Editor’s Note: The piece below represents the opinion of the author. Anglican Pastor does not take a site-wide position for or against women’s ordination. We do, however, require both clarity and charity. We ask that your responses to it do so as well.
In a debate as crucial and heated as the matter of ordaining women to the priesthood in the Anglican Church in North America, it is worth trying to understand what motivates the other side. In my case, being convinced that the received catholic interpretation of the Scriptures is definitive, the “other side” commends and supports the ordination of women to the priesthood.
How can I account for the views on the “other side”?
Due to the diversity of parties and traditions within Anglicanism, churchmanship is a large part of the question, sure. But, at the end of the day, we are all Christians reading God’s authoritative Word. I believe the “other side” holds their beliefs in good faith. They are every bit as educated and wise as the scholars on “my side”. For the most part, we use the same interpretive tools to unpack the meaning of Scripture. “They” desire to honor and obey the Living God every bit as much as “us”.
How then, do they come to such opposite conclusions on this question? While the dominance of Gender Studies in the Academy cannot be fully excluded from the equation—it is in the very air that we breathe now—I believe there is an additional factor that might come to bear as motivation: The failure of male clergy.
Since I am myself a male priest in the ACNA, this means a failure that I am party to.
Brothers, we have failed.
We have failed in how we have carried the ministry of priesthood.
If we had carried our ministries in a more apostolic, more Christ-like fashion, perhaps the wider Church, against the winds of change, would have rested more content in her inheritance of an all-male priesthood. Perhaps there would be less of a felt need to admit women to the priesthood, had we male priests done our job better. Brothers, I believe we have failed.
How have we failed, exactly?
We have failed:
When we have blurred the boundaries between a God-given holy male-headship and a simplistic cultural patriarchalism.
When we used “ministry” and “ordained ministry” as synonyms, thus relegating true, Spirit-filled ministry that could be done by lay men or women to a second-tier incidental in the life of the Church.
When we accepted worldly accolade, glory, or perks for being an ordained minister, thus socially allowing the order to be seen as superior, rather than that of a servant.
When we have—in word, deed, or allowance—given credence to the false idea that an ordained minister is somehow a special sort of human being.
When we have failed to rightly magnify the gift that is the property of all baptized Christians: The Indwelling Spirit of God.
When we have neglected the public reading of Scripture, and have not brought forward the full witness of the New Testament, including 1 Timothy 2, for the people of God to mark and inwardly digest.
When, despite the clear teaching of the Bible that (1) men and women equally are made in the Image of God and (2) the distinction of “male and female” is of no consequence in Christ (Gal 3:28), we have nevertheless taught or implied that women are in any way ontically inferior to men.
When we, out of resistance to women in the priesthood, have discouraged or prohibited women from exercising their rightful and biblically-sanctioned ministries:
- Catechist (cf. Priscilla),
- Teacher (cf. Euodia and Syntyche),
- Small-Group Leader (cf. The female prophets in 1 Cor. 11),
- Lector and Deaconess (cf. Phoebe), and
- Lay Eucharistic Minister (cf. Mary, bearer of our Lord).
When we have thought that some members of the body are of greater value than others, or allowed others to believe the same, arrogantly asserting that the eye is more important than the hand.
When we have laughed at jokes about women, Or worse, when we have made them ourselves, perhaps even from the pulpit.
When we have been weak and two-faced, not confronting sin and dysfunction in the church head-on but allowing others to suffer.
When we have equated machismo with manliness, and have been pushy, bossy, rude, harsh or condescending, all under the ruse of “strong leadership.”
When we have seen inordinate emotional responses and the need for psychotherapy in ourselves, and have not gone to a therapist.
When we have adopted a “father knows best” approach and not humbly accepted the counsel of others.
When we have not sought to truly love our congregations from the heart, and instead have grumbled against them to others.
When we have tried to further our own convictions with a “thus saith the Lord.”
When we have bowed down to the capitalist idol of over-work, and clocked too many hours “for the Church”, robbing our families of the debt of love we owe to them.
When we have equated cultural expressions of manliness with godly expressions, and made men who don’t like sports or hiking to feel like they are less manly for the fact.
When we have preached things that we do not do ourselves.
When we have engaged with other Christians who support the ordination of women to the priesthood with contempt, anger, slander, malice, or scorn.
In short, when we have not been good fathers, we have failed.
It’s not the only reason, to be sure, but I believe part of why so many in the church today want “mothers” is because the fathers have so often failed us. As Christians we want—we desperately need—someone who will take care of our souls, and many fathers have made a mess of it, myself included.
