Thoughts on the Priesthood

Alice C. Linsley

Christianity is the one true expression of the faith of Abraham and his Hebrew ancestors. The Church has received this tradition and therefore, the Church is the only entity on earth that can preserve it. The all-male priesthood is central to the received tradition. It is an aspect of the binary distinctions that are expressed throughout the canonical Scriptures. Women were never priests because they represent the giving of life through conception and birth. The altar is a place of sacrificial death, the binary opposite. That is why I often say that "The priesthood is about the Blood."

The male-female binary set is poorly understood in our time when the biblical worldview is set aside in favor of "equal rights" and egalitarian values. Though the Scriptures maintain masculine language for God Father and God Son, some insist on non-gendered language which is to disconnect the message from its mooring. 

The consequences of rejecting a received tradition are evident to anthropologists. We see the sad outcomes among populations that have been uprooted through slavery or commercialism. It takes only two generations for a people to become disconnected from their historic identity. Soon the young people begin to wonder who they are and what they are to believe. They go in search of something to replace what is lost. 

Protestants are a good example. Many Protestant innovations are attempts to gain "tradition" apart from the received tradition represented by catholicity, the historic priesthood, and the consensus of the Church on Scripture.

Anglicans who reject the received tradition concerning the priesthood cause division. Their attempts to replace what they have lost cause confusion. A woman standing as a priest at the altar is confusing because form and gender matter.

A personal note

Some readers of Just Genesis know that I was ordained a priest in the Episcopal Church in 1988 in the Diocese of Pennsylvania by Bishop Allan Bartlett. I left the Episcopal Church on the Sunday that Gene Robinson was consecrated bishop in New Hampshire.

The celebration of gay rights, or the rights of any group, has no place in the Church. The redeemed stand before God justified through Jesus Christ. To speak of rights outside of that context is a form of blasphemy. 

That day was the line in the sand for me. Everyone should know where their line is before the day comes when they are tempted to cross it.

I believe that I was a caring and effective church administrator and I trust that God was able to use my offerings, meager as they were at times. Yet as I stood at the altar, I sometimes had the feeling that I didn't belong there, or that I was wearing someone else's shoes. Indeed the priest wears the shoes of the Man Jesus Christ, the universal ruler-priest. Not every man can wear those shoes, and they are not meant to be worn by women ever.

After I renounced my ordination vows I was able to dedicate myself to research and began to explore the origins of the priesthood as a biblical anthropologist. If you are interested in some of my conclusions, you might read some of these articles:

The Church's Consensus on Women and the Priesthood

On Blood and the Impulse to Immortality
Ancient Words for Priests
God as Male Priest
Ten Objections to Women Priests
The Priesthood as Heavenly Ordinance
Males as Spiritual Leaders: Two Patterns
The Priesthood is About the Blood
Why Women Were Never Priests
What is a Priest?
C.S. Lewis on Women Priests
The Priesthood in Anthropological Perspective
Terah Means Priest
Aaron Was Buried in Edom

Women Priests: Alternative or False Narrative?

Alice C. Linsley

The Presidential Counselor, Kellyanne Conway, came under criticism during a Meet the Press interview on 22 January 2017 when she spoke of "additional facts and alternative information.” Conway later explained her remarks: "Two plus two is four. Three plus one is four. Partly cloudy, partly sunny. Glass half full, glass half empty. Those are alternative facts."

Jacques Derrida, the “father” of deconstructionism, would have loved Conway’s perspective.[1] He wrote about the subordinated voice and how it must be heeded if we are to grasp the greater meaning of a narrative. The dominate narrative of contemporary society is untrue not only because it is half the story. It is untrue because without the subordinate narrative we cannot explore the relationship of the opposites and the signage of the Male-Female binary set. The dominant-subordinate character of the Male-Female binary set points to the Presence; it bears witness to the Transcendent God.  Derrida called this “supplementarity” and it is not to be confused with complementarity. Complementarity speaks of things that naturally belong together and moves back and forth between paired entities. Supplementarity implies that the sum of the complementary entities is greater than either entity and greater than the relationship of the entities. It seeks to break out of the binary enclosure.

The logic of supplementarity involves consideration of the marginal, which in this discussion refers to the “alternative facts” of the catholic Faith concerning the priesthood. We must regard this as “alternative” because our catholic Faith is radically subordinated, even among those who call themselves “Christians.” Ironically, by the logic of supplementarity, the catholic faith nevertheless defines the dominant cultural narrative about men and women. For the Church, supplementarity of male and female is an essential mark of sacred Tradition and is expressed in Scripture.[2]  Further, the assertion of the divinely-created Male-Female set is affirmed by empirical observation of the natural world.

For Anglicans the authority of Scripture and Tradition is central to our identity. Further, we share a rich heritage of reasoned observation of the natural world. To disregard our Anglican heritage in favor of a false narrative that presents women as priests would be fatal to our identity. More importantly, it would perpetuate the Marxian/Feminist lie.

The Marxian/Feminist narrative reduces all to a level plain. It strips away “hier”-archy, that is, priest ranking. Are we surprised? It must do so because ontologically, linguistically, anthropologically, and empirically, the priest is a male ruler in the realm of a God who is called “Father.” Saint Augustine asked, “What do I love when I love my God?” The catholic Faith responds unequivocally, “I love the Father because He first loved me.” The catholic Faith flows against the social current toward the Triune God who deconstructs every human artifice.

E.L. Mascall presents aspects of the false narrative in his treatise Women Priests?[3] He writes,

The view that sex is irrelevant in deciding who should or should not be ordained to the priesthood has been based on a belief that there is a sexless human nature common to men and women underlying their sex differences.  This view is no longer tenable.  There is in fact a masculine and a feminine human nature with some complication from the shadow of the opposite sex in each.”

Derrida called the shadow a “trace” and he argued that unless the trace is pursued the philosophical project in the West is dead. Philosophy, theology, and general good reasoning, require dialectical tension.

Mascall also writes: “A refusal to recognise this polarity of the sexes tends to create not satisfaction, but further and more deep-seated restlessness.”

The false but dominant narrative concerning women and the priesthood is predicated on (1) a conception of social evolution that claims authority for itself without a basis in real life, and (2) a conception of progressive revelation that would have us believe that the Church, Scripture, and Tradition are in the process of being redefined. The catholic Faith bears witness to the fixed nature of divine revelation as reflecting an immutable God. Even Derrida - that sophisticated, Arabic-speaking Jew, who secretly was named Elijah at his eight-day circumcision - has to admit this. In his autobiographical work Circumfession, he reflects on how deconstruction advanced revelation of “the constancy of God in my life.”[4]

If Scripture, Church Tradition, and reasoned observation of patterns in nature are not enough to persuade the reader that the priesthood of the Church is categorically masculine in nature, consider that the priesthood of the Church emerged from the all-male priesthood of Abraham's Horite Hebrew ancestors, for whom the work of a priest involved asceticism, fidelity in marriage, and purity of life. The objection that there were women “priests” in the Greco-Roman world is irrelevant as these were not priests, but shamans who consulted the spirits while in a trace state, something forbidden to the Hebrew priest. The Scriptures recognize wise women such as Deborah, Huldah, and Ana, but they condemn Saul for consulting the female medium of Endor (I Sam. 28:7).

After all this, if there remains a temptation to trifle with the Church’s priesthood, consider what the Fathers have to say.

