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David Walker cartoon

10 reasons Why Men Should Not Be Ordained

David Walker cartoon

10. A man’s place is in the army.

9. The pastoral duties of men who have children might distract them from the responsibility of being a parent.

8. The physique of men indicates that they are more suited to such tasks as chopping down trees and wrestling mountain lions. It would be “unnatural” for them to do ministerial tasks.

7. Man was created before woman, obviously as a prototype. Thus, they represent an experiment rather than the crowning achievement of creation.

6. Men are too emotional to be priests or pastors. Their conduct at football and basketball games demonstrates this.

5. Some men are handsome, and this will distract women worshipers.

Women Bishops4. Pastors need to nurture their congregations. But this is not a traditional male role. Throughout history, women have been recognized as not only more skilled than men at nurturing, but also more fervently attracted to it. This makes them the obvious choice for ordination.

3. Men are prone to violence. No really masculine man wants to settle disputes except by fighting about them. Thus they would be poor role models as well as dangerously unstable in positions of leadership.

2. The New Testament tells us that Jesus was betrayed by a man. His lack of faith and ensuing punishment remind us of the subordinated position that all men should take.

1. Men can still be involved in church activities, even without being ordained. They can sweep sidewalks, repair the church roof, and perhaps even lead the song service on Father’s Day. By confining themselves to such traditional male roles, they can still be vitally important in the life of the church.

Origin of the list is unknown.
David Walker cartoon image source
source of Matt’s cartoon

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13 thoughts on “10 reasons Why Men Should Not Be Ordained”

  1. You know Bosco that in some dioceses STRAIGHT men CAN be ordained – as sexual orientation is deemed not a barrier to selection for ordination training 🙂

  2. My understanding is that one reason why only men should be ordained is that they are in the image of Jesus Christ and a woman can not fulfil that aspect of the role. By that argument I believe that only circumcised jews should be eligble for ordination.

  3. Male circumcision I guess would be an early Christian important topic ( which I hope tells us something about how so many things are trivial which seemed important at one time )

    This week the United Nations adopted a position of global ban on female circumcision, which apparently is important to some people even today…

    I personally cannot imagine what would lead anyone to mutilate any person, but it does show how cruel and weird practices get when the words custom and belief get together.

  4. A colleague of mine here at work has that same “top ten” list on her door, Bosco. It is very amusing, though of course just as irrelevant as the nonsense sometimes spouted by the other side.

    I’m bemused to see the result of the General Synod vote described in the comic above as a “mess” that the C of E needs to find a “way out of” by some means other than the synodical process. So, synodical government is the beautiful operation of democracy (led by the Holy Spirit) when it gives the Church women as priests by 2 votes in 1992, but not when it fails to give the Church women as bishops by 6 votes in 2012. Oh, and the lay delegates are “out of touch” and “unrepresentative” because they didn’t vote the same way as the dioceses. Indeed. I mean, I don’t know why they bother with a General Synod at all, now that the will of the dioceses can be so easily discerned.

    It is curious, indeed ridiculous, that the “liberal” wing of the C of E is now so easily slipping into the rhetoric that the “conservative” wing has used since their disappointment in 1992, namely threats to “take for ourselves what they refuse to give us.”

    Tear up the rulebook (quoth George Carey)! Get government ministers to utter not-so-subtle threats! Vote again as soon as possible, and keep voting again and again until we get the right result!

    As a matter of justice, I hope that those voices will be just as effective as the conservative ones that until recently demanded a “Free Province” for traditionalists within the C of E.

    A similar attitude obtains here in Canada with regard to the possible secession of the province of Quebec from our confederation. For separatists, it’s just a question of voting again every time they think there are “winning conditions.” Given enough opportunities, the people eventually arrive at a correct understanding. We know it as the “neverendum referendum.” The last time a referendum failed (1995), the disappointed separatist premier blamed it in “money and the ethnic vote.” Because if you’re not a “pure laine” ancestral Quebecker, your vote shouldn’t count. Naturellement.

    Sort of the same as how you don’t really belong in the C of E if you opposed the legislation recently rejected by General Synod. Naturellement.

  5. ‘Get government ministers to utter not-so-subtle threats! ‘

    Disestablishment should take care of that- then it’s a private matter who gets ordained or not, still within the employment laws of course- I’m not sure that firing a third of the vicars employed by the C of E UK would fly even with disestablishment…

    ‘you don’t really belong in the C of E if you opposed the legislation recently rejected by General Synod’

    You don’t really belong in the UK frankly, except by concession of tradition/ pragmatism.

    1. The United Kingdom does not need an official church. It’s a relic of the Protestant Reformation and “cuius regio, eius religio”, something which only applies in some Muslim countries nowadays and is thus irrelevant to the UK. Mind if I suggest that the British take a good look at the First Amendment to the United States Constitution?

  6. This is sexist! Men would be in serious trouble if they put up a similar list about women. Equality works both ways ladies……….

    1. Have you never heard reasons given for women being denied ordination, Chris? Or is your question meant to be funny?

  7. Stephen Houghton

    How about this. It is the catholic witness to reserve ordination to males. If you are wrong your congregants will never receive the sacrament again. Prudence says what?

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