Some thoughts on the ordination of women (and the recurring threats to burn the house down rather than living in it)...

I think that folks ought to be very careful with regard to treating the question of women's ordination in the ACNA. There are a number of moving parts in the discussion and heated partisans on either side rarely manifest a clear view of the assumptions they are operating with. In fact, my considered base line as a priest and a theologian is that the more stridently someone advocates their particular view, the less they should be trusted as a reliable guide into the complexities of the matter. Put another way, if this is anything more than a 60%-40% call for you either way, it's a good bet that you're not considering all the evidence or weighing it properly.

First, "Bible says" arguments are almost always exercises in selection and suppression. Dropping Galatians 3:28 or 1 Cor. 14:34 simply doesn't solve the problem one way or another. People need to remember that the same Apostle wrote both texts, so the non-radical contextualization of such revolutionary passages was already at work in the application of apostolic teaching as it was being committed to writing. Similarly, partisans against women's ordination ordinarily aren't consistent in advocating absolute "silence" of women in the church (their wives and daughters wouldn't stand for it) and they rarely deal honestly with biblical instances of women bearing witness to the resurrection; with their being named "among the apostles"; or with their authoritative teaching activity--even to the point of correcting the doctrine of a figure like Apollos (Cf. Acts 18:24-26). Put more simply, and using in the words of the 1976 Pontifical Biblical Commission study on the matter, "It does not seem that the New Testament by itself alone will permit us to settle in a clear way and once and for all the problem of the possible accession of women to the presbyterate."

Second, partisans on either side of this issue tend to operate with unacknowledged and historically unwarranted presuppositions regarding the continuity of the church's theology and practice of holy orders. So, opponents of women's ordination tend to assume that  "presbuteros" and "episcopos" in the New Testament are identical to the more fully developed offices of "priest" and "bishop" at the beginning of the fourth century or by the high middle ages or in the present day. Neither do they ordinarily consider that developments in prior ages of the church's history may suggest the possibility of fuller, more inclusive developments in our own. Alternatively, advocates of women's ordination often tend toward a similar kind of argument that treats early historical precedents for women in the "priesthood" (i.e. precedents for women serving as "archisynagogos," references to "presbytera," "Episcopa Theodora," and women celebrants in "Fractio Panis" frescoes, etc.) as indicative of some a hermeneutic of rupture wherein established practices were arbitrarily suppressed in a wrongheaded accommodation of Roman patriarchal assumptions. All such arguments become historically untenable once we recognize that the offices themselves (where they were considered "offices" at all) were/are evolving and developing. Simply put, "holy orders" have experienced the same doctrinal and practical development over time that other sacraments have experienced. Because those developments have a history that is implicated in social and cultural processes, local historical "precedents" and "absences" are not enough by themselves to establish a normative practice for the present day Church.

Third, as individuals and as churches we too are socially and culturally implicated so that the ecumenical consensus against women's ordination among the Orthodox or Roman Catholics is not entitled to an automatic deference. Similarly, the broad cultural consensus in favor of women in places of secular authority in Europe and North America is not entitled to an automatic deference in favor of women being ordained to the presbyterate. One must keep in mind that both the Orthodox and Catholics also restrict the diaconate to men despite much clearer evidence in favor of women deacons in the New Testament. It may be that both are wrong in this matter (as no less an orthodox figure than Yves Congar readily admitted). On the other hand, the broad consensus around women's ordination in the two largest communions in the Church is worthy of strong consideration for the ways that our own proceeding with the ordination of women might further impede ecumenical progress. If we've learned anything from the actions of TEC and ACiC, it's that rich, fat, white people-- possessed as we are of an enormous economic and military hegemony--shouldn't be the sole determiners of a global church's faith and practice. What affects all must in some way be determined by all and the Pauline admonition that we "wait for one another" often requires that we yield to tender consciences that are unready for a particular practical or doctrinal development. Alternatively, weaker brothers and sisters are not the same thing as "professional weaker brothers and sisters" and those who would presume to imprison consciences to a self-selected "historical" or "conciliar" orthodoxy on this question should probably go read Galatians 5:13 again (and probably v. 12 as well).

