www.byzcath.org Forums Mysteries: The Life of Worship Vespers, Matins & the Divine Liturgy The Revised Divine Liturgy Women and Men: Created Equal

Father David wrote:
"Separate from these issues, I would add a persoanl reflection. I have become convinced that the reason "men" was used in the English language to mean both "men" and "women" is that before the 20th century, "women" simply had no standing in the body politic of "mankind." They did not vote and were not expected to take part in public affairs, therefore, their status was "meaningless." In the context of the late 18th century, therefore, the statement "All men are created equal" means exactly what it says. "

https://www.byzcath.org/forums/ubbthreads.php/ubb/showflat/Number/225621/page/1/fpart/8#Post226221


Father David, you have been convinced wrong and unfortunatley it seems that these misconseptions have seeped into the New Divine Liturgy.

From the outset of this country whenever the Constitution speaks of "privileges guaranteed to individuals", women are always included by clear implication.

Father David, are we to assume that the constitutional guarantee of "the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus" meant that women (but not men) may be imprisoned without being charged with a specific crime?

Father David, are we to assume that ex post facto laws be passed as long as women but not men are their object?

Father David, are state laws "impairing the obligation of contracts" permitted when contracts are signed by women but not when they are signed by men?

The Bill of Rights uses the male pronoun when it says: "No person....shall be compelled... to be a witness against himself." Do you maintain that this 'himself' meant that only males are protected by the Bill of Rights and that women may be compelled to be witnesses against themselves?

In his 'Notes on Virginia', Thomas Jeffrerson reproaches the Indians for failing to acknowledge this equality: "The [Indian] women are submitted to unjust drudgery. This I believe is the case with every barbrous people. With such, force is law...It is civilization alone which replaces women in the enjoyment of their natural equality."

It is clear from the writings of the Fathers of our Nation that the word 'men' in the Declaration of Independence means mankind, human beings, male and female. That is clear from parallel expressions commonly used during the revolutionary era: "rights of men", "right of mankind", "rights of humanity", "rights of human nature", "rights of nature". The founders did not deny that women were part of mankind or human beings.


Monomakh

Sadly, it is sometimes next to impossible to convince people of this basic truth.

Just because the WORLD viewed women as "meaningless" doesn't mean they WERE "meaningless". If one looks with supernatural eyes, one can come to different conclusions. After all, what did the "world" think, and continues to think of Jesus Christ.

Given this line of reasoning, what can we conclude about the Gospel then?? Are we to say that the Gospel needs updated? Modernized? Revised? No, of course not! The Bible is the WORD of GOD.

For me, political opinion doesn't make my life meaningful.

Save Your people, O Lord, and bless Your inheritance.

If Father David's historical reflection were correct, then the only "men" who would have been created equal would have only been a subset of those we would think of as male. At various points and in various places in America, we would have to exclude those men who did not own property, those men who were deemed property themselves well into the 19th century, those men deemed savages, and those men who fell under various other categories of male persons who were even worse off them women in the rights department at the time. "Men" wouldn't even mean "men" if you think about it.

Well, that was the case. But we didn't go back and change the constitution to say it, we changed our understanding through the culture and the law. To this day, "All men are created equal, endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, including life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" does not include in-utero babies. (That was from memory, so excuse mistakes.)

When it does (God willing!) include them, we will not add in-utero children to the constitution any more than we previously added "colored" males, women, or children. Instead, our society will change its understanding of men yet again.

It is an apt comparison!

And yet it speaks volumes to Fr. David's point that while using the word "men" in the constitution, supposedly in its inclusivist sense, the framers of the constitution were themselves quite exclusivist. For them obviously some were more equal than others. White Anglo-Saxon Protestant property owners were certainly endowed with the unalienable rights to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness in their view, others less so, the slaves not at all.

