Cherie Blair has urged the Anglican and Catholic churches to stop “marginalising” women or face terminal decline.
“Today, while women remain marginalised, Christianity cannot flourish. Women and men must be equal partners for 21st century Christianity,” she said.
Her forthright remarks, in a programme she presents tonight on Channel 4, marks an escalation in her campaign to change the culture of the church.
She is one of the most influential lay figures in the church, a position which has been enhanced by her husband’s conversion to Catholicism after he stepped down as prime minister.
“Down the centuries, women have formed the backbone of faith communities,†she says. “Until the churches fully resolve their relationship with the female half of the population, how can they expect Christianity to have a future in the modern world?â€
The fact that down through the centuries women have formed the backbone of christianity is indisputable. Their accomplishments and piety are beyond question. What bothers me is what logic would rend them from this enviable position in the Church? Only in a civilization where one thinks that one person bossing another person around as a requirement for equality are there such demands made. It recognises neither creation nor charity nor grace.
Mrs. Blair is in error.
Don
I am a conservative woman in the church. Ms. Blair is correct. Women are marginalized in most churches, particularly if we are including all christian churches in the formula. Sure, some branches of the church are more inclusive of women but could that be because they are also inclusive of all sorts of things. Women have been thrown into the pile. Regardless of the rhetoric that always comes forth on these issues — the place of females in the church is not the same as that of the place of practicing homosexuals in the church. When the statement is made that women are marginalized it is not just about ordaining women to clergy positions.
#2, julia, in your opinion, what else is included in “marginalizing women,” since you say it’s “not just about ordaining women to clergy positions”? I don’t think that’s “marginalization,” myself, but I’d like to know what you think is included besides that.
From what I’ve seen, half to most leadership positions in American Catholic Churches are filled with women. Besides ordaining women, which is impossible for the Catholic Church, I’m not sure what Mrs. Blair is saying.
Sheesh. In the C of E and TEC, from my observation, it appears as if these days the institution exists by, of, and for women, not men.
#4,
She may be referring to the notion that the major decisions in the various churches are made by men, even if women might be the ones who run the church on a daily basis.
I don’t see women being “marginalized” by either the AC or the RC churches.
In the AC- women serve on vestries, are ordained as deacons and priests, in America they are even consecrated as bishops. Women’s Guild’s and leagues provide the backbone of most parish life and they have been acknowledged for their work. (This is not rendering an opinion on the appropriateness of WO just pointing out how off-base Ms. Blair is in her comments.)
In the RC- the highest regarded Saint in both the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic Church’s is the Blessed Virgin Mary. The last two pronounced dogmas of the Roman Catholic Church had to do with Mary’s Immaculate Conception and The Blessed Virgin’s bodily Assumption into Heaven. So much devotion is offered to St. Mary, especially in the Roman Church that many protestant bodies have in the past (mistakenly) condemned it as idol worship or an attempt to place the Virgin Mary too close to the Triune God.
While women are not ordained in the RC, the priest shortage has meant that many parishes are for all intents and purposes administered by nuns. The RC parish my wife and I attended for awhile had the Sister in charge helping with the logistics of the liturgy (composing the prayers of the people, making lector and intercessor assignments) and teaching classes several nights a week. Outside of presiding at the Eucharist, (and a great many women participate in the distribution of the Eucharist as Extaordinary Ministers of the Eucharist- incorrectly called Lay Eucharistic Ministers) many parishes are run almost completely by females.
Ms. Blair’s opinion doesn’t seem to hold water with the facts on the ground.
Well, Mrs. Blair got her husband to leave a church that ordained women to go to one that doesn’t. Rome has seen countless liberals like her/him do this and has decided that they’re all talk and no walk.
Perhaps our generation is privileged to see why the Bible is as patriarchal as it is: not because men force women into patriarchy, but women seem to volunteer for it whenever they get the chance.
Why is it that the first thing a convert to a different denomination does is “dis” the new denomination for not doing things like they did in their former denomination?
If they liked the former so well, why did they leave it????
