There is not unanimous agreement about women’s ordination in the worldwide Anglican Communion. Godly and thoughtful Christians hold opposing convictions about Holy Orders and who is called to ordained ministry. You often see the results of this debate at the Provincial level—a national expression of the Church may or may not ordain women, in accordance with their conviction. But for [...]
Almost every vocational deacon I know, when asked why he or she has not become a priest, will respond, "I have never felt called to the priesthood." Some will add emphatically, "not for a minute!" I am not one of those deacons. I don't share this story often, rarely in its fullness, and never in public non-anonymous writing. Be gentle [...]
Editor’s Note: The piece below represents the opinion of the author. Aaron Harrison here engages with a recent conversation about women's ordination that includes contributions from Emily McGowin (original post and response to critiques), Lee Nelson, Ben Jefferies, and Gerald McDermott—with external contributions from Blake Johnson, Esau McCaulley, and Ben Jefferies. Anglican Compass does not take a site-wide position for [...]
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 [...]
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. God is not fair. He deprives men of the most profound and satisfying experience imaginable. Both men [...]
Editor's Note: Thank you to the Rev. Dr. Emily McGowin for writing this rejoinder to Fr. Blake Johnson's and Fr. Lee Nelson's responses to her original blog post about the in persona Christi argument against women's ordination. While we invite this conversation (about McGowin's original blog post) to continue in our comments section and elsewhere—and we plan to publish more [...]
Editor's Note (Greg Goebel): Fr. Lee Nelson has been a writer and supporter of Anglican Pastor from our earliest days. I asked him to write a response to the Rev. Dr. Emily McGowin’s post for our site. Meanwhile, Rev. Blake Johnson has also published a response on the Theopolis Insitute's blog. We present this post below to you as a [...]
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. After reading this piece, please see Lee Nelson's response and Emily McGowin's rejoinder. The connection between christology [...]
We appreciate how interactive our readers are. The reactions to our recent three-part interview with Rev. Tish Harrison Warren were mostly constructive and insightful. We reached out to Tish to request an interview. And we asked readers for questions to ask Tish. We appreciate the questions that readers submitted. And we’re very grateful to Tish for the time she took [...]
Maybe you, like me, are coming to Anglicanism from a different tradition. If that’s the case, then one thing you should know is that Anglican debates about women’s ordination can often be quite different from debates about the same topic in other church contexts. This is due to Anglicans having different views on, among other things: ecclesiology (the doctrine of [...]
Since I was ordained as a priest two years ago, the question I’m most asked is, “What do we call you?” In Anglicanism, people often refer to priests as “Father,” following Roman Catholic and Orthodox tradition. I have no intention to argue here about the use of that term, which can be controversial among lower church folks, but the practice [...]
