another side to that is when they don’t laugh at you but look down your top, or ask you what underwear you are wearing!!! (don’t imagine i’m the only 1 that has happened to!)- how often do women vicars look towards a man’s crotch!!??
Comment by soniamain — February 9, 2008 @ 12:44 pm
Am I the only one who has noticed how much free labor is done in some church settings by women who “fawn” over their obviously closeted vicar or rector? (Wonder why rector sounds so similar to rectum and vicar sounds a bit like victim but that’s another post?) This presents a situation where the women who often seem starved for affection get to flirt in a socially acceptable manner and the priest can do likewise because it’s obvious to all that his marriage is a sham and like all humans, he needs to vent his sexuality somehow but doesn’t know how to do it because he’s so repressed that he can’t deal with the fact that he’s gay. I see this all the time in the US Episcopal church.
Then you have the holy hipsters – emergent church rock star and their godly giggle groupies – I see that more in the states among those dudes who are on tour peddling their books – even the seemingly nice guys can get caught up in that phenomenon. (oops, this is another potential cartoon here.)
Neither set of men can deal with women as equals – duh.
Becky, this is so true. Try transposing the situation to a celiabate priesthood. In every Catholic church I know the priest is surrounded by his little coven of groupies. Typically, elderly, widowed, spinster or women in dysfunctional marriages. There are some unholy catfights that break out among these ‘godly’ women when the green-eyed monster rears its head.
But yes, the women run the church by organising everything, doing pastoral visits, setting up prayer initiatives, even cooking/cleaning for the priest! But if they feel they have a priestly vocation? “But you are doing such a wonderful job laundering the altar cloths” The sad thing is that we have welcomed the Anglicans who jumped ship following the ordination of women (well, it gave a quick boost to our dwindling priest figures), so the possibility of women priests in the Catholic church is nil. We’ve had our noses rubbed in the brown stuff twice over with this – most of the Anglicans who were welcomed were married – but hey, no married priests either. Meanwhile we are losing priests at a rate of knots. One of the drawbacks of a priest-centric church. Wonder what God is trying to tell us?
Jon, are you thinking of women in ministry or women in general. Oop north, the church is (generally) run by women (on a local level) for women. You don’t get men in church as it’s not manly. They play rugby or football on a sunday morning and their wives lament the fact that they can’t get their husband into church. I personally can’t find much excitement in the prospect of aranging flowers and organising tea and biscuits.
I do have one male friend who became a disciple because his wife asked him to move a fridge for the drop in centre. That is a manly activity – get in your rusty van and carry stuff.
Anyhow, I’m off to the pub to leer at women!!
PS – My wife is reading over my shoulder and instructs me to tell you that she will be joining me in this manly activity
Well, Sas, that largely depends on the type of pub. Cosy and traditional with open fire, yes. There is a sympathetically restored cow barn near me which is quite nice. I’m not really wild about chains with identical decor. Nor am I fussed about the spit and sawdust pubs replete with a rising damp problem in the loos.
Hi Sas – sadly I had to come home halfway through. My mum was very ill and died a couple of days after I arrived home. Spain seems a lifetime ago. Still, I waved daughter no. 1 off to Cadiz this morning and I am hoping to visit her for a couple of days when I can arrange it.
Thanks for prayers for my mum and also my friend Sarah in Kenya. The school that she is at brought half term a week forward and made it a 2 week break. They were able to travel to Nairobi in convoy and take a flight to the UK. We were able to spend an afternoon with the family yesterday, which was great. They are scheduled to return on Thursday if school re-opens. It depends on how political talks go. It may just be her husband and eldest son who return – they are not sure at the moment.
Oh, when I said ’sympathetically restored cow barn’, what I really meant was something like ‘rustic barn conversion’ – converted, of course, into a pub. Sorry, I was half asleep when I was writing. Or maybe I was a bit bemused by the idea of Robb’s wife joining him in the manly activity of leering at women down the pub!
Sas, don’t worry, no probs. The Spain thing was actually a teaching practice, so I’ve effectively lost a minimum of 2 weeks teaching. But there is no question that I got my priorities right. I’m in college tomorrow to see what I can salvage. I’ve been trusting in God throughout all of this so I will follow his guidance on this one and try not to get stressed (sometimes easier said than done, eh?). That is always assuming I can discern it -for ‘discernment’ read ‘limp on not knowing where I am going but assume everything will come good in the end’. I don’t envisage that I will be going back to Spain, though. Thanks for your interest, prayers and support – truly, it makes a difference to me.
