Several years ago now, my colleague the Rev. Dr. Martha Giltinan asked me to write some essays on women’s ordination. I originally declined for the following reasons: (1) I am a man, and I thought that a woman should make this argument. (2) I am a lay person, and I thought that these essays should be written by someone who was ordained; (3) Women’s ordination is not my main areas of theological interest. I have other projects I would rather pursue. (4) I wanted to encourage Martha to write more on this topic since it concerned her directly.

Martha responded by pointing out that I was the one who had the theological background in church history and systematic theology that she did not; she was not going to quit bugging me until I wrote something. I finally gave in, and began writing what I thought would be a short series of essays. It has taken me three years, and this series has turned into my second longest writing project (after my dissertation). Unfortunately, Martha became ill shortly after I began and did not live to see me finish this project.

I dedicated these essays first to my dear friend the Rev. Dr. Martha Giltinan, a woman who lived out her vocation as a priest, who ministered to and was loved by literally thousands of people. No one who knew Martha was ever the same afterwards.

In addition, I dedicated these essays to the countless women students I have had the privilege of teaching in my time at Trinity School for Ministry/ Trinity Anglican Seminary. May these essays encourage you to follow your vocation, whether lay or ordained.

The essays were eventually published as Icons of Christ: A Biblical and Systematic  Theology for Women’s Ordination by Baylor University Press in fall 2020. You can order it from Baylor or Barnes and Noble or, if you want to make Jeff Bezos even richer, Amazon.

If you’re interested in essays that I have written since my book was published or that were not included in the original book, scroll down.

Introductory Chapters

1. Concerning the Ordination of Women: Preliminaries

In the introduction to the book, I identify three basic kinds of arguments against women’s ordination: (1) Pragmatic non-theological arguments; (2) Protestant arguments based on authority of men over women and prohibitions against women leading or teaching men; (3) Catholic arguments based on sacramental theology: women can exercise authority and they can teach, but they cannot celebrate the sacraments because they do not resemble the male Jesus Christ.

2. Non-theological Arguments Against the Ordination of Women

Some objections to the ordination of women are not strictly theological, but are rather pragmatic ad hoc responses, for example: The ordination of women is part of a liberal secularist agenda; the ordination of women is no different from ordaining practicing homosexuals; no one has a “right” to be ordained.

3. Concerning Women’s Ordination: The Argument “From Tradition” is not the “Traditional” Argument

The argument against the ordination of women based on an appeal to the “historic tradition” of the church fails insofar as it rejects the historic reason why women were not ordained. In this essay, I document the historic traditional argument against the ordination of women. The current arguments against women’s ordination — both Protestant and Catholic — are actually new arguments. In that sense, they are just as much innovations against tradition as is the argument in favor of women’s ordination.

Protestant Arguments

4. Concerning Women’s Ordination: Hierarchy and Hermeneutics

“Complementarianism” is the Protestant argument against the ordination of women based on a hierarchical understanding of the relationship between the sexes. Women cannot be ordained because women cannot preach, teach, or exercise authority over women.  In this chapter, I introduce some of  the hermeneutical concerns that need to be addressed in discussing biblical texts that have  been important to the issue of women’s ordination.

5. Concerning Women’s Ordination: Beginning with Genesis

What does the Old Testament teach about the equality of men and women? In this chapter, I examine the creation accounts of Genesis 1 and 2, arguing that the theological basis for a non-hierarchical mutuality between men and women (egalitarianism) is found in the Genesis account of the creation of man and woman. I also examine the historical socio-economic causes of sexual inequality in ancient culture; modern gender role equality is an inevitable consequence of  industrialization, but also poses challenges to a Christian theology of marriage and sexuality.

6. Concerning Women’s Ordination: Disciples of Jesus

Jesus’ relationship with his women disciples is crucial for the church’s contemporary understanding of the relationship between men and women. The notion of “Christological subversion” shows how Jesus challenged the honor culture of the ancient Mediterranean world. Jesus’ call to nonobservant discipleship is a reversal of the dominating hierarchical relationships introduced by the fall into sin, and a return to the mutuality intended by God in creation.

7. Concerning Women’s Ordination: Mutual Submission

What does the apostle Paul teach about marriage and mutual subordination between husbands and wives in Ephesians 5? Paul’s “cruciform” spirituality is the key to understanding how he transformed ancient Mediterranean “household codes” to teach a radically different Christian understanding of marriage.

8. Concerning Women’s Ordination: Women in Worship and “Headship”

Paul’s discussion of “head covering” and “headship” in 1 Corinthians 11 has been central to “complementarian” arguments for the subordination of women to men in worship. Was Paul actually teaching a hierarchical understanding of the relationship between men and women? Did “head” mean authority in Paul’s world? I argue that there is nothing in Paul’s discussion of worship in 1 Corinthians 11:1-16 to suggest that he is advocating a subordination of women to men, or that would restrict the role of women in the worshiping assembly.

