The
incident of a couple of weeks ago in which Fr. Calvin Robinson, having been
invited to address the Mere Anglicanism conference hosted by an ACNA parish in
the United States on the subject of how critical theory is contrary to the
Gospel and was disinvited from the final panel because in his talk he
highlighted feminism’s role in the development of Cultural Marxism and
criticized women’s ordination, is still generating much discussion. Fr. Robinson, if you are unfamiliar with
him, is an outspoken conservative Christian commentator from the United
Kingdom. He was denied ordination in
the Church of England a few years ago, for his conservative views, but was
ordained a deacon in the Free Church of England (the British counterpart to the
American Reformed Episcopal Church, it separated from the Church of England in
the nineteenth century in protest over the Oxford Movement) then later a priest
in the Nordic Catholic Church (a group that left the Lutheran Church of Norway
to join the Old Catholics, i.e., the formerly Roman Catholic Churches that
rejected Vatican I). He also had a show
on GB News until they dropped him last year in a spasm of political correctness. The ACNA is the Anglican Church in North
America which was founded about fifteen years ago by parishes that separated
from the Episcopal Church in the United States and the Anglican Church of
Canada (up here the parishes associated with the ACNA go by the name Anglican
Network in Canada, ANiC) over the increasing influence of the alphabet soup
lobby in the mainline bodies (as seen in same-sex blessings/marriages). It is recognized by and in full communion
with the orthodox provinces of the Anglican Communion (the Global South
provinces) although not with the Church of England, the Anglican Church of
Canada or the Episcopal Church, the three most apostate Churches within the
Anglican Communion. Parts of the ACNA
practice women’s ordination, other parts do not. The aforementioned Reformed Episcopal
Church, for example, which joined the ACNA when it was formed although it had
already been separated from the Episcopal Church for over a century, does
not. This the REC has in common with
other Anglican jurisdictions that left the Episcopal Church over its apostasy
prior to the alphabet soup crisis, such as those which left when James Parker
Dees declared the Episcopal Church apostate in 1963 over liberalism as
manifested in her refusal to discipline Bishop Pike when he abandoned the faith
entirely (the low church Anglican Orthodox Church and the high church Orthodox
Anglican Church, originally a single communion) and, rather obviously, those
who signed the St. Louis Affirmation of 1977 which declared the Episcopal
Church and the Anglican Church of Canada to have apostatized from Christ’s One
Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church by introducing women’s ordination (called
the Continuing Anglican Churches or the Anglican Continuum in the stricter
sense, the broader sense of these terms also includes the REC, AOC, OAC, and
other smaller groups that left prior to St. Louis, these were intended to be a
single body by the Concerned Churchman of St. Louis who, interestingly enough,
called the body they so envisioned the Anglican Church in North America). (1) The ACNA calls its policy of allowing
different dioceses and parishes to have different viewpoints and practices on
the matter of women’s ordination by the expression “dual integrities”.
I don’t
have much to add to the discussion of the incident itself. I rather wish to answer an argument that Dr.
Bruce Atkinson has posted in several places.
One of those places is the comments section on Dr.
David W. Virtue’s article on the Robinson/Mere Anglicanism affair and
it is this
version, should there be any differences between this and the
versions he has posted elsewhere, to which I shall be responding. Dr. Atkinson is a psychologist and a
founding member of the ACNA.
His first
section under the heading “On WO” reads:
1) The New Testament
does not discuss the issue of the sacramental ordination of clergy at all,
neither male nor female. What became the tradition of clericalism (a ruling and
elite priesthood order) only developed after the Apostles had passed. The
closest the NT gets to supporting this is where Paul mentions roles of
overseer, elder, and deacon (servant) and a few times he or elders prayed and
laid hands on disciples for specific tasks. Hardly the same as what later
became the sacrament of ordination. And Jesus was against such a ruling
privileged priesthood as evidenced in Mark 10:42-44 and Matthew 23:5-12, and as
also evidenced by Peter’s view of the priesthood as being of ALL believers (1
Peter 2:4-5, 9).
As I have
pointed out many times in the past a case against a distinct priesthood within
the Church cannot be made from St. Peter’s remarks about the universal
priesthood of all believers. This is
because there was a universal priesthood under both Covenants. In the book of Exodus, the Israelites,
having been led by Moses out of Egypt, arrived at the wilderness of Sinai in
the nineteenth chapter. At the beginning
of this chapter, the LORD, speaking to Moses out of the mountain, tells him to
tell the Israelites “And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy
nation.” (v 6). This clearly did not
preclude the establishment of a more specific priesthood, the Levitical
priesthood, within national Israel. St.
