Pope Francis on Women Priests and Related Recent News Items: "I do not know whether to laugh or cry at Pope Francis’ suggestion about women’s position in the Church"

Altar of Veit Stoss, descent of the Spirit at Pentecost, St. Mary's Church, Krakow, Poland, photo by Robert Breuer at Wikimedia Commons

As Virginia Saldanha, "Why I find pope’s ideas on women priests disturbing," notes, Pope Francis recently nonsensically (and all over again) said that men in the Catholic church are meant to follow a "Petrine principle" that allows men — but not women — to be ordained, run things, and mirror Christ. Women are called to follow a "Marian principle" and mirror the feminine church, not — heaven forfend! — the male Christ. (Translation: women are called to serve). 

Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne: "In Reality, Evangelicals Did Not Cast Their Vote [for Trump] Despite Their Beliefs, but Because of Them"

I recently read Kristin Kobes Du Mez's book Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation (NY: Liveright, 2020), and thought the following passages were significant. Du Mez grew up in the household of a Christian Reformed theologian teaching at Dordt University, her alma mater, and knows the white evangelical world inside out. As her book notes, her own Christian Reformed church has in recent years moved inexorably in the evangelical direction, as have wide swathes of American white churches including the Catholic church — hence Amy Coney Barrett. She knows whereof she speaks, in other words, in Jesus and John Wayne.

Quote for Day: "Church's Radically Patriarchal Leadership Structure and Theology Are at the Root of Most Sex Abuse Cases in the Church"

Jamie Manson writes, "No, Jean Vanier is not 'like all of us'":

Centering Religion on Possession or Lack of a Penis Seems to Have Some Significant Downsides

Tina Beattie, "A 'frozen idea of the feminine," The Tablet, 20 Feb. 2020

I think this morning of three famous men in the world of religion I met while I was active in the religion academy as a scholar and teacher. One was a theologian whose work has been very influential in the area of peace studies, especially in his Protestant world.

Kavanaugh Hearing and Catholic Abuse: Overlapping Narratives — Same Catholics Who Support Viganò's Allegations Dismiss Kavanaugh's Accusers

Today I'm thinking of how many students, over the course of my teaching career, have recoiled, outraged at the thought that a woman's testimony had historically and biblically been deemed unreliable unless corroborated by a man's.

— Natalia Imperatori (@nimperatori) September 27, 2018

More on the Jesuit Elite Boys' Club from Which Kavanaugh and Judge Emerged: Need to Rethink Jesuit Claims re: Inculcating Healthy Masculinity in Students?

1) There is a serious problem in American Catholic conversations that is glaringly obvious in the discussion of Brett Kavanaugh, Mark Judge, and their "man for others" Jesuit education at Georgetown Prep.

— 𝚆𝚒𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚊𝚖 𝙳. 𝙻𝚒𝚗𝚍𝚜𝚎𝚢 (@wdlindsy) September 25, 2018

Emily Witt on the (Jesuit Elite) Boys' Club That Protects Kavanaugh: Need to Rethink Jesuit Claims re: Inculcating Healthy Masculinity in Students?

Mark Judge's Page, Georgetown Prep Yearbook The Cupola, 1983

Read the following statement by Emily Witt side by side with my posting yesterday, which suggested that there may be something more than a little flawed about the magical-mystical approach to militaristic masculinity — "We're men for others, a band of brothers!" — fostered by all-male Jesuit prep schools, which have long been breeding grounds for elite males who will step from their educational years into prestigious jobs tailor-made for men like themselves by other men like themselves.

Right-Wing Christian Support for Kavanaugh & Dismissal of Male Violence Towards Women: Fight to Keep Patria Potestas as Foundation of "Christian" Culture

Merriam-Webster Dictionary

David Badash, "'Not Relevant': Franklin Graham Says Alleged Kavanaugh Assault Just Something 'He Did as a Teenager'":

Southern Baptist Convention's New Smiley Face: What Really Lies Behind It, When We Get Beyond Media Spin?: "Wives, Submit to Your Husbands"

Perhaps as a former Southern Baptist, I should keep my mouth shut. In the view of the mainstream media, which love a both-sides-have-good-points approach to these issues, I have an "agenda," as an LGBTQ Christian who repudiated my family's Southern Baptist church after it split in 1964 or 1965 over the question of whether to admit African-American members. Franklin Graham and Robert Jeffress don't have an agenda, in the eyes of the mainstream religious media. 

Recommended Commentary: "There Will Be Lots of Singing, Preaching, Praying, and Hand Holding. Meanwhile, Victims of Sacralized Bigotry and Discrimination Will Be Ignored"

Nine people of faith sit in jail tonight for praying on the steps of the #SupremeCourt. This from the same court that ruled in favor of the religious beliefs of a Colorado baker who refused to serve a gay couple. We must not let this hypocrisy stand! pic.twitter.com/n9qoqYNesQ

— Rev. Dr. Barber (@RevDrBarber) June 12, 2018

Some valuable commentary I've read in the past several days about matters of religion, culture, and politics that I'd like to pass on to you — ranging from commentary about the current meetings of the Southern Baptist Convention and Cooperative Baptist Fellowship to the sexual abuse problems facing the SBC; right-wing Catholic lobbying against contraceptive availability for women in developing nations; new indicators of how deeply racism is entrenched in Mormon culture; and the role that conservative white Christians are playing in blocking ecological initiatives in the U.S. government:

Baptist Pastor-Theologian Molly T. Marshall: "Biblical Inerrancy Was a Mere Tool for the Preservation of Patriarchal Power and White Male Privilege

Molly T. Marshall, "The peril of selective inerrancy":

I contend that biblical inerrancy was a mere tool for the preservation of patriarchal power and white male privilege.

