Grrls Rock!

3 February, 2006. 322 words.

[Originally drafted January 9, 2006.]

In Crowhill’s January 8 post “Female priest” vs. “Priestess”, we can clearly see some issues with women in authority. I suppose this would explain the attraction to Catholicism.

By calling women priests “priestesses,” GK implies that the Episcopal denomination is rooted in paganism, which presumably indicates that Roman Catholicism is the one true religion. I’m no theologian, but if I’m not mistaken a lot of Christianity is rooted in paganism. Christmas, for example, was contrived (by the RCC) to compete with the pagan winter solstice festival. Ditto for Easter. And weren’t most all Christians in the first couple of centuries former pagans?

GK writes that Christianity is inherently patriarchal. There’s no doubt that the Roman Catholic Church is patriarchal. But is Christianity? Again, I’m no theologian, but, to use a highly technical explanation, that sounds like a bunch of hooey. My wife tells me that one can find references to the women leaders of the early church in Acts. (Early, as in, before the Romans came along with their politics and popes and so forth.) Jesus hung out with women all the time (scandalous!). His mother, a fairly prominent figure in the bible-one might even go so far as to say the Matriarch of the New Testament, was a woman. The Holy Spirit is regarded in some circles as feminine. Recently, I was reading a book (Misquoting Jesus by Bart D. Ehrman) which quotes Irenaeus’s Against Heresies: “…it is fitting that she [the Church] should have four pillars…” Sounds to me like the RCC missed a memo somewhere along the line.

But hey, I’m just an Episcopalian heretic. Don’t burn me at the stake!

P.S. The Story of God: Women in the Early Church by Pamela Walford is a good read if you want an overview of how the Roman Catholic Church has squelched women over the years without the hassle of reading long books or anything.

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