Peter, by joining the expressions “royal priesthood” and “holy nation” in 1
Peter 2:9 alludes back to this Old Testament passage. Since the original did not preclude a more
specific priesthood, neither can the New Testament allusion. Especially since St. Paul speaks of his
ministerial work in terms of just such a priesthood. In Romans 15:16 he writes:
That I should be the
minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, ministering
the gospel of God, that the offering up of the Gentiles might be acceptable,
being sanctified by the Holy Ghost.
The word
“ministering” that is placed in bold in the above quotation is in St. Paul’s
Greek “ἱερουργοῦντα” (hierourgounta).
This is the present, active, participle of ἱερουργέω (hierourgeo) which
means “to officiate as a priest”, “to perform sacred rites”, “to
sacrifice”. It is formed by combining
the basic Greek word for “priest” (St. Peter’s word for “priesthood” in 1 Pet.
2:9 is ἱεράτευμα, hierateuma) with the basic Greek word for “work”. Indeed, the word λειτουργὸν (leitourgon)
that is behind the noun “minister” earlier in the verse has connotations of
this as well since the primary meaning of the word, “public servant” in the
civic sense, clearly does not apply here.
That this sort of language is not more widely used of the
Apostolic ministry in the New Testament is easily explainable. The Old Testament priesthood was still
functioning at the time. The Book of
Acts brings the history of the Church down to a few years prior to the
destruction of the Temple. SS Peter and
Paul were both martyred prior to that event.
Most of the New Testament was written prior to that event. To more promiscuously refer to the ministry
of the Church as a priesthood would have invited confusion at that time. That this did not prevent St. Paul from
referring to it as such in this verse is explainable by a) the fact that his
ministry was to the Gentiles as stated in this very verse and so unlikely to be
confused with the priesthood of national Israel, and by b) the fact that this
verse comes towards the end of an epistle in which it is preceded by an
extended discussion of the differences between the two Covenants.
The very nature of the rite that the Lord commissioned the
Apostolic ministry to perform in the Church necessitates that it be thought of
as a priesthood. There were three types
of sacrifices (in terms of what was to be offered) the Levitical priesthood was
commissioned to offer in the Old Testament.
There was the offering of animals, who were killed and their blood
sprinkled, which was involved in any sacrifice having to do with sin and
guilt. These were a type of the
Sacrifice of Jesus Christ and were forever fulfilled in Christ’s
Sacrifice. Then there were the
offerings of grain/flour/cakes (meat/meal/grain offerings) and of wine
(libations). These three elements are
also featured prominently in the Passover meal. A covenant in the Old Testament would always
be sealed by a sacrifice and concluded by both parties to the covenant eating
the sacrifice together as a shared meal.
Jesus Christ offered Himself as the Sacrifice that sealed and
established the Covenant of redemption from sin. In instituting the Lord’s Supper, He took
the bread and wine of the Passover, the other two elements offered by the old
priesthood in sacrifice, and pronounced them to be His Body and Blood, making a
way for God’s people to be perpetually sustained by the food of His One
Sacrifice. Just as baptism replaces circumcision
as the rite of initiation under the New Covenant, so the Sacrament by which
Christ’s One Sacrifice becomes the sustenance of the believers’ spiritual life
takes the place of the sacrifices that looked forward to the One Sacrifice, and
so the ministry commissioned to administer the Sacrament is a priesthood within
the universal priesthood of the Church, as the Levitical priesthood was a
priesthood within the universal priesthood of Israel.
Dr. Atkinson’s use of terms like “ruling”, “privileged” and
“elite” to describe a priesthood within the universal priesthood of the Church
is misleading. The import of Mk
10:42-44 is not that the Church was not to have governors but that her
governors were to govern in a spirit of humility. Pressed to the extreme of hyper-Protestant
anti-clericalism, Mk 10:42-44 would condemn St. Paul in defending his Apostolic
authority in the Corinthian epistles and the early chapters of Galatians. The Lord clearly set His Apostles as
governors over His Church, just as clearly the need for structure and order in
the Church did not die with the Apostles nor did they let their governance end
or die with them. Already in the New
Testament we see them placing others in authority under themselves over local
Churches as elders/presbyters, and already in the New Testament we see them
commissioning others such as SS Timothy and Titus to exercise the same level of
governing authority as themselves, including the authority to ordain
elders/presbyters and deacons. The term
bishop (overseer/episkopos) would later be used as the title of the Apostles’
co-governors/successors. In the New
Testament this term is used either interchangeably with elder/presbyter or more
likely for the presiding elder/presbyter in each locality. When it is first unmistakably used for the
co-governors/successors of the Apostles, in the epistles of St. Ignatius of
Antioch, the description suggests that every presiding elder/presbyter was now
what SS Timothy and Titus were in the New Testament. The rapidity and earliness with which this
usage became universal and the fact that it first appears in the writings of
St. John’s direct disciples may indicate that St. John, the Apostle who
survived the others by decades, had merged the two offices towards the end of
his life and ministry. However that
may be, the thing traditionally designated by the term bishop, the person who
has been given the ordinary authority (vide infra for explanation of this
expression) of the Apostles to govern the Church and ordain presbyters and
deacons, is clearly already established in the New Testament. That the Lord’s instructions in Mk. 10:42-44
have not always been obeyed by those in authority in the Church is lamentable,
although not, given the fallenness of human nature, very surprising, but the abuse
of something does not invalidate the thing itself.