St. John Chrysostom wrote, “The divine law indeed has excluded women from this ministry, but they endeavour to thrust themselves into it; and since they can effect nothing of themselves, they do all through the agency of others.”

Speaking of the exclusivity of the priestly office, St. John Chrysostom wrote, “When one is required to preside over the Church, and be entrusted with the care of so many souls, the whole female sex must retire before the magnitude of the task, and the majority of men also.”

In his Oration against the Gentiles, Athanasius declared: “That the Scriptures are sufficient to the manifestation of the Truth.” Not a single woman is designated "priest" in the Scriptures.

St. Basil wrote in Letter 90, To the Most Holy Brethren and Bishops Found in the West: “The dogmas of the Fathers are held in contempt, the Apostolic traditions are disdained, the churches are subject to the novelties of innovators.”

St. Athanasius said: “It is fit for us to adhere to the Word of God, and not relinquish it, thinking by syllogisms to evade what is there clearly delivered.” (Tract of the Incarnation). He also said: “Ask not concerning the Trinity but learn only from the Scriptures. For the instructions which you will find there are sufficient.” (Tract of the Holy Ghost) 

Speaking about the danger of innovation, St. Basil the Great said: “Everyone who steadfastly values the old ways above these novelties, and who has preserved unchanged the tradition of the fathers both in the city and in the country, is familiar with this phrase [with whom in the doxology]. Rather, it is those never content with accepted ways who despise the old as being stale, constantly welcoming innovation, like worldings who are always chasing after the latest fashion. Observe that country people cling to ancient patterns of speech, while the adroit language of these cunning disputants always bear the brand of the latest trends of thought. But for us, what our fathers said [the received Tradition], we repeat: the same glory is given to the Father and Son; therefore we offer the doxology to the Father with the Son. But we are not content simply because this is the tradition of the Fathers. What is important is that the Fathers followed the meaning of Scripture.” [5] 

Before Anglicans worldwide fidelity to the catholic Faith is challenged by the willingness of some bishops to allow members of their flock to stray from that Faith and yet to claim its authority for themselves.

In August 2014, Foley Beach, Archbishop of the Anglican Church of North America, explained:

"...in our constitution and canons, we have left the issue of women's ordination for each diocese to decide. A lot of people came into the ACNA in good faith that their perspective -- including those who ordain women -- would be protected and guarded. And, people who believe in ordaining women hold their position by conscience and can Biblically argue it, although I disagree with them. This issue is a very important thing to them, and so I think it would create a lot of tension. A lot of the women priests in ACNA have stood side-by-side with a number of our bishops and clergy who are against women's ordination when they were in The Episcopal Church. These women argued for the right of these bishops to have the freedom to not ordain women. Women's ordination is a very complicated issue, because we've got people who have given their heart and soul on each side. And, these people are sincere; they're godly."[6]

The end of this course of action is a parting of ways and a widening of present divisions. This was foreseen by C.S. Lewis in this essay Priestesses in the Church?

"...I heard that the Church of England was being advised to declare women capable of Priests' Order. I am, indeed, informed that such a proposal is very unlikely to be seriously considered by the authorities. To take such a revolutionary step at the present moment, to cut ourselves off from the Christian past and to widen the divisions between ourselves and other Churches by establishing an order of priestesses in our midst, would be an almost wanton degree of imprudence. And the Church of England herself would be torn in shreds..."

Lest we regard our situation to be unique, consider that the catholic Faith has faced the challenge of innovators from the beginning. Speaking of this concern, St. Basil wrote:

Every man is a theologian; it does not matter that his soul is covered with more blemishes than can be counted. The result is that these innovators find an abundance of men to join their factions. So ambitious, self-elected men divide the government of the churches among themselves, and reject the authority of the Holy Spirit.  The ordinances of the Gospel have been thrown into confusion everywhere for lack of discipline; the jostling for high positions is incredible, as every ambitious man tries to thrust himself into high office. The result of this lust for power is that wild anarchy prevails among the people; the exhortations of those in authority are rendered utterly void and unprofitable, since every man in his arrogant delusion thinks that it is more his business to give orders to others than to obey anyone himself” (On the Holy Spirit).

NOTES

11.  Probably the best volume on Derrida’s non-method is The Prayers and Tears of Jacques Derrida, by John D. Caputo. Indiana University Press, 1997.

22. The Apostle Paul speaks of the marriage of a man and woman as ordained by God to be indissoluble. He writes, “This mystery is a profound one, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.” (Eph. 5:32)

33. E.J. Mascall, Women Priests? Reproduced with permission by Forward in Faith, Scotland  

44.  Geoffrey Bennington, Jacques Derrida. University of Chicago Press, 1993. Derrida's quotation found in the Circumfession, p. 154.

55. On the Holy Spirit, translated by David Anderson, St. Vladimir Seminary Press, 1980

46.   Interview with Archbishop Foley Beach, 12 August 2014 at Juicy Ecumenism, The Institute of Religion and Democracy Blog 

The Priesthood in Anthropological Perspective

Alice C. Linsley

St. Basil the Great

I have written a great deal about the origin and nature of the priesthood. Here are links to some of my articles and articles written by other people.

What is the Priesthood?
The Male Priesthood Has Deep Roots

Ten Objections to Women Priests

The Church's Consensus on Women and the Priesthood

Why Women Were Never Priests
Priestesses in the Church by C.S. Lewis
The Priesthood in England - Part 1
The Priesthood in England - Part 2
The Priesthood in England - Part 3
The Priesthood in England - Conclusion
The Priesthood and Genesis
Blood Guilt and Christ's Priesthood
Ruler-Priests of Genesis

Growing Consensus that Women's Ordination Must Be Addressed

Women Priests

Luther Was Wrong About the Priesthood
More Thoughts on the Priesthood
Rethinking "Biblical Equality"
What's Lost When Women Serve as Priests?
Women Priests and the Anglican Church of North America
Women Priests by E.L. Mascall
Peter Moore on Women Priests

Response to Dr. Peter Moore on Women Priests
Women Priests: History and Theology by Patrick Henry Reardon
The Messianic Priesthood of Jesus
The Royal Priest Lines of Matthew
The Priesthood as Heavenly Ordinance
The Horite Priesthood
Who Was Melchizedek?

Horite Temples
The Shrine City of Nekhen
The Horite Ancestry of Jesus Christ
Who is Jesus?
Tomb of the Ruler-Priest Shepseskaf-ankh

Males as Spiritual Leaders: Two Patterns
Shamanic Practice and the Priesthood

The Priestly Divisions

The Priests of Nazareth

The Daughters of Priests

The Virgin Mary's Priestly Lineage

Edom and the Horites

Horite Priests and the Habiru
Who Were the Habiru?
The Origins of the Priesthood
Abraham and Job: Horite Rulers
Shepherd Priests
The Horite Hebrew Conception of the Priesthood
God as Male Priest

Why I'm Not a Protestant

Alice C. Linsley

I was raised a Protestant in the Baptist Church and over many years I found my way to catholicity. My first encounter with Anglicanism was at St. Luke’s Anglican Mission in Isfahan, Iran. Being a Christian in that country was a serious matter. Persecution of the Iranian parishioners was common and the expatriate community was aware of their hardships.

The fervency of commitment and the humility of the English missioner priest left a lasting impression on me. When I joined the Anglican Church, I believed that I was entering into the fullness of the “one holy catholic and apostolic faith.” In retrospect, I believe that I had merely entered a liturgical form of Protestantism.  

