Quicunque vult...: Yeehaw and St. Jerome

Friday, September 16, 2005

Yeehaw and St. Jerome

If ever this little old lady south of the Magnolia curtain was jumpin’ for joy, this is the day!

I had been searching for some time for objective and empirical proof that tied Krister Stendahl to another nasty aspect of Feminist Theology, abortion. I finally did! The ladies of the Dark Side are quite vocal (save those within our midst who still play the coy we-is-but-we-ain’t game even with regard to women’s ordination!) concerning the necessity of abortion for women. Why? It is a mark of her humanity to be able to have procreative choice.

Stendahl fought for women’s ordination in Sweden. He served as Bishop of Stockholm there. He contended the issue was not one of exegesis, but of interpretation. His monograph, The Bible and the Role of Women: A Case Study in Hermeneutics, was published in English and reprinted in the United States. Eventually he, too, emigrated. He lived out the logical conclusions to his own premise to women’s ordination on April 28, 2001, when he served as a celebrant at the ordination of Anita Hill. His premise cannot but lead not only to the ordination of gays and lesbians, but also to their marriage, and he wrote this clearly even as early as 1957 in Sweden.

It is Beverly Wildung Harrison who defines patriarchy as deriving “from the need of men...to control women’s power to procreate the species.” (Harrison, B. W. (1985b). Theology and Morality of Procreative Choices. In C. S. Robb (Ed.), Making the Connections: Essays in Feminist Social Ethics. Boston: Beacon Press.)

Mary Hunt contends, “Patriarchy spawns heterosexism, the normative claim of heterosexuality to the exclusion of the moral possibility of healthy same-sex (especially among women) relationships.” (Hunt, M. (1996). Transforming Moral Theology. In E. S. Fiorenza (Ed.), The Power of Naming: A Concilium Reader in Feminist Liberation Theology (pp. 300-306). New York: Orbis Books.)

Both are wrong! One cannot have Christ as Savior without also receiving His Father as Creator (John 10:30). The object of Christ’s redemption is the restoration of His Father’s creation (John 3:16; Col 1:15); and His purpose is His Father’s will, (John 4:34; Phil 2:5-11). When the Scriptures are allowed to speak for themselves, patriarchy is revealed differently. There patriarchy is grounded in the authority and providential hand of God the Father who loves His Creation and provided for its salvation through His only-begotten Son before its creation (Eph 1:4). It is, therefore, God the Father Himself with whom feminism takes umbrage. That is why the words “Thus says the Lord...” are of a particular irritation to those who promote alternative viewpoints and lifestyles to what God has already revealed in His Word.

Now check out this link: The Religious Consultation. Especially check out the participating scholars list.

St. Jerome: Ignorance of Scriptures is ignorance of Christ.

2 comments:

Chaz said...: Not to quibble too much, but let's be careful with Father as Creator and Christ as Redeemer b.s.

It is b.s. Opera extra unus est.

The Father is Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier.

The Son is Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier.

The Holy Spirit is Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier.

If you want to distinguish between the persons on the basis of their works (opera), then you have to go with the internal works:

The Father is unbegotten. The Son is begotten. The Spirit is proceeding.

You are of course right to point out that one cannot know the Father apart from the Son.

The Father is the invisible of the Son. The Son is the visible of the Father.

"He that knows me knows the Father, etc."; 10:15 AM
Emily Carder said...: Ah, Chaz... thank you for being so kind as to point that out. However, please do not read into my brevity any more than is necessary. Do not read me as dividing the Persons of the Trinity, nor as separating them according to function: Father=Creator; Son=Redeemer; Holy Spirit=Sanctifier. I hold to no such notions. To use the Creeds as a model is not to divide the Trinity, is it? Even there we distinguish. Yet to speak the one way is not to exclude the fullness of the other.

We can rightly confess what is written of Christ: He, Christ, is image of God, the firstborn of all creation, and is that to which Col 1:15 speaks. He is the image of God and the fullness of the deity. He is “the visible image of the invisible God; if we would know what the invisible God is like, we must look to that by which he has revealed himself visibly: the incarnate Christ” (Deterding, Commentary on Colossians, 50).

Yet, the phrase “image of God” also recalls the creation of humanity. Christ, who is the image of God is the firstborn of every creature. He is the Last Adam (Rom 5:12-21; 1Cor 15:45). He through whom all things which were created came to be is the One through whom all will be restored and in whom all will be sanctified. (Deterding is a blessed read!)

So, if I wish to speak by way of the Creeds, then I may say rightly, “The object of Christ’s redemption is the restoration of His Father’s creation (John 3:16; Col 1:15); and His purpose is His Father’s will, (John 4:34; Phil 2:5-11).” This in no way nullifies the fact that the Second Person of the Trinity is the one in, through, and for whom all creation has been created ( John 1:3; Col 1:16), nor that when one Person of the Trinity acts all are acting together.

The subject at hand, after all, was “patriarchy,” which feminism and Feminist Theology delight in attempting to destroy. One might therefore expect that I’d emphasize Gifts by the hand of the Father- although this does not mean I deny they are also given in His Son’s name as well as created in, through, and for His Son.; 11:59 PM