Where Have All The Dmins Gone?

Ouch!

Poor Kieschnick was barely elected and some LCMS pastors were trying to charge him with syncretism (correct word??). I believe he prayed with some other pastors at a post 9-11 prayer service.

North

 

O sh*te it's the Tar Baby Synod! It wasn't Kieschnick, it was Benke. Kieschnick just rigged the rules so he is no longer accountable to anybody in his organization for his doctrinal utterances, and l'affaire Benke was the excuse for doing so.
Remember, North, from where I sit they're all--


(frantically stuffing worms into his mouth to keep from saying the dreaded ******* word)



Exeunt omnes.

 

I know about Benke but I think the President was also charged later dropped by some pastors.

Folks have learned more about the Synods than they care to. Okay everybody...........all together..................A Mighty Fortress is Our God.................

{For those of you who do not know much about Lutheranism beyond Davy & Goliath, Dr. Martin Luther wrote A Might Fortress. For those of you who might very well turn up on Jay Leno's man on the street quiz...................Dr. Martin Luther is not Dr. MLK the civil rights leader from the 60's.}.

North

 

Whatever it takes, Janko! Paul stated that he "beat his body" to keep it into subjection. Of course one understands that he wasn't physically beating himself, but speaking via analogy.

You can control the choice of words you use. What is paradoxical is to see those who purport to be highly educated, yet using the language of the gutter.

Well, its Sunday morning and I am feeling somewhat sermonic.

 

(Ptoo, ptoo.) Oh for crying out loud, Vladika. I did NOT say *******. Avert your eyes:








liberal







There. I said it. Filthy me.

 

Shame on you, Janko. This is indeed filthy language!

 

(frantically stuffing worms into his mouth to keep from saying the dreaded ******* word)



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Russell as you see a correlation should exist between academic attainment and language, why not search your closet for another honorary diploma to save poor Unk from decimatiing the earthworm population. I know it's a capitulation of our mores , but spoil the standards and spare the worms

 

Don't mind me. Concordia College (River Forest) is sacking faculty who oppose the ordination of women.

 

And what leads you to this conclusion. Beating ones own body is part of middle eastern culture today - anger or grieving or both. Why not 2,000 years ago?


Literal or figurative?? Slippery slope.

 

Physically beating one's body does not control the inward desires anymore than secluding one's self in a monastary destroys depraved human cravings. Paul, IMO, was speaking of the ongoing discipline (analogous of beating the body) which must take place in the believer's life.

 

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Unk:

Of course fundamentalism shares your view on women in minstry. When I was converted at 19 I joined Tim La Haye's pastorate where in the foyer Tim always kept John R Rice's diatribe called "Bobbed Hair, Bossy Wives, and Women Preachers." Tim was from Bob Jones. Rice's method was to cite a verse prohibiting women ministers or other forms of egalitarianism and go off on it with no textual exegesis or appraisal of the opposite view. We often got our theology from these booklets. Those were the days when opining from fundamental "scholars" and the Schofield Bible pretty much settled it for me. ( except re charismatics and the meaning of 1 Cor 13;8-10 , where for some reason I argued even then with their pontifications).

Now my circumstances are changed as I am an evangelical student. The issue of women ministers was brought very close to me as it affects my UZ thesis. Many hierarchicalists, you see, take the position based in 1 Corinthians 11:3 that a biblical proof of male dominance is the eternal trinal hierarchy wherein the Father orders the Son about. Grudem is an example. .Since my thesis is on trinal relationships , I cannot avoid examining this view. As an evangelical I have all about me some peers who espouse women in ministerial leadership. And I don't wish to fuss with these as evangelicalism has adherents on both sides. EG, ACCS has courses such as "Bible Women and Leadership Principles" and has on its board a woman bishop. Of course many scholarly evangelicals are egalitarian as FF Bruce. If we are counting heads, it's about equal!! But as a student I felt compelled to exegetically evaluate both positions, rather than count heads, since my thesis topic relates to the issue. . As I really feel corraled by no denomination, my primary criterion is Scripture not confessions or creeds or denominational practice or ,anymore ,opining by highly regarded ecclesiastics. I only need to please God and myself.