9. Concerning Women’s Ordination: Speaking and Teaching

Two passages — 1 Cor. 14:34b-35 and 1 Timothy 2:11-15 — are the “last resort” to which Protestant complementarians appeal to restrict women from teaching or speaking in the church. In this essay, I argue that Paul was not making a “timeless” injunction but was addressing particular problems in local settings.

Catholic Arguments

10. Concerning Women’s Ordination: A Presbytera is not a “Priestess” (Part 1: Old Testament Priesthood)

The argument against women “priestesses” objects to a position that nobody holds. Ordained Christian women would not be “priestesses,” and the concern about “priestesses” is based on a modern mythology about ancient female “priestesses” who never existed. I also look at the Old Testament priesthood and the likely reason that there were no women Levitical priests in the OT period.

11. Concerning Women’s Ordination: Women’s Ordination and the Priesthood of Christ (Biblical and Patristic Background)

This chapter examines the biblical and historical background to the notion of sacramental priesthood. What is the modern Catholic liturgical and sacramental objection to the ordination of women and when did it first appear? What is the relationship between the priesthood of Jesus Christ and the priesthood of ordained clergy? When and why did clergy first become designated as “priests”? What implications might that have for the modern Catholic objection to the ordination of women?

12. Concerning Women’s Ordination: Women’s Ordination and the Priesthood of Christ (in persona Christi)

In this chapter, I address the definitive modern (and definitely not traditional) Catholic argument against the ordination of women — that woman cannot be ordained because the eucharistic minister acts “in the person of Christ” (in persona Christi), and so must be a male in order to resemble a male Christ.

13. Concerning Women’s Ordination: The Argument From Symbolism Part 1 (God, Christ, Apostles)

Although officially rejected by the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church, a secondary argument based on the symbolism of sexuality is often appealed to by Catholic opponents of women’s ordination: That God is portrayed as male in the Bible, that Christ was male, and that the apostles were all males confirms the normativity of a male-female symbolism. In this essay, I address the theological implications of the masculine portrayal of God in the Bible, of Jesus Christ as a male human being, of the apostles as males.

14. Concerning Women’s Ordination: The Argument From Symbolism (Part 2: Transcendence, Immanence and Sexual Typology)

This chapter concludes the discussion of Catholic (not only Roman Catholic, but also Orthodox and Anglo-Catholic) arguments against women’s ordination based on symbolism by addressing binary contrasts between the masculine as transcendent, external and active, and the female as immanent, internal, and receptive, with a corrective based on trinitarian personalism. Transcendence and immanent are not characteristics of male and female gender, but of all persons.

The Ministry of Women in the New Testament

15. Concerning Women’s Ordination: Women’s Ministry in the New Testament (Office)

Did women exercise ministerial office in the New Testament church?

16. Concerning Women’s Ordination: Women’s Ministry in the New Testament (Bishops, Presbyters, Deacons) or a Presbytera is not a “Priestess” (Part 2)

How does the New Testament address the question of female bishops or presbyters? What are the contemporary hermeneutical implications of what the New Testament says about women in office?

Conclusion

17. Conclusion

I present a quick summary and critique of the Protestant and Catholic arguments against women’s ordination, and provide a positive argument for a non-gendered account of ordination to church office.

Supplementary Essays

Over time, I have written a number of essays in response either to criticisms of my original essays or of my book. I have arranged them according to the chapter outline of the book.

Icons of Christ: Reflections Three Years Later

Just what it says. My reflections three years after publishing my book — mostly noting how critics had missed the main point of why the book was titled Icons of Christ.

Follow the Bouncing Ball or Why We Disagree About Women’s Ordination (Part Two)

This is a kind of followup to my reflections about writing my book. There is a lot of reflection about hermeneutics, and what I consider the basic issues of disagreement. Along with the essay above, it is probably a good place to begin for a concise presentation of where I have ended up and why.

1. Concerning the Ordination of Women: Preliminaries

Objections to My Essays on Women’s Ordination

Just what it says. This was in response to a blog post that criticized my very first essay on “Preliminaries.”

My Response to the Response of Six Anglican Leaders to the ACNA Statement on Holy Orders

This was my response to a negative critique of the ACNA Task Force on Holy Orders.  Since I am responding to an essay that touched on topics I address throughout my book, I have just linked it here at the beginning. Perhaps more worth reading than the essay itself is my attempt to provide a response in the comments to a woman who writes as someone having experienced parental abuse and has difficulty in not seeing Christianity as anti-woman.

