Wednesday, July 01, 2009

Just when you think you've heard 'em all ...

... you read something like this from Julia Duin's Washington Times report on ACNA:

I queried retired Eau Claire, Wis., Bishop William Wantland [and] I asked him if he wanted the ACNA to eventually outlaw ordaining women entirely.

"Of course. That's our mission," he said. "Christ is the bridegroom and the church is the bride. The priest at the altar is an icon of Christ. What image is that if the person at the altar is a woman? It's a lesbian relationship."

Huh???

Read the rest here if you're interested ... I'm going to bed! :)

====

UPDATE: Just for the record, this IS the bishop who told me in 1994 @ General Convention in Philadelphia (where I served as the Legislative Aide to his Committee on Constitution & Canons) that I was "ontologically incapable of being a efficacious bearer of a sacerdotal presence."
/


.

11 comments:

IT said...

Are these people (conservatives) hung up on sex or what?

IT said...

I read that article, it's hysterical! The women defending the men, that they'll come around...

"I'd be lying if I'd say I wasn't disappointed," said Canon Mary Hayes of the Pittsburgh Diocese. "I've been a priest 25 years. I'm delighted to be in a body of people who have different views. It's not about getting my way."

Other women told me they hope men will see the light.

"They'll wake up," predicted the Rev. Joy Vernon, a Canadian priest ordained in 1989. "Jesus Christ ministered to women way beyond the culture of His day."

"We're not going to go away," a female priest told me. "Women have been patient since the beginning of time."


THe irony! Can't they SEE it?

Oh, gasping here....

Unknown said...

Err right - so according to Wantland, all the men in the church are having a homosexual relationship with Christ?!? I knew I had been missing something all these years!

Karen said...

Does that mean that married male priests should not be allowed because then the relationship at the alter would be adulterous????

susankay said...

"mishmash" indeed.

JimB said...

That has to be one of the stupidest arguments I have ever read on any side.

The bishop is sliding towards a theology of celebrant that takes him completely away from the evangelicals who dominate ACNA. The priest is an icon? That is gonna go big with the 39 article crowd!

It is precisely because they have a very low image of sacramental theology that the CANA folks tolerate (homophobic and subservient) women in orders. This is the fault line that I think will break ACNA apart. On the one side the icon high church view on the other the lay presidency advocates.

It wont work, it cannot work and absent their great satan (TEC) it has no reason to work. Texas was the high water mark for ACNA. I feel really sad for the laity and working clerics who are about to see their creation fracture.

FWIW
jimB

:-) the security word is "messesse"

Elizabeth Kaeton said...

This argument has been around for as long as I've been in TEC. That's not a surprise. The surprise is that Wantland thinks it's still cogent.

Can we say 'clueless'?

It's important to remember that 'sexism' was the original sin in the Garden. Homophobia is rooted in sexism.

Still no surprise. Just sadness.

Göran Koch-Swahne said...

This is one of the favourite arguments of the anti Moderns in Sweden.

They started out in the 1920ies with women not being able to preach, and they end up with some sort of of "General Church" (Byzantion and Rome) parody...

J-Dubb said...

Uh... so a female priest wed to Christ makes it a lesbian relationship, but a male priest wed to Christ makes it a "proper" straight relationship? So... he's saying that Christ is female?

But I thought he said that Christ was the groom and the priesthood was the bride.

Ah, maybe it's a male bride and a female groom... sort of an alternative lifestyle thing.

So according to this bishop's logic; Christ and the priesthood are involved in some alternative relationship where the female Christ is the groom and the male priests are the bride.

Wow, theology's confusing.

J-Dubb said...

Oops... just re-read the post and realized he was referring to the priest as the representation of Christ.

Dangit! I thought I caught him on faulty logic.

SCG said...

Wow. Just... wow.