Hard, Not Brittle

Comment from a reader:

"Timothy George, the dean of Beeson Divinity School, writes not irregularly for Touchstone. Beeson as official policy grants Master of Divinity degrees to women, and even has a few women professors.  Beeson (and George) grant their M.Div. degrees knowingly to women who will and do go on to positions of pastoral authority.  Then there is Phillip Johnson who is an elder at First Presbyterian (PCUSA) Berkeley that has sponsored women (albeit quite orthodox ones by their own lights) for ordination. Given SMH's vigilance on this issue I'm wondering how these men made into the pages of Touchstone, and why they remain there."

This is a reasonable question. These men appear in our pages writing as “mere Christians,” the content of what they write being more important than their connections, even if their opinions are different than ours on matters we consider important. Not that their connections or opinions are disregarded when we assess their writing, but that when all the relevancies are weighed and registered, if the consensus is that the submission supports the mission of the journal and will edify our readers, this will result in publication, unless the senior editors judge that some scandal would result. Despite our reputation, we—and yes, even the fire-breathing Hutchens--try to be as reasonable and flexible as possible in the manifold of circumstances under which we work.

This involves consideration of levels of involvement with the magazine. While firm agreement on its mission and character is expected of the members of the governing and editorial boards, somewhat less is demanded of contributing editors, less yet of contributors. (Normally, people who do not wish to be associated with Touchstone don’t send us manuscripts, so relieve us of the trouble of rejecting them on grounds that they are members of, say, Lesbian Conservatives for World Evangelism.) We tend to be less interested in establishing laws and policies than in discerning the spirit of the enterprise and working in accordance with it. This will produce some apparent anomalies, and of course, we will make mistakes.

That’s the nature of life. The secret of maintaining it is, I believe, discerning the new growth of the embryo from that of the neoplasm, the true pregnancy from the false—the work of the Holy Spirit in the body of the Church from that of the devil or of sincere but foolish men. It is chiefly the duty of the (here, editorial) head to make these discernments, to choose what supports true life wherever it is found, and to reject what opposes it, however attractive it may at first appear.

To this end we must be gentler with people than we are with ideas, regarding this as necessary for our own salvation as well as theirs. If we are to be saved, we and our errors must be severable, and the actual severance must be made. This cannot be done by treating error with kindness, but doing what may be done to kill it completely without killing the patient. Note that I say, without killing the patient, not without hurting him. It can’t be done without hurting. The physician who claims the ability to do that is a quack.

Speaking here for myself, I will say that as much as I like the learned and very personable Dr. George, it is quite plain that I could not teach as regular faculty at his divinity school, and as valuable as the brilliant and courageous Prof. Johnson’s work supporting intelligent design has been, I could not join him on the session of his PCUSA church. In their cases and in our judgment, however, these have not served as a bar to publication in Touchstone, nor has their work been of small service to the Faith. Indeed, we judge them—along with those we won’t publish--as we ourselves wish to be judged, that in God’s mercy our sins may be forgotten and our good works remembered before the judgment seat of Christ.

Comments

[Patrick]

Dr. Hutchens, this is a very nice reply to the question posed. Thank you for spending the time spelling this out for us. I do not always agree with everything I read in Touchstone, and likely never will, but I do appreciate the manner in which the conversation takes place and the shared goal of really finding light in this oft dark world.

[Chris Roberts]

As a Beesonite, this post caught my eye. My wife and I are pretty conservative evangelicals. It's my own conviction that the roles of men and women in the church are different, and that we ought not blur those differences as many do today. To put it plainly, I don't think pastoral leadership is a role for women in the church. I hate leaving it there, but a discussion on my position is not the purpose of this comment, it just gives background.

My wife and I went to Beeson knowing there would be believers there with a wide range of theological convictions. I am working on an M. Div with plans to pastor, my wife was working on an M.TS because she's a nerd who likes school and wanted to be a well-educated pastor's wife. When our daughter made a surprise appearance, she withdrew from school.

