Woman Pastors

[The13thMan]

[quote name='Lacey Milam']Lifeway Christian Stores pulled a magazine featuring women pastors from their shelves earlier this week, igniting a storm of religious controversy. The Christian store removed the magazine due to its belief that women should not be heads of the church.[/quote]

[FONT="Trebuchet MS"]I was unaware of this until I read an article from my school newspaper under the opinions section. Lifeway Christian Resources is an entity of the Southern Babtist Convention. According to the woman who wrote the article I read, Catholics also hold the same belief that women cannot be pastors.

To anybody that knows me I'm sure my opinion will come with little shock. I think it's pretty absurd that in this day and age such blatant sexism still exists in some churches. To my understanding this belief stems from a bible passage from Paul.

What do I think should be done about this? It would be fantastic if they realized internally that this isn't right and changed it of their own accord, but I don't think that will happen. So, what should we do? Absolutely nothing... I understand and respect the rights that these people have to hold their beliefs and practice/enforce them. I just think it's a damn shame is all.

What do you guys think?[/FONT]

[chibi-master]

[quote name='The13thMan'][FONT="Trebuchet MS"]I just think it's a damn shame is all. [/FONT][/QUOTE]

What do I think? Why, exactly the sentence that I quoted up there. And the whole 'it branched off of a bible passage from Paul thing? C'mon, he also wrote that being gay or lesbian was wrong, and it ISN'T. Should I really be trusting him now? Actually, I was recently wondering about female church leaders and was very annoyed that there are virtually none.:animeangr

[Lunar]

[quote name='chibi-master']What do I think? Why, exactly the sentence that I quoted up there. [B]And the whole 'it branched off of a bible passage from Paul thing? C'mon, he also wrote that being gay or lesbian was wrong, and it ISN'T[/B]. Should I really be trusting him now? Actually, I was recently wondering about female church leaders and was very annoyed that there are virtually none.:animeangr[/QUOTE]

[COLOR="Indigo"] um, not to burst your bubble chibi, but being gay or lesbian [I]is [/I]wrong. what I think about what 13th man said, they [I]should[/I] change it, the women's rights thing, but also 'cause women can preach about things that men can't.:p[/COLOR]

[Guest Crimson Spider]

Personally, I don't mind women pastors. If your right, your right. If you have something to say, then say it.

The confusion comes from the use of the term "authority". It was said somewhere in the Bible that the author would not allow women to be in a position of religious authority above men. Where, I'm not sure. No matter how much I read, I can never remember specific texts and quotes. Now, THIS comes from the curses that were handed down during Genesis, where woman is going to be willingly submissive to man.

I differ from many other Christians in the belief that you should not encourage the curse. You don't rub alcohol on a woman so her birth is painful, and you don't make a farmer work with bad lands so the soil won't give him fruit. Likewise, you don't oppress women just because they are cursed to be generally submissive.


Some of other passages used to discriminate against women are not in the context that they should be discriminated against unfairly. Quite the opposite. The Bible encourages women to be happy about who they are. They serve a very important role in life, and this role isn't any less than man's role.

[ChibiHorsewoman]

[quote name='The13thMan'][FONT="Trebuchet MS"]I was unaware of this until I read an article from my school newspaper under the opinions section. Lifeway Christian Resources is an entity of the Southern Babtist Convention. According to the woman who wrote the article I read, Catholics also hold the same belief that women cannot be pastors.

To anybody that knows me I'm sure my opinion will come with little shock. I think it's pretty absurd that in this day and age such blatant sexism still exists in some churches. To my understanding this belief stems from a bible passage from Paul.

[/FONT][/QUOTE]

[color=#9933ff]Well first of all St. Paul is not one of my favorite people. Always down on women- When I got older and heard the sermons written by him in Church sometimes I'd wonder if Mary Magdalen turned him down. Also Baptists- no offense, but a lot of them get pretty serious about religion.

On the subject of Catholics holding the same beliefs- that may hold true for mainstream Catholics and many priests and deacons, but it depends on which ones you ask. There are always break away religions. For example about ten years back here in Rochester there was a Catholic church in the city where the priest was allowing a woman to say mass and give communion and he was performing same sex marriages. Needless to say the guy was eventually excommunicated but the debate did come up in the community as to whether he was or was not doing God's work.

