Women Priests and the Image of God

by

Karen Strand Winslow, Ph.D.

First presented at

Seattle Pacific University

C. S. Lewis Summer Lecture Series

Seattle, Washington

June 1991

(A version was also presented for C. S. Lewis lecture at SPU in October of 1991)

0
 Introduction

In this paper, I examine the traditions and arguments that restrict women from priestly and

sometimes pastoral service by analyzing an article written by C. S. Lewis, a Christian apologist,

Anglican layman, and medieval scholar. This article, "Priestesses in the Church?, which appeared

in 1970 in God in the Dock, edited by Walter Hooper, was first published in 1948 as "Notes on the

Way" in Time and Tide Magazine. The date 1948 is significant, as is the fact that Lewis was a

conservative member of the Church of England, which held views about the male priesthood similar

to those presently held by officials of the highly influential Roman Catholic Church.1
Although 1948 is a long time ago, Lewis' arguments against women priests remain cogent

today for Catholics and some Protestants; some of the latter extend them to presbyters and

ministers. "Let's Stop Making Women Presbyters!." an article in the Feb 11, 1991 issue of

Christianity Today by J. I. Packer, who is also an Anglican, echoes most of Lewis' 1948 concerns.

"Priestesses in the Church?" reflects the well-documented negative view Lewis held of

women for most of his life. Margaret Hannay notes in her article, "C. S. Lewis: Mere Misogyny,"

that he wrote "disparaging remarks about women in his private correspondence" and objected to

women studying at Oxford. She quotes a poem he wrote in 1933 with Owen Barfield:

M is the Many, the Moral, the Body,

The Formless the Female, the Thoroughly Shoddy.

N is Not-Being which sinks even deeper.

More formless, more female, more footlingand cheaper.2

Hannay points out likely underlying causes of Lewis' deeply rooted sexism: Lewis was raised in the

sexually segregated English public school system. He had no sister, and his mother died [before] he

1.
The American Episcopal Church began to ordain women as priests in 1976.

2.
"Abecedarium Philisophicum," cited by Margaret Hannay in "C. S. Lewis. Mere Misogyny?" Daughters of Sarah. 1 no.
6 (September 1975): 1.

1
was ten...he had no close friendship with a woman until he was in his fifties. Lewis spent thirty

years at Oxford, an establishment well known for its misogyny.3 I agree with Hannay that given the

stature and influence of his fiction and nonfiction, readers need to be aware of his background in

order to separate sound doctrine from his "personal prejudice against women;" what we would call

sexism.4

The woman who altered many aspects of his life, including his opinion of women in

general, appeareduninvited on his doorstep in 1952, after she and Lewis had exchanged a series

of letters.5 Lewis' writings reflect a decided change in his attitude toward women after he met and
married Joy Davidman.6 Unfortunately, the bulk of his work, including "Priestesses in the

Church?" is pre-Joy. It is impossible to determine if his view of women as priests was modified by

his relationship with Joyor could have been had either lived longer.7

3.
Margaret Hannay, "C. S. Lewis. Mere Misogyny?" Daughters of Sarah 1 no. 6 (September 1975): 1-2. Hoffecker and
Timmerman (in "Watchman in the City: C. S. Lewis' View of Male and Female," The Cresset [Feb. 1978] 16) cite his
earlier relationship to his friend's mother, Mrs. Moore, to stress that Lewis' view in "Priestesses..." is not couched in rancor
or chauvinism." I do not think Lewis' controversial relationship to Mrs. Moore demonstrates that he had a positive view
of women in general.

4.
The detailed definition of sexism used by Benson and Vincent (1980) will help us analyze Lewis and his article. For
them, sexism includes: 1] attitudes that women are genetically inferior to men, 2] support for the premise that men should
have greater rights and power, 3] support for anti-female sex discrimination, 4] hostility for women who engage in
traditionally masculine behavior or fail to fulfill traditional female roles, 5] lack of support...for women's liberation
movements and the issues involved...6] utilization of derogatory labels and restrictive stereotypes in describing women,
and 7] evaluation of women on the basis of physical attractiveness and willingness to treat women as sexual objects. Jacklin
Jones, "Changes in Sexist Attitudes Toward Women During Introductory Women's and Men's Studies Courses," Sex
Roles: a Journal of Research 18 no. 9-10 (May 1988): 611.

5.
Hannay, 6.

6.
Those who have read Lewis' fiction will note the contrast between Lewis' portrayal of Jane in That Hideous Strength
(1945) with his portrayal of Orual and Psyche in Till We Have Faces (1956) four years after he met Joy.

7.
Lewis died in 1963; Joy died several years earlier.

2
 As a traditional Anglican, Lewis espoused a case against women priests that is similar,

though not identical, to that of officials of the present Roman Catholic Church. According to the

Vatican document of 1976, "Inter Insigniores," the priest is image, sign, and representation of Christ

before God; therefore a man would have to fill that role because Jesus was male. In other words,

there is a mysterious bond uniting Christ, maleness, and the priesthood. The mystery of Christ and

the church is indissolubly bound up with the unfathomable mystery of our being as male and

female.8

The church then has no authority to institute a change in the order of ministry of the sort
required for the ordination of women to the priesthood. ...The priestly office cannot be changed by

human, social progress, for it belongs to another order of reality...revealed finally in Christ...who,

being himself a man chose men and only men to be his apostles. The church must be faithful to the

example of her Lord. She cannot, therefore, consider herself authorized to admit women to priestly

ordination.9

Gender, according to "Inter Insigniores," is a more important category than age or race.

Thus it is proper for aging Gentiles to fulfill the priestly role even though Jesus was a young Jew.10

In order to more fully understand and evaluate these arguments and those of C. S. Lewis against

women priests, I will briefly outline the evolution of the Christian priesthood.

