Female Clergy

[kalt]

I have a quick question on female clergy and “Bible only” churches.

Do any Bible only churches accept female clergy?

If they do, how do they square that with the fact that the apostles were male?

 

[JoeBlow]

I have a quick question on female clergy and “Bible only” churches.

Do any Bible only churches accept female clergy?

They typically don’t.

Every church I know that has female clergy has a very low view of God’s word and, if you look into their doctrine, they’re nearly always heretical in other areas.

 

[Publisher]

The Society of Friends has had women “ministers” recorded by the Meeting since it’s beginning…but we’ve always been heretics too…so I guess it’s no big surprise

 

[Contarini]

They typically don’t.

Every church I know that has female clergy has a very low view of God’s word and, if you look into their doctrine, they’re nearly always heretical in other areas.

Churches in the Holiness and Pentecostal traditions have historically had female clergy, though sometimes with restrictions, particularly in more recent years (due to the influence of the more Baptist wing of conservative Protestantism).

I suppose you could argue that Holiness/Pentecostal folks have a “low view of God’s Word” because they rely too much on experience, and thus are not true “Bible only” Christians. I don’t really care, since I don’t think fundamentalist Protestantism is a good judge of what is a high or low view of God’s Word!

Edwin

 

[JoeBlow]

Churches in the Holiness and Pentecostal traditions have historically had female clergy, though sometimes with restrictions, particularly in more recent years (due to the influence of the more Baptist wing of conservative Protestantism).

I suppose you could argue that Holiness/Pentecostal folks have a “low view of God’s Word” because they rely too much on experience, and thus are not true “Bible only” Christians. I don’t really care, since I don’t think fundamentalist Protestantism is a good judge of what is a high or low view of God’s Word!

Edwin

Actually, neither the Holiness nor Pentecostal churches are fundamentalists.

 

[patg]

I have a quick question on female clergy and “Bible only” churches.

Do any Bible only churches accept female clergy?

If they do, how do they square that with the fact that the apostles were male?

Yeah, and how do they square that with the fact that the apostles were all Jewish? Or that they all drank wine or spoke Aramaic or were born in the middle east?

 

[Tantum_ergo]

Well, pat, obviously they don’t have authentic Scriptural interpretation to understand the valid matter required for priesthood. “Male” is required; “Jewish’”, Aramaic-speaking, etc. are not.

See sig.

 

[jblake]

kalt;:

Do any Bible only churches accept female clergy?

It depends upon how “clergy” is defined, and what the functions of the role are.

It is quite possible that such a church uses women in roles that would meet your definition of “female clergy”, but do not meet their definition of “female clergy”.

When a cleric is, by definition, male, then it is impossible to have a female cleric.
When a cleric is one who performs “pastoral functions”, it is possible to have a female cleric

Pastoral functions include:

• Prayers for the sick
• Appointing leaders
• Annointing the sick
• Counseling others
• Representing the congregation
• Dealing with “disruptive” members
• Dealing with sinners within the congregation
• Service in charitable works by the congregation

Is that matron who soothes ruffled feathers, counsels young couples, so they stay married, teens on relationship issues, and prays for everybody within and without the congregation who is sick, a cleric? When people expect her to perform those functions, is she a cleric?

xan

jonathon