The Catholic Priest and the Female Baptist Pastor

I think this Baptist Minister from Baton Rouge has an excellent essay on this topic. See Has “women in ministry” become central dogma?. He also hits on something that we see time and time and time again. What is proposed as optional soon becomes mandated "orthodoxy".

As a Orthodox Catholic I believe Female Priests are an impossibility. What I like about his essay is he gets that there are different issues than the Catholic/Orthodox/Anglo Catholics face.

As he puts it:
My own private beef with “ordination of women” is that it is unclear to me exactly what “ordination” means in the Baptist tradition. We are so ardently anti-sacramentalist in our theology. Everything is a symbol or a memorial. None of our rituals actually does anything in terms of changing reality - right? As far as I can tell ordination in the Baptist tradition means almost nothing more than a change in your tax status. So it is difficult to argue for or against “ordination of women” until we are clear about just what ordination is and what it does theologically and ontologically.

He hits the nail on the head. The concept of a "Priesthood" is much different from "ordaining" Pastor Bob. By the way I am watching this Pastor's blog.

He also points out Jimmy Carter's silly Statement

note in passing this paragraph as well:
At the same time, I am also familiar with vivid descriptions in the same scriptures in which women are revered as pre-eminent leaders. During the years of the early Christian church women served as deacons, priests, bishops, apostles, teachers and prophets. It wasn’t until the fourth century that dominant Christian leaders, all men, twisted and distorted holy scriptures to perpetuate their ascendant positions within the religious hierarchy.

I wonder what an informed and competent scholar of church history would make of that. The second sentence is problematic because while historical evidence supports some of his examples it does not support all. Jimmy Carter is another moderate Baptist who fails to make appropriate distinctions. And can his third sentence - that the current state is the result of some misogynistic conspiracy - truly stand up to examination?).

If there is any evidence of female Bishops or Priests I have never seen it!!!

I have never really gone into how Baptist explore this issue. I guess in some ways I find it less of big deal because well they are not Priest. Baptist minister do not proclaim themselves in their actions as acting "in persona Christi". For example when Father say in the Confession "I forgive" in a real sense Father Bob is not there but Christ himself saying those words. Same as to the Mass. See Benedict thoughts on this from this past June. Also see The Vatican 's Year of the Priest Page for more.

Still the controversy on the Baptist side is interesting and I was not aware of some the distinctions Southern Baptist had made. I thought there was an absolute ban. Though as Live the Trinity points out in the real world that might be what is happening despite what the "documents say".

The huge elephant in the room is of course "Tradition". After reading Live the Trinity for a bit I suspect he realizes this. That opens up a many of a can of worms. Though Jimmy Carter seems to think he has gone into it. Some of this might be helpful but then it might lead to this which then leads to the question of if the entire Baptist view of Church and "Orders" is incomplete. So in a sense perhaps on the Baptist struggle with this issue they are sort of have one hand tied behind their back.

Still there are other theological principles are play here that are relevant in the Catholic and the Baptist arguments. I think many of the things that Peter Kreeft talks about in Sexual Symbolism (there is also a link to the full talk on mp3 which is great!!!) are relevant. Many of those concepts that Kreeft talks about can and should apply to even the most anti- sacrament theology Baptist in the discussion they are having among themselves.