8.
Rosemary Reuther examines this concept in her article "Entering the Sanctuary: the Roman Catholic Story," Women of
Spirit: Female Leadership in the Jewish and Christian Traditions, ed. by Reuther and Eleanor McLaughlin (New York:
Simon and Schuster, 1979) 380. Speaking of "Inter Insigniores," she says: "It asserts that, following Jesus, the Church has
always believed in the equality of women with men in the natural order. Exclusion from the priesthood is not based on
any such concept of inferiority or subjection, but rather on some mysterious sacramental bond between Christ, maleness,
and priesthood."

9.
Paul Jewett, The Ordination of Women (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980) 84.
See also: The Vatican's Declaration on the Order of the Priesthood, "Inter Insigniores" issued by the Congregation for
the Doctrine of Faith concerning the admission of women to the ministerial priesthood, Origins 6:33 (3 Feb. 1977): 517-
24, and L'Observatore Romano (3 Feb 1977): 6-8.

10.
The Roman Catholic Church says that gender transcends other categories because of the relationship between Christ
and the priest: "The church does not consider sexual differentiation to be the same as cultural ethnic or racial
difference...The priest is the sacramental symbol of Christ... [it] relies on the natural symbolism of gender to signify the
relationship between the priest and Christ, the head and bridegroom of the Church." ("One in Christ Jesus: A Response to
the Concern of Women for Church and Society," The Bishop's Pastoral, Roman Catholic Archdiocese [Seattle Wash. 24
May 1990], 11.

3
 The Anglo-Catholic Tradition of the Priesthood

We must begin with the Hebrew Scriptures that recount the story of Israel, including the

worship practices of the developing and mature nation. An Israelite priest was set apart for service

in matters pertaining to the rituals of worship: "cultic service. As the history of Israel progressed

the requirements for the priesthood became more exclusive, but always priests were male.

The religion of Israel as relayed in the Hebrew Scriptures contrasted sharply with the

religions of other cultures in the Ancient Near East. These other religions were fertility cults whose

rituals included the reenactment on earth of what worshippers believed was necessary to happen
amongst the gods in order for crops and families to flourish. In other words, human sexual acts and

polytheistic rituals were inextricably linked. But in Israel sexual intercourse was not to be associated

with the worship of Yahweh.11

Why were there no women priests in Israel? Patriarchy dominated the eras of oral and

written transmission of Scripture texts. But another reason may have been so that the external

practice of religion by those in covenant relation to Yahweh would be completely disassociated in

word, symbol and reality from the sexuality, manipulation, and reenactment of the fertility cults

which surrounded Israel.12

Where does the institution of priesthood first come into the Christian church? According to

Hebrews chapters four through ten, Jesus was the only individual who assumed the role of priest.

His sacrifice rendered Israel's cultic priesthood obsolete. 1 Peter 2.9-10 shows that the "priesthood

of all believers" was a foundational New Testament concept.13 Galatians 3:28 emphasizes that there

11.
As Moses and the people prepare to enter into formal covenant relation with God by receiving the covenant stipulations,
the ten commands, they are told to consecrate themselves, "Be ready the third day; do not go near a woman" (Exod 19:15).

12.
See Deut 23:17. "There shall be no cult prostitute of the daughters of Israel; neither shall there be a cult prostitute of the
sons of Israel. You shall not bring the hire of a harlot or the wages of a dog into the house of the LORD your God, in
payment for any vow; for both of these are an abomination to the LORD your God" (RSV). Also see 1 Sam 2:22-25 where
Eli's sons are cursed for lying with the women who served at the tent of meeting.

13.
"But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people, that you may declare the wonderful
deeds of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were no people but now you are God's
people; once you had not received mercy but now you have received mercy" (RSV).

4
is no exclusion or division in Christ. "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free,

there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus."

In other words, in the earliest Christian Church there was no formal style of church ritual

with an ordained individual leading and performing. There were individuals who were set apart as

witnesses and teachers and missionaries. The formalities came later as further organization, rituals,

hierarchy, and authority were deemed necessary. The New Testament teaching that believers were

priests to one another was lost.14 Later, in the second century, the individual bishop began to be

viewed as a representative of the church.15

One explanation for the shift from a church of equality, unity, and potency to one of

hierarchy, division, and legalism can be found in The Didache, a second century Syrian church

discipline manual, which identified prophets as the church's high priests (13.3) According to

William Spencer, this ended the priesthood of all believers for another high priest was instituted on

earththe prophet.

The Didache further restricts this office to males (15.1) despite the fact that, early in

the second century, the governor of Bithynia, Pliny the Younger, had found it necessary to

torture two female ministers (ministrae) in order to gain more information from them about

the activities of Christians (Letters of Pliny X.96).16

Spencer says that the inevitable results of restricting women rebounded on all believers who

were thereby discouraged from exercising their spiritual gifts. A high regard of public opinion and

worries over church purity caused the church of the third century to effectively eliminate spiritual

gifts.17
14.
Peter Fink, "Priesthood," in Westminster Dictionary of Christian Theology, ed. by Alan Richardson and John Bowden
(Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1983), 465.

15.
According to Ignatius of Antioch: "Wherever the bishop is, the whole congregation is present, just as where ever Jesus
Christ is, there is the whole church." (Syrnaeans 8, cited by William Spencer, "The Chaining of the Church," Christian
History 7 no. 1 issue 17 (1988): 24.

16.
Ibid, 25.

17.
Ibid.

5
 In the third century the bishops were referred to as high priests for the first time. Coupled

with the elevation of the bishops in the third and fourth centuries was the reinterpretation of the

Eucharist, which came to be viewed as a reenactment of the sacred drama of the crucifixion. The

priest, as the principle actor performing the rite, was inextricably linked to the Eucharist and to

Christ. The church maintains, therefore, that even as Christ was a male, the priest must be male in

order to most closely identify with Christ. J. I. Packer in 1991 echoes this view: "that one male is

best represented by another male is a matter of common sense." 18

Recently Italian researcher, Giorgio Otranto, has claimed, however, that there were some
women priests in the first five or six centuries of the church. He discovered a letter from fifth

century pope, Gelasius which admonished bishops to encourage women to "officiate at the sacred
19
altars and to take part in all matters imputed to the offices of the male sex..."

