Conflict and Policy
Over the past two years, I have had an ongoing disagreement with one of my good friends over to topic of ordaining women as pastors. My friend, Zach, is a devout Roman Catholic (the Catholic Church does not ordain women as priests/pastors), and I am Lutheran (the ELCA Lutheran church does ordain women as pastors). This has been, like many issues involving faith, a complicated disagreement, and a touchy topic. We’ve argued, debated, discussed Biblical evidence, and eventually came to a temporary agreement not to discuss the topic.
Usually, the debate over women’s ordination is primarily a level five conflict – people who address this issue have conflicting global values about gender roles within faith communities (and sometimes within society as a whole) and conflicting global values on Biblical interpretation. As a frame of reference, certain interpretations of the letters of Paul are the most frequently cited Biblical evidence against women’s ordination; however, there are parts in the Gospels that can also be used. I will refrain from going into detail about competing interpretations of the letters of Paul. If you are interested, here are a few websites that can tell you more:
Christians for Biblical Equality: http://www.cbeinternational.org/
ELCA Beliefs on Women in the Church: http://www.elca.org/Our-Faith-In-Action/Justice/Justice-for-Women.aspx
The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: http://www.cbmw.org/
Roman Catholic Response to Women in the Priesthood: http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19761015_inter-insigniores_en.html
However, my experience with Zach has been a bit different. There are elements of conflict levels 3 and 4 in our disagreement.
Kaufer defines level four as holding competing local values. Zach’s main contention with the idea of women as pastors actually has nothing to do with Pauline texts that concern women speaking in churches, working as leaders, or being silent in the presence of men. Nor do he and I have competing global values about women in leadership within the church or society. Zach’s objection to women as priests centered on the sacraments, specifically, the Eucharist. Within the Catholic tradition, during the communion part of the Mass, the priest is acting “in the person of Christ,” as in, substituting for Christ in the weekly reenactment of the Last Supper. As such, only men can fill this role. The Catholic tradition also places emphasis on the fact that Jesus’ twelve apostles were men. My objection to excluding women from serving as pastors/priest was centered in the fact that nowhere in the Gospels does Jesus forbid women from serving God in any capacity. At the Last Supper, when Jesus instituted the sacrament of Holy Communion, he gave very simple instructions: “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me…This is the cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.” Or, as Mark tells it, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many.” These instructions didn’t come with any additional gender requirements, and Jesus didn’t add a footnote mentioning that only men could do this.
This situation also demonstrates that Zach and I have a level three conflict: we give decisive weight to different evidence. The evidence for and against women’s ordination generally comes from scripture, church tradition, and writings of theologians. Zach (and the Catholic community in general) values the symbolism and tradition heavily. I do not give as much weight to church tradition, especially where I see it in conflict with scripture. However, this difference in weight of evidence could also be seen as a level five conflict: the disagreement about what weight tradition has in relation to scripture is one that goes far beyond this single issue. Interestingly, that could explain why I cannot seem to solve our disagreement at level three in the way that Kaufer suggests. There are no “standard tests of evidence” for such faith-based disagreements, anyway. (If you find one...let me know!)
However, level four provides a possible solution. It is interesting to note that Zach’s local values on women’s ordination are not consistent with his values about women serving in other leadership positions in the church or speaking in church. His local values are also not consistent with his beliefs about women in general society. (For reference, Zach’s beliefs about women in society are quite mainstream.) While I fully recognize my bias on this issue, I do believe that my beliefs about ordaining women are consistent with my own global values: women are fully equipped to serve God in a wide variety of vocations, as are men. There are no gender distinctions outside biology.
In case anyone is curious, recently Zach and I did reach a tentative agreement on this issue, in the way Kaufer suggests at level four. To make a long story (very) short, Zach re-examined his beliefs (major kudos to Zach…that’s a tough thing to do) and came to the conclusion that it is possible for women to be called to be pastors/priests.
I’m afraid that this answer was anything but brief, however, I hope it was interesting and thorough!
Analogies and Conflict Levels
In “An End to History,” one of the allusions Savio makes is to Aldous Huxley’s dystopian futuristic novel Brave New World. (Fits well with the title of the speech, doesn’t it?) Within the first paragraph, Savio makes the point that the University bureaucracy is like the system in Brave New World – a system which ultimately exists to fuel itself. This allusion furthers Savio’s characterization of bureaucracies a-historical systems with contempt for individuality and change. It seems, from Savio’s speech, that he and the university hold differing global values: the university (we presume) values stability, limits to free speech, and predictability, while Savio’s Free Speech Movement values change, movement, and free speech. Savio’s comparison of the Free Speech Movement to the Civil Rights Movement gives FSM a certain legitimacy and integrity (at least in retrospect), and in the moment it probably gave FSM a more global appeal.
Stasis and Ethos Construction
Bullard’s article argues in the stasis of cause by appealing to history. By demonstrating for the audience that the racial situations resulting from recent hurricane seasons are not specific to just that instance, but are related to responses to earlier disasters as well, Bullard demonstrates for the audience that the racial problems are not a fluke nor is he exaggerating their significance for some sort of political agenda. If Bullard appealed mainly to the stases of fact/conjecture or value, his argument would suffer because the reader would lack the context he provides and it would be easy to write his concerns off. Historical precedents and demonstrating patterns of cause in like events (see Ramage pages 110-111) do lend authority to an argument. Using this same strategy (historical precedents), Wells-Barnett is able to convince her audience that lynching is a nation-wide problem that affects far more than white and African-American Southerners. She moves from writing as an African-American woman about a supposedly regional problem and instead constructs her ethos as an American journalist to other Americans about a common issue.
