Tuesday
Jan232024
An Anglican Priest Overheard on the Mere Anglicanism/Fr. Robinson Debacle
Embryo Parson Posted on Tuesday, January 23, 2024 at 10:19PM "Nobody wants to hear this, but… I take the fiasco with the Mere Anglicanism conference, to be nothing less than a public admission that the advocates of priestesses in the ACNA lack the intellectual wherewithal to debate their opponents. It was a complete total and utter moral and intellectual failure on the part of the lunatic, progressive phalanx in that jurisdiction to be able to debate a rational functioning adult, who disagreed them in public."
Reader Comments (7)
A debate challenge! Here is the scripture-based and rational argument that ACNA leaders can provide (I may not be ordained clergy but I have my Masters in theology, a PhD in social science, and I am a foundational member of ACNA).
1) The New Testament does not discuss the issue of the sacramental ordination of clergy at all, neither male nor female. What became clericalism (a ruling and elite priesthood order) only developed after the Apostles had passed. The closest the NT gets 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.
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). Jesus Himself said nothing about the role of women in His church (this is telling in terms of its relative importance… and lack of it), but He chose none of His many women disciples to be Apostles. The Holy Spirit chose no women to write any of the New Testament. Should we not follow God's divine example? And additionally, there is 2000 years of church tradition in which the saints read, interpreted, and obeyed these scriptures in just this way.
3) However… the whole counsel of God provides some mitigating circumstances.
a) 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 about it.
b) 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).
So… exceptions can be found in the scriptures that go against the social-ecclesiastic rule of women not being allowed positions of authority among God's people. 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 (as exceptions) and never turned into a general WO rule (as TEC and the Church of England have done).
4) Note also that this is an organizational rule not a moral law. To allow women to be in authority over men in most ecclesiastic situations is foolishness I admit, but it is not condemned anywhere in the scriptures as actual ‘sin.’ Also, the presence of women deacons and sub-presbyters under three levels of male headship in ACNA (rector, Bishop, and Archbishop) do not violate the principle of male headship.
Where some liberal ACNA dioceses go wrong is continuing to have some female Rectors, who by definition have authority over men in the church. This is an error which needs to be corrected. But I must say, we are thankful that ACNA canons do prohibit females from the episcopal office of bishop.
I hope this clarifies the situation for those who think ACNA has actual dual integrities. ACNA only follows the scriptures in having some exceptions in this area.
Sincerely, Bruce Atkinson
Bruce, I respectfully request that you refrain from filling up the comments section with arguments I have already answered, brief though my answer at the previous blog post was. What's more, understand that for us Catholics,"causa finita est" as regards the issue of women's ordination. There is simply no more debate to be had, so no, my post was not a "debate challenge". Your arguments have been amply and repeatedly refuted by the scholarly opponents of the practice, so there's no point in saying anything further here. I simply no longer have the time or inclination to refute them at length. Even ACNA finally concluded, officially, that women's ordination has no basis in Holy Scripture, and it sure as hell has no basis in the Church's Tradition. I'll refer my readers and you once again to Hauke's work, which I linked in my previous response to you at the other blog post.
Now, please cease and desist.
Seeing as Mr. Atkinson refused to cease and desist after I respectfully asked him to do so, I removed his comment and he is now officially persona non grata at The Old Jamestown Church. I don't have time for his or anyone else's freneticism.
You won't regret your decision. I blocked Bruce on Virtue Online's comment section years ago and do not engage him. He is his own private Pope, and his debate strategy is to post long replies copied from his reservoir of Word documents and declare himself the winner when people either don't respond to his flood of blather point for point or grow tired of dealing with him. It's not worth your time. Any position he considers Catholic he writes off as non-scriptural. It's especially absurd on the issue of Women's Ordination, which up until the mid-20th century was not seriously considered by any Anglicans anywhere of any churchmanship.
Thanks, RSC+. Yes, Mr. Atkinson clearly fancies himself some sort of scholar, but he doesn't fool us. First of all, he clearly can't even see the non sequitur that lies at the heart of the argument he's set forth in these comments boxes, but his reasoning is just flat out strange as well. It's OK to have a few female priests in ACNA as "exceptions" because there were "exceptions" to male leadership referenced in the Old Testament? What a whopper of a category mistake. What he needs to show from the OT is that there were such exceptions in the **priesthood**, which of course there are none.
I too do not engage him at Virtue Online, since he's assumed the role of guard dog of its comments section. He sucks the air out of the room every time someone posts a comment with which he disagrees. As he implied in one of his comments there recently, he gets angry at attacks on the ACNA. That tells us something about his motivation and how it impairs his reasoning. That admission means that he's no scholar, but a street fighter apologist, and apologists aren't known for their objectivity.
I posted an essay length answer to his argument on my own site on Candlemas. I answered his claim that the priesthood was something extrascriptural added later and his "exceptions" argument. I would not have bothered had I not wished to address the topic in its own right.
Thanks for letting me know, Mr. Neal. I'll take a look.