Granted, most of the women students at Beeson are not there for the same reasons as my wife. Quite a few of them do plan to pursue pastoral ministry. I came to Beeson knowing I would meet women like this, as well as many other students with whom I disagreed on many issues. Truth be told, this is a very large part of why I wanted to come to Beeson. Beeson presents a unique opportunity for believers, whether or not one is preparing for ministry. Within the body of believers there is a huge diversity of beliefs and practices, and while I am quite firm with many of my convictions I am also firm of the need to learn to get along with those funny Anglicans, even those as funny as Dr. Bray. Is our ministry within the body only to be with those who agree with us on most theological points? I think there's far too much diversity for that. Somewhere in there is a line we cannot cross and that line is different for different people. For myself, I will worship and work with women pastors even as I disagree with the way they have chosen to serve the church. What I recognize is that God is still using their ministry. Yes, I think they would find themselves more effective in other areas of service, but I do believe God will use a willing servant, and there are many willing servants here at Beeson, men and women.

[Terry Bohannon]

Preventing women from obtaining an M.Th or a M.Div seems ridiculous. My aunt is in the process of getting her M.Th at a Catholic university.

If she were to do the unthinkable by abandoning Catholicism and becoming a priestess, even if the school knew of her intentions, that should not be grounds for preventing her graduation. What is important for graduation is that she passes the oral exams, writes a cohesive thesis, and had maintained a proper GPA.

What she does with her degree is her business.

[smh]

Mr. Roberts, at Touchstone we believe, as you probably know, that the pastoral ordination of women is based upon the principal heresy assaulting the Church in our age, and we will not validate or encourage it. For me this means that I could not teach in an institution that claimed to be both Christian and orthodox and tolerated or encouraged the practice--unless it allowed me to oppose it actively, which would be unwise on its part. Nor will I attend a service where a woman is preaching or administering the sacraments--except the funeral of a near relative, the only situation where charitable considerations seem to warrant it.

I used to be fairly ambivalent on the matter. Evangelicals such as I used to be just didn't care much about the theology involved, regarded undue concern about things like this as "majoring in the minors"--and frankly, just not very polite. It is the sort of thing the gross and unspeakable FUNDAMENTALIST troglodyte would do. (That Catholics, Orthodox, or tradititional Protestants agreed with the fundamentalists meant nothing to us: Catholics were heretics, Orthodox were Catholics, and confessional Protestants were ethnic fundamentalists, even if they could read and write.) I have even laid hands upon a very good and godly woman, under the impression that I was helping to ordain her.

I hope I am forgiven for this imposture. Twenty-five years later, I clearly am not of the same mind.

[Chris Roberts]

even the fire-breathing Hutchens

I think you were right about the fire-breathing part. :) My comment was actually intended to be a buffer of your position, not an attempt to try and soften you a bit towards women ordination.

[Patrick]

Dr. Hutchens, you aren't being literal about the fire-breathing bit are you? Cuz that'd be cool. Sort of like those Appalachian snake handling preachers I see on 60 minutes every few years.

I bet it would be great for Touchstone circulation too.

[Jenna]

Evangelicals consider us confessional Protestants
"ethnic fundamentalists"? I honestly didn't know that.

[Bob Smietana]

Dr Hutchins:

Thank you for this post and the wisdom and grace in it toward those you disagree with. Are you willing to consider the possibility that at least some of those who believe woman can serve as pastor (and I count myself among them) do so out of study of the Scriptures?

A few Scriptures come to mind that suggest the possibility:

-Romans 16 where Paul refers to Junia, a woman, as an apostle (something John Chrysostom, acknowledged, though it apparently bewildered him) and refers to woman who have significant roles in the church;
- Judges 4, which refers to a woman prophetess named Deborah judging Israel;
-Ephesians 4, where Paul lists roles in the church, "that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers" he does not differentiate between men and women

My point's not to convince you that I'm right, or that the position of the Evangelical denomination I belong to is correct. It's to ask if you can acknowledge the possibility that theology supporting the ordination of woman can be motivated by faithfulness to Scripture and to Christ?

[smh]

Jenna, in light of the "broadening" of the Evangelical establishment, confessional Protestants who have held strongly to their confessions--not those who HAVE confessions, mind you, but those who haven't changed their interpretation in light of recent "advances" in our understanding of the Bible--do indeed look like fundamentalists. In my neck of the woods most of them were of German or Dutch extraction.

Our anti-Catholicism is an historical fact, and we knew practically nothing about Orthodoxy. Carl F. H. Henry, writing against me in a Touchstone article, described it as part of Christianity's "fanatic fringe."

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>A few Scriptures come to mind that suggest the possibility:

-Romans 16 where Paul refers to Junia, a woman, as an apostle (something John Chrysostom, acknowledged, though it apparently bewildered him) and refers to woman who have significant roles in the church;
- Judges 4, which refers to a woman prophetess named Deborah judging Israel;
-Ephesians 4, where Paul lists roles in the church, "that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers" he does not differentiate between men and women<<<

See my comments regarding the need to interpret Scripture within the matrix of the Church's Tradition, over on the thread about the Vinyard Church.