I love your post Sonia, and keep thinking about it. I want to add to this bit, “- how often do women vicars look towards a man’s crotch!!??” – something about the way women refrain from teaming up to applaud each others bad behaviour or indifference to others feelings
Sonia, has someone actually asked what underwear you were wearing?
BTW, in my experiences with a bunch of trainee anglican priests, the girls were just as bad as the boys when it came to inapropriate comments. I have a video of a review night that shows that quite clearly when me and another trainee priest cracked a load of knob gags. I can’t comment on the older folks as we tended to stick together as young uns.
We did find that there was a huge generational difference. Women in their 50’s who were training for ministry were [generally] very angry and cynical about it all. In my generation we were brought up as equals so we always found it a little bemusing – both for men and women my age. I’ll never forget the day we left communion having been made to pray a repentance for “the evil that men do”. Both the men in my generation and the women in my generation found it impossible to pray as we hadn’t done any of the stuff it was talking about. It wasn’t my fault I was born with a penis.
I have only once met people who openly and actively [vehmously] oposed womens ministry. They were idiots – and the theology is easy to rip apart. You can’t beat Paul’s letters – [Imagine the epistle of Eddie Izzard] “I oppose womens ministry… except her ‘cos she’s good at it. But that’s it! No more… …what you want to preach too? OK then but you’re the last… Oh all right then, you can all have a go but wait your turn.”
For the record I’m married to a woman with a doctorate who has a career and a salary that is waaaay bigger than mine. I gave up my job, house and friends so that she could relocate to do her doctorate too. I’m a little aimless, hapless and hopeless at the minute and need to pick myself back up and get on the horse again… I guess that gives a certain perspective to where I am coming from.
This was a big issue for me when I was training for the ministry, even though there have been women clergy in my denomination, the Church of Scotland, since before I was born. I cried a fair few tears in the early days.
But now… now I REALLY have no problem with it. I never think of myself as a “woman minster” at all and am confident of my calling. And now I don’t (genuinely) have the slightest problem with those who would, if they were asked, oppose my ordination because of their understanding of the Bible. I totally respect it and I can see how they came to it, though I disagree with their reasoning, just as I can also see both sides of the infant/adult baptism debate and respect both postions. (Maybe I’m just the double-minded person James 1:8 talks about who is unstable!! Ok I know that’s out of context..)
Obvioulsy I don’t like when I’m confronted with someone ungracious who gives me verbal, but I have friends in most denominations and find the vast vast vast majority to be loving and gracious.
I also, of course, as a prison chaplain, work in a very macho “guys world”, and interestingly there just don’t find it an issue, although they were intrigued yesterday – I was wearing my clerical collar (only because I had been conducting a funeral) and they were amazed I had a pink clerical shirt. “Are you allowed pink?”, I was asked many times, even by staff!
But for my sisters who’re struggling, I do sympathise. I know it hurts a lot. Be faithful to God, and eventually the harshest opponent will find themselves thinking, “But what about (enter your name here)?”
I was thinking about this type of thing the other day (well, alot of days really) when I was thinking about why I just don’t want to be in a church any more.
I was thinking of an image of business MAN showing up at a church wanting to join up. People flock all over him, welcome him, ask him to lead this group or that, tell him they are glad he’s there.
Then…a business WOMAN shows up and basically gets the total opposite treatment. She is told she can go in the nursery,and teach sunday school or she can go to the “ladies” bible study (at 9am on a Tuesday) and learn how to be a Prov. 31 woman. No one encourages her leadership ability, asks her to lead anything etc…so she just leaves quietly and goes back to work. There’s no support group for her, no one to relate to her struggles (except the guys and then the women all feel threatened)
There’s a real difference in the way men and women who have leadership skills and talents are treated in churches.
And then they ask me to play guitar. This is so that I can be ripped in half on a Sunday by people who loved it and want to tell me and people who hated it because it wasn’t the organ and want to tell me
About the cartoon…It’s been my experience that many times in church circles it’s not the men who don’t take women seriously, although some times it is, but rather, the other women. There’s an acceptable way of being female in churches (have a husband, 2.5 perfectly behaved children, home school them, stay at home, have dinner on the table etc…) anyone that’s outside that “norm” get judged and looked down.
