Everything Must Change

Everythign Must Chnage

 

The Question

 On Faith at the Washington Post has asked a question challenging many conservative/ evangelical denominations.  This is the same group of people who are championing Palin’s partnership with McCain.  Albert Mohler’s Commentary is also insightful to this paradox.

Women are not allowed to become clergy in many conservative religious groups. Is it hypocritical to think that a woman can lead a nation and not a congregation?

Posted by Sally Quinn and Jon Meachamon September 3, 2008 3:54 AM

ALL PANELIST RESPONSES

FROM THE PANEL

“On Faith” panelist James Anderson is a retired Episcopal priest, an almost full-time volunteer in the community, a part-time farm manager, and independent writer. Anderson is the author or co-author of three books on ministry in the local church: To Come Alive (1973) and The Management of Ministry (1978), co-authored with Ezra Earl Jones, have been widely used in the training and education of clergy. Anderson, who has wide experience as an adviser and consultant to a variety of religious organizations, also served as assistant to the Bishop for Congregational Development for the Episcopal Diocese of Washington and director of Field Studies for the Cathedral College of the Laity at the Washington National Cathedral. Anderson was one of four founders of the Alban Institute in Washington, D.C., and served as first president of its board.

Will Conservatives Tell Palin to Practice What They Preach?

Governor Palin clearly proved she can be the attack dog for the Republican Party. Will conservative Christians hew to their scriptural guidelines reminding her and the world that the Bible says “suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.”

James AndersonRetired Episcopal Priest | 16COMMENTS
Sep 8, 2008 at 8:31 AM

Rabbi Irwin Kula is the President of CLAL-The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, a leadership training institute, think tank and resource center in New York. The “On Faith” panelist has served as rabbi of congregations in St. Louis, New York City and Jerusalem. He is author of “Yearnings: Embracing the Sacred Messiness of Life” (Hyperion, Sept. 2006)  winner of a “Books for a Better Life Award,” and selected by Spirituality & Health magazine as one the “10 Best Spiritual Book of 2006.” He is a regular guest on NBC-TV’s “The Today Show,” and co-host of the popular weekly radio show, Hirschfield and Kula, airing on KXL in Portland, Ore. In 2007 he was identified as one of the “Top 50 Rabbis in America,” by Newsweek. He is co-founder of the Aitz Hayim Center for Jewish Living in Chicago. He received his B.A. in Philosophy from Columbia Univ., his B.H.L. from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (JTSA) in NY, and his M.A. in Rabbinics and Rabbinic Ordination from JTSA. He has served as rabbi of congregations in St. Louis, MO; Queens, NY; and Jerusalem, Israel.

Religious Hypocrisy and Women as Leaders

Irwin KulaRabbi, author, commentator | 7COMMENTS

Martin E. Marty is Fairfax M. Cone Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus at the University of Chicago, where he taught religious history, chiefly in the Divinity School, for 35 years, and where the Martin Marty Center has been founded to promote “public religion” endeavors. For a decade prior to entering academia, the “On Faith” panelist served parishes in the west and northwest suburbs of Chicago as an ordained Lutheran pastor. Marty is the author of more than 50 books including Righteous Empire: The Protestant Experience in America (1970), for which he won the National Book Award. His additional honors include the National Humanities Medal, the Medal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the University of Chicago Alumni Medal, the Distinguished Service Medal of the Association of Theological Schools, and the Order of Lincoln Medallion (Illinois’ top honor). Marty has served as president of the American Academy of Religion, the American Society of Church History, and the American Catholic Historical Association. He also has served on two U.S. Presidential Commissions and was director of the Fundamentalism Project of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Public Religion Project at the University of Chicago. He is Senior Regent of St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota.

Nations are Easy, Congregations are Hard

Martin MartyAward-winning author and professor emeritus, University of Chicago | 6COMMENTS

Baroness Julia Neuberger is an ordained rabbi and member of Britian’s House of Lords. The “On Faith” panelist also is a trustee of the British Council, Jewish Care, and the Booker Prize Foundation, as well as founding trustee of the Walter and Liesel Schwab Charitable Trust. She has served as Chairman of Camden & Islington Community Health Services NHS Trust and Chief Executive of the King’s Fund—a major independent health charity. Currently she chairs the Commission on the Future of Volunteering in England . In the House of Lords, she is a Liberal Democrat member and in early 2006 she was Bloomberg Professor at Harvard University Divinity School . Neuberger writes, speaks, makes trouble, and has published several books, of which the latest is The Moral State We’re In (2006). She is working on a book about old age, and thinking about a new book on death and dying, as well as one as a counterblast to Richard Dawkins on why religion is so important in the rather godless United Kingdom.

Peculiar and Inconsistent

Julia NeubergerChair, Commission on the Future of Volunteering in England | 6COMMENTS

Brian D. McLaren   |   Bishop Jane Holmes Dixon   |   Willis E. Elliott