Women Can Be as Good a Pastor as a Man Can: While This is True, It is Entirely Beside the Point
I just bumped into a great post over at the Touchstone blog that succinctly points out the fatal flaws in the “functionalist” arguments in favor of ordaining women to serve as pastors. I hear these arguments all the time. But, as this blog posts points out, they are quite beside the point. I think the post points out a number of reasons why such “functionalist” arguments fall so short of the mark. You might have other points to add to it. Here is the blog post, by S.M. Hutchens.
From the ongoing battle of Christianity against egalitarianism . . . .
“A friend referred me to an article where once again the familiar argument for women’s ordination had been made by what I referred to in my response to her on purely functionalist grounds: women can perform all the necessary actions of ordained ministry as well as men–a point fully agreed to by C. S. Lewis, by the way, in “Priestesses in the Church?”–so it is irrational to deny them ordination. What term, my friend asked, should we use as the orthodox antithesis to “functionalism,” particularly with regard to the preaching and teaching office we understand as peculiar to men?
“There is a form of prophesying the New Testament shows to be among the gifts of women. What we are dealing with here is a distinctively male apostolic office that has to do primarily with authoritative teaching, from whatever platform. To refer to this is to refer to a tradition that reaches back to the Lord and his apostles. I have always believed it could have been otherwise, that these offices could have been chartered on the basis of the equality in Christ of men and women, and the exalted place–I do not hesitate to define it as sacerdotal, as the highest exemplar of the priestly office of women–of Mary as the principal (!) giver, under Christ himself, of the Lord to men, rather than along (equally valid) male-female hierarchical lines.
“(I will say parenthetically here that Protestants who ascribe no authority to catholic tradition are throwing away the most decisive part of their panoply in the struggle against egalitarianism–a strong word about how the Church has traditionally interpreted the Bible. Of course this opens a floodgate of disturbing and potentially destructive questions about why, then, their denominations do not follow Tradition on other matters–but still, this point has to be made. It is this Lerintian Canon that needs to be placed down against the wildly improbable interpretations of the biblical seats of doctrine set forward by egalitarianism on the basis of a higher scholars’ gnosis: What they are teaching is a novelty: no one except perhaps a few of the oddest sects believed or taught it until the recent egalitarian enlightenment. This places the burden of proof where it belongs.)
“But to return: The Lord chose men only for these offices, and with this, I believe, presumptively validates many if not most of the reasons given, some of them by St. Paul, for their distinctive “maleness,” and his choice along this line has been followed by the Church from the apostolic era forward. (As Fr. Reardon and others have demonstrated, the attempts to show otherwise have been boldly but less than ingeniously cut from whole cloth.) If the arguments that oppose women’s ordination have been accepted, it follows that those which advocate it, as logically unexceptional as they may be from the standpoint of the (true) doctrine of women’s equality with men, are to be rejected as, at the very least, irrelevant to the case.
“One recalls the wording of Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, that “the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination upon women”– which does not indicate, as some believe, that such ordination is impossible and unnatural–only that authority for this change, authority, that is, to institute women’s ordination to the offices of authority along lines of their equality with men–would have to come from Christ himself. I am among those who cannot see that this has happened, particularly in light of (1) the ecumenical rejection of the change, (2) its acceptance and promulgation by the most deracinated and heresy-addled segments of Christendom, (3) its advocacy in the latter by gross exegetical and historical dishonesty, and (4) the ecclesially destructive quality of the witness of its supporters–even if women more orthodox than the radical feminists are borne in the egalitarian train. This looks like the devil’s work, not that of the Holy Spirit.
“So, what opposes “pure functionalism” is an overriding dominical choice and the apostolic tradition that follows it–in brief, functionality is opposed by apostolicity. That women can function as well as men in the tasks of ordained office, reason can readily stipulate. That they have been chosen for it is what we doubt, and with this doubt goes acceptance of a pattern of reasoning that submits to the Lord’s choice and rejects all reasons proffered against it, as “reasonable” as they may appear. This includes the argument from functional parity.”
Well, it’s not true that a woman can be as good of a pastor as a man.
A woman can no more be a pastor than a fish can race in the Tour de France.
The article does make this point, but the title is a bit misleading.
