I support changing the discipline, and as discipline it can be changed. But I do not support their means. I do not support simply defying the discipline of our Church.
Yes, I see your point.
Ours is a Church whose liturgy is under constant assault, it's meaning being stripped from it by abuses and frivolous and selfish innovations.
It's perfectly reasonable to be concerned that doctrine not be affected by frivolous innovations. But likewise I'm concerned that innovations in culture, such as increased individualism, reflect not frivolous selfishness, but actual human evolution. An institution that expects human continuity instead of human evolution cannot account for evolution if or when it occurs.
This is a major difficulty with the prevailing notion in Christianity, that we are just "doing time" waiting for the return of Christ. Under this view, no advancement that reflects human growth or human ingenuity can be truly "the coming thing," but must be simply a distraction or detour. There is no way under this view to account for paradigm change.
Not only is there the assault on the early Church's notion about the material world, which included but was not limited to notions about gender.
This was an aspect of it, certainly.
But I think that the larger issue was making the canonical apostles look bad, impugning their character and wisdom in order to undermine their message and thus supplant it.
I disagree. In Pistis Sophia and the Gospel of Mary, other male disciples are depicted as coming to the women's defense. Peter, of all the disciples, is the one in whom we see attitudes change; his vision in Acts 10, for example, reflects the change of heart reflected in his comments during the debate between Paul and James in Acts 15. So the authors of these non-canonical texts may have meant to show Peter in this case as one who had yet another kind of growing to accomplish, in the evolution of his views towards women.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2004-04-10 06:28 am (UTC)Yes, I see your point.
Ours is a Church whose liturgy is under constant assault, it's meaning being stripped from it by abuses and frivolous and selfish innovations.
It's perfectly reasonable to be concerned that doctrine not be affected by frivolous innovations. But likewise I'm concerned that innovations in culture, such as increased individualism, reflect not frivolous selfishness, but actual human evolution. An institution that expects human continuity instead of human evolution cannot account for evolution if or when it occurs.
This is a major difficulty with the prevailing notion in Christianity, that we are just "doing time" waiting for the return of Christ. Under this view, no advancement that reflects human growth or human ingenuity can be truly "the coming thing," but must be simply a distraction or detour. There is no way under this view to account for paradigm change.
Not only is there the assault on the early Church's notion about the material world, which included but was not limited to notions about gender.
This was an aspect of it, certainly.
But I think that the larger issue was making the canonical apostles look bad, impugning their character and wisdom in order to undermine their message and thus supplant it.
I disagree. In Pistis Sophia and the Gospel of Mary, other male disciples are depicted as coming to the women's defense. Peter, of all the disciples, is the one in whom we see attitudes change; his vision in Acts 10, for example, reflects the change of heart reflected in his comments during the debate between Paul and James in Acts 15. So the authors of these non-canonical texts may have meant to show Peter in this case as one who had yet another kind of growing to accomplish, in the evolution of his views towards women.