www.byzcath.org Forums Mysteries: The Life of Worship Vespers, Matins & the Divine Liturgy The Revised Divine Liturgy The sociological nonsense behind the new language

I am glad that you do pray for the church. I have no idea as to whether or not you are bitter. As for my take on the RDL, it's my church and no one is going to drive me away. It's worth staying and fighting for. These bishops are not going to be around forever, and anything they have promulgated can be changed. I find it surprising in so many forum posts, that some who profess great love for the BCA left so easily, and apparently did not find it worth fighting for. It seems to me that when one leaves, that one is no longer part of the problem or the solution.

Amen.

I have a friend who is a minister in the Church of Christ, one of his positive observations of the RCC is the tenacity of the people with regards to the church. I his church when people disagree they fracture off and create a new church/denomination. When people in the RCC disagree they stay and fight. It would seem that the BCC follows the former rather than the latter.

In my particular parish, over the last three decades every time there was a disagreement with the priest letters would be written, then the letter writers would leave, either for the RCC or the EOC. When changes were then made to address the issue, the people who complained were no longer there, and those who remained had to deal with the new changes (whether they liked them or not). We have gone from a parish of over 400 families to one that floats around 200.

My stand has not changed, I feel the current reading is as valid as the old, though perhaps "for all of mankind and our salvation...." would have been a better translation in lines of satisfying both sides.

My admission of error was with regards to the exclusivity of the Creed, not the validity of the translation. We live in a hypersensitive age, and many mistakes are being made to satisfy both sides.

I think that the revisers should have sent the new DL out to a few select parishes for commentary, made appropriate adjustments, then a distribution to the church. A grave disservice was made with the way things were done; I am particularly upset with the music, it's great for a trained choir, but near-impossible for the general laity to perform. It reminds me of many of the OCA churches I attended this summer, beautiful chanting, silence among the people. They love the sound of their choirs, but find it impossible to do themselves.

I had presumed your "error" resulted from the RDL wording, but if I now understand correctly that is not the case. Even the wording "for us men and for our salvation...", which says no more or less than the Greek original, was itself ambiguous in that it allowed you to ascribed to it the same exclusive interpretation (as in your previous posts). That is, since as you say " the current reading is as valid as the old," you had understood even "for us men and for..." in the same erroneous, exclusive way as the RDL wording "for us and for..."?

Also, do you not see a problem in that the word "anthropous/men" is simply not translated in the RDL version? If no problem, and the word is not necessary, then why do you think it is there in the Greek original since it is not required for one to say (in Greek), as in the RDL, "for us and for..."?

The Church has never equated equality with sameness.

Yes, the Holy Spirit did limit some gifts to men and others to women. Think fatherhood and motherhood. Just as the members of the Trinity are three distinct and different Persons living in a unity of love so, too, are men and women as a “unity of two” called to live in a communion of love. The seemingly endless competition between men and women was not part of God’s saving plan. It flows from human sinfulness and needs to be overcome. To reduce the innate differences between man and woman to plumbing and insist on sameness is to miss the Church’s teaching on equality, and even to garble the whole message of salvation. Pope John Paul the Great spoke to this with great eloquence.

Good for you. God bless.
Let us pray.
You do not know the reasons that people might leave the BCC nor how easy it was for them to leave.

You are not a reader of hearts.

Is this your theory?

It depends on what type of translation you are looking for. i.e., with the bible you have literal translations (Young's) where the translator attempts to translate every word and hopes that it makes sense to the reader. Then you have the Dynamic-Equivalent (or thought-for-thought) that attempts to translate the intent of the original text (NIV). Lastly, you have the Paraphrase, where they try to have the text make sense to modern readers (New Living Bible).

Translation from one language to another is not easy, and is often a compromise. How many different words in the LXX get translated into English as "love", and what is lost by this translation? Is agape = phileo?

In modern English usage, does "us" include the same group of people as "us men", or does "us men" exclude/include someone that "us" does not?

Those are physical characteristics, a man cannot give birth. Is that really the same as the gifts of the Spirit that Paul was speaking of:


Is there, beyond the decision of whom to give which gift, also a blatant discrimination against women being given the gift of teaching? Or was it a patristic decision to ignore the gift in women?

You clip far too much, had to go back to see the reference.

No, it is an observation based upon comments from members of this forum (and others), as well as the behavior of parishioners in my, and other BCC, parishes.

I have seen the membership in parishes diminish because of infant baptism, elimination of the "filioque", procession of the priest during DL, elimination of Slavonic in DL, and, yes, over the gender-neutral issue. Rather than staying and fighting for what they believe is right, they send off a few letters to anger the bishopric, then leave for what they assume are greener pastures.

When VCII swept the RCC church many hated (and still do) the vernacular mass; they fought and were allowed to create churches which still offer the Latin High Mass. Now, some have fought issues and when they lost they left the church, but at least they stayed until the fight was over.