Fourth, folks who automatically invoke the standard Roman Catholic "alter Christus" argument against the ordination of women (i.e. the priest functions liturgically and sacramentally as "another Christ" or as an "icon of Christ," so he must be male) rarely pause to consider the sloppy christological assumptions that are smuggled in under the cover of that argument. While the incarnation is truly a "scandalous particularity" in that the Divine Son took the flesh and blood of a Galilean Jewish peasant male, Catholics and Orthodox Christians don't usually insist on an all-Galilean, all-Jewish priesthood or an all-peasant priesthood (poverty comes with ordination, not before). They don't exclude guys with blonde hair and blue eyes from the priesthood and they are equally cool with Asians and Africans with foreskins as long as there is a penis and testicles beneath and under those foreskins. Faced with such inconsistencies, we might fare better to limit the iconographic similitude of the priest and Christ to an authentic humanity rather than drawing what increasingly appears to be arbitrary lines at sexual identity. As full human beings--or so Genesis 1 seems to indicate that they are--women are no less capable of iconically representing Christ "as the alter at the altar" than in any other ministration they provide as full members of the ecclesial body of Christ. That said, however, Orthodox theologians have also been known to argue that the priest (as representative of the bishop) functions as an icon of the Father as well as an icon of the Son. Irenaeus of Lyons and Hippolytus are important Early Christian sources in this regard, and this is a little-regarded place where really beneficial theological research can still be done. Those looking to do a PhD in Early Christianity should take note of this quick way to be practically useful to the church.

Fifth, our present experience of women in the priesthood is admittedly uneven when it comes to orthodox theology and practice. Given instances like the scandalous regime of Bishop Jefferts-Schori, many in the ACNA are even tempted to locate the historic "fall" of the ECUSA/TEC with its decision to ordain women. But this is as dishonest as arguing that gay marriage threatens to sully an otherwise pristine and undisturbed sacrament of holy matrimony. In the latter case, heterosexuals have long been at work subverting and profaning the sacrament of holy matrimony so that it's a wonder why gay and lesbian people want any part of it. In the former case, we guys have been for hundreds of years crashing our Lord's great ark into every shoal, reef, and seawall we've come across. Honest inquiry into the details of our disasters also requires admission that it's often been faithful women--religious and lay--who have repaired the damage and put us back on course. To cite one in a million such examples that come to mind, I've often wondered if the scandalous Avignon papacy might still be with us if it hadn't been for the prophetic ministrations of St. Catherine of Sienna (considered by Rome to be a "Doctor of the Church" despite the oft-cited Pauline injunction against women "teaching" or "exercising authority"). It also needs to be recognized that for well over a thousand years the priesthood has been a male institution so that women are often forced to accommodate themselves to accidental "masculine" expectations. A similar problem exists for married Anglicans who make use of Rome's Pastoral Provision to serve in ordinary diocesan settings (as opposed to the Ordinariate, which has its own problems). While these guys are considered validly ordained Roman Priests, the diocesan system is wired for an all male fraternity. Bishops and parishes have little idea of what to do with married men and no clue whatsoever when it comes to their wives and children. What looked good on paper has really been disastrous in practice because of the resulting inappropriate and impossible expectations. Similarly, when contemplating the ordination of women currently or universally in the ACNA, we shouldn't assume that a woman's exercise of the priesthood must conform to every precedent established by the exercises of men. We ought to be prepared for distinctively feminine features to appear--and it's not necessarily a sign of failure, apostasy, or divine displeasure when they do. This is to say that called people make the vocation even as the vocation makes them. If in the good providence of God the ordination of women to the priesthood is expanded in the ACNA, we should be prepared to expect that the ladies will cut their own priestly path as they have historically in monastic and religious life. And with the blessing of God, the church will adjust accordingly, just as it has in allowing the Sisters of Charity to develop a unique vocational charism that stands distinct from the that of the Jesuits.

Finally, the use of coercive tactics like the arbitrary and presumptuous refusal to consider arguments of theologians or the guidance of those in episcopal authority is not the way to exist in a Church that we believe is being guided by the Spirit into all truth. What a faithless and stiff-necked way of proceeding! The fact that this is no more than a 60/40 issue either way is a good indication that however important, this probably isn't a church-dividing issue. Also out of line is the oft-manifest willingness of proponents to cut asunder from the Body of Christ those members who are concerned that we not embrace what they presently consider a "false" development in faith and practice. Trading in insulting associations of one's opponents with those willing to ordain or recognize the ordinations of other controversial persons (homosexuals, non-episcopal orders, etc.) or with misogynists and bigots, etc. is bad faith, in horrible taste, and a failure of love before it is a failure of sound theological reasoning.

Many people in the ACNA have lived through a painful divorce in leaving TEC, but history shows that second divorces are much more easy than first divorces. This is proved out in pastoral experience and in big exemplars like the reformation and post-reformation experience of the church. So here's a modest proposal: Instead of continually threatening to burn the house down in the name of an ever-narrowing orthodoxy, perhaps we should commit to patiently living together for a while and let the Spirit of Christ reveal the unity that we possess by our common baptism.

I say that our bishops' example of being more committed to one another than to their individual dispositions on this question is a healthy example that we, their spiritual daughters and sons, might emulate.