[smh]

No, sorry Bob. We believe that those who believe women can be ordained can only do so by torturing the scriptures, by violent distortion of church history, and by a perverted understanding of human nature. (Your texts are nothing to the point.) They may be relatively innocent, having accepted the teaching of those whose guilt is much greater, but no, I do not believe any of this is from the Holy Spirit. It issues from the egalitarian heresy, that is, from a lie, and hence from the Father of Lies. It breaks the church into yet another set of irreconcilable fragments, creating a wholly gratuitous cause of grave offense where none existed only a few years ago--and wonderful to relate, it is the innovators who blame the rest of us for causing the trouble! If only we would see the light they have provided and change the belief and practice of two millennia, there would be peace. Do you see what is happening here?

Of course, it looks good. One would expect it to. And especially, it feels good, because in many Evangelical circles these days one is praised and made to feel welcome if he professes it--the opposite if he doesn't. Read the inclusive language statements of any of the major Evangelical seminaries. Do they indicate that good Christians can disagree? No, only the very deficient, frankly uncharitable and unevangelical.

Doesn't it bother you that all of a sudden, concurrent with the rise of feminism, discoveries are being made in the scriptures of which the Church was ignorant for the first nineteen hundred years of its life? That obvious meanings of so many passages are discarded for odd and unlikely ones? Wondering hard about that, and daring to evaluate the answers you get to that question on the subject from egalitarians, is a good place to start your return to sanity.

[Patrick]

Do we not ignore other plain commandments? Call no man father, for instance. There could be a list of things Paul said we should do that we do not, only these verses seem to carry theological weight. If such urges as women pastors rises from the father of lies how do they say, in their sermons, Jesus is Lord? 1 Cor 12 says that no one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit.

Indeed, I do wonder if there would ever be anything, any sign, any tongue, any message written which would be acceptable. I am very much finding the arguments hereabouts worth considering, however, I wonder at how so entrenched the positions are. People with very, very, very good Biblical training and faithful hearts have disagreed, finding the Scriptures are not twisted, but instead the whole of Scriptures suggests a more open consideration.

Is there a hypothetical anything which could make your hardened position change? I'm not saying there is something now, that's clearly not going to be agreed on. But could there be? If the Spirit did in fact open the doors a little wider, how would you accept it? A Vatican III?

Peter had a vision and Paul got knocked off of a horse. Cornelius and all his household began speaking in tongues when all the Scriptures suggested it wasn't supposed to work this way. What is the sign now? Is there a sign now? Or is the Spirit lying fallow waiting for Jesus to return and marking time with all the changes made 2000 years ago?

How does a woman pastor say Jesus is Lord if not ordained by the Spirit to do so?

So many questions I still have. Which is fun because now I really want to read through my whole NT now. Because you all are very convincing... just not quite fully yet for me.

I think the Spirit far too willing to be fluid and often unexpected to be fully convinced just yet.

[James Altena]

Patrick, a point you seem not to grasp is that the Tradition, like the Scriptures, does not change. Like the Scriptures it is and remains self-consistent. It is a cardinal point of orthodox Scriptural exegesis that one part does not and cannot contradict another, and anyone who reads it as so doing is misreading it. The same is true of the Tradition, precisely because it is the continually speaking voice of the Holy Spirit rightly guiding the Church (John 16:13). As the Vincentian canon lays down, this is what distinguishes the Tradition (the vocie of the orthodox Church as a whole) from the errors and eccentricities of individuals in expounding Scripture and gives us confidence that we have understood the Scriptures rightly.

You repeatedly characterize traditionalists and "entrenched", "hardened", etc. in this and your previous posts. Three points in response.

First, why always the negative characterizations of traditionalists by you? Why are we not "principled" instead?

Second, the fact that you only use these terms for opponents but not supporters of women's ordination shows an unfounded bias, that wrongly implies the opponents to be ispo facto more of such a temperament than the supporters.

Third, this simply begs the question as to whether the ordination of women is an issue that even can (let alone should) be open to change. Would you say that traditionalists likewise should be open to change regarding the doctrines of the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Atonement, etc? That is not to say that right belief on the question of the ordination of women is at critical to one's salvation as are these doctrines cited in the Athanasian Creed -- but then, in that sense neither are one's views on abortion, homosexual conduct, etc. It is to say that whatever their relative level of importance in the schema of doctrines related to salvation, there are certain things that simply are inherently not open to change -- and the people who wish to change them are perverting the faith.

