Word: ordainment
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Sometimes an issue that has been simmering for years comes into sharp focus. This autumn the role that women play in the church is causing turmoil in two large, parallel denominations, the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church. Last week Anglicans voted to ordain women as priests, and this week American Catholic bishops meet in Washington to discuss a pastoral letter on women's participation in the faith...
...women's reformation continues to shake up the Protestant churches as well. Fierce conflicts have occurred in the 15 million-member Southern Baptist Convention. Since local congregations have power to ordain, there is a sprinkling of women pastors and lay deacons. But the rising Fundamentalists who run national agencies passed a 1984 resolution against the practice and do all they can to discourage it. Even in the more progressive Presbyterian, Methodist and United churches, leaders worry about the implicit "patriarchy" that excludes women from the powerful pulpits and relegates them to small parishes or associate positions...
...Church of England is consumed with a landmark vote, scheduled next November, on whether to allow women priests. That innovation deeply divides the worldwide Anglican Communion, in which 14 of 34 branches now ordain women to the priesthood. The same issue clouded the ecumenical scene last week when Anglicanism's Primate, Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey, visited Rome for his first summit meeting with Pope John Paul. Carey, who did not repeat his publicized objections to Rome's hard line on birth control, emerged to describe the encounter of nearly one hour as "excellent, excellent...
...already have it, actually, in that whenever I ordain or a bishop ordains, we read out the statements "Do you believe that the Bible contains all things necessary for salvation? Will you accept the doctrine of the Church of England? Will you obey the bishop?" And so on. People know they are actually going along with the whole package, which includes the trustworthiness of the Bible, its centrality in terms of authority and tradition and reason. So we can't really pick and choose...
...Island's Bishop George Hunt, is proposing that the church endorse the view that homosexuality is a "God-given" state and that gay relationships are "holy, life-giving and grace-filled." The panel wants the church to develop blessing ceremonies for same-sex couples and allow local bishops to ordain actively homosexual clergy...