In May I was ordained to the Anglican priesthood.
Lots of my friends will think that that was a really bad plan - some because it closes some doors for me - I'm not likely to be welcome back into the Anglican Diocese of Sydney, for example. Not just yet, anyway! Never mind, Sydney is noisy and too full of people for my taste. Though the crowd of people who live there includes a number of people that I really like a lot, so I expect to keep visiting regularly!
Some will think it was a really bad idea because they're certain the Bible says women shouldn't have positions of authority in the church. Once upon a time I thought so too, but it was actually learning Greek at Moore College that started to change my mind about that. I agree that certain passages in the Bible say that women (or perhaps 'wives') were not permitted to have positions of authority in the early church. However I think a wider study of the Bible indicates that some women did have significant leadership roles in the early church - Priscilla, for example, and the addressee of the second letter of John.
There are also women in roles of extraordinary authority recorded in the Old Testament - some people say that was only allowed to happen as a punishment from God because of the weak and ungodly male leadership of Israel, but I fear that's pure eisogesis - by which, dear reader, I mean that the person interpreting the passage reads into it what they want to find, rather than extracting from it what is actually there. ['Eisogesis' is a handy word, isn't it - such an efficient way to insult someone...]
Anyway, read for yourself the records about Deborah, Huldah, Esther, even Miriam - yes, I know she did the wrong thing and was stricken with leprosy, but let's not forget that Moses wasn't allowed to enter the Promised Land, David bumped off one of his best generals to get with his wife, and so on. One individual's sin clearly isn't enough to write off the entire gender.
From when I first decided that I probably needed to stop ignoring all the evidence roaring at me that I should offer for ordination, until the ceremony in May took about four years. From when the first person suggested it to me, it was more like thirteen years. So as you can see, I really rushed into it. :)