The article counters the most common reason given for why woman can be pastors: because they can perform the functions of the office as well as a man. And they can. Perhaps, in many cases, better. But the functionalist argument fails because the issue is not whether or not women can perform the functions of the office as well as a man. The reason women can not be pastors is because there is no Dominical or Apostolic authority for them to function as pastors.
Is that a picture of Dawn French in the British comedy series The Vicar of Dibley? Although it was a British series, it could just as well have been an American one.
The Vicar of Dibley showed a Christ-less Christianity. It is the sort of thing held up by secularists as an example of “good” Christianity. As I recall, most of the stories were rather thick with condescension towards those who were considered backwards (which is pretty much everyone in the series except French), and I never liked it for that reason.
Ironically, The Vicar of Dibley was supposed to be a model of how modern liberal Christianity can save the Church from the fell clutches of the dastardly reactionaries like David Horton (a main character in the series who was the butt of constant jokes). Many of the episodes I saw showed French’s church packed to overflowing, although one wonder why there were there – to hear some of French’s racy jokes delivered from the pulpit, perhaps?
Of course, the opposite has turned out to be true: liberal Protestantism has been an unqualified disaster in both spiritual and secular terms. Organizations (I hesitate to call them churches anymore) like the Church of England and the ELCA are hemorrhaging members. The decision to eschew redemption through Christ in favor of secular political salvation will only accelerate this trend.
The central point of this argument is excellent: Christ alone can grant the Church the authority to ordain women. He has not done so. One may also come to this argument from the other direction: Women have no vocation to be pastors, for one does not get to choose his own vocation. God calls, and God has explicitly said that He does not call women into the ministry. Therefore if a church ordains a women, or a women seeks or accepts ordination, such are sinning against vocation. To put it another way: A man may well (but obviously should not) have a mistress. His mistress is perfectly as capable of bearing and raising that man’s child as is his wife. But that man has no call to bear a child with anyone but his wife, and nor does the mistress have a call to bear that man’s child. The mistress may have all the right functional parts, the instincts of a mother, and may well be able and willing to care for such a child. But to conceive that child is a sin against the vocation which God alone can grant.
“…women can perform all the necessary actions of ordained ministry as well as men” But can they? Notice: even the “function” of the pastorate has changed with the ordination of women. It is no longer the apostolic office of preaching and teaching the Word of God to call people to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. I have observed, along with a few others, that a pastor is no longer a Minister of Word and Sacraments but a social minister. The Office is no longer the Holy Ministry but My Ministry. Women pastors are formed in Protestant seminaries to be social workers for the most part in a theological milieu of universalism. (Now there are women pastors who are confessional in the Lutheran Church and some have even said: if the church were to return to the ordination of men, they would leave the Ministry. But they are really the exception in my anecdotal observations over the years because the liberal Protestant seminaries will not be repenting to return to their Scriptural mandates anytime in the near future.) So at the same time as when the functionalist argument has been used, conveniently the function has been changed so that ordained men and women can do the same thing! The authority to function in this ‘new’ church is no longer derived from the Word of God in Holy Scriptures but from humans and it shows in the substantive change of even the role and function of the pastorate. (Cf. In an earlier entry here, Dr. Sonntag responded to my question about how are these liberal congregations look like and will look like. I think his answer is germaine to this discussion: http://cyberbrethren.com/2010/03/02/bishop-resign/#comment-10666#comment-10666)
It’s a good article. However, as a Protestant, I don’t think I’m losing a lot by opposing WO on the basis of Scripture alone, rather than Scripture plus tradition.
Lars, actually…the point the post makes is that the “tradition” of the Church is what it is, precisely because there is no Dominical or Apostolic mandate/authority for women to be pastors. That is the “Scripture alone” approach we take as well.
It is often obaserved that you not find a theologically or doctrinally conservative woman pastor or adherent to women’s ordination. That is probably because that would contradict the intellectual means by which they attained the office in the first place. I think the functional argument is intellectually dishonest, in that you are attempting to dismiss dominical or apostolic authority so that you may hold the office of holy ministry and therefore don the trappings of apostolic authority. This is a contradiction that cannot be resolved, much less covered up with pop culture morality or political activism.
It is interesting to me that the same functional argument is made by the anti-clergy pentecostal, who has swallowed the spirit feathers and all and rejects the need for creeds and doctrine in favor of direct inspiration. Both have an egalitarian bent to them, that is at its core self serving.