Personally I don't see why the Catholic church doesn't hurry and have another Vatican meeting because all the diocese here in New York are facing priest shortages and churches are closing, They have to do something and I think making women priests would be one way to re-open some churches and maybe even get people back to the religion.[/color]

[Rachmaninoff]

[quote name='The13thMan'][FONT="Trebuchet MS"]What do I think should be done about this? It would be fantastic if they realized internally that this isn't right and changed it of their own accord, but I don't think that will happen. So, what should we do? Absolutely nothing... I understand and respect the rights that these people have to hold their beliefs and practice/enforce them. I just think it's a damn shame is all. [/FONT][/QUOTE]Though it would be good if they saw it for themselves, sitting back and doing nothing... changes nothing. To some degree, members of any religion have a right to question how authority is distributed among the members. Good example would be the Mormon religion I grew up with. Until the 70's black men were denied the right to hold any form of authority.

And though it may seem barbaric, it's not like it hasn't changed drastically over the years: [URL="http://www.religioustolerance.org/femclrg13.htm"][U]Click[/U][/URL] It's just a basic list of when women started gaining that right. Still it is interesting to see that it is changing, just not as quickly as some would like.

[SaiyanPrincessX]

[SIZE="1"]I have no problem with women pastors. They are both trying to get the same message accross.

Although I will mention one specific women pastor on television who I can't stand. I can't recall her name though. Something Scott I think...[/SIZE]

[The13thMan]

[quote name='Rachmaninoff']Though it would be good if they saw it for themselves, sitting back and doing nothing... changes nothing. To some degree, members of any religion have a right to question how authority is distributed among the members. Good example would be the Mormon religion I grew up with. Until the 70's black men were denied the right to hold any form of authority.

[/QUOTE]

[FONT="Trebuchet MS"]That's actually something i thought of after i had started the thread and was laying in my bed going through the day. When i said that i don't think we should do anything "we" was anybody not actually a follower of one of those faiths. I'm agnostic and i know i have no right to tell them what they should and should not do.... or at least not until i'm supreme dictator of the world. Then yeah, 'dem peoples is going down.

And it's not actually whether any religion changes or not that bothers me, it's the rate at which it does. [/FONT]

[Gavin]

[SIZE="1"]I'm not going to comment on the idea of female Pastors as genuinely I don't know enough about the theology of the Christian branches involved enough to be certain my points are accurate. Instead I'll stick to the question involving the Catholic Church.

The idea of female Fathers isn't something I admit I've heard mentioned very often as a solution to the numbers crisis facing the Church at the moment. Generally speaking I don't have a strong opinion on the idea, either for or against because I think there would have to be huge levels of change in the Church itself prior to this occuring that is not within its nature.

Additionally, I think the fact that the call for "gender equality" within the clergy often comes from the very left-wing aligned sources actually makes the message far less likely to be given serious thought due to the huge level of contention that exists between the two sides.

Personally from my own experience, I've always felt that the next likely step the Church will take, that is acceptable to it's members without moving very far from it's firmly rooted traditional base, would be giving priests the right to marry, as many of their Protestant counterparts have.

Really I've always thought the message for those who wanted change in the Catholic Church was that if they didn't like it, they should go find a Church who's views did match up.[/SIZE]

[Rachmaninoff]

[quote name='The13thMan'][FONT="Trebuchet MS"]That's actually something i thought of after i had started the thread and was laying in my bed going through the day. When i said that i don't think we should do anything "we" was anybody not actually a follower of one of those faiths. I'm agnostic and i know i have no right to tell them what they should and should not do.... [/FONT][/QUOTE]I'm not just saying it should only be up to the members though. Ideally, they should be allowed to govern their own practices as much as possible, however there are times when I think outside intervention or pressure to change is good. An example of that is back when the federal government made abolishing polygamy a requirement for Utah to become a state. Sometimes, even outsiders have a right to put their foot down on what practices a church engages in. I'm not sure it would apply in this case, but I'm not going to declare that it should never happen.

[The13thMan]

[quote name='Rachmaninoff']I'm not just saying it should only be up to the members though. Ideally, they should be allowed to govern their own practices as much as possible, however there are times when I think outside intervention or pressure to change is good. An example of that is back when the federal government made abolishing polygamy a requirement for Utah to become a state. Sometimes, even outsiders have a right to put their foot down on what practices a church engages in. I'm not sure it would apply in this case, but I'm not going to declare that it should never happen.[/QUOTE]

[FONT="Trebuchet MS"]Mmmmm.... i don't know about that. Where do you draw that line of what's ok for an outsider to step in on and what's not? Certainly i can understand outsider interference when something dangerous is involved or anything that directly breaks any pre-established law, but when it comes to perfectly safe though perhaps frowned upon things, i think it should be strictly up to those within the circle. Also let it be known that when i say "do something" i mean actively going forth to try and change whatever it is. Simply expressing your opinion here or anywhere else doesn't fall under that category.

I have no problem with polygamy. Just throwing that out there. Ladies. [/FONT]