In Medieval Christian theology, Christ moved from a place of immanence to a place of

transcendence. This created a need for earthly mediators for the church that priests fulfilled by

assuming the twin roles of bringing sacrifice for sin to God and bringing God's grace to the people

through the consecrated host. Mary came to be viewed as a mediator for the church in this period as

well.

The sixteenth century reformers protested, among other things, the institution of the

priesthood, its hierarchical exclusiveness, and the various abuses of power and control that

prevailed. Protestants rejected priesthood and sacrifices and restored the concept of the priesthood

of the individual believers. Thus Roman Catholics continued to stress that the priesthood of Christ

must be taken over by the priesthood of the ordained man, while the Protestants recognized the

priesthood of all individual believers. Even so, the reformers had no interest in women

ministers/co-workers as known in the earliest church. Neither tradition stressed the priesthood of

18.
"Let's Stop Making Women Presbyters!" Christianity Today, 11 Feb. 1991, 20.

19.
"Women once served as priests, says researcher," The Progress, 24 October, 1991, 2.
"Otranto concedes that even when women served as priests, the practice was the exception rather than the rule and was
condemned by the church hierarchy." But dioceses ordaining women remained in full communion with the Church.

6
the corporate church, which was the second century concept of Christian priesthood. 20 Later

Protestant sects, which arose emphasizing the ever-present, impartial activity of God through the

Holy Spirit, did not restrict women ministering until they too became institutionalized and

hierarchical.

The Protestant minister then symbolizes Christ only to the degree that all Christians through

faith and baptism are part of Christ's body, united with Christ. Through ordination the church

recognizes the individual's gifts, call, and training and orders her or him to gather, to lead, and to

pray. Protestants who restrict women from ordination hold reasons that differ from the Roman
Catholics and Anglicans like Lewis who see the male priest as a symbol of a male Christ.21

"Priestesses in the Church?"

Like the 1976 Vatican Council, C. S. Lewis considered Christ's maleness an image of a

reality that far transcends these other physically defining categories. He insisted in "Priestesses in

the Church?" that the fact that Christ was male, coupled with the Church's requirement that a priest

be male, reflects a reality about the sex of God that transcends other categories, namely that God is

the ultimate in masculinity; a claim the Vatican resists making.

To begin his argument, Lewis remarked that the proposed arrangement, women priests,

"...would make us much more rational but not near so much like a Church..." just as conversation at

a ball instead of dancing would be more rational, but "not near so much like a ball." Lewis explains

that having women priests would be more rational "since there is a shortage of priests, since women

can do all sorts of things which were once supposed to be in the power of men alone, and since

women are not lacking in piety, zeal, learning etc." 22 So why would women priests make the

church less like a church?

20.
Fink, 466.

21.
Many Protestants consider the restrictions found in 1 Cor. 14:34-5, 1 Tim. 2:11-12, 3:12, and Titus 1:6 normative for
all churches in all times, dismissing other references to women coworkers, ministers, anImmd prophets found in Acts 2:1,
16-21; 16:11-15; 17:4,12; 21:9; Romans 16, 1 Cor. 11:4-5; Phil 4:3; Col: 4.15; Titus 2:3-4; 2 Tim. 4:19 etc. They also
ignore the vastly varied cultural situation between the first century and now.

22.
C. S. Lewis, "Priestesses in the Church?" God in the Dock, ed. Walter Hooper (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1970), 235.

7
 He recognized the difficulty of answering this question. "The opposers to women priests at

first can produce nothing but an inarticulate distaste, a sense of discomfort which they find hard to

analyze."23 His purpose in "Priestesses?" was to interpret this discomfort and distaste.

Lewis denied that opposition to women priests stemmed from a contempt for women "for

history makes plain," he wrote, "that in the Middle Ages the church carried their reverence of one

Woman to a point... she became `almost a fourth person of the Trinity.'"24 I am far from convinced

that the near deification of Mary in the Middle Ages confirms the assumption that the Church had

no contempt for women. The medieval church idealized not ordinary women, but an asexual,
virginal woman patterned after certain ideas that came to surround the mother of Jesus.25 Although

many found comfort in the motherly, mediating, intercessory character of the church's Mary, some

women could have little identification with a woman who gave birth yet remained an intact virgin.

The elevation of Mary did not mean the status of women was also elevated! Virginal women in the

Middle Ages gained a measure of freedom and autonomy, but Mary so pedestaled did not reflect a

valuation of women who were wives and mothers. No woman except the Church's Mary could be

the Mother of God, the Queen of Heaven.

Contrary to Lewis' opinion, the records of the Middle Ages plainly demonstrate that in

church thought and civil action women were often held in contempt. Church law in the Middle

Ages even permitted wife beating as a way to control female corruption and disobedience.26 To

theologians of the Middle Ages women represented sexuality, sensuality, and the earth. Their

presence, their very existence, tempted men from high-minded pursuits. Dualismin which male

imaged the mind, spirit, and God and female represented the body, flesh, and the earth

23.
Ibid.

24.
Ibid.

25.
Barbara MacHaffie, Her Story: Women in the Christian Tradition (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1986), 52.