Intersting that you would say this. I have been talking about styles of leadership M/F with a couple of ordained friends recently. The ordained woman seemed to think (and we agreed that in our experience) that there is a correlation between bitchy schoolgirls who opperate a “I liked you yesterday but hate you today” policy and those women who are in ministry.
Her big beef was that when women in ministry do that it reflects badly on her and her female coleagues who don’t do this.
I think that what needs to happen is a generational shift. In 20 years it wont be unusual to see a women in ministry, it will be unusual to see a man. When something stops being unusual people will know how to react.
there is a correlation between bitchy schoolgirls who opperate a “I liked you yesterday but hate you today” policy and those women who are in ministry
Sorry posted this and the re-read it. It makes no sense. Try again…
There is a correlation between the proportions of teenage girls who are bitchy and opperate a “I liked you yesterday but hate you today” policy [there are many educational psych and educational thory books written about this]and the proportions of women in ministry who opperate a similar policy.
Robb, I’ve got a vagina but I don’t want to insult men.
I didn’t take your comment as an insult. Men can be pathetic, women can be bitchy. Like you say, give it 20 years, they’ll be lots more girly pastors out there.
Laura – with the church sitch. Crap! At least you’re shining a light for how it OUGHT to be.
hi Folks, looks like there’s loads to talk about still on this one, I can relate to Laura’s post about the expectations of women’s roles in church, many churches are little enclaves of ancient culture, which is why it’s great when a church is prepared to look at it’s own ‘culture’. Don’t give up folks, there’s interesting groups out there, and the Iona community and Greenbelt have tried to provide networks across the world for people who are interested in something different. http://www.iona.org.uk
Ah, yes…I’ve met him.
Comment by brunettekoala — February 9, 2008 @ 12:10 am
- and I keep blaming myself for being to serious
Comment by subo — February 9, 2008 @ 10:35 am
another side to that is when they don’t laugh at you but look down your top, or ask you what underwear you are wearing!!! (don’t imagine i’m the only 1 that has happened to!)- how often do women vicars look towards a man’s crotch!!??
Comment by soniamain — February 9, 2008 @ 12:44 pm
The vicar looks like a vicar I know! Ooooh…!
Comment by Mark Burgess — February 9, 2008 @ 3:24 pm
Although she does have a very strange nose…
Comment by DrNick — February 9, 2008 @ 4:18 pm
Just to say Hi Guys I’m back!
Computer been offline for a bit but fine now – love you all!
Sas x
To the vicar – if you don’t take women seriously you can **** off, I’ll go and find someone who does thank you very much.
Sas x
Comment by sarah — February 9, 2008 @ 5:45 pm
Hahahahahahaaaaa
Now there ya go Sarah! ****** off indeed.
Comment by Laura — February 10, 2008 @ 6:17 am
Isn’t that Dick Emery?
Comment by Steve — February 10, 2008 @ 7:29 am
Am I the only one who has noticed how much free labor is done in some church settings by women who “fawn” over their obviously closeted vicar or rector? (Wonder why rector sounds so similar to rectum and vicar sounds a bit like victim but that’s another post?) This presents a situation where the women who often seem starved for affection get to flirt in a socially acceptable manner and the priest can do likewise because it’s obvious to all that his marriage is a sham and like all humans, he needs to vent his sexuality somehow but doesn’t know how to do it because he’s so repressed that he can’t deal with the fact that he’s gay. I see this all the time in the US Episcopal church.
Then you have the holy hipsters – emergent church rock star and their godly giggle groupies – I see that more in the states among those dudes who are on tour peddling their books – even the seemingly nice guys can get caught up in that phenomenon. (oops, this is another potential cartoon here.)
Neither set of men can deal with women as equals – duh.
Comment by becky — February 10, 2008 @ 8:22 am
Becky, this is so true. Try transposing the situation to a celiabate priesthood. In every Catholic church I know the priest is surrounded by his little coven of groupies. Typically, elderly, widowed, spinster or women in dysfunctional marriages. There are some unholy catfights that break out among these ‘godly’ women when the green-eyed monster rears its head.
But yes, the women run the church by organising everything, doing pastoral visits, setting up prayer initiatives, even cooking/cleaning for the priest! But if they feel they have a priestly vocation? “But you are doing such a wonderful job laundering the altar cloths” The sad thing is that we have welcomed the Anglicans who jumped ship following the ordination of women (well, it gave a quick boost to our dwindling priest figures), so the possibility of women priests in the Catholic church is nil. We’ve had our noses rubbed in the brown stuff twice over with this – most of the Anglicans who were welcomed were married – but hey, no married priests either. Meanwhile we are losing priests at a rate of knots. One of the drawbacks of a priest-centric church. Wonder what God is trying to tell us?
