "A Call to Disobedience" aimed at correcting perceived problems with the practice of the Roman Catholic Church. In addition to actively participating in the ordaining of women, the controversial Call directs priests to say a public prayer every week for reform, to admit non-Catholics and divorcees to communion, to permit lay preaching, and to pursue every avenue to ordain married people (regardless of gender).

While I think some of these goals are admirable--and some deeply destructive--I am disturbed by the way that these priests have elected to go about "reform." Prior to the lamentable circumstances of the Reformation, in which the pope responded so violently to the prospect of dissent and thus precipitated schism, the Roman Catholic Church was a rich kaleidoscopic of beliefs that were allowed to coexist in Christian fraternity. With comparative rarity did disputes come to the point of one view or the other being declared heretical and condemned. When they did, the problem was solved in council and the results thereby significantly more reliable and enduring. Things have changed since then.

It is interesting that the Americans who have expressed their support for the Austrian dissidents were careful only to support their right to speak their minds. That, after all, is a right once cherished in the Catholic Church. Where the Austrian priests err, and where they warrant the just censure of the church, is when they choose to subvert normal avenues of reform and simply elect to do things the way they think they should be done (which was the ultimate mistake of Martin Luther and subsequent "reformers"). I disagree strongly with the ordination of women, but I would respect and defend anyone's right to disagree with me on that in a spirit of mutual forebearance. What disturbs me is when Christians becomes so certain in their personal, local, or regional beliefs that they would rather set up an alternate church (or in this case an alternate practice) than to work for change.

Like so many genuine reformers in the Catholic Church and elsewhere in the past, these priests would have profited from allowing the force of their arguments (and perhaps their skill in ecclesiastical maneuvering) to win the day rather than simply claiming victory by the supposed virtue of their positions. It is not as though there is a great sin being perpetrated by the existence of a male-only clergy or a Catholic-only Eucharist. The highest good may be disputed, but certainly few will contend that there is an urgency in these matters to correct grossly sinful behaviors (i.e. priest X does not sin by virtue of the fact that he is a member of a male-only clergy). The process of true reform for the better which began at the cross and continues on infinitely into eternity as we grow ever in grace and knowledge of God surely can stand for us all to take a surer and less fractious road.

Or do we not, as Christians, believe that the truth will win out regardless?

To Arms! To Arms!

Source

A Malaysian magazine has apologized for upsetting Christians after it published an article researched by two Muslims who pretended to be Roman Catholics and took Holy Communion in a church.

The apology aims to ease tensions with religious minorities who feel that overzealous government authorities and clerics are trying too hard to champion the interests of Islam and ignoring the rights of non-Muslims.

The Al Islam monthly magazine, which focuses on issues affecting Malaysian Muslims, acknowledged in a statement on its publisher's Web site last week that the article had "unintentionally hurt the feelings of Christians, especially Catholics."

The article, published in May last year, was meant to investigate rumors that Muslim teenagers were being converted in churches. The article said its two reporters had found no evidence supporting those claims.

The apology came after Archbishop Murphy Pakiam, who heads the Catholic Church in peninsular Malaysia, criticized government authorities earlier this week for not prosecuting the two magazine researchers. Pakiam, however, said that church leaders would be satisfied if the magazine issued a formal apology.

The men had spat out the Eucharist and took a photograph of a partially bitten one. Communion is a sacrament for baptized Catholics in good-standing. The church teaches that the Eucharist is transformed into the body of Christ by the priest during Mass.

Does everybody remember the Jyllands-Posten incident where a dozen cartoons incited commercial boycotts, death threats, and calls to the UN for sanctions? I'd like to believe that the gross disparity both in the nature of the crime and in the intensity of the response are a product of the ethos of love that undergirds Christianity.

An Earnest Prayer For Taking the Eucharist

"You have vouchsafed me, O Lord, that this corruptible temple, my human flesh, should be united to your holy flesh, that my blood should be mingled with yours, and henceforth I am your transparent and translucent member. I am transported out of myself. I see myself such as I am to become. Fearful and at the same time ashamed of myself I venerate you and tremble before you." -- St. Symeon the New Theologian