Letters to the Editors
Response from the Rev. N. Bruce Rogers
To The Editors:
So as not to weary the reader with unnecessary repetition, let me
reply with this one response to the letters submitted by Zarah Blair and
Trish Lindsay and to the article by Al Lindsay (January-February 2014
New Church Life). All three write from Sarver, Pennsylvania, on the
same theme in answer to my previous article, Gender and the Priesthood
of the New Church, in which I concluded that priests ought to be male.
Before commenting on the substance of their submissions, I must
say that I was nonplussed to have my piece labeled tedious and tortuous.
Tedious, perhaps, to minds not liking my line of thought, but hardly too
convoluted or too complex for ready comprehension. In other words, not
tortuous. I think most fair-minded readers would agree that the line
of thought was both straightforward and easy to understand, whether
appreciated or not.
I was also surprised to have it suggested that I began with my
conclusion and then searched the doctrines for support. In actuality I
began my study of the doctrine regarding the priesthood back in the
late 1960s. It was the subject of my senior thesis for graduation from the
Theological School, a thesis that has been consulted by a number of my
colleagues since. This predated any issue of gender in priesthood, and I
entertained no thought of it at the time.
Then, in the late 1980s and early ’ 90s, I translated the book Conjugial
Love from the Latin, published also as Married Love. In consequence I
can say that I have read the book word for word, line for line, number
for number. Again, I entertained no thought at the time of gender in
the priesthood. However, I did become intimately familiar with the whole
tenor of the doctrine regarding the sexes.
It was from this background and vantage that I saw the question of
gender in the priesthood. Not as a cultural matter, but as a doctrinal one
– one that I was given to see, not from some previously held position,
111