Your repeated citations of I Cor. 12 are completely beside the point. First, as St. Paul points out, the priesthood of all believers does not translate into everyone having the same gifts and offices (the point of Prof. Esolen's post). There are many different "ministries" in the church; we are speaking here specifically of the ordained ministry to preach and celebrate the sacraments. Baptism is not an automatic qualifier for ordination. Second, the fact that someone truly says "Jesus is Lord" does not mean that he or she is not in error on other matters; it does not confer ex cathedra infallibility on all other pronouncements.

Finally, as for "calling no man father" -- this is an old chestnut that was already dealt with by the Fathers in the second century (my parish priest once read a patristic excerpt on this subject to our Bible study). Suffice it to say that Jesus' point is not a flat-footed literal application of the statement in terms of daily vocabulary usage, but rather that no man should idolatrously set anyone or anything before God in his affections and loyalty.

[Jim Hale]

I was surprised to see that two of the most respected scholars in the Presbyterian Church in America (the late Dr. James Boice and the late Dr. Edmund Clowney) conceded that scripture does support women deacons, based on Romans 16:1, where Paul refers to Phoebe as a Deacon of the church. Granted, many translations cleverly change deacon to servant, but the Greek word that Paul uses is diaconos. Some PCA churches, notably Redeemer Presbyterian in New York City use commissioned deaconesses already. Indeed the pastor of my church admitted last week that he thought the denomination was wrong on not permitting women deacons.

[Patrick]

Of course Tradition changes. Vatican II changed tradition. The whole reason we talk about Orthodoxy and Catholicism is because Tradition changed. Do you honestly believe Paul would have any idea what to do if he were to walk into a contemporary cathedral? Tradition changes slowly, but it certainly does change.

"Suffice it to say that Jesus' point is not a flat-footed literal application of the statement in terms of daily vocabulary usage, but rather that no man should idolatrously set anyone or anything before God in his affections and loyalty."

As far as it being a chestnut dealt with in the second century, you are right. However, the plain reading clearly disputes this. Jesus said what he said. People wanted fathers, so they started calling other men fathers, and then they went and re-interpreted the Scriptures according to their paternalistic needs. For me this upsets the balance clearly expressed in the revelation of God as Father and Son. A priest is a father who represents the Son. Are father and son the same person? Did the Father die on the cross. Calling a priest father upsets the roles as set forth, and infects the church with a heretical understanding of the Trinity.

I'm being a wee facetious here, but my point is that Scripture is quite easily malleable when it suits preference. And long standing habit does make this more acceptable.

My negative characterizing of traditionalists is likely only circumstancial, being the position I'm taking right here is being called a heresy. I wouldn't be visiting Mere Comments if I was all that negative. Most people in my tradition, as noted elsewhere, have long since stopped caring. You'll be happy to know that I am as equal an ardent defender of the Catholic/Orthodox churches in situations that call for it.

Not everyone does have the same gifts... but that is not limited in 1 Cor. 12 to gender, but to whatever the Spirit chooses to do.

My continued use of this passage stems from the fact this is the key section dealing with the importance of equal treatment in the Church. It is not based on government but on the Holy Spirit. It is because the Holy Spirit blows where it will that Paul urges caution in judgment, graciousness in treatment, and equality before the bread and wine. The only thing that matters in this section is what the Holy Spirit is about. If someone speaks a word of prophecy they must be allowed to speak. Etc. and so on.

My continued use of this is because, like the Vineyard Association, my interest in gender issues does not arise from feminism but from pneumatology. I am hesitant to call myself an egalitarian because that's not my goal. My goal and interest is to determine the work of the Holy Spirit, something many of you may be glad to know first sparked and then heavily pushed me into studying Orthodoxy.

So there's hope for me yet.

That means my interest in this subject will by its very nature push me to consider not just the passages that talk about what women can or cannot do, but also the verses which discuss the nature and work of the Holy Spirit, verses which I feel have been long neglected in determining our ecclesiology.

[Maureen]

Real tradition and doctrine doesn't change. It unfolds like a flower. Sometimes a petal is in one position, sometimes another; but the tradition is continuous, and the petal is still a petal as it moves.

If it's still connected to the True Vine, that is.