Dr. Atkinson begins the second section of his argument by
saying:
2) I will never ignore
clear scriptural advice; like most members and clergy in ACNA, I am generally
against women’s ordination above the level of deacon. What Paul clearly wrote
to Timothy (1 Tim 2, cf. Titus 2:3-5) is that he did not allow women to have
authority over men in his churches, but he did not condemn the practice nor was
it ever called a ‘sin’ anywhere in the NT. He also wrote elsewhere about male
headship in the family (1 Cor 11: 3-10, 1 Cor 14:33-35, Eph 5:22-23)
If someone in a position of authority were to say “I do not
allow you to walk up to your neighbour, poke him in the eyes, tweak his nose,
and pull his beard” would you interpret this as a non-condemnation of
eye-poking, nose-tweaking and beard-pulling?
His third section, however, begins by saying:
3) However… the whole
counsel of God provides some mitigating circumstances.
a) The fact that Jesus
Himself elevated women (and their roles) above what was regarded as normative
in His culture (women were virtual chattel, not even to be spoken to in the
street) tells us a lot about the teleological
direction we could expect to occur over time in the Kingdom of
God by the revelation of scripture made evident by the Holy Spirit. Note Paul’s
teaching in Galatians 3:24-29 where egalitarianism is taught as being part of
our freedom in Christ versus the Jewish laws and culture. Despite Paul's
admonition to Timothy about women's disqualification to have authority over
men, Paul was not shy about allowing women to lead where his own welfare (and
thus that of the gospel) was concerned (as seen in Romans 16:1-4).
This is a common argument but it is no less wrong for being
common. The fact that Jesus elevated
women above what was normative in Jewish, and for that matter Roman, culture
carries the exact opposite meaning to that which Dr. Atkinson attaches to it. It makes it all that much more significant
that Jesus did not include a woman
among the Twelve. Had He, by treating
women as the human beings they are, intended to start the Church on a path that
would lead towards women’s ordination He would not have allowed St. Paul to
prohibit – his words to St. Timothy are stronger than a mere admonition – women
from having authority over men in that way.
He continues:
b) The issue of
Women’s Ordination (WO) is not at all the same as the homosexuality issue where
there are absolutely no exceptions in either Old Testament or New Testament
that this behavior is an egregious sin that will keep a person out of the
Kingdom of God (e.g., 1 Cor 6:9). Rather, the role of women in God’s
kingdom on earth has clearly had some exceptions in the Bible, where women have
had authority without any divine judgment or criticism being revealed about it.
The New Testament reveals that there were women deaconesses and women prophets
in NT churches… without any criticism by Paul or other Apostles. And how far
should we generalize Peter’s point that the Church consists of the “priesthood
of ALL believers”? But I must emphasize that these scriptural
exceptions to the rule (like Deborah the judge in the OT) were in fact
exceptions.
Therefore, ACNA is not
wrong to also have exceptions... but they must be kept relatively rare (to
remain exceptions) and never to be turned into a general WO rule (as TEC and
the Church of England have done).
The issue of Women’s Ordination is related to that of the
homosexuality – actually the entire alphabet soup – issue. I’ll return to that momentarily. First, I would like to point out how Dr.
Atkinson seriously misinterprets the significance of the Scriptural examples of
women with authority to which he points.
These are not exceptions to the rule.
They are rather illustrations of a different rule.
As orthodox Christians, we believe that God is working in
everything that goes on in the world.