26.
Ibid. 44.

8
abounded.27 Thirteenth century theologian, Thomas Aquinas, like Aristotle and Augustine before

him, believed that females are defective males, the result of male sperm gone awry caused perhaps

by a "damp south wind at conception." He believed that women are dominated by sexual appetite

whereas men are ruled by reason.28 Rosemary Reuther has established that the church's attempt to

eliminate witchcraft through torture and death involved ageism and sexism.29 No elderly recluse

accused of witchcraft could hide the appearance of growths and moles on her body which were

certain proof to civil authorities that she nurtured demons.30 Although Lewis was a respected

medievalist, he was insensitive to the sexism of the Middle Ages. Were his own views of women,
men, and Godas reflected in "Priestesses?" influenced by medieval dualism?

Lewis stressed that although the Middle Ages carried such reverence for Mary that she

became "almost a fourth Person of the Trinity, a sacerdotal office was never attributed to her." 31

This may be true formally, but for Catholics she functions in the priestly role of mediating for the

people to God. Mary has the title "Mediatrix" because of her dual role of speaking to God for

people and in bringing God to the people like no priest ever has or will do: giving birth to Jesus,

God embodied! At Medjugore, for example, she is viewed as bringing God's word and grace to the

people, the task of the prophet.

27.
Ibid. See also Transforming Grace by Anne Carr (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1988), 1-59.

28.
Summa Theologiae I, 92, I; note 18, IV Sent. 25, 2,1, quoted by Will Durrant, Age of Faith (New York: Simon and
Schuster, 1950), 973, 826; and Ruth Tucker, Daughters of the Church: Women and Ministry from New Testament Times
to the Present (Grand Rapids: Acadamie Books, 1987), 164.

29.
Rosemary Reuther, "Persecution of Witches: A Case of Ageism and Sexism?" Christianity and Crisis 34 (23 December
1974): 291, cited by MacHaffie, Her Story, 56. According to MacHaffie, in some places the ratio of women tried as
witches to men was 2/1; in others it was 20/1; and others 100/1. "In Essex County, England 90 percent of the inhabitants
tried for witchcraft were women....The witch trials of 1585 left two villages with only one female each...the image of the
witch wasand \continues to befemale \"(56). MacHaffie also cites Malleus Malleficarum (Hammer of Witches)
published in 1486 which asserted that witchcraft is more likely to be found among women because they were
"feebleminded and easily swayed by false doctrines... were morally weak...inclined toward deceit and revenge; ...they
would seize any opportunity to harm those around them; [their] faith was weak and they would easily renounce
Christianity...[and] they had insatiable lust which caused them to submit willingly to the sexual advances of the devil"
(56).

30.
MacHaffie, 57.

31.
Lewis, 235.

9
 Concerning Mary, Lewis also wrote: "...she is absent both from the Last Supper and the

descent of the Spirit at Pentecost. Such is the record of Scripture."32 Lewis' interpretation is both

uncommon and mistaken.33 According to Acts 1, Mary, Jesus' brothers, the disciples, and other

women devoted themselves with one accord to prayer in the upper room; a disciple was selected to

replace Judas; then the Spirit fell on the same individuals in the same upper room setting. Women,

including Mary, were there, witnessed the descent of, and received the Spirit. Peter quoted Joel

2:28-32 to explain the marvelous phenomena which included the Spirit's falling indiscriminately

upon both males and females. No tradition of exclusiveness based on the activity of the Spirit is
possible.

The Gospels also provide a foundation upon which a tradition for women priests could have

been and now should be formed. The Gospel records relay that Jesus welcomed women as

followers, friends, and students; that women were loyally, sorrowfully present at his death when the

men had scattered in fear, that women were witnesses to his resurrection and were sent by Jesus and

the angels of God to tell the othersthey fulfilled the role of apostles! Although in the New

Testament we have no record of Jesus ordaining womenor men,34 the Holy Spirit gifted women

with prophecy,35 the gift to be earnestly desired according to Paul in 1 Corinthians 14:1-5. Even

Lewis cited other well-known New Testament references to women preachers of the early church.36

31. Ibid.

33.
The Bishop's Pastoral, "One in Christ Jesus: A Response to the Concern of Women for Church and Society," (see n.
10) refers to these same verses to prove the presence of women at Pentecost and their resulting activity. "In the early
church, women along with men received the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:14, 2.3-4) came to believe (Acts 5.14)...They prophesied
(Acts 21:9) and taught others about Jesus (Acts 18:26), braving persecution and imprisonment for the sake of the Name."

34.
According to Rev. Richard P. McBrien, head of the theology department at Notre Dame University, "There is no biblical
evidence that Jesus left us an ecclesiastical blueprint. Indeed there is much evidence to the contrary. Neither is there any
evidence that Jesus explicitly forbade the ordination of women...Indeed as many have hastened to point out, we also do
not have any textual evidence that Jesus ordained anyone, male or female." ("Superiority Complex Opposes Women
Priests," The Progress, 24 May 1990, 6).

35.
Acts 2:14-21; Acts 21:9.

36.
Lewis, 237.

10
 The New Testament is not innovative in its understanding of the role of women as bearers of

God's message. Lewis was aware of Old Testament examples of women prophets, spokeswomen

for God. Consider the story about the great king of Judah, Josiah (2 Kings 22), who is presented

with a law scroll found by workers repairing the Temple. He and his male high priest consulted

Huldah, the prophetess. She promptly pronounced the word of Yahweh (vss. 16-20). Consider also

Deborah in the book of Judges who is introduced to readers as a prophetess, judge, and deliverer.

Many other women are used by God to save Israel in the Hebrew Bible, but these are two who

specifically function in Israel's story as prophets of God.

Such Scriptural records did not become a basis for ordaining women when ordination

became institutionalized in the Christian Church. Instead there was a return to the Israelite model of

a cultic, exclusive hierarchy.37 Why did the tradition of the Church become one of exclusion

instead of inclusion when at its inception God's Church, like God's Christ and God's Spirit, was

resoundingly inclusive?