[smh]

Patrick, to answer your question--and I think it an important one--about how a person can say "Jesus is Lord" and NOT have it be of the Holy Spirit:

There is no such thing as a naked word, a word without context, a word without a speaker who is part of that context, a context that determines meaning, a context rooted in God as the Giver and taker of meaning. Truly, no one can say "Jesus is Lord" and have the words and the sentence express that reality without the Holy Spirit, for it is only God who can make the words true and meaningful.

Note, though, that in the New Testament demons publicly named Christ in terms we would call theologically accurate, but the Lord silenced them and refused to accept their testimony. In the the Temptation, in the mouth of Satan the very words of scripture became the devil's lie. There is, I repeat, no such thing as a naked utterance, a word that can be considered "in and of itself."

It is very true, literally true, that no one can say "Jesus is Lord" apart from the Holy Spirit, but it must also be understood that it is possible for people to say these and other words in untruth, that is, with a meaning rooted in a spirit of disobedience, and so, as a lie, so they are actually not saying what they appear to be. That is why you will never find egalitarians saying "Jesus is Lord" without, somewhere on down the line, discovering that they must do things like discard "Lord" as an expression of patriarchal oppression, or alter the meaning of "Jesus" by making him something other than the Church has always worshipped--as they do when they claim that his sex has no ontological significance or theological meaning.

Note that the Lord did not accept the testimony of demons, even though they said things about him that were what we would call theologically accurate. It is not, you see, the mere word, the mere proposition, that we are concerned with, but the word as blessed by God as sacramental, a conveyer of truth, or not.

I am convinced that the devil can say anything he wants, but because he is an evil spirit, he cannot mean anything he wants. That power is in the hand of God alone.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>Of course Tradition changes. Vatican II changed tradition.<<<

Patrick does not understand "Tradition" with the bit-T. The content of Tradition is unchanging; its expression does change to meet the demands of time and place, but real Tradition being all manifestations of God's Word, must be both unchanging and internally consistent.

[smh]

And I would add here that, as a Protestant, I have no disagreement in principle with what Catholics believe about the development of doctrine or what the Orthodox believe about Holy Tradition. Each rests upon the unchanging truth of God, the living nature of which (because this Truth is a Person) errorists seize upon to validate movement that is in fact perversion of that truth--what happened in the crucifixion when Satan attempted to deface God by mutilating his Son, finding only that this had been been "taken account of" before the fact in the very definition of who God is.

Parenthetically, I have read the documents of the Council of Trent, and those of Vatican II, and could not detect any contradiction, despite the radical change in tone. This does not mean that liberal Catholics haven't attempted to take advantage of the wording of the latter to advance their cause, but magisterial interpretation of Vatican II distresses the hopes of those who wished to see it as an indication that the Catholic Church has in any sense altered its beliefs.

[Wolf N. Paul]

So what HAS altered to permit the Catholic Church to sign a statement on justification with the heirs of the man they condemned a few hundred years ago?

Presumably it is their UNDERSTANDING of the Tradition; but unlike the written Word, the Tradition only has concrete existence at any one time in the expressed UNDERSTANDING of it by those who live at that time.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>So what HAS altered to permit the Catholic Church to sign a statement on justification with the heirs of the man they condemned a few hundred years ago?<<<

Perhaps the same thing that has enabled both the Catholics and the Orthodox to make peace with those they condemned as monophysites 1500 years ago--both sides finally stopped shouting at each other and listened to what each was actually saying, and concluded that they were in furious agreement.

[Jenna]

Thanks, Dr. Hutchens, for expanding on your comment on "ethnic fundamentalists". I wasn't taking offense, mind you, but asking out of genuine curiosity, since I was born into and have remained in the German-immigrant stream of confessional Lutheranism all my life. Having never desired to step outside that stream, I'm not too familiar with perspectives of us, and I find it interesting how American Protestantism sees us.

