(In the light of a fair comment below, what follows is a revision of the original, unkind post.)
Each year in Sydney there is a conference for women called Equip.
The most recent one had a dose of restlessness, as you can read here.
About short hair.
And extending submissiveness to men in the workplace.
Intriguingly on the Equip website, I see women involved with the running of the conference with short hair!
The age old intra evangelical debate re relationships between men and women, in marriage and in the church, complementarianism / egalitarianism, continues around the globe.
But is this latest call, as reported above, a step further than warranted even by a complementarian reading of Scripture?
I have my own thoughts on the matter. What about yours?
19 comments:
And this is kind? This post is loving?
Hi Rosemary
Fair enough.
I have modified it to a kinder post.
It is difficult to evaluate without being there or hearing the comments in context. Often people mis-interpret or mis-understand that there is a difference between submission (albeit biblically this is generally mutual submission) and subjugation. Also, I think the concept of being a help-mate is pretty much relegated to the marriage relationship, after all most men need a bit of help right?
As for feminism I think as a concept it has changed. I could be classed a feminist if it was in respect to women being valued and treated equivalent to their male counterparts (e.g. Do the same job have the same respect or seeing the role of being a mother as equally important as the role of an employee/earner). Unfortunately, some feminism or what is labelled as such has become prone to ideas such as being free to dress scantily, free to be sexually 'free' - I can't see this particular stream of feminism as achieving any gain for the dignity of women.
Hi Jean,
Just a comment on your reference to 'help-mate' (while agreeing with you that men need help, after all that's what God says in Gen 2.18). I guess the term 'help-mate' has evolved from 'help-meet' which is derived from the KJV "I will make him an help meet for him." (no hyphen) Here, 'meet' is an adjective, meaning 'suitable' or 'appropriate'. The Hebrew word translated 'help' (a noun) is 'e.zer'. The majority of the uses of this word in the OT refer to God, e.g. in the Psalms. So, there can hardly be a suggestion of submission in this word, let alone subjugation.
Your comments in the second paragraph are very pertinent.
O/T here - but the tiny (uSa c. 15000) Scottish Episcopal Church has apostasised from catholic teaching on marriage - now watch Gafcon intervene and Justin Welby spin helplessly.
Hi David
You explanation of help-meet is informative and I like it, it makes sense!
I guess my reference to submission had more to do with its use in the verse, 'submit to one another out of love' referring to both husband and wife or 'wives submit to your husband as to the Lord' an imperative for all Christian relationships rather than just between male and female but no doubt important in a marriage relationship. I think the later verse has has been used somewhat historically or should I say mis-used by being seen as being the involuntary subjugation rather than the voluntary submit. And also without being in light of the proceeding verses instructions about husbands loving their wives.
All the best,
Found in a bag of fortune cookies-
"Not every pair or group needs to be a hierarchy to be unified."
"Leader-follower is the most inclusive relation because nearly anybody can make it work."
"Real Anglicans do not believe in any archaeological reconstruction of the C1; that's why, from before the framing of the world, they haven't been Presbyterians."
"The completed canon of scripture belongs to no single time but points to something classic for every time."
"The reconciliation of man and woman is an aspect of the new creation that began with the Resurrection of the Lord."
Bowman Walton
Thank you both, David and Jean. Helpmeet is indeed the key, and what an honour .. wow, what an honour.
Well, Peter, with SEC's move to allow 'Equal Marriage', problems with binary preference of traditional partiarchalism are left behind. However, the Scottish Episcopal Church will not condemn those who think in the traditional way: that the female in a marriage has to be subservient to the male. (Ouch, I can feel the poisoned arrows from here!).
NOW, we will see whether the traditional Anglican (Canterbury-flavoured) 'Broad-Church' ethos will survive the ACNA/GAFCON interlopers.
9cantervury flavoured) 'broad-Church' survives intentional schism
Hi Ron and other commenters
1. Not sure what the last line above means Ron! Is it a link to something?
2. I am publishing your comment above with this comment, no one above is subscribing to a view of the subservience of women to men, and I counsel you not to think so.
3. We could spare Ron the poisoned arrows in response!
Oh dear - fingers and thumbs! my mistake, Peter. Last line unintended.
Hope to keep up with your blog in Europe from this Sunday till 19 August!