Women in Holy Orders:

In August of 2018, the ACNA College of Bishops requested the Rev. Dr. Grant LeMarquand and myself to write a very short essay providing a case for the ordination of women. Despite their promise that this would be kept confidential, it was leaked (without our permission) by the Anglican Diocese of the Living Word along with their attempt at a refutation. As this point, I decided to put the essay on my blog, and began a series of responses to the Anglican Diocese of the Living Word criticism. This appeared just before the publication of my book and is a concise summary of my position. My responses to this criticism appear in several of my essays linked below.

An Initial Response to the Anglican Diocese of the Living Word’s “Response” to “Women in Holy Orders”

This was my initial response to the critique of the Anglican Diocese of the Living Word.

Response to the Anglican Diocese of the Living Word “Response”: It’s about Hermeneutics

A preliminary response to the critique of the Anglican Diocese of the Living Word, in which I argue that the question of women’s ordination is not addressed straightforwardly in the BIble, and is thus a matter of hermeneutics, not simple exegsis.

2. Non-theological Arguments Against the Ordination of Women

A Review of a Book I Did Not Write

An early critical review of my book of my book endorses the “non-theological” arguments I had addressed in this chapter.

Another Review of a Book that I Did Not Write

Like the first review, this second review includes a lot of tendentious rhetoric and endorses some of the non-theological arguments I had mentioned in this chapter.

Yet Another Review of a Book I Did Not Write Or Why Disagreements Concerning Women’s Orders Are Intractable

This was in response to a criticism of my book that rather than addressing my arguments just endorsed traditional masculinity as the one thing the church and culture need right now.

3. Concerning Women’s Ordination: The Argument “From Tradition” is not the “Traditional” Argument

Concerning Women’s Ordination: The “Tradition” Challenge

I received some rather heated criticism of my claim in the essay that became chapter three that the “historic tradition” of the church regarding women’s ordination was that women were less intelligent than men, more easily deceived, and more subject to temptation. The criticism was that in essence I did not know what I was talking about. In this essay, I lay out detailed evidence from the tradition to vindicate each aspect of my claim, and conclude with a specific challenge to provide contrary evidence from the tradition for examples of either the modern Protestant complementarian or Catholic sacramentalist positions. 

I have yet to receive a response to the challenge that actually responds to what the challenge requests.

Concerning Women’s Ordination: A Response to the “Ordination Challenge”

This was an attempt to respond to the “Tradition” Challenge by claiming that I had misrepresented the tradition. I argue otherwise.

Concerning Women’s Ordination: Aquinas and the “Tradition Challenge”

This was in response to a criticism that I had misrepresented Thomas Aquinas on the traditional argument against the ordination of women.

Response to the Diocese of the Living Word: The Tradition Challenge

The authors of the Anglican Diocese of the Living Word Response attempt a new response to the “Tradition Challenge” by distinguishing between the fathers’ appeal to certain biblical proof texts and the reasons for their appeal to those texts. Although they appeal to the same texts, they do not actually agree with the fathers’ theological arguments and interpretation of the texts. I argue that this is not an adequate appeal to tradition.

4. Concerning Women’s Ordination: Hierarchy and Hermeneutics

Response to the Anglican Diocese of the Living Word: Hermeneutics and Complementarianism

My initial response to the Anglican Diocese of the Living Word pointed out the crucial distinction between exegesis and hermeneutics. In this essay, I point out that the hermeneutic stance of their argument is straightforward Protestant “complementarianism.”

5. Concerning Women’s Ordination: Beginning with Genesis

Response to the Anglican Diocese of the Living Word: Man and Woman in Genesis 1 to 3

My response to the Anglican Diocese of the Living Word’s arguments for Complementarian gender hierarchy in the creation accounts of Genesis.

Women’s Subordination and the Fall (Genesis 3:16): Is the Woman’s “Desire” For or Against the Man?

My response to a critical review of my book that argues that in Genesis 3:16, the woman’s desire is “against” not “for” the man. (This unfortunate translation unfortunately appears in the ESV readings that are used in the ACNA lectionary texts.)

6. Concerning Women’s Ordination: Disciples of Jesus

Follow the Bouncing Ball or Why Christological Subversion is Central to the Gospel (Part One)

A central theme in my argument is that the narrative structure of the Gospel accounts provide provide paradoxical critiques of traditional notions of power over against a first-century Mediterranean shame culture — what I called “Christological subversion.” My critic claimed to the contrary that the opposite was the case — that narrative readings were not permissible and that Jesus rather endorsed traditional notions of power and hierarchy.