Years later, the crisis of authority in the Anglican Communion has confirmed my suspicion. The crisis clearly involves Anglo-Catholics as well, so inclinations to Rome do not constitute the kind of catholicity that makes for unity in faith and practice.

Clergy seeking refuge from the Anglican crisis through the Personal Ordinariate are likely to be disappointed. They may be able to maintain the liturgical, spiritual and pastoral traditions of the Anglican Communion within the Roman Catholic Church, but the crisis of authority will follow them. It seems inherent in the Anglican Tradition that they hope to take with them.

As an Anglican I was never persuaded by the Protestant view of Scripture and Tradition. It simply is not possible to separate the two in the way that Protestants do. The Protestant disposition to set aside Tradition makes it easier to embrace modernist innovations such as same-sex ceremonies and women priests. The Episcopal Church exemplifies this, as well as the loss of theological sagacity.

The Protestant flavor of Anglicanism is more than a reaction to Rome and more than a product of historical events. Among some Anglicans it is the heritage of revivalism. Certainly, this is the case among many East African Anglicans and among low church Evangelicals.

Among others, it is often a preference motivated by denominational pride. Some Anglicans prefer the Articles of Religion above the writings of the Church Fathers. I regard the 39 Articles as a significant historical document that reflects a specific period of Anglican theology development, but not as an Anglican confession, the way the Book of Concord is for Lutherans. 

I remember being asked to teach an adult class on the Articles of Religion because the priest considered this an essential feature of Anglican identity, but when I asked about teaching all the historical documents, I was told that Chalcedon Doctrine on the Two Natures of Christ and the Creed of Athanasius were too difficult for the laity to grasp. I was never very interested in making better Anglicans. In my view, the best Anglicans are thoroughly catholic. I think of figures such as Dorothy Sayers, C.S. Lewis, and Evelyn Underhill.

In my experience, thoughtful Protestants gravitate to catholicity because they sense that ultimately Protestantism lacks authority. It is removed from the fullness of holy Tradition concerning the Trinity, the Virgin Birth, and the ecumenical councils of the Church.  

St. John of Damascus wrote, "I beseech the people of God, the holy nation, to hold fast to the tradition of the Church... for the gradual erosion of what has been handed down to us will bring down the whole fabric in ruins."  St. John's warning has found fulfillment within Protestantism, especially in America where tradition is not valued.

What I experienced and learned as a "Priest"

Serving as a "priest" revealed to me the theological and hermeneutical weaknesses of Protestantism. I grasped intuitively that the full sacramental life of the Church had been lost by Protestants. I had yet to figure out how my being a priestess added to the confusion. That would come after years of research into the etiology of the priesthood among Abraham's Hebrew ancestors.

As a priest I leaned toward the high church Anglo-Catholic wing but found no acceptance there. Instead, I was often confronted by harsh words, and even verbal abuse, especially from gay clergy of that persuasion. I recall a drunk Church of England cleric, who upon discovering my opposition to his homosexual agenda, launched into an embarrassing tirade at a dinner hosted by my Senior Warden and his gracious wife.

Ultimately, I am not a Protestant because Protestants are removed from catholicity, in the fullest sense of that term. They claim Scripture as a first and only authority (Sola Scriptura) but invent doctrines like Young Earth Creationism, Antinomianism, Pentecostalism, and the Rapture. They show evidence of being confused about the Gospel, the Trinity, and the two natures of Jesus Christ.

There is a rush to the Christmas and Easter seasons without periods of preparation. The Communion of Saints is a foreign concept, and the idea the justified living and the justified reposed are united in Christ and not separated by death is regarded as heretical.

The Incarnation is rarely spoken of, and the veneration of the Blessed Virgin Mary is misunderstood and misrepresented as idolatry. This reveals how poorly most Protestants understand the Bible. In a true sense the Bible is Mary's story from Genesis to Revelation. She is alluded to in Genesis 3:15. She was anticipated among the widely dispersed Hebrew clans. She is identified in the New Testament accounts, and the Book of Revelation proclaims the supernatural preservation of Mary and her child Jesus.

Mary is the "Woman" who brings forth the “Seed” of God. Through His death and Resurrection, He crushes the serpent’s head and restores communion with God. Jesus claimed to be that Seed in John 12:24. The Bible and Holy Tradition are consistent in what they testify concerning the fulfillment of the first biblical prophecy in Genesis 3:15.

The "reformed and always reforming" tendency among Protestants leads to continual efforts to update worship, preaching styles, and congregational structures to make them relevant. This tendency expresses itself in contemporary praise music, largely passive audiences, a consumer mindset, and self-help sermons. There are few sacred mysteries such as can be experienced only through the full sacramental life of the Church.

Related reading: Another Response to "Why I'm Not a Protestant"; Why Women Were Never Priests; Adam Named the Animals; The Unintended Reformation; Ideologies Opposed to Holy Tradition; What is Holy Tradition?; What is a Priest?; Christianity Lacks Originality; Some Thoughts on Women Priests; Dr. Stanley Hauerwas, The End of American Protestantism

Dr. Margaret Barker on The Church as the New Temple

Listen to Dr. Margaret Barker's talk on Our Great High Priest: The Church is the New Temple.

I hope that Dr. Barker will explore the Horite temple for the etiology of the tabernacle and of the first Temple.


Related reading:  Margaret Barker, The Temple Roots of the Liturgy; The Origins of Animal Sacrifice; What is a Priest?; Who Was Melchizedek?; The Priesthood and Genesis; God as Male Priest; The Priesthood as Heavenly Ordinance; The Messianic Priesthood of Jesus; The Origins of the Priesthood; More Thoughts on the Priesthood; Why Women Were Never Priests; What's Lost When Women Serve as Priests?; Who Were the Horites?; Deified Rulers; Adam and Enoch: Archetypes of the Deified Ruler

The Episcopal Church Circus

Alice C. Linsley

I use the word "circus" as one who served in Episcopal orders for 18 years. I left on the Sunday Gene Robinson was consecrated a bishop in the Episcopal Church (TEC). Since then TEC's downward spiral into the ridiculous has gained velocity. The Episcopal flock is led by clowns!

The Church of England approved women bishops in July 2014 and those who hold to the catholic faith in that body will have to lump it. The provision to accommodate them will never hold. The Church of England learned nothing from the debacle of the The Episcopal Church. Some clergy of the Church of England will migrate to the Roman Ordinariate or to the Free Church of England.

The Episcopal Church pushed women to be priests as part of the diversity agenda. I personally experienced that pressure. I sought to serve the Church, and though my gifts indicate that I should have been encouraged to pursue Theology or Church History as an academic, I was told that I should be a priest. Bishop Lyman Ogilby, who at first resisted the innovation, came to embrace it. This was the message coming across loud and clear in the Diocese of Pennsylvania in the 1980's. This Diocese delivered to the Anglican world bishops Barbara Harris, Geralyn Wolf, Mary Glasspool, Frank Griswold, and Charles Bennison.

Later there were more dubious ordinations in TEC, including a Muslim woman (who was later defrocked by Geralyn Wolf) and two Wiccans (also later defrocked). As far as I know, no partnered homosexuals have been defrocked, so one wonders about the nature of TEC's diversity. Diversity and equality have become terms of tyranny for many in the Anglican Communion. These high-sounding ideals have been employed to break catholic orders and to forever change the Church. Louie Crew's "Changing the Church" tells the sordid history. Now there remains but one impediment to ordination in TEC: refusal to accept this new religion. The descent down the slippery slope gains speed. Non-celibate homosexuals, transgender, bisexual, pedophile... anyone can be a "priest" in TEC if they bow to the circus master.