We are not Deists who think that God started the world going, like
someone winding up a clock, then left it to wind down on its own accord. God brought Creation into existence ex
nihilo and apart from His sustaining its existence it would slip back into
nothingness. The tree in your front
lawn, God put there, through multiple different steps including the falling of
the seed from which it originally grew, the natural process of growth that He
put into the seed, the rain that He caused to fall, etc. Everything that happens in nature, does so
because God is working in and through it in this way. God is not limited to working in this
way. If He had reason to do so, He
could cause a tree to appear out of nowhere in your front lawn without going
through all that preliminary motion. If
He did so, this is what we would call a miracle. God does not work in this direct way unless He
has special reason to do so. His
ordinary method of producing a tree in your front laws, is through the means of
the seed, the growth, the rain, etc. A
miracle, in which He directly acts without means, is extraordinary.
The distinction just made can also be seen in those to whom
God delegates authority. In the Old
Testament, God established the Levitical priesthood and the Davidic
monarchy. These were positions of authority
that were passed on through the generations in an ordinary manner (David passed
his throne to Solomon who passed it to Rehoboam, for example). This type of authority corresponds to God’s
working ordinarily through the means of nature. There are other examples, however, of God
raising up individuals to positions of leadership and authority that correspond
to His working extraordinarily through miracles. The judges are examples of these. So are the prophets. Each
one was called by God as an individual and given special authority and power. Since order is one of the more important
purposes of structure and ordinary authority there are rules as to how that
authority is transmitted. God is not
bound by such rules in raising people up to special authority any more than He
is bound by the laws of nature when He performs miracles. In the New Testament, Jesus gave to the
Apostles both ordinary and extraordinary authority when He set them in
governance over His Church. The
extraordinary power, such as infallibility when teaching the faith and writing
Scripture, could not be passed on to others.
The ordinary authority that they exercised in settling controversies,
ordaining presbyters and deacons, and basically governing the Church they
passed on to those such as SS Timothy and Titus who succeeded them in
governance. St. Paul’s instructions to
St. Timothy in regards to women belong to the rules governing ordinary
authority and its transmission. They do
not bind God when it comes to raising up people with special or extraordinary
authority like prophets.
This distinction accounts for Deborah the judge and the prophetesses of both
Testaments. Remember that if someone
claims to have received extraordinary authority directly from God, they are to
be tested and tried by all the tests of the prophet in both Testaments.
This brings us back to the connection between the women’s
ordination issue and the alphabet soup issue.
If God raises up a woman as a prophetess or otherwise gives her
extraordinary authority that is one thing.
If the rules governing the transmission of ordinary authority in the
Church are altered to allow for women’s ordination that is something entirely
different. When that happens it leads
to further apostasy. This is what has
happened in the Episcopal Church, the Anglican Church of Canada and the Church
of England. That this further apostasy
has taken the form of the affirmation of alphabet people, then same-sex
blessings, then outright same-sex marriage, and most recently all the garbage
that is preceded by the prefix trans is only to be expected. When you set aside the rules laid down in
Scripture for the transmission of the Apostolic ministry of the Church so as to
ordain women you do so for a reason.
In this case you do so because you think the rules of Scripture (and
tradition for that matter) are incompatible with some higher standard or ideal
you are seeking to achieve. To regard
an ideal or standard as higher than the Word of God is itself a serious
apostasy. When the rule set aside is
the prohibition against women in positions of ordinary authority, the ideal
that is set above the Word of God, and thus made an idol, is the equality of
the sexes. The equality of the sexes,
when treated with this exaggerated importance, becomes the interchangeability
of the sexes. If the sexes are treated
as interchangeable when it comes to the priesthood/ministry the next step will
be for them to be treated as interchangeable in other areas – such as in who
one looks for as a mate and ultimately with which sex one identifies.
Of course we could also back the story up and point out that
just as women’s ordination has led to the alphabet soup problems of today, so
the path to women’s ordination was one the Church set upon when it took that first
false step of breaking with the Catholic (in the Vincentian sense) consensus
against artificial contraception in Resolution 15 of the 1930 Lambeth
Conference which passed because supposedly conservative evangelicals failed to
support the conservative Anglo-Catholics in their opposition to the Resolution
(for the Biblical case against birth control, see Charles D. Provan’s The Bible and Birth Control, Zimmer
Printing, 1989, for an interesting discussion, albeit from a Darwinian
perspective, of why affordable, effective, contraception for females led,
counter-intuitively, to the ramping up of the feminist demand for abortion and
the skyrocketing of single-motherhood, see Dr. Lionel Tiger’s The Decline of Males, St. Martin’s
Press, 1999). That is, however, a topic
for another time.