As in all issues of human history there are many psychological, social, and political

explanations, and I noted some of them above. Lewis, in seeking to find a basis outside of

institutional politics and patriarchal history for the exclusively male priesthood, appealed to the

gender of God. For Lewis "the central thing" was that all priests must image physically the real,

spiritual masculinity of God: "...the central thing is being forgotten. To us a priest is primarily a

representative, a double representative, who represents us to God and God to us...We have no

objection to a woman doing the first (emphasis mine). The whole difficulty is with the second."38

This statement creates a problem. The church of the Middle Ages based the evolving

concept, the tradition, of the priesthood on the Old Testament levitical institution in which the male

priestthrough various sacrificial ritesrepresented the people to God: "the first." Lewis has no

difficulty with a woman doing this. A woman representing God is "the whole difficulty" for Lewis.

37.
Anne E. Carr, Transforming Grace (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1988), 1-59.

38.
Lewis, 236.

11
Speaking for, presenting God's views and voice to the people was the role of the prophet. Lewis

himself emphasized that "there were prophetesses even in Old Testament times. Prophetesses not

priestesses."39

Lewis' discomfort with women priests writhed not on Scriptural patterns, but on his fear that

a woman priest may be implicitly showing that "God is like a good woman!" But Jesus was not

afraid to liken God to a good woman in the parable of the lost coin (Luke 15.8-10). Lewis feared

that we might begin to pray "Our Mother which art in Heaven"40 because he believed that when

Jesus taught his disciples to pray to "our Father", He was teaching everyone, everywhere how to
speak to God. But many later disciples have found comfort in the Old Testament analogies of God

as a nurturing mother and in picturing a motherly image when they pray to God. Julian of Norwich

referred to Jesusand medieval artists depicted himas "our Mother Jesus."41

Lewis also worried that the mystical marriage might be reversed, "that the Church were the

Bridegroom and Christ the Bride. All of this seems to me, is involved in the claim that a woman

can represent God as a priest does."42 By saying that the mystical marriage would be reversed,

Lewis mixed the traditional metaphor of the priesthood with the biblical metaphor of marriage used

to picture the covenant relationship between God and people. "One of the ends for which sex was

created was to symbolize to us the hidden things of God. One of the functions of human marriage is

to express the nature of the union between Christ and the Church..."43

Lewis was convinced that the male sex symbolizes one of the hidden things of God and that

the male image is far closer to the reality than we dare dream.44 Others may be convinced that the

39.
Ibid.

40.
Ibid. 237.

41.
Julian of Norwich: Revelations of Divine Love, trans. Clifton Wolters (Middlesex, England: Penguin Books, 1966), 33.

42.
Lewis, 237.

43.
Ibid.

44.
Ibid.

12
priest is an image of God and Christ and functions as a symbol of mediation and dispenser of grace.

It is far more difficult to understand how the priest functions in relation to worshippers to picture

their intimacy and union with God. If all priests must be male, must all congregations be female?

Indeed, the analogy of marriage conveys unity and intimacy. Within that context, male and

female physiology operate to express two becoming one and symbolize the mysterious

reconciliation between God and people. But I cannot appreciate the image of the priest joined with

his congregation: he the male, they the female counterpart. The priesthood symbolizes what

marriage cannot image: Divine grace dispensed through the sacraments of host and preached word.
But is a priest "husband" to the local church? Do those in the congregation function as "wives" to

the priest? If so, the priesthood as image is asked to do too much; it becomes a metaphor forced to

walk on all fours when there are other effective means to share the task of picturing the character

and activity of a relational, provisional God.45

Lewis also feared women priests would mean "that the Incarnation might just as well have

taken a female as a male form, and the Second Person of the Trinity be as well called the Daughter

as well as the Son."46 But there is a vast difference between viewing God as motherly and viewing

Jesus, a male in the flesh, as a daughter instead of a son. The Scriptures show that God includes,

and yet is beyond, masculine and feminine; whereas Jesusalthough demonstrating an emotional

wholeness and maturity beyond his yearswas limited physically to one sex. This is one of the

restrictions of being human.

The reason Lewis was appalled by the supposals that women priests may show God to be

like a good woman, may lead us to pray to a Mother in Heaven, and call Jesus a daughter as well as

a son was:

if [they] were ever carried into effect we should be embarked on a different

religion...Religions [with goddesses and priestesses are] quite different in character

45.
See Gen.1:27 and Ephesians 5:22-32.

46.
Lewis, 237.

13
 from Christianity...a child who has been taught to pray to a Mother in Heaven would

have a religious life radically different from that of a Christian child.47

Why? Because for Lewis, the Christian God was male and more than male, and endorsement of this

is essential to the nature of Christianity. The male priesthood exemplifiesimages in the flesh the

reality of the masculinity of God. This was for Lewis at the heart of Christianity. To understand

Lewis' point we must recognize the solidarity that existed for him between image and reality. He

was convinced that the masculine imagery was inspired while the feminine imagery was not.

To say that [the masculine imagery] is not inspired...is based upon a shallow view of
imagery. Without drawing upon religion, we know from our poetic experience that image

and apprehension cleave closer together than common sense is here prepared to admit;...And

as image and apprehension are in an organic unity, so, for a Christian, are human body and

human soul....48

For Lewis, the sex of the priest must reflect something crucial about the character of God.

A male priest does not make God male. A priest must be male because a priest is the image of a

masculine deity. To argue against "declaring women capable of priests' orders," he did not dwell on

Christ's maleness, or on Christ's failure to ordain women, or on the maleness of the twelve apostles

(which are the arguments of the Roman Catholic Church and many others who oppose women

priests). Instead he stressed that priests must be male in order to reflect the pervasive, eternal, and

necessary masculinity of God.