“When one is required to preside over the Church, and be entrusted with the care of so many souls, the whole female sex must retire before the magnitude of the task, and the majority of men also.” – St. John Chrysostom

“The divine law indeed has excluded women from this ministry, but they endeavour to thrust themselves into it; and since they can effect nothing of themselves, they do all through the agency of others.” – St. John Chrysostom

Related reading: The TEC Clergy Hit List Grows Daily; Women Priests by E.L. Mascall; What is Lost When Women Serve as Priests?; C.S. Lewis on "Priestesses in the Church"; Why Women Were Never Priests; God as Male Priest; What is a Priest?;  Women Priests: History and Theology by Patrick Henry Reardon

The Binary Distinctions of the Horite Hebrew

Alice C. Linsley


Binary Distinctions Reflects Horite Hebrew Values


Archaic Nilotic peoples were attuned to the patterns observed in nature and aligned their thinking with those patterns. This is evident in the orientations of their tombs and in the astronomical alignments of their monuments. It is also evident in their binary theological perspective which frames the Biblical worldview.

The binary sets are expressed in the distinctions and separations within "kinds" or essences. The waters (firmament) above are separated from the waters below. Male and female are of the same kind yet distinct. Other binary sets include heaven-earth; God-mankind; day-night, sun-moon, and life-death. One of the entities in the binary set is superior to the other in strength, brilliance, glory, or purpose and its lesser is a reflection of the greater. So humans reflect the image of the Creator, the moon reflects the light of the sun, and Adam recognizes the woman as distinct from him but of his essence, i.e.,  "bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh..." (Genesis 2:23)

The superiority of one of the entities of the binary set kept the Horites from slipping into the dualism that characterizes other world religions.

Observed natural entities were associated with gender, numbers and symbols. The sun, for example, was associated with a male ruler over the universe and represented the masculine principle of rule and insemination. It was the emblem of Re, the father of Horus. Hathor, Horus’ virgin mother, was believed to conceive the son of God by the overshadowing of Re. Because of this association of the sun with maleness, the ancient Egyptian rulers exposed themselves to the sun’s rays to turn their skin reddish brown (edom, odam, adam). Their royal wives, on the other hand, were covered with chalk to make them white like the moon.

In the Song of Songs the sister bride praises her beloved whose skin is dark as the tents of Kedar because he, like David, was made to work in the sun by his brothers. The tents of Kedar were woven with the black wool from the Nubian desert goats. His dark skin is associated with the masculine virtues of the sun. The sister bride was "made white" through the application of a white chaulky powder. Her pale skin is associated with the feminine virtues of the moon.

The moon was associated with femaleness or the feminine principle. This intuitive association extends to semen and milk. The sun inseminates the earth and the moon stimulates female reproduction and lactation. Because the moon affects water, tides, and body fluids in a repeating cycle there is a natural association of the moon with the periodicity of the menstrual cycle. Many ancient peoples associated pregnancy with the moon and in France menstruation is called “le moment de la lune.”

In a dualistic view, the sun and the moon are equals so both are worthy of veneration. In a binary view, one of the entities of the binary set is always superior and to venerate the lesser entity is a form of idol worship. This is what stands behind the Joshua 24 criticism of Terah. (Note this is not a criticism of Abraham.) There is no other verse in the Bible to support the view that Terah, a Horite, worshiped the moon god contrary to the practice of his ancestors who regarded the sun as the emblem of the Creator. Abraham's Horite ancestors did not worship Napir/Sin as was done in Ur and Haran and later in Mecca. The Horite ruler-priests were devotees of Horus who was called "son of God," and his emblem was the sun. The ossuaries of the Horite members of the Sanhedrin during the Second Temple bore the 6-prong solar symbol image.

Ossuary of Miriam, the daughter of Y'shua

Genesis 1:16 expresses the binary view in these words: "God made the two great lights; the greater to rule the day and the lesser to rule the night." Sometimes the binary distinction is rather subtle and easy to miss. Consider, for example, the binary set of hot and cool encounters with God. Abraham was visited “in the heat of the day” by God in three Persons (Gen. 18:1). The binary opposite is “in the cool of the day”, the time of God’s visitation to Adam and Eve in Paradise (Gen. 3:8). We have encounters with God described as hot and cool. We must always pay attention to such distinctions. In the first God has come to punish Sodom and Gomorrah, and in the second God has come to enjoy fellowship with the Man and the Woman.

Binary logic is based on empirical observation. The Sun's light is greater than the refulgent light of the Moon. Males are larger and stronger than females. Life is stronger than death. Life involves vitality. The dead are simply dead.

Another example on binary thinking is found in the male-female couplets involving trees. The prophetess Deborah sat under her tamar tree (Judges 4:4-6). A tamar is a date nut palm and was associated with the female principle. The prophet or "moreh" consulted by Abraham sat under an oak (Genesis 12). This tree was associated with the masculine principle.

The male principle involves insemination, protection of the weaker, expansion and uprightness. It is symbolized in the ancient world by meteorites and iron seeds covering the surface of the earth, by the Sun's rays shining down, the lengthening of shadows, and the strength of mountains and pillars. The female principle involves receptivity, birthing, nurturing, fluidity and softness.

Binary Distinctions and Blood

Blood was also viewed according to a binary pattern. A distinction was made between the blood work of men in killing and the blood work of women in birthing. The two bloods represent the binary opposites of life and death. The blood shed in war, hunting and animal sacrifice fell to warriors, hunters and priests. The blood shed in first intercourse, the monthly cycle and in childbirth fell to wives and midwives. The two bloods were never to mix or even to be present in the same space. Women did not participate in war, the hunt, and in ritual sacrifices, and they were isolated during menses. Likewise, men were not present at the circumcision of females or in the birthing hut.

The mixing of life-giving substances with the blood shed in killing was absolutely forbidden among the Afro-Asiatics. This is why the Israelites were commanded never to boil a young goat it its mother’s milk. It also places into context the Judeo-Christian teaching against abortion, which mixes birth blood with killing blood, thus perverting the binary distinction between male and female to a point of desecration. It is also significant that among tribal peoples, brotherhood pacts are formed by the intentional mixing of bloods between two men, but never between male and female. The binary distinctions of male and female are maintained as part of the sacred tradition.

Early man had an intuitive anxiety about blood. We see this in the belief that the blood of Abel cries to God from the ground (Gen. 4:10). Anxiety about the shedding of blood is universal and very old. The sacrificing priesthood likely came into existence the first day that blood was shed and the individual and the community sought relief of blood anxiety and guilt.

As a point of fact, the first blood shed in the Bible was shed by Eve when she gave birth. This is significant because it places life-giving blood ahead of the blood shed when Cain killed Abel.

The second shedding of blood was when God made clothes of animal skins for Adam and Eve. Here we see the first sacrifice of animals for the benefit of humans. This places God at the center between the life-giving blood and the blood shed by Cain when he killed his brother. Between the two bloods (birthing and murder) God sacrifices an animal to provide for the needs of humanity. In this sense, God is the first Priest and that first animal is a symbol of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.

According to the cosmology of Abraham’s people what is at the sacred center is of God. The image of blood at the center speaks of the blood of the Incarnate God. We glimpse this mystery of the sacrifice on the mountain where God has Abraham cut into half a 3-year old ram, a three-year old heifer and a three-year old she-goat (Gen. 15:9-21). This story and the story of the Three-Person God apparing to Abraham at Mamre (Gen. 18) are very old. The symbolism of the number 3 suggests the Egyptian/Kushite divine Triad.