So, apart from all debate, I’m calling out to all spiritual fathers:
Play the man. Join me in crying out to God to make us servants to the church like St. Paul was a servant. Fast for yourselves and for the brothers.
And if you recognize any traits from my lament in your own ministry (and I hate to say: I recognize some of them in myself)—repent.
Cry out with me to our heavenly Father, to pour out his fatherly gifts into our hearts, that we may carry out the ministry of his Son in a manner more in keeping with him who humbled himself, taking on the likeness of a servant. If we men can do better, with God’s help, maybe the church won’t feel the need to ask Eve to stand in for Adam at the altar.
As C.S. Lewis so memorably put it in his 1948 essay Priestesses in the Church?,“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. A given man may make a very bad husband; you cannot mend matters by trying to reverse the roles. He may make a bad male partner in a dance. The cure for that is that men should more diligently attend dancing classes; not that the ballroom should henceforward ignore distinctions of sex and treat all dancers as neuter.”
If we male priests inhabited the priesthood with more modesty and gentleness and humility, then it would be more apparent to the wider church that indeed, a priest is only one of many roles within the church that is necessary for her life and health.
If we carried our priesthood in a more Christ-like manner, it would cease to appear as something desirable, something to be grasped, something that was necessary for the real equality of the sexes in the Kingdom of God to be on display.
Consider how different it was in St. Paul’s time—the Apostles were exhibited as the refuse of the world. No one wanted to be one! And yet they ministered with a godly authority that has been rare ever since. And additionally, in their time, the fullness of ministries, of both men and women, were possible. How many of our churches today would honor a woman who prophesies, the way they were honored in Corinth? How many priests today would say of a woman who serves in the parish, that she is indeed a bona fide co-laborer in the gospel (Cf. Phil 4:2-3)?
Reducing the man-made self-importance of the priesthood is an essential component to the building up of the church, and equitable flourishing of both men and women in her midst.
Brothers, let us repent of our failures.
Ben Jefferies is the rector of The Good Shepherd Anglican Church, Opelika, Alabama. He served on the Task Force that produced the Book of Common Prayer 2019. He is married with three daughters.
As one who has sided with the traditionalist view of ordination, I concur with this article. Traditionalists must take ownership for our failure in helping to produce that which we oppose. While I have been quite vocal and adamant on this subject, I also recognize the failure on the traditionalists side. May the Lord help us all.
No matter which way you read scripture- Jesus included all. Exclusion of women to the priesthood is just wrong and a clear signal that the Church looks upon women as lesser beings.
Really? Don’t remember Jesus including any women apostles. Hmmm…
Bruce, your comment is a knee jerk reaction that frankly comes off as very shallow. Women are treated as “lesser human beings”. Really? I don’t believe children should be presbyters either, nor even a grown man who has not been called. Does that de-humanize them? The church for 2,000 years universally understood that the scriptures taught that women were not to be ordained as presybters. They understood that because that is what the scriptures plainly and clearly teach. The principle of male headship the basis for this. The burden of proof, is on those who support WO. Do you really believe that we just got enlighten in the 20th century? Do you really believe that for 2,000 years that all the church fathers, theologians, and biblical scholars up to the 20th century were so obtuse and blinded by their sexism (I don’t deny their cultural baggage) that couldn’t see straight on this? Is it not possible for you to see that maybe the 19-20th century theologians innovate so to accommodate the modern word. The same thing that is not now being done with the LGBTQ agenda. Ken has acknowledged where traditionalists have failed in this issue. I commend him for that. But our failure is not in our position (anti-WO), but in not opening up “other” ministries for women and failing to raise up men for the office of the presybter. If the Church was really wrong in its opposition to WO for 2,000 years, than frankly, we have a bigger issue than just that of WO. We have crisis of authority in which subjectivism and modernism have the last say.
This is a general comment to the editors of Anglican Pastor. The steady drip of recent articles regarding women’s ordination is beginning to feel a bit like water torture. It seems to foment discord and I fail to see how it promotes the mission of your publication. Respectfully, it may be time to turn the faucet off for awhile.
For the record — and, I should have stated this more clearly, and I am sorry that I didn’t — I was NOT trying to say that the failure of male clergy was a motivating factor for any woman currently ordained to the priesthood, in their perception (and the church’s ratification) of their call. Rather, I was speculating into the question, “What factors may have underwritten the mindset in the 1950s-1970s for the governing authorities of the Church to turn against 1900 years of Biblical Interpretation and Tradition and say “yes” to the ordination of women?” On the one hand, higher-critical/unbelieving scholarship had eroded the church’s credulity in the Scriptures, and it was concurrently the explosion of feminist ideology in the academy and culture, matched with a borrowed “corporate” paradigm that the Church was trying on. But this has all been written about elsewhere, and, while bishops in the 1970s would have been partially persuaded on some of these grounds, I was trying to dig a little deeper into what ethos may have tipped the scales of persuasion. That’s the heart of what I was trying to get at.