Yes, they had a skewed view of humanity on just who was endowed with the Spirit of God. Their error did not make reality conform to it, and their statement was no more correct then than it is now. The only difference is that we now recognize that all men, women, and children were created with the Spirit of God--when the constitution say all men are created equal, we all feel a part of something much larger--now we only need to recognize those pre-born babies.

So the church wishes to emulate the skewed view and not the enlightened one?

It is the Declaration of Independence that speaks of the equality of all men. The Consttitution never uses the word men. It does use the word person.


It is curious that those in the academic world who are clamoring for the equality of women (actually it appears that it is more quotas, than real equality), and want to change the English language, tend to be the ones who will not recognize the right to life of the unborn. There is a connection.

Thank you for the correction concerning the Declaration v the Constitution, lm. I've had that pointed out in the past and for some reason perpetuated the mistake. Hopefully I take it to heart this time!

I think Fr. David Petras is a very intelligent, a very knowledgeable and a very spiritual man.

I also think that I understand his argument, too, both in terms of American history and in terms of the revised translation of the Divine Liturgy. And, his argument is valid when it comes to American history . . .

. . . but unpersuasive when it comes to the Divine Liturgy. In the Church, the purpose of Tradition is not its own sake; it is to guide and guard a deeper, more fundamental level of knowing and living the Truth in Christ. The problem with using gender inclusive language in the Divine Liturgy is therefore not the mechanics of translation; it is what that translation means. In the current cultural milieu of America, gender inclusive language in religion has been the beginning of a slippery slope descending into secularism. That is evident from the Christian (and Jewish) denominations which have adopted it in their religious services. In contrast, the more orthodox (small "o") denominations of Christianity and Judaism have refrained from using gender inclusive language; and this has been part of their preservation and guidance to the Truth That Does Not Change about God and His relationship with Mankind.

So, I sincerely respect Fr. David Petras' intellect, and I respect the intentions of the reformers to stay relevant to the times.

Nevertheless, I respectfully think that religion in America right now needs to take a stand against certain modernizing tendencies, such as gender inclusive language: in order to preserve and protect Holy Tradition from secular diminution.

In the Irenic Spirit of Great Lent,

-- John

So then, it only naturally follows that amendments should be made to the Constitution to correct such "backward" language, since the original wording is no longer relevant and cannot be understand by today's people.

Oath against Modernism:

....Fourthly, I sincerely hold that the doctrine of faith was handed down to us from the apostles through the orthodox Fathers in exactly the same meaning and always in the same purport. Therefore, I entirely reject the heretical' misrepresentation that dogmas evolve and change from one meaning to another different from the one which the Church held previously. I also condemn every error according to which, in place of the divine deposit which has been given to the spouse of Christ to be carefully guarded by her, there is put a philosophical figment or product of a human conscience that has gradually been developed by human effort and will continue to develop indefinitely. Fifthly, I hold with certainty and sincerely confess that faith is not a blind sentiment of religion welling up from the depths of the subconscious under the impulse of the heart and the motion of a will trained to morality; but faith is a genuine assent of the intellect to truth received by hearing from an external source. By this assent, because of the authority of the supremely truthful God, we believe to be true that which has been revealed and attested to by a personal God, our creator and Lord......

"Modernism" --the philosophy-- was not what I was referring to.

Instead, I'm referring to the process of secularization and how it seems to get started in religions in America with the use of gender inclusive language. It might end up at full-blown secularism, or not, depending on how far down the slippery slope people go. My point is that I hope the BCC doesn't even risk starting on that process through the use of gender inclusive language in its liturgy.

-- John

I hope it is not too late. Even if there is an admission of error, there may not be a retraction because of the enormous investment involved here.

The loss of $1,000,000 is nothing compared to the enormous loss of people we are seeing. Just at the cathedral itself almost half the people have left. Who is left to pay the mortgage? If the Archbishop started a "Buy a Revised Liturgy Book to Burn" drive he'd easily re-coop the $1,000,000 he squandered on a Byzantine Novus Ordos that no one wants and has already been demonstrated to make people run for the door.