Comment by Carole — February 10, 2008 @ 11:26 am
Jon, are you thinking of women in ministry or women in general. Oop north, the church is (generally) run by women (on a local level) for women. You don’t get men in church as it’s not manly. They play rugby or football on a sunday morning and their wives lament the fact that they can’t get their husband into church. I personally can’t find much excitement in the prospect of aranging flowers and organising tea and biscuits.
I do have one male friend who became a disciple because his wife asked him to move a fridge for the drop in centre. That is a manly activity – get in your rusty van and carry stuff.
Anyhow, I’m off to the pub to leer at women!!
PS – My wife is reading over my shoulder and instructs me to tell you that she will be joining me in this manly activity
Comment by Robb — February 10, 2008 @ 7:49 pm
Stupid emotes!!
Comment by Robb — February 10, 2008 @ 7:49 pm
Ah, I see that if I had read the thread before getting on my hobby horse
people have already started to get there. Do’h 
Comment by Robb — February 10, 2008 @ 7:51 pm
I’m a woman in ministry and I don’t have a dog collar.
I tend to, or minister to, Christ, in my friends, my colleagues, the Big Issue Vendor, the woman who grows my bananas.
We are ALL ministers. ALL of us.
Sas x
Comment by sarah — February 10, 2008 @ 8:24 pm
you’re right sas.
robb… i too am now off to the pub. you both have a nice time.
Comment by jonbirch — February 10, 2008 @ 9:12 pm
Aah.
Doncha just *love* the pub
Sas x
Comment by sarah — February 11, 2008 @ 12:07 am
Well, Sas, that largely depends on the type of pub. Cosy and traditional with open fire, yes. There is a sympathetically restored cow barn near me which is quite nice. I’m not really wild about chains with identical decor. Nor am I fussed about the spit and sawdust pubs replete with a rising damp problem in the loos.
Comment by Carole — February 11, 2008 @ 7:40 am
Hey Carole! Hi! How are ya- saw you at Sanctuary last night and forgot about Spain etc – you still there?
Sas xxx
BTW, Moo!
Comment by sarah — February 11, 2008 @ 9:15 am
Hi Sas – sadly I had to come home halfway through. My mum was very ill and died a couple of days after I arrived home. Spain seems a lifetime ago. Still, I waved daughter no. 1 off to Cadiz this morning and I am hoping to visit her for a couple of days when I can arrange it.
Thanks for prayers for my mum and also my friend Sarah in Kenya. The school that she is at brought half term a week forward and made it a 2 week break. They were able to travel to Nairobi in convoy and take a flight to the UK. We were able to spend an afternoon with the family yesterday, which was great. They are scheduled to return on Thursday if school re-opens. It depends on how political talks go. It may just be her husband and eldest son who return – they are not sure at the moment.
Oh, when I said ’sympathetically restored cow barn’, what I really meant was something like ‘rustic barn conversion’ – converted, of course, into a pub. Sorry, I was half asleep when I was writing. Or maybe I was a bit bemused by the idea of Robb’s wife joining him in the manly activity of leering at women down the pub!
Comment by Carole — February 11, 2008 @ 11:25 am
Hi Carole,
I didn’t put two and two together. Sorry.
Will you redo the Spanish thing at some point? Was it for your teaching?
Love you very much.
Glad Sarah OK. Peter and most of his family seem to be OK – no news is good news – and the last news heard, easing up a bit.
I think prayers have made a difference.
Wait to hear from Pete.
Love to you all and Blessings,
Sas x
Comment by sarah — February 11, 2008 @ 12:15 pm
that’s good news sas.
Comment by jonbirch — February 11, 2008 @ 6:19 pm
Yeah ’tis. Thanks Jon.
Sas x
Comment by sarah — February 11, 2008 @ 11:24 pm
Sas, don’t worry, no probs. The Spain thing was actually a teaching practice, so I’ve effectively lost a minimum of 2 weeks teaching. But there is no question that I got my priorities right. I’m in college tomorrow to see what I can salvage. I’ve been trusting in God throughout all of this so I will follow his guidance on this one and try not to get stressed (sometimes easier said than done, eh?). That is always assuming I can discern it -for ‘discernment’ read ‘limp on not knowing where I am going but assume everything will come good in the end’. I don’t envisage that I will be going back to Spain, though. Thanks for your interest, prayers and support – truly, it makes a difference to me.
