But does the church not pick and choose what to believe in the Old and
New Testaments? Actually not. The faith of the New Church is to believe
what the Heavenly Doctrines declare to be true and to understand the rest
as explained in the Doctrines. The Doctrines are not written in the symbolic
language of previous scriptures. They are addressed to the intellect; and though
some illustrations are drawn from life in the 18th century, the doctrines
themselves are not. If the church were to believe otherwise, it would be no
longer an embodiment of the Holy City.
Doctrinal Arguments to the Contrary
Doctrinal arguments to the contrary are almost all characterized by lengthy
and tortuous reasoning. It is tedious to try to grapple with them. One reason
for this is that the arguments do not begin with the Doctrines and then lead
to a conclusion. Rather they begin with the thesis that women ought to be
admitted into the clergy, and the Doctrines are then searched for support, no
matter how tenuous.
The written arguments are witness to this unfortunate style of approach.
But they also reflect a certain sincerity, which shines in every paragraph, and
leaves no doubt that the goal is the betterment of the church and its growth.
Proponents of these arguments ought not be regarded, therefore, as hostile
to the church. Rather they seem to evidence a deep concern for the church’s
welfare and to have given a great deal of thought to the doctrines. But, that
said, we can point to two fundamental and pervasive errors in these arguments
which undo their good intentions.
For one thing, the arguments fail to distinguish between ministry and
priesthood. As we have already noted, service and ministry are not the peculiar
province of the priesthood, but are incumbent on everyone. Ministry does not
require ordination. Nor does it define the priesthood.
A more serious error of the arguments is their failure to distinguish
between the church in people and the organized church. Their focus is on the
church in individuals and in married couples, which is internal. In individuals
it is formed, as they say, by a union of goodness and truth, of charity and faith,
of will and intellect. In the case of married couples who are truly married,
the union of the wife’s loves and affections with her husband’s insights and
judgments forms the church in them.
But in such unions the only priest involved is the Lord. No human
priest stands in between. The individual stands before the Lord alone, and
the married couple stands before the Lord alone. It is an internal worship,
without human intervention. There is no third party analogous to the church’s
priesthood, which is a feature of the external, organized church.
None of these arguments focused on the church as an internal union of
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