The innovators are really implying that sex is something superficial, irrelevant to the

spiritual life. To say that men and women are equally eligible for a certain profession is to

say that for the purposes of that profession, their sex is irrelevant. We are in that context

treating both as neuters... 49

47.
Ibid.

48.
Ibid.

49.
Ibid.

14
 If God is male, and the priest images God by depicting an unalterable reality, then to ordain

a woman priest is to make up a new religion (or to revert back to old ones which emphasized

sexuality and fertility), because God has no feminine characteristics or qualities that could be

reflected by a woman functioning in the priestly role. According to Lewis, to recognize and

appreciate feminine aspects of God is to emulate ancient fertility religions with sensual worship

rituals,50 and, in order to check this, the male priesthood must be perpetuated.

Lewis' Masculine God

Clearly Lewis believed that God is masculine, God is not beyond gender or androgynous,
that God is only and thoroughly masculine.51

Only one wearing the masculine uniform can represent the Lord to the Church: for we are

all corporately and individually feminine to Him. We men may often make very bad priests.

That is because we are insufficiently masculine. It is no cure to call in those who are not

masculine at all.52

Lewis had an even more narrow view of God than Augustine who believed that a man alone

could reflect the image of God; a man is androgynous, so is God; a man is whole, so is God; but a

woman alone cannot reflect God.53 For Lewis, the feminine lies outside of, entirely beyond, and is

completely other than God. In other words, it is not that God transcends gender, it is that female

transcends God for God is exclusively male. This tells us reams about his view of the male, and to

say that "...we are all, corporately and individually, feminine to Him" tells us volumes about his

50.
Certain post-Christian feminists have indeed moved in the direction of goddess worship.

51.
I disagree with Maggie Kirkman and Norma Grieve, ("Women, Power and Ordination: A Psychological Interpretation
of the Objections to the Ordination of Women to the Priesthood," Women's Studies International Forum 7 no. 6 [Great
Britain 1984]: 489). They say that Lewis believes spiritually androgynous male priests properly image an androgynous
God; no, to Lewis, God is only masculine and only a truly masculine man will truly reflect God.

52.
Lewis, 239.

53.
Augustine, De Trinitate 7.7, 10 quoted by Kirkman and Grieve 488 and Rosemary Radford Reuther, Religion and
Sexism, (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1974), 156. The woman together with her husband is the image of God, so that
the whole substance may be one image. But when she is referred to separately in her quality of a helpmate, which regards
the woman herself alone, then she is not the image of God. But as regards the man alone, he is the image of God as fully
and completely as when the woman too is joined with him. Also see Not in God's Image, ed. Julia O'Faolain and Lauro
Marines (New York: Harper and Row), 130.

15
definition of feminine. He believed that feminine is to masculine what human is to divine, and

human, relative to God, implies inferior, subject, submissive, dependent, and responsive; whereas

masculine means godlike: powerful, resourceful and authoritarian.

Does Scripture present God as only masculine? Are Lewis' definitions of masculine and

feminine adequate? Is insufficient masculinity truly the reason men often make bad priests?

Contrary to Lewis' view, our stories, traditions, and texts depict an androgynous, holistic,

multivalent God; a well-rounded deity possessing a multiplicity of attributes. Although Scripture

was written in eras dominated by patriarchy, we find therein refreshing views of God as both
feminine and masculine in the traditional and broader senses of the terms. In the Old Testament

God is likened to a mother giving birth, a mother who is loving, nurturing, and providing. To

describe God's character our sacred stories use images of a woman's resources of abundance and

nurture, of provision, strength, and comfort.54

Most people easily recognize the analogical nature of female imagery, but resist accepting

the analogical nature of the male imagery.55 I believe this is a result of the power of the image

formed and enforced by centuries of an overwhelmingly male clergy. To Lewis, and to many in our

culture, God is masculine and this means absolutely impassible, powerfully independent, totally

self-sufficient, entirely invulnerable, without need or want of any kind.

But Scripture does not picture God (or masculinity) this way. Although for Lewis, God was

not female at all, Genesis 1:27 clearly says that male and female together form the image of God.

Genesis 2 says "it is not good that man should be alone"; that, contrary to Augustine, man is

incomplete alone. If a priest is to accurately image God, the priesthood should reflect both sides of

God's character. I fear Lewis was perilously close to idolatry in his conception of the maleness of
54.
In Num 11:12 Moses complained that Godnot Mosesconceived, gave birth, nursed, and carried the people. In Deut
32:18 God is referred to as "The Rock that labored and bore you." In Isa 42:14 God says: "Like a woman in childbirth, I
cry out, I gasp, I pant." Isa 49:15 pictures God as a mother, and more than a mother, for even if a mother could forget her
suckling childand the author intends this thought to be impossibleGod will not forget Zion for "behold I have graven
you on the palms of my hands." In Isa 66:13 after describing Jerusalem as a nursing, consoling, carrying, dandling mother;
God says: "As one whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort you." Israel is "his" and God is mother.

55.
See Jewett, 86.

16
God. He bordered on idolatry because masculinity is a reflection of only one aspect of God.

Consider Deut 4:15-16:

Therefore take good heed to yourselves. Since you saw no form on the day that the

LORD spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire, beware lest you act

corruptly by making a graven image for yourselves, in the form of any figure, the

likeness of male or female...

Given the pervasiveness, the depth, the significance of the image of the priest as male, and the

reason given for the necessity of a male priesthood (to accurately reflect the sex of God), I think it is
an idolatry far more entrenched than any graven image. Lewis himself stressed in "Priestesses?

that "image and reality are in an organic unity." 56 By insisting on ordaining only males, the church

has for centuries 1) portrayed, 2) promoted, and 3) received an inadequate, single dimensional, even

skewed reflection of God.