When the sun set and it was dark a smoking firepot and a flaming torch passed between the animal pieces. On that day God promised Abraham that "this country" would be given his descendants. Here the descendants are not specified as Jews. As Abraham was a Horite and so were his sons and daughters, he would have understood this to mean that "this land" was to be a Horite possession.

God moved as a fire between the sacrificed animals that Abraham had cut into halves. God trailed across a bloody strip of earth, like a scarlet thread. God passed through it to confirm an unconditional covenant with Abraham concerning the land for his descendants.

The scarlet thread that hung from Rahab’s window brought salvation to her and to her household. The scarlet smudge over the doors in Egypt brought deliverance from the death of the firstborn. These images of blood speak of God’s prevenient grace whereby blessing precedes every human act, thought or intention.


Related reading:  Rethinking "Biblical Equality"; The Horite Ancestry of Jesus Christ; Levi-Strauss and Derrida on Binary Oppositions; God as Male Priest; Blood and Binary Distinctions; Afro-Asiatic vs Aryan Religion: The Horse as Example; The Scarlet Cord Woven Through the Bible; The Story of Ontology

Impressions of North American Anglicanism

Alice C. Linsley

Fr. J. Scott Newman's insightful comments on this article which originally appeared on March 31, 2011, were deleted at Kendall Harmon's blog, as were mine. Neo-Anglicans like Sarah Hey, in the words of Archbishop Haverland, are "the slow lane to modernist mush." They refuse to entertain comments at Stand Firm that question the dangerous innovation of women priests. 

The Episcopal bishops are schismatic and the denomination remains unrepentant from its involvement in Spiritualism. The Archbishop of Canterbury, the confused Rowan Williams, is ineffectual in leading the worldwide Anglican Communion. Anglicans face a crisis of authority that will either burn them up or ignite a great renewal.

Female bishops in the Anglican circus

It is a historical and anthropological observation that no woman ever served in the office of priest until 1944, at which time Florence Li Tim-Oi was ordained by Ronald Hall, Bishop of Victoria, Hong Kong, in response to the crisis among Anglicans in Communist China. She later stepped down from serving as a priest. Her circumstances were unusual and though her ordination is often cited as precedent, she set aside holy orders when her service was no longer needed. Her case illustrates how well the all-male priesthood was grasped even by those who rejected and opposed Christianity.

In 1976 the Episcopal Church broke the age-old tradition of the all-male priesthood by vote of General Convention. At that time the "irregular" ordinations of the "Philadelphia Eleven" and the "Washington Four" were made regular. The first woman ordained to the priesthood in the United States was Ellen Marie Barrett (January 1977). She was ordained by the Rt. Rev. Paul Moore, Jr., Bishop of New York. Ellen Barrett, a lesbian, had served as Integrity's first co-president. Other lesbians had been among the Philadelphia Eleven. In the United States, the ordination of women and gay and lesbian "rights" were intertwined from the beginning, so that today it is difficult to treat these as separate issues. Both have been framed as "equal rights" issues, revealing a profound misunderstanding of the nature and origin of the priesthood.

This misunderstanding contributes to the Anglican identity crisis. Yet it is not the main factor. This crisis comes as a result of many years of unsound teaching in the Episcopal Church, weak lay and ordained leadership and worldly bishops.

Despite what feminists, politically-correct academics, and rights activists might say, the ministry of priests in the Church developed organically from the Horite Hebrew (Habiru) priesthood of Abraham's people and was exclusively the work of a select group of men (a ruler-priest caste) whose devotion to the worship of the Creator involved, by today's standards, extreme asceticism and purity of life. The objection that there were women priestess in the Greco-Roman world is irrelevant as this is not the origin of the priesthood know by Jesus Christ and his followers.

Contrary to the position of the Roman Church, Horite Hebrew priests were married and enjoyed sexual relations with their wives. However they abstained from sex, shaved their bodies, fasted, and entered periods of intense prayer in preparation for their time of service at the temple or shrine.

In the ancient world Horite Hebrew priests were known for their purity, sobriety and devotion to the High God whose emblem was the Sun. Plutarch wrote that the “priests of the Sun at Heliopolis never carry wine into their temples, for they regard it as indecent for those who are devoted to the service of any god to indulge in the drinking of wine whilst they are under the immediate inspection of their Lord and King. The priests of the other deities are not so scrupulous in this respect, for they use it, though sparingly.”

The Horite Hebrew priests worshiped the Creator (Ra or Ani) and the Creator's Son (Horus or Enki) when other peoples were worshiping lesser deities. They anticipated the coming of the Seed of God (Gen. 3:15) and believed that He would be born of their ruler-priest bloodlines. That is why the lines of priests intermarried exclusively (endogamy) and why unchaste daughters of priests were burned alive (Lev. 21:9). Sexual impurity was not tolerated.

In the ancient world, only men born into the priestly caste could serve a priests and many of those never did. Some instead served as warriors, scribes, rulers and metal workers. There was never a question about having a "right" to this work. It was appointed to those who were born into this order, and this is the order from which Jesus Christ descended.

The Horite Hebrew marriage and ascendancy pattern remained unchanged from the Neolithic period of Genesis 4 and 5 (the lines of Cain and Seth) to the time of Joseph and Mary. The pattern can be traced through the Bible using the anthropological tool of kinship analysis, and it is an impossibility that this pattern could have been written back into the text at a late date.

There were priests among Jesus' first followers. Nicodemus and Joseph of AriMathea were members of the Sanhedrin and of the Hebrew ruler-priest caste. This was Jesus' ancestry through both Mary and Joseph. Horite priests expected a Righteous Ruler to defeat death and lead his people to immortality. This is why Horite priests took great precautions in the preparation of the bodies of dead kings. It is likely that Joseph of Hari-Mathea and Joseph, the husband of Mary, were both of the Pharisee persuasion.

Priests were dispersed throughout Palestine. Settlements often took their names from the priestly division that resided there. For example, Nazareth was the home of the eighteenth priestly division, Hapitsets (a word of Nilotic origin), so Nazareth is Happizzez in 1 Chronicles 24:15. Nazareth was the home of Joseph who married Jesus' mother. Mary was from Bethlehem. Her full name would have been "Miriam Daughter of Joachim, Son of Pntjr, Priest of Nathan of Bethlehem." From predynastic times among the Egyptian Horites, ntjr designated God or the king. Pntjr is Pa-Netjer, the name of Joachim’s mother. The Horite priests traced descent through both the mother and the father. A limestone stela (1539-1291 B.C.) bearing the names of Pekhty-nisu and his wife Pa-netjer is on exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum. The Ancient Egyptian word nisu (ruler) became nasi in Hebrew and applied to the High Priest who presided over the Sanhedrin.

Through Mary the promise of Genesis 3:15 came to be fulfilled. The Seed of the Woman crushed the serpent's head and death has been overcome. The ancient expectation of a divine royal son who would overcome death and lead his people to immortality was fulfilled.