It seems that way to me, as well. I have wondered if our church has become the Baptists of the east, since we are so fractious and prone to split when we don't get our way.

Yes, yes, yes, all the concepts. How about just treating the actual text under consideration, one phrase from the Creed. I've given it above and in the links I've provided; the syntax and grammar does not require rocket-science Greek; every other word in the Greek is treated very well in English except that troublesome anthropous which suddenly becomes invisible in the RDL. I've pointed out the rhetorical structure of the phrase and how it demands a translation that maintains the link "for us MEN ... He became MAN." And I've further indicated why dropping the MEN, driven solely by "inclusivity" and yet keeping MAN gives the wrong impression, that keeping MAN is ok since He's a male and that's all that the Creed is professing there -- one can therefore get away with it.

In standard English that all can understand if they allow, "for us men..." expresses exactly the theological intent of the Creed; it only becomes necessarily exclusive if one insists that it be so.

So to answer your question: For the given phrase of the Creed in its context, in modern English usage, "us" does not include the same group of people as "us men", and "us men" does not exclude anyone and does include all Mankind explicitly while "us" does not?

I was pointing out that the competition that exists between man and woman (and the desire by some for sameness) is not part of God’s saving plan. When we look to the Trinity as the example of how different persons – including men and woman – are equal we can then see that these other gifts [in 1 Cor 12] are properly understood as both different and equal. Different because each gift is unique. Equal because the Giver is the same. To insist that the Spirit distribute gifts equally among men and women is to embrace the world’s understanding of equality. Remember that Paul does not say that the gifts are distributed according to the desires of either the individual or the collective but that it is the Spirit “who apportions to each one individually as he wills”.

Are you suggesting that the Lord Himself discriminated against women because He gave different roles to the men and women disciples? And because the Church follows these roles exactly and feels she has no authority to change them?

You seem to approach the question as if the gifts of the Spirit are things one claims for himself. But the Giver of the gifts is the one who apportions them! I personally do not seem to have any great gifts. I am weak of faith. I cannot heal. I cannot work miracles. I am not a prophet. I cannot interpret prophecy. I know women who each have one or more of these gifts. Should I be jealous? Or should I rejoice that they are blessed with those gifts? Yes! I should rejoice. Likewise should a woman be upset because the Spirit has reserved some gifts (such as ordination) to men? No! She should rejoice for the wonderful gift that ordination and all that comes with this ministry of service (the Sacraments) is!

But I suppose according to the world I should be jealous that the women disciples were given the gift of approaching the tomb in the early morning and finding it empty. That gift was denied to the men disciples.

Christians have often unjustly discriminated against women. But there was no organized patristic effort to deny women the gifts of the Spirit because they were women.

Ah, but this is my point. Women were the first ones given the gift to preach the Gospel (tr: good news), the Apostles were not given this gift until after the descent of the Holy Spirit. Is this not the indication that women were meant for preaching/teaching/ordination as well as men, but ignored by the male-dominated society of the day?

The RCC church has decided that married men are not suited for the role of ordination, the Eastern Churches (with the exception of the Pittsburgh Metropolia) do not feel this is the wish of the Spirit. The Spirit felt that only women were suited to preach the word of the Resurrection, but the churches have deemed otherwise. Is it not possible that the churches got this wrong as well?

I question not that the gifts are something we claim for ourselves, but rather that the church has blinders on with regards to the will of the Spirit. There are many fine women in the western churches who have been given the gift of preaching the word, and many men in the RC/EO churches who have received ordination without being given the gift.

You are confusing gifts. The gift to proclaim the Gospel is one that all Christians have. We have a responsibility to proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ to the entire world. This is not the same gift as ordination.

So you are suggesting that the Lord Himself unjustly discriminated against women by not specifically assigning them the same ministry as to the men disciples with the breathing of the Spirit? Even a cursory study of the Gospels shows that the Lord assigned different roles each to the men and women disciples. On Pentecost He gathered the disciples – eleven males – and breathed upon them the Holy Spirit.

Or maybe you are suggesting that the Lord did assign equal roles to women throughout His ministry and that the Gospel writers and early Christians conspired to re-write what actually happened because of a vast cultural hatred of women?

You may mean something else entirely, but your whole argument relies on twisting Scripture.

The decision of the Roman Catholic Church not to ordain married men is a discipline, not an authoritative Teaching. It is not a matter of right and wrong. There is absolutely no claim by the Catholic Church (and never has been) that is the doctrinal or dogmatic wish of the Spirit that only single men be ordained. The Roman Catholic Church is clear in stating that it restricts ordination only to celibate men for what it considers the good order of the Church.

Actually you question the Lord himself, and His decision only to breathe the Holy Spirit upon eleven males at Pentecost.