Male priesthood in the culture of the Old Testament era may have been a means to

disassociate sexuality and fertility rites from the worship of Yahweh, but a perpetuation of a male

priesthood can hardly be sanctioned from the New Testament era when women were the first

apostolate sent to tell by the risen Christ himself. Also in the New Testament a basis for the

ordination of women priests exists in the many allusions to women witnesses, prophets, preachers,

and pray-ers. In his 1891 work, Ordaining Women, B. T. Roberts cited the second century letter of

governor Pliny to the Roman emperor, Trajan, which describes the persecution of the two women

ministers and concludes: Women it seems could be ministers of the church at this early age, while

it was poor and persecuted, but afterwards, when it became rich and popular, the were set aside.57

To continue the practice of excluding women from the priesthood based on the argument that

females transcend the image of God is to idolize the male, to make God in the image of man.58
56.
Lewis, 237.

57.
B. T. Roberts, Ordaining Women (Rochester, New York: Earnest Christian Publishing House), 157.

58.
For culturally conditioned men in authority to give their sisters in Christ full equality may have been too much to expect,
and too much for the Greco-Roman world to accept. But Christianity itself was revolutionary, too much for that world to
accept, and Christians were severely persecuted and martyred for their misunderstood devotion to God and Christ. The

17
 When Priests Fail

Lewis' conception of the masculinity of Goda conception that makes God in the image of

manis never more clear than when he said that male priests fail when they are insufficiently

masculine. I propose the opposite assertion: that priests and ministers fail, the Church fails, and the

cause of Christ fails because the ordinands have been insufficiently `feminine'; they have been

incompletely human and incomplete as divine representatives. They have failed not only in the

traditionally feminine role of being nurturing, comforting, providing, and relational; but they have

even failed by not being feminine as Lewis thought of feminine: receptive, vulnerable, empathetic,
and dependent. My point is not to discuss theories on sexual difference, the influences of genetics,

conditioning, and culture on gender. My intention is to appeal to our sacred stories to demonstrate

that God is depicted as a lover and a partner who has chosen to rely upon humans and to possess the

vulnerabilities that love and partnership entail.

We have seen that Scripture shows that male and female reflect the image of God, that God

is like a nurturing mother; but where and how in our stories and texts do we see God as dependent

on the cooperation of people, as vulnerable and responsive? In our need to defend the power,

sovereignty, the `masculinity' of God, this interdependent aspect of God, illustrated in the macro-

plot of the Bible, normally goes unrecognized.

From the beginning of Scripture's story, God has relied upon humankind to bear God's

image and to care for the creatures of the earth. God's plans and work are dependent on the free

response of humankind. The entire Bible is the story of fulfilled or failed cooperation with God;

when humans failed God failed, but God did not quit. In the account of the flood God was "grieved

to the heart" over human violence and evil intentions (Gen 6). Later it becomes clear that God

could not have conceived or gestated a people if Abraham had not obeyed and believed at some

points, even if he faltered at others. The story in Exodus insists that God needed a mid-wife, Moses,

fact remains that the Spirit of God came equally to women, that women probably spread the Gospel as muchor more
thanmen We have not been told the whole story. And the story we do know contains evidence that women were an
integral part of early Christianity when it was poor, persecuted and hounded. Note the apostle, Junia, cited in Romans 16:7.

18
to assist at the delivery of the children of Israel from Egypt. At Mt. Sinai the once reluctant, tongue-

tied recruit saved the same people and even God from the threatened divine wrath which, Moses

passionately and eloquently argued, was unbecoming to God's reputation and inconsistent with

God's earlier promises (Ex. 32:11-35).

Repeatedly the stories of Scripture place God in positions of vulnerability and receptivity.

Scripture is foremost the story of God's love. One who loves, one who loves much, is the most

often and easily hurt. Yes, God initiated contact and provided deliverance to an enslaved, weak

people who were few in number, but if they did not voluntarily ratify the covenant and accept its
conditions, it became ineffective (Ex. 24, Josh 24). A covenant must have at least two amenable

parties. No one, including God, could have made a covenant alone. If the people were faithful to

their agreement the covenant remained intact, otherwise God's desired purposes failed. In fact, the

Old Testament is a story of repeated human failure and hence a story of the weakness and suffering

of God; for in spite of God's good will and intentions, power and performance, God could not do it

alone. None of our defenses of God can alter the Scriptural plot that God's pleasure and purposes

were dependent on the obedience and fidelity of God's covenant partners.

According to other stories and traditions in the text, when the children of Israel hurt, God

hurt. "In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them; in his love

and in his pity he redeemed them; he lifted them up and carried them all the days of old" (Isaiah

63:9).

Job, who lost all tangible benefits and prosperity, demonstrated to God, to the adversary, and

to the reader that one could live for the truth of God rather than the blessing and comfort of God.

God depended on Job (unbeknownst to him) to illustrate that people can ascend to heights of

disinterested morality in contrast to other charactersAdam and Eve, David and Solomon etc.

who established that humans, even with everything going for them, easily descend to the depths of

moral failure.59

59.
Phillip Yancey, Disappointment with God (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1988) 171-172.

19
 In being vulnerable to human choices, God takes tremendous risks and suffers the

consequences. Why do we assume that we have these stories only because we need them, that their

often analogical nature means God is beyond the needs, feelings, and the weaknesses they portray?

Abraham Heschel, a Jewish theologian, says the statements about God's emotions and pathos are

"not a compromiseways of accommodating higher meanings to the lower level of human

understanding. They are rather the accommodations of words to higher meanings."60 This is

similar to Lewis' explanation of the solidarity between image and reality. But in insisting God is

masculine, Lewis had not considered the full reality of God's character as imaged in Scripture.
Of course the greatest illustration of the weakness, vulnerability and empathy of God is

depicted in the Incarnation. Here God became embodied in the weakest and most defenseless form

of human life: a human embryo and then a baby. Was the sex of this God-baby a symbol of God's

power, or was the infancy of Jesus the embodiment of weakness and identification with humanity?