The connection between Bethlehem and the Horites is alluded to in I Chronicles 4:4, which lists Hur/Hor as the "father of Bethlehem." To this day Jews call their ancestors Horim, which is Horite in English. The ancient Horite priests were devotees of Horus, the son of Ra, the creator. Horus' conception took place by divine overshadowing. He is the pattern by which Jesus would be recognized by Abraham's descendants as the Son of God. When the Virgin Mary asked how she was to have a child since she "knew" no man, "The angel answered her and said, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the holy child will be called the Son of God." (Luke 1:35)

Anglican Orders

Anglican holy orders include bishop, priest and deacons. Some priests may also be monks. In the Eastern churches these are called "hieromonks" and all bishops in the Eastern Orthodox churches are taken from the ranks of celibate monks. This is one of the differences between Anglican orders and Eastern Orthodox orders. Anglican and Eastern Orthodox orders differ also from Roman Catholic orders on the matter of celibacy.

Prior to the ordination of women priests, Anglican orders were more highly regarded by the hierarchs of both the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox churches. There is no doubt that this innovation devalued Anglican orders in the view of those churches and continues to be an obstacle to healthy intercourse within catholic Christendom. The innovation reveals a profound confusion among Anglicans about the nature and origin of the priesthood as a sign of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, our great High Priest. The ordination of women priests also suggests infidelity to the received tradition of the Apostles and the early priests of the Church who understood the nature of the priesthood better than we do today.


Anglican Orders and the Horite Priesthood

None of the twelve Apostles served as ruler-priests, as far as we know. Originally only priests belonging to prominent families were members of the Sanhedrin (bet din). A "prominent" family was one whose lineages could be traced back to Horite ruler-priests of renown. These members of the Sanhedrin served under the presidency of the high priest much as priests today served under the presidency of their bishop. The high priest bore the title nasi (ruler, king, prince) and retained this even after the presidency was transferred to other hands. Similarly, in Anglican orders there is an understanding that a bishop remains a bishop even after he has stepped down from serving in that office.

The second in charge was a ruler-priest who was called ab bet din (father of the court). The role of the ab bet din appears to have been a combination of the roles of the Bishop's chaplain and the chancellor of the Diocese who serves as the chief legal consultant to the Bishop.

The third century Rabbi Johanan enumerates the qualifications of the members of the Sanhedrin as follows: they must be tall, of imposing appearance, of advanced age, and scholars. They were also required to be adept in the use of foreign languages.

The only followers of Jesus that are known to be members of the Sanhedrin were James the Just, Nicodemus, and Joseph (of Arimathea, sic.) According to Mark 15:43, Joseph was bouleutēs (honorable counselor), that is, a member of the Jewish Sanhedrin. He was "waiting for the kingdom of God." Joseph's correct designation is "Hari-Mathea" which means he was of the Horite line of Matthew. In other words, he was a Horite ruler-priest of a prominent lineage. Apparently, he had business and family connections in the British Isles. Eusebius of Caesarea (A.D. 260–340) may have been referring to this connection in Demonstratio Evangelica when he reports that some of Jesus' earliest disciples "have crossed the Ocean and reached the Isles of Britain." Since a qualification of membership in the Sanhedrin was facility of languages, Joseph would have been able to communicate with the people of Britain.

As a ruler-priest Joseph would have appointed men who were qualified to serve as priests in Britain. Being of advanced age, he would have been older than Jesus and the disciples. This suggests that the priesthood came to Britain very early and is older than generally supposed. It must be nearly as early as the episcopacy of Evodius of Antioch (53–69 A.D.) and the episcopacy of James the Just of Jerusalem (d. 69 A.D.), but would likely precede the episcopacy of Linus of Rome (67-79 A.D.). If Joseph is the ruler-priest who brought the Christian priesthood to England, as tradition holds, Anglicans should regard the ruler-priest pattern as an essential aspect of Anglicanism.

Further, the legend concerning Joseph of Ari-Mathea coming to Britain has basis in science. Horite priests were among the Ainu and genetic studies have confirmed that the Ainu dispersed widely across the ancient Afro-Asiatic Dominion. Some came to the British Isles and from there some migrated to Finland, Greenland, Labrador and Eastern Canada.

Anthropological studies have shown that the Ainu were among Abraham's Nilotic ancestors. Further, Genesis 41 confirms that Joseph, the son of Jacob, married the daughter of a priest of On (Heliopolis) and On has been identified as an Ainu shrine city.

If Joseph as ruler-priest, member of the Sanhedrin, and a kinsman of Jesus Christ brought the Christian priesthood to Britain, Anglicans should be especially careful to preserve the Horite pattern of the priesthood.

American Anglicanism: Another Form of Evangelicalism?

One impression is that considerable sections of the new American Anglicanism constitute another form of evangelicalism, which typically tilts toward cultural norms such as contemporary music, streamlined liturgies, leniency toward divorce and remarriage, and interpretation of Scripture through a mainly Protestant lens. For these people tradition is less important and therefore more easily set aside.

It must seem so to most African Anglicans, who like the Nigerians, tend to be evangelical and far more sacramental than is often realized. The Nigerian bishops are orthodox on questions of human sexuality. They are serious about being “Lambeth Quadralateral Evangelicals” and they hold to the mainstream catholic understanding of Church, sacraments, and the male priesthood. Now there’s a godly balance!

There is also an impression that this movement might be calcifying. This can happen when a group wraps itself in a protective cloak and breathes its own stale air. Might this be happening with Anglicanism in America?

Young clergy must be encouraged to pursue God's truth without agenda or ideological bias. Truth must always be pursued by Christ’s followers if we are to avoid becoming a stagnant community. Truth is embodied in the God-Man Jesus Christ, in the Holy Scripture, and in Church Tradition as that was delivered once and for all to the Apostles and to the Church.

Most women who are priests in ACNA serve honorably and with hearts for Christ and his people. However, having been one myself, and having looked into the question more deeply, I wonder if these women priests were even aware of the strength of the tradition which binds them from priestly ministry? I know I was not at the time of my ordination, nor for many years after. In those days I had no one to talk to about my doubts, least of all my bishop who already had suspicions about me being a "maverick priest" - as he put it - because I was not going along with his gay rights agenda.


Ignorance and Confusion about Church Tradition

Many of the new Anglican clergy are Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail and lack deep understanding of Anglicanism. Some have done all their formal training outside of the Anglican tradition. So it is that questions about the Virgin Mary as “the Woman” of Gen. 3:15 are sometimes dismissed as “Anglo-Catholic.” This actually happened at a conference! When did Anglican clergy become dismissive of the Incarnation and the Virgin Mary’s role in fulfilling God’s promise?

The new clergy of the Anglican realignment appear to have a shallow understanding of the relation of Scripture and Holy Tradition. This will pose an obstacle in conversation with Roman Catholics and Orthodox, Anglicanism two best friends in its continued struggle to uphold church discipline. A friend attended an 8-week seminar lead by a new Anglican priest who didn’t want to address questions. He only wanted to give the approved evangelical answers. My friend confided: “Holy Tradition and the Ancient Faith were summarily dismissed by an ad hominem. After years of listening to priests of varying quality, very few of them have as much to say as they think they do. I think they need to tread carefully and listen and learn, starting with the ancients, but they can't get their egos out of the way to recognize that.”

There is the problem of former Episcopalians who, like myself, never could find a high church orthodox parish. Here in Kentucky the choices are either the Episcopal churches (hopelessly revisionist) or “happy clappy” low church congregations. Bishop John Rodgers famously said "the real difference in the Church today isn't between those who are high-church and those who are low-church, but between those who believe Jesus' tomb is really empty and those who don't." That may be the most important difference, but it does not mean the difference between high church Anglican worship and evangelical Anglican worship does not matter. It matters because of the inextricable linkage of prayer and belief. It matters very much to me that there is not a single catholic Anglican parish in my state.