7. Concerning Women’s Ordination: Mutual Submission

Mutual Submission or Ordered Hierarchy? Ephesians 5 (Part One): Preliminaries

Does Paul teach marital hierarchy of mutual submission in Ephesians 5? (preliminaries)

Mutual Submission or Ordered Hierarchy? Ephesians 5 (Part Two)

In Ephesians 5, is Paul asking for mutual submission of husbands and wives or for the submission of one person (the wife) to the other (the husband)?

Mutual Submission or Ordered Hierarchy? Ephesians 5 (Part Three) Responding to Objections

Responding to objections to “mutual submission” in Ephesians 5

Bought With a Price: A Sermon

This was a sermon about a passage in Paul that touches on the topic of marriage and sexuality that I do not discuss in my book: 1 Corinthians 7. It lays the groundwork for a theology of mutual submission in marriage.

 

8. Concerning Women’s Ordination: Women in Worship and “Headship”

Response to the Anglican Diocese of the Living Word: Does “head” mean “authority” in Ephesians 5 and 1 Corinthians 11? Part One

Does “kephale” (head) mean “authority” in Ephesians 5 and 1 Corinthians 11? (historical and hermeneutical background)

Response to the Anglican Diocese of the Living Word: Does “head” mean “authority” in Ephesians 5? Part Two

Does “kephale” (head) mean “authority” in Ephesians 5? (exegesis)

Response to the Anglican Diocese of the Living Word: Does “head” mean authority over in 1 Corinthians 11? Part Three

Does “kephale” (head) mean “authority” in 1 Corinthians 11? (exegesis)

9. Concerning Women’s Ordination: Speaking and Teaching

Concerning Women’s Ordination: What About 1 Timothy 2:12?

This single passage is the one to which Evangelical Complementarians appeal in their argument against not only women’s ordination, but any leadership of women over men in the church. The chapter in my book discussed it somehwhat, but here I go into more detail.

Catholic Arguments

10. Concerning Women’s Ordination: A Presbytera is not a “Priestess” (Part 1: Old Testament Priesthood)

Scripture, History, Tradition and Women’s Ordination: Another Review of a Book That I Did Not Write (Part 2)

This is a response to a critique of both my second chapter (addressing distinctions between traditional and modern economical structures) and Old Testament priesthood. Since the author endorses a “Catholic” rather than Protestant critique, I linked it here.

11. Concerning Women’s Ordination: Women’s Ordination and the Priesthood of Christ (Biblical and Patristic Background)

12. Concerning Women’s Ordination: Women’s Ordination and the Priesthood of Christ (in persona Christi)

I Don’t Get Mail or Anticipatory Responses to My In Persona Christi Argument

This was in response to criticisms that were  made on a blog post a number of years ago in which a number of Catholic (including Orthodox and Anglo-Catholic) writers responded triumphantly to a few remarks I made on another blog concerning the modern Roman Catholic opposition to the ordination of women based on the necessity of a male priest to resemble a male Christ. I eventually expanded those few remarks in my essay “Women’s Ordination and the Priesthood of Christ (In Persona Christi). ” Assuming, however, that some may raise the same kinds of objections again, here is my response.

Concerning Women’s Ordination: What about Bonaventure?

A commenter in response to the essay “Women in Holy Orders” (linked above,), pointed to a reference in which Bonaventure uses a version of the In Persona Christi argument against women’s ordination. I had missed this in writing my book, and in response (and appreciation) included an Appendix as a corrective in the Paperback edition of the book.

Response to the Anglican Diocese of the Living Word: The False Dilemma Fallacy and the Catholic Argument Against Women’s Ordination

In this essay, I point out that the Anglican Diocese of the Living Word Response not only gets the Catholic position “wrong,” they reject the actual in persona Christi argument and incorrectly claim that Catholic opponents to Women’s Ordination are Protestant Complementarians. 

Women’s Ordination and Sacramental Representation? How do Christians Represent Christ?

In this essay, I address the question “How do the ordained represent Christ?” It is my most thorough response to the in persona Christi argument, but itt also touches on the subject matter of chapter 13 and 14.

13. Concerning Women’s Ordination: The Argument From Symbolism Part 1 (God, Christ, Apostles)

14. Concerning Women’s Ordination: The Argument From Symbolism (Part 2: Transcendence, Immanence and Sexual Typology)

The Ministry of Women in the New Testament

15. Concerning Women’s Ordination: Women’s Ministry in the New Testament (Office)

16. Concerning Women’s Ordination: Women’s Ministry in the New Testament (Bishops, Presbyters, Deacons) or a Presbytera is not a “Priestess” (Part 2)

Conclusion

17. Conclusion

I Get Mail: An Egalitarian Ontology of Women and Men

One of the questions that comes up occasionally is whether an egalitarian theology implies that there are no differences between men and women. There are. They just do not have to do with a hierarchy of authority.