When asked if male babies are stronger and more powerful than female babies, if they feed

themselves any more adeptly, or learn to speak or walk more quickly, if they feel the pain of hunger,

thirst, neglect, and abuse less acutely; the only answer is: of course not. The significance of the

Incarnation is the helplessness of the infancy of God, the weakness of God's humanity with which

humans can identify. In the Incarnation, God experienced human limitations as God could no other

way. For the first time God was limited to a time, a place, and a body; which can only mean being

limited to one sex. God became human to learn what being human was like. God had always

sought the love of creature and covenant partner; as Jesus, God longed for the acceptance and

responsiveness of his peers. God was at the mercy of others in a dustier, dirtier, bloodier, more

tearful way than ever before. For our sake and for God's sake, God needed to be vulnerable in this

way. Hebrews 7:15 says: "We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our

weaknesses..." And we do not need such a high priest!

60.
Paul Brand and Phillip Yancey, In His Image (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1984) 282.

20
 God in Jesus cried over Jerusalem and over Lazarus and over himself, and God in Jesus died

on a cross. God should have been accustomed to being rejected by people, but God as Jesus felt

rejection more acutely than ever before. It is riveting to read that the women stood by Jesus in his

dying hour when he felt with the Psalmist that even his God had forsaken him. Never have we seen

a weaker picture of God: a paralyzed, dying Jew, a torn and bloody member of a subject people,

completely oppressed and smitten, powerless and non-aligned.61

Why then do some insist, with Lewis, that the larger, biologically stronger sex represent

Christ and God on the other side of the altar? Why do we uphold the masculine to image the God
who was oppressed, who endured the pain and shame, who knows our weakness firsthand, and

carries the iniquities of us all? Why must the historically controlling gender re-enact the drama of

the suffering Christ and consecrate the host when it was the politically and religiously powerfulof

course they were all malewho crucified him? The one woman among the elite in the story, the

wife of Pilate, urged him to have nothing to do with Jesus. Even the male disciples forsook Christ

while the female followers stood with him.

Who is being crucified when females are barred from the priesthood? Are the weak and

oppressed still being symbolically sacrificed when the Eucharist is consecrated and served? Unlike

Lewis, officials of the Catholic Church assert that God is not male, but like Lewis, they insist that

the priesthood must be male to symbolize Christ. Have they forgotten that the one who identified

with the widow, the orphan, the weeping mother, the bleeding woman, the dying daughter, the

accused adulteress,62 and the maligned Marys is the perfect representation of God? Has the church

forgotten that God, through the mouths of mothers like Hannah and Mary, through the mouths of

the prophets and the incarnate God, Jesus, cried woe to the oppressor?

Conclusion

61.
See In His Image for a moving discussion of the weakness and pain of God.
62.
The note on John 8 in RSV of The Oxford Study Bible says: This account, omitted in many ancient manuscripts, appears
to be an authentic incident in Jesus' ministry, though not belonging originally to John's Gospel.

21
 Male and female together form the image of God. Female priests would completemake

whole and perfectthe picture of God which has been one-sided for so many centuries. I recognize

with the Roman Catholic Church that Jesus did not ordain women.63 But is it right to be faithful to

something Jesus did not do rather than something he did do: uplift the fallen, heal the sick, raise the

dead, preach good news to the poor, proclaim release to the captive, bring sight to the blind, and to

set at liberty those who are oppressed? Father McBrien of Notre Dame University believes:

...the real underlying theological argument against the ordination of women [is] not

tradition. Not the teaching and practice of the New Testament Church. Not the
teaching and practice of Jesus. It is that since God is masculine, women are less

godly than men...women as women are incapable of the priestly work of mediation

between God and ourselves...The ordination of women question ...is, at root, a

question about the nature of God and the nature of human existence.64

B. T. Roberts, who founded of the Free Methodist Church, wrote:

Why does [the church] not have a more marked effect upon the lives of those who

acknowledge its truth? There must be a cause! The reason is that the vast majority

of those who embrace the Gospel are not permitted to labor according to their

ability, for the spread of the Gospel.65

C. S. Lewis in "Priestesses in the Church?" was fearful of rearranging shadows and thereby

losing an understanding of the mysterious realities of the masculine and the feminine that stand

behind earthly gender. I am concerned that we have lost more intrinsically significant realities

about God by excluding from sacramental service to the Church women whoif they were

63.
As I pointed out earlier, the argument of the Catholic Church is: "the church in fidelity to the example of our Lord does
not consider herself authorized to admit women to priestly ordination" (Inter Insigniores, 10-11; Jewett, 84). Like Father
McBrien and many others have stressed, the fact that Jesus did not ordain women when there was no formal ordination
process of any sort carries little weight. The same reasoning would lead the church to jettison ordination altogether.

64.
McBrien, 6.

65.
B. T. Roberts, Ordaining Women, 116.

22
includedwould far better embody and bring to pass the themes of the songs of Hannah and Mary

which underscore the exaltation of the lowly and the lowering of the mighty.66

I conclude with a poem written by Frances C. Frank, mother of three and grandmother of

three, which was printed in the Catholic newsletter, A Matter of Spirit.

Did the woman say

When she held him for the first time in the dark dank of a stable,

After the pain and the bleeding and the crying,

"This is my body; this is my blood"?

Did the woman say,

When she held him for the last time in the dark rain on a hilltop,

After the pain and the bleeding and dying,

"This is my body; this is my blood"?

Well that she said it to him then,

For dry old men,

Brocaded robes belying barrenness,

Ordain that she not say it for him now.67

66.
1 Sam 2:1-10 and Luke 1:46-55.

67.
A Matter of Spirit: A Peacemaking Journal of the Northwest, 4 (Easter 1990): 5.

23