9. libraryjim wrote:
“Why is it that the first thing a convert to a different denomination does is “dis†the new denomination for not doing things like they did in their former denomination?”
An excellent point. I have been required to sojourn with the Lutherans for a while and I went into the deal wanting to be the best Lutheran that God could make me. Yeh, there is a couple of things that I couldn’t handle but in christian charity we came to a compromise or understanding on both and I believe we are both better for it. BUT I NEVER demanded or even requested that they change.
Don
#9 and #10 I don’t understand the relevance of your comments. Cherie Blair is not a convert. She is a cradle Catholic.
Surely the missing people in the church are young, upwardly mobile men. The church is OVER feminised…crieky. The last thing it needs is MORE girl power!
I completely agree, rpp #12! And I’m a woman. The Church has been feminized. It is evident in all aspects of Church ministry: lectors, altar servers, eucharistic ministers (you know- those “extraordinary” ministers of the eucharist to be used only if the numbers coming forward for communion represent an undue burden on the priest). I have and intend to continue to refrain from these high profile positions out of principle. Men and boys need to be encouraged to fill these posts. Then perhaps we would see vocations to the priesthood grow! It also doesn’t help that the music, despite it’s apparently male authorship seems tailor made for a 6th grade girl’s favorite song list.
Not clear what exactly Cherie Blair wants. Is it immediate consecration of the revisionist women regarded as leading candidates for the episcopacy?
ECUSA’s experience should sound a cautionary note. Revisionist female bishops have been at least as much of a disaster for ECUSA as revisionist male bishops. Think Jane Holmes Dixon, Barbara Harris, Carol Gallagher, and KJS. These female faces haven’t sufficed to keep women in ECUSA (and consecrating the likes of Susan Russell and Elizabeth Kaeton would just accelerate the trend). In any event, KJS’ role as the public face of ECUSA has not nothing to stem the church’s decline. She talks inclusion and practices repulsion and expulsion.
Cofs,
I agree. My father once told me that whenever women enter into traditional male areas (secular and ecclesial), men for whatever reason retreat from those areas, surrendering them to the women. Look at the statistics for seminaries, women are starting to eclipse males. Even little boys are surrendering the positions of acolyte to the girls. It is not uncommon to see the sanctuary full of women, the pews full of old men and women. Is this simply male sinful bias? Or something more foundational in the male psyche? I believe its the latter. I don’t think its an accident that as Christianity has retreated culturally in our culture, the NFL has become the dominant sunday activity.
Pax,
Edward
Sorry for the typos above
Echoes of Spong’s arrogance: [i]’Christianity must change[/i] (obey me) [i]or die’![/i] Of course, fallen humanity being what it is, Christians historically have not always been fair to women. That said, Mrs Blair, of the liberal-Protestant-wannabe variety of RC (like the ‘Eucharistic ministers’ and nuns running parishes), sounds pseudo-hip, about 30 years out of date. (Compare the average age of the RC Women’s Ordination Conference to that of Pope Benedict’s fans. Traditionalism is a young phenom; 20th-century liberal Christianity is for old cranks.)
As has been written here, the mainline churches including liberal Anglo-American RC have deliberately feminised themselves and they [i]still[/i] lose people (yes, it effectively drives away men). And as Joseph Bottum has written, they may still have lots of members (the RCs and the Methodists do) but nobody takes these institutions seriously any more. (The US president doesn’t care what the United Church of Christ thinks of his policies.)
(Statistically it’s not true that the mainline Protestant ministry is now a woman’s job but it does seem that way.)
I think libraryjim was thinking of Tony Blair, who recently converted to Rome in name and IIRC shares the same liberal views as his wife, a born RC, and of many Anglicans.
In the [url=http://home.comcast.net/~acbfp/catholic.html]Catholic[/url] world East and West, except for well-off (and now older) people living in Protestant countries whence they get the idea, the question of women’s ordination… just doesn’t come up.
[url=http://home.comcast.net/~acbfp/index.html]High-church libertarian curmudgeon[/url]