Will keep Peter and his loved ones in my prayers.
With much love,
Carole x
Comment by Carole — February 12, 2008 @ 12:01 am
Thank you for understanding the position we’re in
.
Comment by Amy Gustafson — February 12, 2008 @ 6:01 am
interesting to note this cartoon proceeds one on the Sanctuary Blog, which quotes Jesus’ challenging the stoning of a woman as the related text.
Comment by su — February 12, 2008 @ 10:25 am
I love your post Sonia, and keep thinking about it. I want to add to this bit, “- how often do women vicars look towards a man’s crotch!!??” – something about the way women refrain from teaming up to applaud each others bad behaviour or indifference to others feelings
Comment by subo — February 12, 2008 @ 10:37 am
Sonia, has someone actually asked what underwear you were wearing?
BTW, in my experiences with a bunch of trainee anglican priests, the girls were just as bad as the boys when it came to inapropriate comments. I have a video of a review night that shows that quite clearly when me and another trainee priest cracked a load of knob gags. I can’t comment on the older folks as we tended to stick together as young uns.
We did find that there was a huge generational difference. Women in their 50’s who were training for ministry were [generally] very angry and cynical about it all. In my generation we were brought up as equals so we always found it a little bemusing – both for men and women my age. I’ll never forget the day we left communion having been made to pray a repentance for “the evil that men do”. Both the men in my generation and the women in my generation found it impossible to pray as we hadn’t done any of the stuff it was talking about. It wasn’t my fault I was born with a penis.
I have only once met people who openly and actively [vehmously] oposed womens ministry. They were idiots – and the theology is easy to rip apart. You can’t beat Paul’s letters – [Imagine the epistle of Eddie Izzard] “I oppose womens ministry… except her ‘cos she’s good at it. But that’s it! No more… …what you want to preach too? OK then but you’re the last… Oh all right then, you can all have a go but wait your turn.”
For the record I’m married to a woman with a doctorate who has a career and a salary that is waaaay bigger than mine. I gave up my job, house and friends so that she could relocate to do her doctorate too. I’m a little aimless, hapless and hopeless at the minute and need to pick myself back up and get on the horse again… I guess that gives a certain perspective to where I am coming from.
Comment by Robb — February 12, 2008 @ 12:39 pm
word for word this cartoon is a depiction of what happened to someone close to me.
Comment by jonbirch — February 12, 2008 @ 3:00 pm
robb. i like where you’re coming from.
Comment by jonbirch — February 12, 2008 @ 3:01 pm
This was a big issue for me when I was training for the ministry, even though there have been women clergy in my denomination, the Church of Scotland, since before I was born. I cried a fair few tears in the early days.
But now… now I REALLY have no problem with it. I never think of myself as a “woman minster” at all and am confident of my calling. And now I don’t (genuinely) have the slightest problem with those who would, if they were asked, oppose my ordination because of their understanding of the Bible. I totally respect it and I can see how they came to it, though I disagree with their reasoning, just as I can also see both sides of the infant/adult baptism debate and respect both postions. (Maybe I’m just the double-minded person James 1:8 talks about who is unstable!! Ok I know that’s out of context..)
Obvioulsy I don’t like when I’m confronted with someone ungracious who gives me verbal, but I have friends in most denominations and find the vast vast vast majority to be loving and gracious.
I also, of course, as a prison chaplain, work in a very macho “guys world”, and interestingly there just don’t find it an issue, although they were intrigued yesterday – I was wearing my clerical collar (only because I had been conducting a funeral) and they were amazed I had a pink clerical shirt. “Are you allowed pink?”, I was asked many times, even by staff!
But for my sisters who’re struggling, I do sympathise. I know it hurts a lot. Be faithful to God, and eventually the harshest opponent will find themselves thinking, “But what about (enter your name here)?”
Ax
Comment by AnneDroid — February 12, 2008 @ 8:09 pm
Cool Anne
Sas x
Comment by sarah — February 12, 2008 @ 10:11 pm
you’re allowed pink, anne? shocking!
Comment by jonbirch — February 13, 2008 @ 12:05 am
I was thinking about this type of thing the other day (well, alot of days really) when I was thinking about why I just don’t want to be in a church any more.
I was thinking of an image of business MAN showing up at a church wanting to join up. People flock all over him, welcome him, ask him to lead this group or that, tell him they are glad he’s there.