Additionally, I was chiefly trying to critique “my side” — it pains me so much when those who are convicted contra-WO bungle the witness of “our side” when one or more of the things I lament are inter-twined with the contra-WO argument. Perhaps I could have framed the whole thing in a different way to make this more clear also.
Also, I am not opposed at all to “ontological change” views of the priesthood, in theory, but in practice the presentation of said doctrine often has the tone of exalting the priest rather than stating that he has been ontologically changed into the form of a servant who will experience the sufferings of Christ in especially painful ways.
“When we have been weak and two-faced, not confronting sin and dysfunction in the church head-on but allowing others to suffer.”
This is the part that I think hits it the hardest. It does not mean I am now “for” women’s Ordination, but there needs to be an acknowledgement that leadership had a bad go of it in the 20th century. Standing up to problems in people, and in the Church, and try to rectify them with the Lords help is the only way forward.
We all need to repent and do better.
Unlike other commenters who want to ignore this, it is a real argument for ACNA and orthodox Christians. It is not just a ‘walk away’ topic. It is critical. Do we take the Epistles of St. Paul seriously, or not.
Fr. Ben, thank you for writing this. I appreciate your heartfelt words.
SINCE WHEN HAVE THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND BEEN ORDAINING LADIES TO THE PRIESTHOOD?? THANK YOU…REGARDS, TREVOR COLLINS.
A question from someone not a member of the ACNA: What are you saying to the already-ordained women priests? Are they to be “grandmothered out”?
Thanks for your comment. We always appreciate it. But to be clear, we are not saying anything about the women who are already ordained. ACNA is a Province that ordains both men and women. That remains the policy.
This is helpful. I’m now going to refer to this post when trying to defend Mama Katherine’s (Ruch) video presentation to the College of Bishops from over a year ago now. So many people did not have a proper context to even understand, let alone appreciate, what she was talking g about. Now I’d like to ask Fr. Ben to make a follow-up post elaborating on his paragraph listing women and their ministries as mentioned in the NT. Or maybe, asking the editors of Anglican Pastor for articles about “how do we strengthen spiritual motherhood or older-sisterhood in our parishes and diocese?” Or from another point of view, how do suffering, struggling people coming into our churches find the spiritual mothers who may be uniquely gifted to nurture their spiritual healing / journey / walk?
Dear Ms. March — Glad you found it helpful!
As to your questions: Yes! We need more info on these things! I’ll see what I can do, as far as writing goes.
As a parish priest myself, I am feeling this need more and more too: How to connect up spiritual elder-sisters with other women in the parish for discipleship…I have seen a number of things helpful in this regard: Women deacons on staff, Non-ordained female family pastors on staff, spiritual direction available, with both male and female directors for male and female directees. But I think more robustness is needed, to allow the ministry of women to come to fuller fruition in the Church. This is something I continue to pray about, for what forms and church-led initiatives could bring assist in this vision.
Dear Ben,
I come from a different part of the Anglican communion (outside of North America). I did not have a view on the topic of ordination of women when the Church of England debated it (back in 2012 thereabouts?); I still don’t have one, except to say I recognise the sense of dis-quiet so aptly described by CS Lewis in the piece titled “Priestesses in the Church?” (Thank you for providing a link to the piece!).
As a woman, reading your “confession” has been a surprisingly healing experience. Surprising because none of the issues are new news to me; yet having them acknowledged and “owned” by a man, a leader of the Church, a priest, without qualification, conditions, excuses (or worse, counter-accusations!) endowed it with an in-person quality of apology. And the next thought this prompts in me is what have we women been doing? And specifically, where are we women failing when measured against Scripture (especially the bits we dis-like, e.g. 1 Peter 3:1-6)? The truthful answer cannot be nothing and nowhere. (c.f. 1 John 1:8-10).
There is a place for debate of the kind played out here in the comments (and elsewhere), but after all has been said and done, the question of how we are to relate to one another remains to be answered. Not by words, but in deed. Not one-off but continuing, for as long as the “other” lives on. And in this regard – helping us live with one another in truth and in (pain-ed) love – your thoughtful and humble writing brings an important measure of healing and reconciliation to the person(s), who matter more to Jesus than all the arguments that can ever be mustered or won.
Just because (a part of) the Church asks Eve to stand for Adam at the altar, does that mean Eve must do so?