Why Men Should Not Be Ordained

Have to confess that this is lifted wholesale from Ben Witherington's Blog - you can find him
here.  Sent it by a friend who I ought to keep anonymous and I love it; funny and clever.  Don't get the vestments things at all though... 



Top 10 Reasons Why Men Shouldn’t Be Ordained

(Kudos to Jason Jackson for this).

10. A man’s place is in the army.

9. For men who have children, their duties might distract them from the responsibilities of being a parent.

8. Their physical build indicates that men are more suited to tasks such as chopping down trees and wrestling mountain lions. It would be “unnatural” for them to do other forms of work.

7. Man was created before woman. It is therefore obvious that man was a prototype. Thus, they represent an experiment, rather than the crowning achievement of creation.

6. Men are too emotional to be priests or pastors. This is easily demonstrated by their conduct at football games and watching basketball tournaments.

5. Some men are handsome; they will distract women worshipers.

4. To be ordained pastor is to nurture the congregation. But this is not a traditional male role. Rather, throughout history, women have been considered to be not only more skilled than men at nurturing, but also more frequently attracted to it. This makes them the obvious choice for ordination.

3. Men are overly prone to violence. No really manly man wants to settle disputes by any means other than by fighting about it. Thus, they would be poor role models, as well as being dangerously unstable in positions of leadership.

2. Men can still be involved in church activities, even without being ordained. They can sweep paths, repair the church roof, change the oil in the church vans, and maybe even lead the singing on Father’s Day. By confining themselves to such traditional male roles, they can still be vitally important in the life of the Church.

1. In the New Testament account, the person who betrayed Jesus was a man. Thus, his lack of faith and ensuing punishment stands as a symbol of the subordinated position that all men should take.

Woman only speaks for 25 minutes!

On Sunday morning, my favourite parishioner preached for the first time on a Sunday.  She has spoken to groups before, children, pensioners, people in between, but she has never preached on a Sunday, in a church building, to men and women, using a lectern. 

Some people that I love will be joyful at the opportunity she had to speak on Sunday, some others (who I also love but disagree with) will be upset that a woman preached on a Sunday.  I suspect that most people in church aren't all that bothered either way and that most people outside the church must wonder what we are like if we are even still having this conversation.  

It has been interesting on my sabbatical to visit churches that have been recommended to me as places doing a good job. Every minister I have spoken to has been gracious and generous with their time and thoughts.  I've asked each one if women preach at their church.  Each has said that they do (although the overwhelming majority of preachers are men) and that it's not an issue for them as a church.  It's of particular interest to me as we are in the middle of discussions as a church about this very thing.  We've been studying the Scriptures as a leadership and trying to work out what they say because, like it or not, neither side of the debate can say that it is straight forward.  It's not altogether clear.  I, and most of the church leadership, are happy to welcome women preachers.  This is most definitely not a pragmatic decision but based on what we believe the Bible allows.  Being the kind of people we aspire to be (i.e. family), we'll need to sit down as a church and discuss it before we make a final decision.  There may well be future blogs on this. 

Back to Sunday.  She did  a terrific job and I am left thinking that there must be something that I can do better than her.  If she's this good the first time...  More seriously, I also wonder why some people would be happier to have a less able/gifted (male) teacher in the pulpit on a Sunday.  Pragmatism isn't the reason for our decision but you do have to consider that the church is missing out where it is not using gifted women in this area of ministry.   

Lent Sermons - an aside

Well, today's hunt for something other than the usual (for me) in listening to sermons each day didn't go so well today. I decided to visit Preaching Today, a website that is worth subscribing to for the illustrations that it throws up for a preacher, once you have got past all the American sports illustrations, that is. Well, today I discovered that they have an audio sermon archive and that on the sidebar you can specify types of preacher - men, women and ethnic. Out of 864 sermons on the database, two are by 'ethnic' preachers and one is labelled as being by a woman. And she has the first name Howard, which makes me think it was probably an error in the database. So out of 864 sermons on the site, 862 are by white males. I guess I need to keep on looking.

Where are the women?

I've been really enjoying the sermon a day thing (I know, I'm odd) but as I update it each day was aware straight away of how male the list was going to be. Today I listened to a terrific sermon by a female of the species. All four have been good but this was perhaps the best so far. (I have to be careful here because I know each of them!)

Begs the question, where will I find other good preachers who are women? For obvious reasons - lack of opportunity, lack of experience - we have a rich heritage of men who preach well but far fewer women. If anyone can point me in the right direction, I'd be very grateful.