Women’s Ordination: The Golden Calf in the Anglican Church in North America

Over the last of week a lot of digital ink has been spilled covering the events that occurred at the Mere Anglicanism conference. A good summary can be found here by Father Matt Kennedy on the American Reformer website. The basic issue, briefly is an invited guest speaker, a rather well known priest recently ordained in the Nordic Church, Father Calvin Robinson was invited to speak on Critical Theory. He was then removed from participating in the panel discussion the next day after being reprimanded for his connecting women’s ordination to the bad fruit of the Critical Theory tree. This is the point of contention: the event organizer said he was asked to speak on Critical Race Theory. Calvin has said, if that was what they had asked, he would have turned them down as he is “not a brown face for hire.” You can read his Substack where he lays out the whole event, and his actual talk.

As far as I know, there have been three Bishops within the ACNA to have responded. Two in support of the removal: Bishop Edgar and Bishop Todd Hunter, the only text of which I could find is in a Subtack post here (it appears it was sent only in an email to the clergy of his Diocese). The only Bishop to support Calvin is Bishop Menees through Forward in Faith here. Father Andrew Brashier pens a wonderful open letter to the Bishops.

I’d also like to flashback to an excellent report written in 2017 following the College of Bishop’s failure to act decisively on the issue of Women’s Ordination in the ACNA, leaving in place what has now been called “Dual Integrities. Response to Holy Orders Task Force

So, why is little ‘ol me writing about this? Well, because I’m tired of the double speak. I’m tired of being gaslit on this issue. My point of view is consistently psychologized into one of two categories: I’m a woman hater aka misogynist or I’m a weak man who can’t handle women having authority. Those argument hold no force to me anymore as they are obviously intended as personal attacks rather than serious arguments. A new and novel one was being told I don’t really understand the tradition.

Well, up until about 50 years ago, everyone knew what the tradition taught on this. Scripture is abundantly clear: All male priesthood in the OT, Jesus selects all men as his Apostles and Paul tells Timothy to choose fathers to be elders and deacons. Tradition is the mechanism of holding to what is Scriptural and it’s working out of the details by our predecessors in the faith.

One of the unique aspects of the English Reformation vs. the continental is the retention of Holy Orders, the diaconate, priesthood and Bishop. That Apostolic Succession is also tied to Apostolic teaching, the two inextricably linked. And this “both, and” fits well with many other mysteries: Christ is Both Fully God and Fully Man, it is Christ’s body and it is bread, The Church is Christ’s Bride and His Body, Three and yet one, one and yet three, etc. We were given instructions, we should follow them.

Now, were there female deacons in the early church? Yes. What did they do? Well, they used to do baptisms in the nude. So, for obvious modesty issues, female deacons. What I can’t find was where, at ordination, female deacons would return the chalice as a sign of their distinct status. Eventually female deacons were stopped in the west. Now, the proper role is deaconess, as laid out in the Reformed Episcopal Church.

The current reason’s for having women as priests is almost always one of social justice or some such thing, as Calvin said in his talk, it’s related back to Marxism and Critical Theory. Concerns about scripture are waved away as so much curmudgeonry. So, any appeal to ancient tradition about women deaconesses will ultimately fall flat with those who would want women bishops and with the other side, those of the tradition who will not be gaslit into having the tradition reexplained to them.

Developing news, a Bishop has accused Father Calvin of having a demonic spirit. I’ve listened to the video clip myself and that is exactly what the Bishop said. I really wish I could be shocked by this, but it has been a pattern for some time now. The Pro-Women’s Ordination side throws all the stones it wants while at the same time claiming the mantle of gentle Christian brother/sister. The traditional side takes pains to be gentle in its discourse and is regularly mocked for it. This one is a little more blunt, but is still called too caustic.

So, what to do? Well, if you support the REC’s stance on a Biblical understanding of Holy Orders, sign this petition: https://www.change.org/p/to-the-bishops-of-the-rec-regarding-our-support-of-your-biblical-position-on-wo

Holding to the truth of scripture is always important, it’s doubly so when the Spirit of the Age has infiltrated the Church and seeks to undermine that very adherence to scripture. We have seen it tear apart denominations (The formerly United Methodists), roil the Church of England with the living in love and faith monstrosity of equivocation, and now even all the way to the Roman Catholic Church and the “blessing” of same sex couples.

We have become blind to the reality of male and female. Egalitarianisms has worked its way insidiously into our minds as a default setting. Political equality is not the same as being interchangeable. I cannot be a mother, I am a man. Likewise, a woman cannot be a father, because she is a woman. I cannot give birth, I will never know the grand mystery of life growing within me, to carry the memory of that life inside you for all your days. Likewise my wife will never know what it is to be a father and manage a household: caring for my wife and raising children in the fear and admonition of the Lord, knowing I must answer to the Almighty one day. A woman cannot take a wife, it’s a category error, same with a man taking a husband, it’s a category error. Only wives have husbands and only husbands have wives. And the two shall become one flesh. Which was designed to be an image of Christ and His Church.

Everything else is just a retread of the serpent in the garden: “Did God really say?”

For more analysis of ACNA governance and constitutional issues, including how structural problems affect debates like this one, subscribe to my Substack Amateur Anglican.