A friend expressed my sentiments well in these words: “What the Episcopal Church has become and what its replacement is just breaks my heart and challenges my soul.” He is a mature and intelligent person with a profound understanding of the nature of the priesthood. While exploring the priestly vocation, he looked into different divinity schools, but received a “severely negative reaction” when he expressed to his Anglican priest his preference for Harvard over Trinity School for Ministry. At Harvard the circle of discussion is wider, his career options less limited, and given the wide range of viewpoints, nobody thinks it strange that he should select Harvard over a seminary that trains women to be priests contrary to the tradition of the Church Fathers.

Another friend is helping her struggling AMIA parish through a clergy search process. She reports that the list of candidates is small and dismal. She wonders why her bishop won’t approve a retired ECUSA priest who already worships with them. He is theologically sound and experienced. Could it be that the ECUSA label is enough to block his approval? That happens when a church becomes so sensitive to past problems that it can’t embrace the newness of each day.

Anglicanism in America is at a critical place historically. It needs to find balance between Evangelicalism and Catholicism; and between Scripture and Holy Tradition. It needs to settle the issue of women’s ordination, which means struggling to understand the origins of the priesthood and to shape priestly ministry according to that divine ordinance. And it must restore the undivided Trinity as the central focus of worship.

Planting churches and inviting people to commit their lives to Jesus Christ is a very good thing, but a calcified church won’t hold people. They will want to move to a deeper understanding of the Son of God and the mystery of the Trinity. They will want to see Him in the sacraments and in the life of the Body. They will want clergy who aren’t afraid of Truth regardless of where it is found, and they will want to breathe fresh air.


Some Promising Signs

One promising sign is the cooperation between Trinity and Nashotah House. The Rev. Dr. Robert S. Munday in a VOL interview said: “One thing that gives our two schools a close affinity is that I was a faculty member and associate dean at Trinity for 15 years before coming to Nashotah House as Dean. Father Doug McGlynn, our Seminary Sub-Dean at Nashotah House, taught on Trinity's faculty as well. Fr. Arnold Klukas, our professor of Liturgy and Spirituality has taught at Trinity also. So we have lots of ties and friendships between the faculties of the two schools.

We have hosted Trinity's entire faculty for a visit at Nashotah House, and our faculty looks forward to reciprocating with a visit to Trinity in the future. There is a warm fellowship and collegiality between the members of both faculties, and we are often involved with the same mission agencies, speak at the same conferences, and cooperate in all sorts of ways.”

There are signs of sharing between evangelicals and the traditionally Anglo-Catholic dioceses of Fort Worth, San Joachin and Quincy, including a recent A.M.I.A. ordination by Bishop "Doc" Loomis in Peoria. When Bishop Alberto Morales of the Diocese of Quincy heard that AMIA wanted to start a church plant in his see city, he encouraged them. He recognizes that AMIA is culturally different to Anglo-Catholicism, and capable of reaching people for the Lord who might not be attracted to the more formal Anglican worship. Bishop Alberto generously offered St Andrew's Peoria, his largest Anglo-Catholic church for the ordination. Bishop "Doc" Loomis preached and presided at the ordination of his newest clergyman. Bishop Alberto celebrated a Pontifical Mass "the Quincy way" with smells and bells to delight the hearts of Anglo-Catholics. Bishop Alberto had intended simply to sit in quire, but his participation with Bishop Loomis set the tone for the kind of cooperation that will enable Anglicanism in America to further the cause of the Kingdom of God.


Related reading: Women Priests and the Anglican Church of North America; Consensus that Women Priests Must Be Addressed; Modernist-Traditionalist Divide in Anglicanism; God as Male Priest; What's Lost When Women Serve as Priests?; Why Women Were Never Priests; Ideologies Opposed to Holy Tradition

Passing Conversation with Priestess Kaeton

Alice C. Linsley


While doing research on the recent history of the Episcopal Church I came across this blog hosted by a well-known Episcopal "priestess" who is also lesbian.  She proudly lists many of the men and women who each in their small way contributed to the demise of the Episcopal Church in the USA. (I include myself, since I too consented to being ordained and spouted the party line for far too long.) Elizabeth Kaeton did the research for me. The main characters are all listed at her blog. I should have copied the list and moved on, but I took a moment to comment and that led to this passing conversation. Perhaps readers of Just Genesis will find it interesting and instructive.


Alice: These women are "priests" in name only. I'm sad for them, not celebrating.


Elizabeth: You may not like the fact that they are priests, but that doesn't change the fact that they are priests, Alice. I'm sad for you.


Alice:  Okay. We'll be sad for each other and let the Lord sort it out. However, as the priesthood is based on an unchanging celestial pattern which presents God as male priest from time immemorial, there is certainly reason to investigate the nature of their "priesthood."


Elizabeth: Investigate all you want, my dear, but a fact is a fact. You can be sad about that fact. You'll excuse me, however, and millions of others, as we rejoice and give thanks and praise to God who never limits the power of the Holy Spirit to call those who are equipped for the ministry of ordained service in the Church beyond barriers of gender, race, age, and sexual orientation.

Alice - I'm assuming you are from Lexington, KY (checked my sitemeter). Bishops Sauls, right? Very supportive. You must either not be Episcopalian, or you are in one of the schismatic Anglican-wanna-be churches from the Global South or you are Roman Catholic.

So, what's a nice "orthodox" girl like you doing in a place like this? I mean, what do you expect?

If you need to feel "sad", then I suppose you could come here and 'tut tut' but why waste your time? Why not invest it in being the best orthodox woman you can be - and be happy?

God's peace and joy to you on the eve of the Second Sunday in the most joyous season of Easter.


Alice: I was ordained to the priesthood by Allan Bartlett in the Diocese of Pennsylvania and personally knew Geralyn Wolf, Barbara Harris, Mary Glasspool and many others. I knew these women to be caring and sincere people. This isn't about their (or your) character. It is about historical, anthropological, linguistic, and archaeological evidence.

Bishop Sauls was my bishop. He was far from supportive. He doesn't support those who disagree with him, and you know that.

Do you ever get lonely out on that limb? You think that there are so many who hold your view, but it is a very small club. I never realized how small until I left TEC and began to explore the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches.

May the rising of the Son of God shine on your heart and illumine you.


Elizabeth: So, Alice, have you renounced your priesthood, too? If you have, I'm so sorry. If you haven't, why haven't you? I'm really curious to know.

Do you really doubt that God called you to ordained service because of "historical, anthropological, linguistic, and archaeological evidence"? Do you really doubt that the Holy Spirit can't work through all those human-made and human-defined barriers?

God called Esther and Ruth and Judith to leadership in community. They weren't ordained because of ancient, cultural misogyny.

Why else would Jesus choose Mary Magdalene to be the first to reveal himself after the resurrection, and make her the first evangelist?

No, I'm not lonely. At. All. I was, when I was RC and knowing that "the boys" had it all wrong. What looks to you like a limb is really a very strong branch of the tree of apostolic faith.

And, no, I don't know "that" about Stacy Sauls. I find him to be eloquent and articulate and strong defender of the faith.

See also: not lonely.


Elizabeth: Alice - never mind. I just googled you and now know who you are. Gave up your orders when +V Gene Robinson was ordained.

You have the courage of your convictions and took the high road. Good for you.