Whether there will be much left of the SEC (uSa c. 15000 - and not the youngest 15000 either) in ten years' time is pretty questionable. But, among other news from the UK this Thursday, is this announcement from GAFCON of a missionary bishop to be appointed by world Anglican figures for Scotland:
https://www.gafcon.org/news/missionary-bishop-introduced-by-archbishop-foley-beach
Yes, Brian, we know - and a bishop from ACNA, no less, with the encouragement and support of GAFCON. Time the Anglican Communion outlawed intentional piracy -together with instigators of schism.
Hi Ron
You sound hopeful that the Anglican Communion might agree on something!
As we humans are inevitably caught up in the warp and woof of present history—namely, the current dilemmas of the Anglican Communion and its various Provinces’ little histories—we simply may not understand what’s ‘really’ going on. For what ‘really’ happened 500 years ago, with that dear Doctor of the Church nailing his theses to that door?! After all, he thought he was ‘doing the right academic thing’ and posting a form of debate among his peers and others. Who’d have thought a mere 10 years later Europe would have become another place, and England likewise in another 5 after that?!
Add to this how so often what passes for history is written by those who come out on top (YET what IS “top”?). And so frankly, I’m of the view that such words as “schism” are useless at this point in time. After all, who’s dividing themselves from what? And on what basis?
And so, whether it’s “radical feminism” versus simple mass cultural “equality”; or ‘Canterbury’ versus the GS and/or GAFCON—at this point, taking the supposed high moral ground is ... well; specious ... On verra - tout simple!
One last word. To coin a phrase from Ecclesiastes: ‘There’s a time for “respectful listening”; and there’s a time for going for the jugular.’ And yet; even here Michel Foucault gets it: power IS ubiquitous, and has proven to be so. Just so, who exactly has already bled out - historically speaking ...?! And who rather knows the power of resurrection?! See Eph 1:15ff - in the context of the entire Letter.
Greetings from Fetcham, in sunny Surrey!Staying with Diana's younger brother, David, and his wife Diane. Just reading about Hildegarde of Bingen. She would have made a good Anglican. Not only was she a nun, skilled in theology and liturgical matters, she was also a practising M.D. - with her own understanding of the human body and its ills at a time when women were not supposed to know about such things! Her writings were pivotal in the understanding of a loving, compassionate God: "All shall be well; all manner of things shall be well" - even in the Church of England! (I left my I pad behind but am able to access by dear bro-in-law's desktop - thankful for small mercies. God is good!)
"I’m of the view that such words as “schism” are useless at this point in time. After all, who’s dividing themselves from what? And on what basis?"
Bryden, a new C21 church or communion cannot inherit its place in the ecumenical Church today from the C11 partition over the filioque or C16 battle over autocephaly for the northern provinces of the West. Rather, a move today which actually reduces the overall unity of the Church catholic is presumptively schismatic, and any change of affiliation a church makes today must be in the opposite direction of the greater unity for which Christ prayed.
So, for example, were the ACNA to submit to Rome (eg Anglican Ordinariate) or to an Orthodox see which has allowed the BCP (eg Antioch), its "departure" from TEC could not be seen from any reasonable perspective as schismatic. In American cities and towns, the Church on the ground would in fact be a bit more unified than before as parishes, monasteries, etc moved from a tiny junior denomination to a large senior one.
However, from the most fissiparous Anglicans, we have not seen anything like a rebuttal of that presumption. Rather, they have erred in thinking that there is in God's eternal plan a permanent state of separation from Rome and Constantinople that they can claim by contesting Canterbury's right to occupy it. This is contrary to St John xvii, of course.
So schism proper can only be against the ecumenical Church. And those contesting the true nature of Anglican identity-- a somewhat more contingent thing-- are not necessarily schismatic if they are otherwise organically related to the Church. But when the fissiparous invoke their construct of Anglican identity as a rationale for floating adrift of all the others, then they are not anchored in that safe harbour. They are indeed presumptively schismatic.
Bowman Walton
I'd like to think I could agree with you Bowman. Yet your very "ecumenical Church today" is but an abstraction. It does not exist.
What exists are series of organizations - some, as you infer, with longer pedigrees: Roman, Orthodox. True; historical continuity has its place. I too am an Anglican by conviction, not mere happenstance. But significantly "historical continuity" is not the only mark of the Church.
For all that, I'd recommend for pondering Ephraim Radner's article in Pro Ecclessia Winter 2016, "The Naked Christian". It tries to get behind your abstractions ...
Apologies Bowman et al: erratum
Pro Ecc Vol XXVI/1, Winter 2017.
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