Anglican Aspirant Professor

             Church beauty is hotly contested in the USA.   Evangelicals, megachurches, and home church folk argue that the Word, movement of the Spirit, sermons, and Holy Scripture is all you need.   Perhaps a modern band and a bongo drum.   With that, the location and the holiness or beauty is less relevant.   For anyone who has been to these types of churches, especially in a warehouse, strip mall, or theatre knows this is a fair representation.   It also matches their nervousness of anything too old or formal.              On the other end we have various traditional catholics and mainliners, who focus much more on Holiness, sanctity, sacraments, and tradition.   Chapels, Cathedrals, and sanctuaries should uplift the spirit, help one be in the mood to worship, and aid in approach of holiness.   Music should be reverent, and traditional. Some chant, some have an organs, and others an orchestra, with the goal of respectfully honoring God.   They counter that sanctified spac

           Women’s ordination feels wrong on the face of it.  Part of that is my traditionalist bent, part is because I know it is a 20 th century trend, and finally because I know history.  This is all before we get to the very specific Biblical prohibitions to women leading or speaking in church. Along with this, discussing the nature of spirituality and how the power argument is not biblical, which to me seems like the strongest argument against it.            The “It is 2020 (current year)” argument is popular right now, and directly tied to the power argument.  It relies on the claim that all historical people in the 1 st to 19 th century are bad to women, and that women need exact positional parity to men in everything as reparations. This is a leftist non-Christian argument, and it is wrong historically, ethically, and spiritually. Old is bad requires you to prove why it is evil (away from God) or does not work in a utilitarian way. Neither is often done here.  Power par

This article by a former women priest  makes an unassailable traditionalist argument for the keeping of women out of Holy Orders (priesthood and ordination.) Since I have rejoined the church, the argument over whether women should be allowed to be priests is active, so much so that it has now even started to take place in the Roman Catholic Church.  I have some reflection of my own on this, but the short version (with the longer one to come) is basically that this is a feminist power move, and is all appeals to power and equality, 21st century argumentation.  There is basically no Biblical, traditional, or Apostolic warrant for it. It also in history has predicated the collapse of mainline churches.  It is hubris to pretend it will not happen to your denomination as well. There is an appropriate place for women, in Marian theology, parish life, and in monastic life. If you have been in any active parish, it is also commonly run by majority women.