new church life: march/april 2015
yourself. This is the inevitable spiritual law.
If the Church is interiorly in evil it cannot be held together, except by external
bonds; but if it is in the process of being made internal by reformation and
regeneration is in the way of spiritual growth – then an external bond is
unnecessary and hurtful; it is better to run the hazard, yea, to suffer many evils, than
to establish and confirm so great an evil as the voluntary suppression of the freedom
of the Church, by introducing the principle and practice of external compulsion
into its workings, whether this proceed from one man or from a number of men
together. (Pendleton 108)
Consider the application of these thoughts to whether women should
have freedom to pursue the profession of priest if they feel so called. Does
“disorder confessedly exist” in women desiring to enter the priesthood or is
there a “fear that disorder may exist” if they were to enter it? If we continue
with our current ordination policy, are we not distrusting the providence that
could be at play in leading women to feel a desire to enter the priesthood?
From my perspective the Church is unnecessarily suppressing the freedom
of women by placing an external bond on a good, God-fearing woman in the
Church who feels a personal call to ministry; perhaps the Lord is calling her to
serve His Church in this world in the role of priest. The world is not the same
as it was in the late 1800s; perhaps women priests weren’t needed then, but by
the persistence of this issue, along with the vast changes in society over the last
century, I believe God is saying women priests are needed now.
For women who are of faith and live by conscience, who are feeling an
internal call from the Lord to serve in the priesthood, are we not placing
an external bond on the Lord’s stirring in them by maintaining the current
ordination policy?
The Church does not institute the priesthood, but the priesthood the Church. This
principle, seen in a complete analysis, solves the entire question of government.
The members of the Church do not impart to the priest perception, illustration,
ability to govern, or endow him with any priestly gift whatsoever; hence they do
not ordain him or appoint him to govern in the Church. The LORD gives them to
see that the priest has these gifts from Him, and moves them to give expression to
their consent that he should govern, thus to recognize him in his function to which
he has been appointed by the LORD; which function he may exercise over them on
their invitation to do so. (Ibid)
Can we recognize the Lord’s work in women who are called to the
priesthood? I believe we are at a point where we must move beyond the
theore tical question of whether women are capable of being priests and
consider instead the implications of forbidding real individual women who
feel called to the priesthood from answering that call.
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