So, a while ago I decided to determine my own opinion on the subject since it became relevant to my thesis, even though no one cares about my opinion but me. I looked at such as the patristic writings and reformational confessions and ,of course, found these supportive of a masculine leadership in ministry. Then I carefully and exegetically and exhaustively weighed such egalitarian arguments as Jesus and women, Galatians 3:28, societal influences on apostolic dictums ,the meaning of Kephale (whether authority over or source) , female prophets as 1 Cor 11, women deaconesses as 1 Tim 3, women teachers as Prisilla, the meaning of elder, the meaning of teacher, the meaning of prophecy,women apostles as Romans 16 and so forth. I copied reams of material off the net on both positions...5 large binders full, and worked my way through it... and to my own satisfaction arrived ,through mainly exegesis, at an opinion and wrote a 60+page paper on it which cites about 130 scholarly resources.

Such are the joys of being a Bible student and having the freedom to study and decide for oneself.

My conclusion is not important, but what is important is that I've come a long way from building my theology on foyer booklets.

 

Personally, it's not a big ticket issue with me. Am I agin it? Sure. Combative about it--nope.
My point was that a certain group is purging people from theological teaching positions because they agree with the traditional point of view (right or wrong) within that group. And that ain't conservative.

 

That is, such a purge ain't conservative.

 

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That's a good point! No it seems wrong. But as you know, many theological schools require staff or even students to adhere to positions much more particularistic than mere "conservatism." Were it up to me there would be only the requisite for teachers to espouse 6 or 7 vital tenets. The ETS statement of belief I find comfortable to subscribe in writing to ( a requisite for membership) , and it does not address this issue of women in ministry at all. The seminary dean at ACCS has his doc from Oral Roberts, so I assume, he is egalitarian. Yet both he and I are ETS members , so we can concur on at least that standard. Consequently, I am not put off with the ACCS stance and the school's new program , but I would happily defend my opining on this subject with anyone who intends to base his/her argumentation on Scripture. I know that sounds presumptuous, but I don't mind being shown my error if anyone can do that.

 

Asceticism which included physical austerities was clearly practiced in the ancient near east, as is demonstrated by the history of very early Christian monasticism. The later Christian interest in martyrdom might reflect it as well.

Paul doesn't seem to have retired to a cave or to the top of a pillar, as did some of the champions of self-transcendence (his self-imposed role of evangelist wouldn't permit it), but that doesn't necessarily mean that he didn't practice austerities. (To some extent his lifestyle alone would have imposed them.) He does seem inordinately proud in some passages of all the beatings that he received for Christ.

I suppose that there is a large literature on this subject. To me, the interesting question is whether the ancients drew their distinctions precisely where we draw them today, when distinguishing between appropriate and inapproapriate austerities and between inner and outer disciplines.

 

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As usual, Bill, your post evidences a thoughtful response urging readers to more study.

Thanks,

 

Bill G: Truth in advertising!

I have no gripe with you or ACCS or any evangelical institution adjudicating this issue as appears best to them.

Any school purporting to be confessional Lutheran, however, does require very particular doctrinal assent. On paper, the group under discussion requires assent not only to the Book of Concord but to the published findings of that group's doctrinal commission (the CTCR). Those findings (again, right or wrong) are against the ordination of women. But people are being sacked for giving such assent, and the top leadership of the group has made it very plain that actions like this, fitting the category of pas d'ennemi a gauche, are above effective criticism.

So if adhering to traditional doctrine and practice makes a person unfit to teach in a denominationally controlled college (who is otherwise fit to do so)--can the group in question really be called conservative?

I do not believe so.

BTW, using a passage about intra-Trinitarian relations to prove a point about what is commonly called "male headship" strikes me as weird. I am no exegete, but that seems to imply a sexualization of the godhead which goes well beyond biblical norms of speech.

 

Asceticism which does not threaten monergistic justification is an adiaphoron; asceticism which does is works-righteousness. The amount or severity of the asceticism is beside the point.

 

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Unk

You've never encountered that argument? It appears at times in journals as JETS and on websites as Biblical Foundations for Manhood and in theologies as Grudems .

The issues in 1 Cor 11:3 include the meaning of 'kephale' (head) and 'Christ', and the context..

As for Kephale I believe it can be easily demonstrated, despite Brown's opinion in NDNT, 2:160, based on Grudem's search(see Trinity Journal spg, 1990; also 1985)of over 2,300 occasions of its usage in the LXX and secular literature, that the noun means "authority over." Even its NT usage as in Eph 1:23 supports this.

But 'Christ' is an incarnational term, so proves nothing concerning pretemporal trinal relationships.

The passage ,of course, concerns temporal, ecclesiastical issues, and is not intended to explicate eternal roles within the Trinity.

This is why when it is argued by Grudem (ST:459) that 1 Cor 11:3 means as the Son is eternally subject to the Father, so wives are to follow that example and be subject to husbands, I may agree with the concept, but definitely reject this particular exegesis upon which it is based.