Apart from that, having become a fan of the feminist blogs, I’ve found even the angriest of them to be completely aware - more so than most “sensitive” and “progressive” white men - of the breadth of human experience and the meaning of true equality. If you read that as “man-hating”, you’re reading something wrong.

Anger is not hatred. Anger is not discrimination. Just because you’ve had your feelings hurt doesn’t mean you’ve been treated unfairly. Being a generally nice and caring guy doesn’t get you out of being the oppressor. Don’t sit there with hurt feelings, acknowledge your complicity and start to work for change.

Unfortunately, not everyone understands the purpose of satire. I ran into this yesterday when I brought up the Top Ten in a discussion on women in ministry, and a 50-something man objected. He compared it to some feminist philosophy that seeks to build women up by tearing men down.

I firmly disagree. Satire is not the same as mocking. It is intended to make people think in ways that ordinary staid sentences cannot. Plus, the Top Ten are designed to point out the flaws in arguments against ordaining women—and that is effectively done by applying the same argument to a comparable situation.

I wanted to further emphasize that because if I were voting on that proposal, I would give serious consideration to voting it down because it establishes a double standard. I heard that some of Lancaster Conference’s pastors who most support gender equality voted it down for that reason.

I wanted to further emphasize that the problem was primarily with the proposal rather than the vote.

Further? Did I miss the first round of this? I’m very interested. can you say more about what you mean, or link up the original comments?

Jane Hoober Peifer, one of about 35 licensed women in Lancaster Conference, said she thought the decision had thrown the conference into a crisis.

“The future of the conference is in the direction that the two-thirds are representing, and what do we do with them?” she said.

Oh and I asked my mom; those are definitely quilts and she’s pretty sure the bishops didn’t make them.

Through the process of spiritual discernment it was clear that equally sincere and faithful people understand Scripture differently and come to differing conclusions regarding the practice of women in leadership and ordination.

I find that to be particularly damaging language. While not a huge advocate of “disciplinary action” on the basis of a creed/confession (though consistency in that realm would sure be nice) - I am a huge fan of leadership taking a stand for what they believe. At the very least they can say, “We aren’t there yet. We still have work to do in our conference to get there.” That’s a whole world of different. Can we not have a strong enough theology to claim, at the very least, that discrimination is not an “equally faithful” position according to the church? Because that is what the confession is there for.

“Within LMC, there are a variety of beliefs and practices regarding roles of men and women in ministry and pastoral leadership. Contrary to the either/or clarity that some persons wished to bring to this discussion, the practice of LMC congregations is more accurately described as a continuum in which women are involved to lesser or greater degrees in congregations. Through the process of spiritual discernment it was clear that equally sincere and faithful people understand Scripture differently and come to differing conclusions regarding the practice of women in leadership and ordination.”

Gotta love that diversity of opinion. The funny thing about LMC’s idea of diversity is that when the chips are counted and the votes are down, they can have all the diversity they want, they can have a big diversity cakewalk through the middle of Tiananmen Square and it won’t make a lick of difference because women still don’t get to have equal rights. The “continuum” ends at the place where women get equal rights. It actually is either/or clarity here. “Either” women have equal rights “or” they don’t. All the spiritual discernment, dwelling in God’s Word, prayer, fasting, listening, searching, and study of “equally” (men) sincere and faithful people (men) doesn’t seem to get us equality. Maybe it is because only equal (men) people (men) get to vote.

Ok, after all that time since my last post on this subject I thought I would cool off, but I guess I haven’t. There I go scapegoating people again. I’m sure the 34% minority that blocked progress are people (men) too and deserve respect and love. I do respect and love them but I think they are sincerely and faithfully wrong and both the vote itself and the result of the vote are some of the more offensive (and harmful) things that have happened in the Mennonite Church in a long time (ok, maybe not that long but it’s really offensive). Actually, if the result would have been yes, it still would have been offensive because it wasn’t for full equality, only partial equality. Women still couldn’t have been bishops.

Even more offensive to me is the lack of public response by denominational leaders. Whatever happened to that Confession of Faith thing we hear so much about when LGBT rights come up. Maybe there is only one article in that thing(they just labeled it 19 for fun).

Side note to ranty rant: Are those quilts on that recommendation thingy? How appropriate…they are talking about women, so they use quilts. Women = ordination quilting.

Ok, I’m done now, sorry you all had to witness that.