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he then paradoxically dives into the various cultural shifts which have occurred
in the last 40 years to evaluate the desire of women to be priests. It appears his
point is that the heart of the cultural revolution was a rejection of authority
which, apparently, has manifested itself in destruction and hedonism.
What does this have to do with the question of women in the ministry?
He argues that as a result of the cultural revolution, in our now “politically
correct” culture, there remains an echo of the earlier rejection of authority.
Perhaps it is “the legacy of the flower children and their radical allies.”
While I admit that the cultural revolution of the last 40 years has resulted
in a rejection of authority, this has not all been negative, as suggested by Mr.
Rogers. What I saw in the 1960s and ‘70s was the rejection of authority for
authority’s own sake. I note that in summarizing it, he fails to discuss the
most significant aspect of that revolution, the Civil Rights movement. The
most heinous aspect of discrimination by race in this country was that it was
sanctioned by the government, its institutions and its laws – our authority.
Mr. Rogers makes sweeping generalizations about men and women, both
according to what the doctrines state and what he perceives is our culture.
There is, of course, nothing unusual about dividing the human race into
classifications or classes and then assigning certain self-perceived attributes to
those classes. We separate the human race into classes based on such things as
gender, age, nationality, education and financial resources. Indeed, we separate
persons concerning whether they take global warming seriously or not.
Assigning attributes to these classes, based on our self-perceived
experiences and knowledge, is a short-hand way to avoid seriously analyzing
a particular member of that class’s abilities and character. Of course, some of
these attributes have merit. I can state with some authority that men are not
worth much when it comes to having babies or nursing them. But beyond
that, our opinions about these classifications have little validity. When we use
the broad-sweeping conclusions about a particular class, and then determine
whether a particular member of that class, based on these conclusions, can
perform a function, the whole process becomes very sticky.
When we make decisions about the abilities of a particular class to perform
a particular function, such as women in the clergy, we are failing to take into
account a number of significant factors. First of all, we are natural men and our
intellects are limited to that extent. We are fallible. For this reason we should
tread very carefully on an issue as significant as to whether approximately half
of the human race sho V