Wednesday 10 February 2010

Is this helpful?

What this argument comes down to is this: The Church has been run for a couple of centuries by men. It’s now full of women. So what we need is more men to run it.  George Pitcher's Blog
I just love this kind of debunking J - unfortunately it isn't L.  The article starts with a true statement:
Yesterday it was claimed that there was a “testosterone deficit” in Church congregations.
and further down includes the quote that I started with, but in between the two is included:
Now, I suppose an argument could be constructed that, because women are in the majority in church attendance, greater efforts have to be made to attract men back to worship. So we need more male clergy, some of whom will be put off ordination to priesthood by the prospect of women bishops.
So there we have it, a perfectly true article, but one which if given a cursory reading allows one to think that someone - other than the author - has proposed this preposterous notion, which the author can then bat away.

The problem is that most of us read things cursorily these days - it was only when I went looking for the source, and couldn't find it, that I realised that the source of the argument being debunked was the author himself - and he generated 41 comments about it the last time that I looked!

Now, this might all be considered very good fun, but it hardly seems to be in the spirit of the Archbishop's presidential address (which, Mad Priest, I haven't read either) to make up ridiculous arguments for those who disagree with you.

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