new church life: march/april 2016
letter the Church has stopped growing and has actually lost members. He
mentioned that there were 19 resignations in the year ending June 30, 2015.
It seems from this letter that many resigned in part because of the Church’s
policy of not letting women become priests. Many in the Church seem to think
that if we do not let women into the priesthood the Church cannot survive.
It seems that the more Church has tried to grow the less it grows. Could
it be that this is because the Church has been willing to abandon the truth
in its attempt to grow? If the Church abandons the truth, then even if it did
grow would any good come of it? Is there anything special about the General
Church once the truth is gone or is profaned by being mixing it with falsity?
It seems that I have seen statistics showing that churches that have not
allowed women into the ministry actually do better at keeping members. It
also seems to me that part of the reason we have not seen a decline in the
General Church sooner is that many people who were in more liberal branches
of the New Church – allowing women to be priests and in favor of same-sex
marriages – left and came to the General Church. Now that these Churches
are declining fewer people are coming to the General Church from this source.
Were the people leaving these other branches of the New Church in part
because they did not want women in the ministry?
Whatever the numbers reveal I think there will be some who will back
away from the General Church if it accepts women in the ministry. It may be
that those who want women to be priests are doing more talking than those
who do not, but it may not be a majority of the people in the Church who want
women priests.
Even if it is a majority, should Church policy on women in the ministry
– or any church policy for that matter – be decided by popular vote instead
of sound argument from the Writings? I think that when we look at what
the Writing say about women’s uses and women who preach it is hard to see
how having women in the ministry can be justified. Just because people want
something it does not make it right.
Women do not belong in the priesthood, but it is not just women that are
mistranslating Scripture. It seems there are also ministers in the Church who
have twisted the truth and then point to numbers from the Writings that they
claim gives them authority to “develop doctrine.”
Priests have been responsible for heresies in other churches but priests in
the New Church are also capable of producing heresies. Perhaps the arguments
for women in the ministry would lose much of their power if the ministers
who assert their right to develop doctrine cared more about the truth.
Edward (Ned) Cole
Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania
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