new church life: march/april 2015
question of whether women can be priests has come up and undergone serious
debate. Perhaps this is a slow labor in providence.
We are at a point now where we have considered it intensely yet again
and have as a church put together thorough doctrinal arguments in favor and
against the idea of women in ministry.
One critical idea that has come out of this most recent effort is the general
acknowledgement from clergy and lay people alike that the Writings do
not state explicitly that the priesthood must be male. Indeed, the very same
passages that touch on the complementary natures of men and women are
used to argue for and against women in the ministry. (See the papers by Jon and
Karin Childs and the Rev. Solomon Keal’s at http://www.newchurchperspective.
com/possible-ordination-of-women/).
It seems the Church is more widely spread out than ever in its understanding
of the doctrine relating to this issue. Freedom in how we choose to understand
is essential. Though, given the widespread variance in our understanding of
the teachings related to the natures and roles of men and women and the
fact that it is acknowledged that the Writings never state explicitly that the
members of the priesthood need be male, I am given to think that the Church
reaffirming the current ordination policy as official constitutes a “ruling from
without,” “an external bond” on the Church.
To give the context of this claim, I will quote portions of W. F. Pendleton’s
Notes on the Government of the Church, with a few of my own brief notes.
Pendleton’s Notes begin:
The quality of a Church is according to the quality of its government, or according
to the idea of government which rules within it; if a natural idea of government
rules then the Church will be natural, but if government is seen under a spiritual
idea, this idea reigning in all its parts, then the Church will be a spiritual Church. A
true idea of government, which is a spiritual idea, is then of supreme importance to
the members of the Church…
The Church is not a spiritual Church until it is under such a form of government
as exists in heaven; before this it is a natural Church. The angels of heaven govern
– still they do not govern, but the LORD through them. (Arcana Coelestia 8728)
In the Church the priest is to govern, and yet he is not to govern, but the LORD
through him. Government in heaven is the government of mutual love (Heaven and
Hell 213); from mutual love springs mutual confidence, which flourishes only in
an atmosphere of freedom, where external bonds have been removed. There must
come a time when the Church cuts loose from external bonds, and freely trusts the
LORD and the neighbor.
Heaven is ruled by influx and hell by afflux. When the Church is in evil, the LORD
rules it by afflux, or from without, or from the world; but when the Church is in
good, the LORD rules it by influx, or from within, or from heaven. To endeavor to
rule the Church from without, to place it under bonds from the world, whether this
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