Then…a business WOMAN shows up and basically gets the total opposite treatment. She is told she can go in the nursery,and teach sunday school or she can go to the “ladies” bible study (at 9am on a Tuesday) and learn how to be a Prov. 31 woman. No one encourages her leadership ability, asks her to lead anything etc…so she just leaves quietly and goes back to work. There’s no support group for her, no one to relate to her struggles (except the guys and then the women all feel threatened)
There’s a real difference in the way men and women who have leadership skills and talents are treated in churches.
Bugs me a bit. Can you tell?
Comment by Laura — February 14, 2008 @ 7:02 am
i’d never have guessed.
it would bug me!
Comment by jonbirch — February 14, 2008 @ 9:25 am
It bugs Jesus too.
Sas x
Comment by sarah — February 14, 2008 @ 9:53 pm
And yet my experience is that I get asked to teach the kids…
Comment by Robb — February 14, 2008 @ 10:15 pm
that’s probarbly cos you look like you’d be down wiv da yoof robb! i always get asked to play the piano… i think it’s cos it keeps me quiet!
Comment by jonbirch — February 15, 2008 @ 12:25 am
And then they ask me to play guitar. This is so that I can be ripped in half on a Sunday by people who loved it and want to tell me and people who hated it because it wasn’t the organ and want to tell me
Comment by Robb — February 16, 2008 @ 3:51 pm
Rob –
About the cartoon…It’s been my experience that many times in church circles it’s not the men who don’t take women seriously, although some times it is, but rather, the other women. There’s an acceptable way of being female in churches (have a husband, 2.5 perfectly behaved children, home school them, stay at home, have dinner on the table etc…) anyone that’s outside that “norm” get judged and looked down.
Comment by Laura — February 16, 2008 @ 8:49 pm
Wifeys attitude is firk them…
Intersting that you would say this. I have been talking about styles of leadership M/F with a couple of ordained friends recently. The ordained woman seemed to think (and we agreed that in our experience) that there is a correlation between bitchy schoolgirls who opperate a “I liked you yesterday but hate you today” policy and those women who are in ministry.
Her big beef was that when women in ministry do that it reflects badly on her and her female coleagues who don’t do this.
I think that what needs to happen is a generational shift. In 20 years it wont be unusual to see a women in ministry, it will be unusual to see a man. When something stops being unusual people will know how to react.
We live in interesting times
Comment by Robb — February 17, 2008 @ 12:25 am
there is a correlation between bitchy schoolgirls who opperate a “I liked you yesterday but hate you today” policy and those women who are in ministry
Sorry posted this and the re-read it. It makes no sense. Try again…
There is a correlation between the proportions of teenage girls who are bitchy and opperate a “I liked you yesterday but hate you today” policy [there are many educational psych and educational thory books written about this]and the proportions of women in ministry who opperate a similar policy.
Comment by Robb — February 17, 2008 @ 12:29 am
Adenda pu denda…
I now have to give my usual disclaimers…
I am pro women (in general)
I am all for women in ministry (as many as poss)
I have many women minister friends (many… I trained with them and I respect them more than me)
I am married to a women who is better qualified and earns more than me (really)
I don’t like a lot of things than men stereotypically do. The topic isn’t any of these things… sorry…
[this is the other problem with this topic, if you have a penis you have to spend 1/2 hr appologising for tiking part in the debate...]
Comment by Robb — February 17, 2008 @ 12:34 am
Robb -
no apology needed.
I was thinking not so much about women ministers as I don’t actually know any of them, but just regular church ladies.
Comment by Laura — February 17, 2008 @ 6:16 am
Robb, I’ve got a vagina but I don’t want to insult men.
I didn’t take your comment as an insult. Men can be pathetic, women can be bitchy. Like you say, give it 20 years, they’ll be lots more girly pastors out there.
Laura –
with the church sitch. Crap! At least you’re shining a light for how it OUGHT to be.
Sas x
Comment by sarah — February 17, 2008 @ 11:50 pm
hi Folks, looks like there’s loads to talk about still on this one, I can relate to Laura’s post about the expectations of women’s roles in church, many churches are little enclaves of ancient culture, which is why it’s great when a church is prepared to look at it’s own ‘culture’. Don’t give up folks, there’s interesting groups out there, and the Iona community and Greenbelt have tried to provide networks across the world for people who are interested in something different. http://www.iona.org.uk
Comment by subo — February 18, 2008 @ 12:38 pm