From the "Scratch Your Head Department"

Church Ousts Woman Teacher

It is actions of this fundamentalist pastor and his church that give Christianity a black eye. As a Catholic, I understand and support the all male priesthood. Christ instituted it, and the Church maintains it. However, the position of no woman teaching any man is way over the top.

This "literal" interpretation is a massive distortion of Scripture and what is I think intended by the saintly apostle. Paul is making clear the necessity of men being in spiritual authority in the Church, mainly priests and bishops. However, if this extreme interpretation by the pastor above is legitimate, St. Paul must have dropped the ball regarding the teaching activities of a certain woman and her husband, Priscilla and her husband Aquila. Both she and he taught a dynamo apostle named Apollos, who misunderstood and taught a distorted view of Christ's gospel. Did Priscilla overstep her teaching boundaries? Did St. Paul condemn her actions, or get after Aquila for not keeping his wife on a leash? Nope. How about this--when St. Paul came to Europe for the very first time, in Macedonia, his first convert was a woman named Lydia, a local busnesswoman who had led prayers with people in her household and in her local community. Does he emphatically tell her to quit leading the prayer group? Nope. There are women in scripture who worked side by side with St. Paul in his gospel preaching. Did they just speak to women? Uh, the bible is silent on this. The Old Testament has dynamic women who were instrumental in saving and preserving Israel from destruction who led men into battle? Should be throw out the Old Testament, you modern Marcionites?

My point is this is an example of fundamentalist textualism that dehumanizes the Christian person, in this case women, and distorts the image of God into something ogre-ish. It makes no sense. Distortions like this occur because people make their piddly interpretations and opinions as The Truth. That is why I am all for a God directed Magesterium that guides and keeps the Church on track with the tradition of Christ and the Apostles. Newfangled opinions and practices are a menace and need to be identified as such.

To those who see the above article cited as typical of what you experience as Christian, my apologies and condolences to you. You have seen the ugly underbelly of Christianity gone awry in the hands of the misguided and heretical. Plus, you and I need to talk.