"In Every Case, 'Wives Submit to Your Husbands' Appears in the Same Context As 'Slaves Obey Your Masters'": A Twitter Conversation for You

In every case, "wives submit to your husbands" appears in the same context as "slaves obey your masters." And yet I'm constantly told we need to consider context & culture with the latter but not the former...

— Rachel Held Evans (@rachelheldevans) May 9, 2018

I don't mean to shortchange this blog, but I sometimes find that, instead of making statements here, I'm using Twitter instead to engage in at-the-moment conversations about the kinds of issues that interest us at this site. 

As Men Lift Up the Cross in Holy Week Liturgies Around the World, Some Theological Questions

In a just-published article entitled "In an age of Trump and Stormy Daniels, evangelical leaders face sex scandals of their own," Sarah Pulliam Bailey quotes Russell Moore, head of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, who states,

Reader Writes: "It's This Fear-Notivated Attachment to Belief in Magic That Is, in My Opinion, at the Core of Everything That's Wrong with Both the Catholic Church and Mainstream Protestantism"

In response to our discussion last Friday of Mary McAleese's recent lecture characterizing the Catholic church as a "primary globl carrier of the virus of misogyny," Shaun Lynch wrote a mini-essay that's so good, I now want to lift it from the combox following that posting and share it as a stand-alone posting on Bilgrimage. Shaun's thesis: the core reason many people including many women are exiting the Catholic church "is a straight-up lack of belief in all of the magic that continues to be at the centre of all Catholic practice."

Two More Resources re: Non-LGBTQ-Affirming Policy of Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and Shane Claiborne's Refusal, as a "Progressive Evangelical," to Affirm Queer Folks Unambiguously

When a commitment to a doctrine overshadows the ability to see other people’s humanity, one has conceded their own humanity for ideology.

— Broderick Greer (@BroderickGreer) February 11, 2018

 

Two items I'd like to share with you today as a follow-up to yesterday's posting noting what's now happening in the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, as the church creates a two-tiered structure for its employees that allows rights and privileges to straight folks denied to queer ones. In addition, my posting yesterday focused on the controversy that has ensued after Shane Claiborne, a "progressive evangelical" who refuses to affirm LGBTQ people unambiguously, announced that he and his Red Letter Christians will be sponsoring a revival of "progressive evangelicals in Lynchburg, Virginia, in April.

Statement of Religious Right Leaders about Biology-Based Gender Roles as Key to Divine Revelation: "An Approach to God That Biblical Tradition Calls Idolatry"

Because they are fighting for the divine supremacy of heterosexual males, and the belief that heterosexual males are uniquely made in God's image — in the image of a heterosexual God.

This is an approach to God that biblical tradition calls idolatry. 10)

— Bill Lindsey (@wdlindsy) December 18, 2017

 

I'm grateful to you readers who shared with us here a link to the "new" statement about gender matters from various religious right leaders. The U.S. Catholic bishops, several of whom are signatories to the statement, have placed the statement on their website, as several of you noted here yesterday. I read the response of Francis DeBernardo at Bondings 2.0 to this statement yesterday, and then offered my own response on Twitter as I shared Francis DeBernardo's reflections.

"It Is THEOLOGY That Makes the Church an Unsafe Place for Survivors & a Haven for Abusers": #ChurchToo Discusses Theological Underpinnings of Churches' Defense of Sexual Predators

To all of you who are wanting us to only call out the individuals who directly abuse people, and ignore the whole theology and culture that enables that abuse - NO. Just no. #churchtoo

— Stacey Midge (@revstacey) November 22, 2017

Kathryn Brightbill, "Evangelical courtship culture normalizes men dating teen girls":

Michael Boyle on Princeton Seminary Controversy: "Progressive Christianity Only Has a Future if Progressive Christians Have the Courage of Their Convictions"

Because I think this conversation is essential — and important — I'd like to add one more statement to the set of reflections I've posted in the last several days about the controversy that ensued when Princeton Theological Seminary chose not to give an award to Rev. Tim Keller. I've discussed that controversy in three previous postings — here, here, and here. These three postings engage, in particular, Jonathan Merritt's claim that, in pressing for Keller not to receive an award from Princeton due to his opposition to the ordination of women and openly gay folks and his defense of a "complementarianism" that requires wives to be subordinated to their husbands, liberals are marginalizing people like Keller.

Anita Little Comments on Princeton Controversy: "Growing Trend to Cry 'Oppression' When the Opinions of Influential White Men" Are Challenged

In an essay entitled "The 'Marginalization' of Tim Keller: When Anything Short of Adulation Is Oppression," Anita Little, editor of the Remapping American Christianities initiative at Religion Dispatches, comments on Jonathan Merritt's insistence that Tim Keller is being "marginalized" by the liberals who objected to his receiving an award from Princeton Seminary (on this controversy, see my two previous postings, here and here). She writes, 

The Princeton Seminary Controversy: Concluding Thoughts About White Male Privilege and Intersectionality

The discussion about the furor regarding Princeton Seminary's decision to withhold its Kuyper Prize for Excellence in Reformed Theology and Public Witness from Presbyterian pastor Tim Keller continued at various internet sites yesterday. I blogged about the controversy yesterday morning, and about Jonathan Merritt's response at RNS to Princeton's decision.