If you are comfortable with your decision, why come over to blogs like mine? Why read an essay about ordained women? Why did you feel it necessary to comment - and take a pot shot about "being lonely"?

Sounds like things are not completely settled in your soul. I will pray for your continued strength and discernment, my sister.

_______________________________

Dear readers, do you see the flaw in her logic? She begins by asserting that women priests is a new thing to which the Episcopal Church was guided by the Holy Spirit. If this is so, why try to establish precedent by listing women: Esther, Ruth, Judith, and Mary Magdalene, none of whom were priests. Not a single female can be found in the Bible who was a priest. Neither can a woman priest be identified in the history of the Church, despite frantic theories about "Junia" and "Presbytera."

To be fair to Elizabeth, I suggested that she might want to respond to this. I wrote:

Elizabeth, I've responded to your questions here...

See the links under "related reading."

You might want to respond to this at your blog. I'll link my post back to your response. That would make a fair hearing for your readers and mine.

Best wishes,
Alice


Here is her response:

Thank you, Alice.

I've already read lots of your stuff. Well, enough to know your position, which is nothing new. It's the same-old-same-old tired stuff I heard when I was growing up in the RC Church and among Greek Orthodox in my neighborhood.

They (and now, people like you who hold to this position about WO) will argue something like the 'fact' that TEC is not keeping the "proper tension" between Scripture and Tradition.

And, I will argue that you are not keeping the 'proper tension' between Scripture and Tradition and the on-going revelation of the Holy Spirit.

Indeed, I would argue that your argument is a testimony to spiritual cowardice, hiding behind a wall of scripture and tradition because you are so afraid of what the Holy Spirit still has to reveal.

So, we'd volley back and forth like that, to what end? This conversation is over, having been decided by the church for going on two generations in the church. Even the folks at SFiF will not allow a discussion of WO. Why on earth should I give you a forum for your position, outdated and irrelevant to the life of this branch of the church as it is?

I wish you well, Alice. I can only believe that this request for conversation on my blog comes from the heart of one who is in a place of desperate spiritual loneliness and in deep need of affirmation for what must have been - and continues to be, obviously, from your request - a difficult and painful decision based on a 'reaction' (vs a 'response') to the consecration of +VGR.

I pray for your eventual healing, your acceptance of the consequences of your decision, and the joy of your new relationship with God in Christ.


In other words, she won't engage the issue; again proving that Dialogue with Revisionists is Impossible.



Related reading:  Response to Elizabeth Kaeton's Comments; What is a Priest?; Why Women Were Never Priests; Growing Consensus that WO Must be Addressed; What's Lost When Women Serve as Priests?; Telling My Story: A Priestess Comes to Repentance; The Bible as 'The Woman's' Story; Women Rulers in Ancient Israel; Sweeping Away Gender and the Biblical Worldview; All Isn't Well in TEC; Why TEC Hates the Nigerians

Shepherd Priests

Dr. Alice C. Linsley

The ruler-priests among Abraham's people had two wives who lived in separate settlements with separate flocks. Together these constituted the extent of the ruler's kingdom. There were practical reasons for this practice. In the event of attack, the ruler's line was more likely to survive if divided into two camps. This very fear of being "cut off from the earth" motivated Jacob to divide his household into two groups when returning to Canaan (Gen. 32).

Horus, who was called "son" of the Creator, was believed to be the uniter of two lands (the Upper and Lower Nile). In ancient Egyptian he is called HR, meaning Most High One. One of his titles was Har-pa-Neb-Taui, which means "Horus of the Two Lands." He was regarded as the patron of kings and the Great Shepherd.

The early Hebrew were shepherd priests. The signs of their authority were the shepherd's crook and the flail or the staff (matteh) and the rod (shebet).  Many of these rulers bore a Horus name because they believed that their king was divinely appointed to enforce divine law as an earthly representative of Horus. Great care was taken in the preparation of the dead king's body in hope that he might be the righteous ruler who would overcome death and lead his people to immortality.

The rulers of Egypt kept flocks and acknowledged that Jacob's people were especially skilled shepherds. This is why Pharaoh asked Joseph to put the best shepherd of Jacob's clan in charge of the royal flocks (Gen. 47:6). Moses' father married according to the pattern of the early Hebrew ruler-priests. He too was a shepherd priest. One of Amram's daughters grew up around her father's water shrine and she married a Hur, a Horite Hebrew ruler. Hur is a Horus name.

The shepherd-priests kept sheep to offer in sacrifice and they often sacrificed at the sheep cotes which were sacred places in the ancient world. The shepherds slept at the sheep cotes, guarding the doors with their rods to protect the flock from predators. This is the background to Jesus' statements about being the door in John 10:9-15:

Jesus said, "I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep. He who is a hired hand, and not a shepherd, who is not the owner of the sheep, sees the wolf coming, and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me-- even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep."

Sheep were also sacrificed at threshing floors. David, the shepherd who tended his father's flocks, offered sacrifices at the threshing floor of the Jebusite Araunah. Threshing floors were also regarded as sacred spaces in the ancient world.

Joachim, the Virgin Mary's father, was a shepherd-priest. Even those who rejected Jesus as Messiah recognized that Mary was the daughter of a ruler-priest. In the Talmud we read: “She who was the descendant of princes and governors played the harlot with carpenters.” (Sanhedrin 106a)

Jesus, the Good Shepherd, speaks of having other sheep in another fold (John 10:16). The two folds are often cast as dispensations: one consisting of those who lived in expectation of the Son of God (Abraham's people) and the other being the witnesses of His resurrection (the Church). Together these comprise the Kingdom of God.

Jesus, born in Bethlehem of David, comes from a long line of shepherd-priests. Mary’s father Joachim was a priest, and the Protoevangelium of James says that he kept flocks. The priests of old maintained shrines at water systems or wells where they watered their flocks. Moses tended the flocks of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian. It was at Jethro's well that Moses first met his future wife, Zipporah. Abraham's servant found Rebecca at a well and Jacob first encountered Rachel at a well. Jesus encounters the first convert, a Samaritan woman known as Photini, at Jacob's well.

The association of sheep with the Son of God is found throughout the Bible and takes the Horite shepherd-priests as its pattern. In Scripture, God is depicted as the Shepherd of Israel (ex: Psalm 80:1) and the priests of Israel are commanded to be good shepherds of the flock.

The ruler-priests among Abraham's ancestors were shepherds. The signs of their authority have been found in pre-dynastic wall paintings at Hierakonpolis, the site of the oldest known Horite religious practices (4200 B.C.). Priests placed invocations to Horus at the summit as the first rays of the sun came over the eastern horizon. Of particular interest is the tomb painting of two men who carry crooked staffs with objects that look like flails, suggesting that they might have been ruler-priests. Their bodies are painted with red ochre, an almost universal practice among holy men before the Axial Age.

It was to the shepherds of Bethlehem, a Horite Hebrew settlement (I Chronicles 4:4; 1 Chronicles 2:54), that God sent the first message of the fulfillment of the promise made to their ancestors in Eden (Gen. 3:15). In God's economy, which always gets the order of things right, the descendants of the people who first tasted paradise are the first to hear the news of deliverance and restoration.


Related reading: The Hebrew Were a Caste; Sheep Cotes as Sacred Spaces; Ancient Moral Codes; Jesus: From Lamb to Ram; Threshing Floors and Solar Symbols; The Two Brides of Christ; The Pattern of Two Wives; Horite and Sethite Mounds