Kay

Mark,
Did you not notice the “?” mark at the end of this sentence??:
I wrote: “And therefore, mutualists and egals should not question or criticize the comp/hierarchist’s even though there is not one unquestioned flatly stated prohibition against women teaching men in all of Scripture?”

You replied: “This is not a good argument. There is not one unquestioned prohibition on homosexuality either. There is not one unquestioned theory on the atonement of Christ. Everything is always questioned. Look at critical scholarship, liberalism, denominationalism etc.”

…as though what I asked was an argument in opposition to your view. No, brother, I was showing that we agree about constantly checking and questioning scholarship and traditions of men.

This is why blogging can be so time consumming and frustrating! 😉

You say: “People can get any verse to say whatever they like- again, history teaches us this. It’s a matter of working out what is most consistent and backed up by evidence.”

And here again, I can agree to a point. However, I don’t hold to the traditional “evidence” perpetuated by fallible, all male clergy. That is why I’m not a Roman Catholic. (And may I presume that is why you are not either?)

I have previously pointed to the example of the Church’s stance on slavery as a prime instance of the “traditional” understanding on certain Scriptures being wrong for about 1800 years – and so once again!

Just curious – Mark, do you hold the writings of the very early Church (ie. Augustine, Origen, Chrysostom, Jerome) in the same light as Calvin and those after the Reformation began?