[James Altena]

Patrick, you love to appeal repeatedly to "plain reading" of Scripture -- and yet you never define what you mean by that. But not only do all of your examples of it illustrate what I termed "flat-footed literalism," but even by your own standards your readings are scarcely plain. E.g., your "plain reading" of "call no man father" would require "I am the Vine" to be read as Jesus stating himself to be a botanical growth. And a "plain" (literal) reading of Gal. 3:28 shows that it is about salvation in Christ through baptism and has nothing to do with ordination to the sacramental ministry. To get to the latter requries what Dr. Hutchens has rightly termed "torturing the scriptures", "violently distoring church history," and a "perverted understanding of human nature." The last phrase aptly describes your supposedly "wee facetious" exegesis on "call no man father." You suggest that "People wanted fathers," {Didn't they already HAVE fathers in the natural order, Patrick?? If so, then what did they want instead of those??) "so they started calling other men fathers," (Just ANY other men, Patrick?? Or did they do it with respect to priests for a specific reason??) "and then they went and re-interpreted the Scriptures according to their paternalistic needs." (a typical hallmark of modern "exegesis" -- the patronizing penny-ante psychologizing of the alleged, and invariably suspect, motives of peoples from previous eras who lacked present-day Freudian pseudo- sophistication.) I can only wonder what this implies about your overall views of fatherhood.

"Not everyone does have the same gifts... but that is not limited in 1 Cor. 12 to gender, but to whatever the Spirit chooses to do."

This begs the question, Patrick. Why don't you ever pause to consider that what the Spirit has chosen to do is precisely to distribute certain "gifts," and the offices that signify those gifts, according to sex (not "gender," which is a grammatical and not a biolgoical category), precisely because per Eph. 5:17-33 sex is of ontological and soterioloical significance? The gifts of fatherhood and headship are given to men; those of motherhood and submission, to women. (And, yes, when the term is rightly understood -- and I wonder if you do rightly understand it, Patrick -- "submission" is not only an office but a gift, as the Blessed Virgin supremely demonstrates.)

The claim that I Cor. 12 hs to do "with the importance of equal treatment in the Church" can only be termed risible. There is not a single mention or inference regaridng equality in the entire chapter. What it does discuss is diversity within unity -- how differnt members can and do have different gifts, status, etc. and yet all be essential to the Body of Christ as its "members" (literally, limbs). To say that a hand is as necessary to the constitution of a complete unmarred body as an eye neither says nor implies that a hand is equal to an eye. Likewise (assuming I am saved, God willing), I am as essential to the fulness of the Body of Christ as Pope Benedict XVI or Billy Graham, but I am certainly not the equal of either (or even of the learned Dr. Hutchens). Your statement simply illustrates Prof. Esolen's point about being infected with the virus of modern ideological egalitarianism.

The abuse of Gal. 3:28 with respect to women's ordination is indeed tiresome -- and so is the correlative abuse of analogies to slavery, or national and ethnic divisions. As many, many commentators have pointed out, in Touchstone and elsewhere, such purported analogies are completely irrelevant because sex is a divinely created ontological category that essentially determines various human relations (marriage, family, and the ordained ministries of the OT temple and NT church among others), whereas all of these others are man-made and the result of the Fall. That is one reason why the Church through its Tradition has declared theological positions on what sex of persons can constitute a marriage and the ordained ministry that are unalterable principles of orthodox faith, but has nothing comparable regarding slavery, the social status of women, nationalism, etc.

Finally, Patrick, if you think that "verses which discuss the nature and work of the Holy Spirit . . . have been long neglected in determining our ecclesiology," then we who have responded here to you can only suggest that your pause to read a large body of literature on the ordination of women that addresses the point -- and also the subject of the Tradition -- before resuming your posts here.

"We believe that those who believe women can be ordained can only do so by torturing the scriptures, by violent distortion of church history, and by a perverted understanding of human nature. (Your texts are nothing to the point.) They may be relatively innocent, having accepted the teaching of those whose guilt is much greater, but no, I do not believe any of this is from the Holy Spirit. It issues from the egalitarian heresy, that is, from a lie, and hence from the Father of Lies."

Amen, Dr. Hutchens.

[Jeff Gissing]

As a Beeson alum, my only lament is that there were not more women enrolled in the M.Div. and moving toward ordination. There is room in an interdenominational seminary for women M.Div. students.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>Finally, Patrick, if you think that "verses which discuss the nature and work of the Holy Spirit . . . have been long neglected in determining our ecclesiology," then we who have responded here to you can only suggest that your pause to read a large body of literature on the ordination of women that addresses the point -- and also the subject of the Tradition -- before resuming your posts here.<<<

Once, during a meeting of the World Council of Churches, Bishop Kallistos was discussing seating arrangements with one of the organizers, who suggested putting the Orthodox delegation together with the Anglicans and Lutherans, since all were "liturgical" churches. Kyr Kallistos responded that perhaps the Orthodox should sit next to the Quakers, since both placed so much emphasis on the descent and action of the Holy Spirit.