Pynchme:

<*Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins. (1 Peter 4:8 )>

Well that's a very sweet philosophy, Pynchme, but meanwhile a very tough (macho!) and pragmatic world of economic and material realities continues relentless and unimpeded---while the sisters hold hands and "ring around the rosie!" (an appropriate analogy, I think, given this cute nursery rhyme's probable inspiration).
Doting over men's bibles while the home and hearth is in dire peril (Ladybird ladybird fly away home...) demeans women's traditional down-to-earthness. Has anyone heard of the female Romantics? While Wordsworth and Coleridge and Keats and co wrote sublime poetry on pantheism and the imagination, their fair contemporaries, the women Romantics, more prolific and more popular than the men, wrote great poetry on their down-to-earth themes and concerns. Of course the female romantics (who were anything but romantic) were expunged from the "male" Romantic tradition that was handed down to us, by men! The female Romantics only re-emerged in the 1980's, thanks to hard-headed feminist research behind the male ideology and the male heritage we've all been taught to worship.
The bible and the Koran et al, are no different. Ideological claptrap! Pure sublimation (look it up)! Full of sublime male abstractions and verbal niceties that the incongruous male reality makes a mockery of!
Singing hymns while the world burns makes women no better than Nero (another male role-model)!
If only the world had more modern, female, oxymoronic romantics!
But sadly, most women just follow their men. It's pathetic!

Pynchme,
thanks for the excellent link.

Just to clarify my position above; I don't say there is no place for philosophy or spiritual contemplation, certainly I find consolation in these. But there's a pernicious and frumpy neglect of earthly concerns (and demeaning of women) in the observation of traditional religious texts (and canonicity) drawn-up by "MEN", not by "GOD"!! Anyone who gives this an ounce of thought has to see this as a no-brainer!
In my opinion these texts originally evolved to manipulate the masses into compliance (they also served as a much needed palliative for a vicious existence), and they still function in this way. But the more dangerous corollary, in the modern global context, is that they (religious texts) serve as psychological retreats from, and rationales for, real evils in the real world. And while they were once a palliative for a wretched material existence, they're now used (in the prosperous west) to palliate and rationalise excess.

Germany (where I live now) could provide a hint about potential memebership benefit to the Catholic Church of female ordination. Here in fact only two Christian Churches have been present and active: the Catholic and the Lutheran, approximately of the same sizes.

[The State collects Church tax, i.e. a German taxpayer has to state which Church (if any) he/she belongs to, and also has to notify the State Authorities if he/she wants to leave it and save the money. The same if a German taxpayer wants to become a meber of one of the Churches. An absurdity to my mind.]

There has been a mass exodus from both the Churches in recent decades. I do not have the numbers on hand, but it has been to about the same extent (actually the Catholic Church seems to have fared slightly better). The fact that the Lutherans have had female pastors and bishops for many years does not seem to have been of advantage to them. Also, those leaving one of these two Churches seldom enter the other.

So I doubt whether what Paul Collins seems to be suggesting for the Australian Catholic Church, in fact a secession from Rome, would achieve what he wants.

COPRRECTION:

Well, the clumsy
“potential memebership benefit to the Catholic Church“
should, of course read,
“potential benefit to the Catholic Church, regarding their membership numbers“.

Just as I predicted, Boaz.

>>The verses in Corinthians and Timothy.. should be balanced with those of Ephesians<<

How did I phrase it again?

"I'm sure you will come up with quotes that balance these..."

But the point I was making was not that contradictions exist in the Bible, but that you reject the fact that you approach the Qur'an with an entirely different agenda.

But that is a little off topic here. Let's get back to the main game.

>> those outside of Christ... cannot embrace or understand the Biblical pattern for male female relationships.<<

Ah, the old "you just don't understand" defence. Good one.

You do realize, of course, that it is precisely the same form of rationalization as that used by NAMBLA to defend their position in society - "those outside cannot embrace or understand..."?

Sound familiar?

I recall that you frequently disparaged this rationale in one or other of your former personae, so I am a little surprised that you choose to employ it here.

As for this little gem:

>>Women who hear the Gospel, are not hearing a call to submission to men, but to God, and we blokes also to God.<<

A sidestep worthy of the great JPR Williams himself:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sW1cWJzO01Q

The point under discussion is not how women react to the Gospel, but about the manner in which men ensure that women are kept out of key leadership positions in the Church. Often using that same gospel as justification.

This sums up your position, I think:

>>...the Biblical teaching may seem a tad harsh or outdated, but in reality it is expressing a culture, or promoting one<<

Yep. As far as I can tell, you have demonstrated perfectly that its culture, as far as women are concerned, is both harsh, and outdated.

Hey TBC

You wanted to know why women would bother with the Christian church and two (Foxy and Pynchme) have given their reasons. I don't fully understand them either. But I, like you, see the bible as an anachronistic collection of tales developed to keep people in line with a little bit of good advice mixed in with all the errors and devious psychological manipulation.

I do understand the need for the numinous, the spiritual but I get that from the natural world, no book written by old men for spurious reasons does it for me.

However, given Foxy's and Pynchme's posting history here at OLO, they write very genuine and thoughtful contributions (whether or not I agree is irrelevant). Being the member of any group gives a feeling of inclusion and support - something that appeals especially to women but also some men. You know the stereotypes; cooperative women: independent men. And we all know members of either sex who are nothing like the stereotype. Some of us (women) are very "aggressive" and don't accord respect to someone just because they are a leader of sorts.

;)

And some men are totally submissive to authority.

So it goes...