Will Christianity Empty The Churches?

That’s the point made by my friend, Damon Linker, who’s been writing up a storm at his perch at The Week. He recently made the strong case that liberal and conservative ideas about human equality have deep roots in Jesus’ universalization of the call to love and forgiveness. And that very powerful idea has indeed propelled women’s and gay rights in this century. I’ve never made an explicit connection between my Catholicism and my support for gay equality – but it’s probably, along with my own self-respect, the key driver for my activism. But as modern Western society embraces gay and female equality in principle and increasingly in practice, the churches that remain implacably opposed to full equality for men and women in the church are beginning to feel the strain.

Damon thinks Mormonism (currently fast-growing worldwide) and Catholicism (currently in deep flux) are the primary victims. And the most glaring fact about them is restricting priesthood for men and men alone:

Think about it: Men and women in the pews now live in a world in which nearly all obstacles to women’s equality have been torn down. Where once women were relegated to submissive and subservient roles in the family, now domestic gender egalitarianism is the norm. Where once women were excluded from participating in politics — including denial of the vote — such strictures are now unimaginable. Colleges and universities that were once all-male have become coed. Just about every career that once excluded women is now open to them — including that most traditionally masculine occupation, military service. And so forth.

I should say that by far the biggest influences on my faith have been women: my mother and grandmother. Richard Rodriguez and I spoke about this at length when discussing religion and civil rights:

I find the arguments for a male-only priesthood to be as weak as Damon does. Just because Jesus’ 12 disciples were men? Please. From everything we know about the early church, it was unusually filled with women, just as Jesus refused to abide by the idea of excluding women. Only women and his beloved John were at the foot of the cross; it was to women that the risen Christ first revealed himself. Ed Morrissey offers another theological reason for the exclusion of women from the altar:

The belief in the actual presence of Christ in the Eucharist and the Liturgy of the Eucharist as a connection to the one sacrifice at the eternal wedding feast forms the substantial argument for ordaining only men to the priesthood … However, it’s at least a fair point to admit that many Catholics never hear this teaching, for reasons of poor catechism at home or in churches and schools …

Furthermore, the Church’s role isn’t to change with the times anyway. It’s to defend what it teaches as revealed truth, and to spread the truth rather than take polls. That may indeed produce an impulse for congregants to leave, but that may be a symptom of poor catechesis rather than a refusal to change doctrine to suit the modern temperament. If an exodus occurs, that would be the cause, not a refusal to rewrite doctrine.

Seriously? A theological metaphor that sees all Christians as women and Christ as our groom? I know the theology but find it as weak as mere recitation of precedent. And the argument here is not that the church should bend with the times, but that the church should always be considering and reconsidering whether what it does is fully in the spirit of the Gospels. Excluding women is something Jesus never ever did. Why shouldn’t the church follow his example?