One of the key disagreements in the discussion of women’s ordination concerns the question of how Christians represent or resemble Jesus Christ. This was a key concern in Icons of Christ, my book in favor of women’s ordination.

Protestant complementarians divide representation of Christ by sex. Males (not only clergy, but males in general) represent Christ by being “in charge,” exercising authority and specifically by exercising authority over women. Ironically, women also represent Christ, but in the opposite way, by submission. Complementarians claim that just as Jesus always obeys and is subordinate to God his Father, so there is a parallel within the ontological Trinity in which the eternal Son is always subordinate to and in submission to the eternal Father. In the same way, women are always subordinate to and in submission to male authority. Because clergy have positions of authority, no woman can be ordained because this would mean that women clergy would exercise authority over male parishioners. So Protestant complementarians divide Christological representation by dividing Christ. Males represent Christ by exercising authority, specifically over women. Women represent Christ by submitting to authority, specifically male authority over women.

The new Catholic argument against women’s ordination hinges not on issues of authority and obedience, but on sacramental representation. A male presbyter/priest represents a male Christ when presiding at the Eucharist. Because Jesus is male, only a male priest can represent a male Christ.

This is the third and last of my responses to Mark Perkins’ review of my book Icons of Christ: A Biblical and Systematic Theology of Women’s Ordination.¹ In the previous two essays, I focused first on Perkins’ rhetoric and, second, on his discussion of history and tradition. In this essay, we finally get to Perkins’ positive argument. What does it mean for clergy to represent Jesus Christ, and why may only male clergy do so?

 

Master Passages

What is my own argument? On pages 75-76 of Icons, I acknowledge that Protestant complementarians and Catholic sacramentalists correctly recognize the significance of Christology for ordination, but also criticize them for incorrectly relying on highly abstract arguments that are only loosely related to what the NT actually says about Jesus: “Both positions use highly abstract arguments that are somewhat removed from the actual narratives about Jesus in the gospels or the specific focus of the teaching about Jesus in the epistles.” The NT nowhere draws any parallel between the eternal relations of the immanent Trinity and subordination of women to men. The NT says nothing about the role of ordained clergy in celebrating the Eucharist, or what the implications might be for the role of women.

Throughout the book, this question of resemblance to Christ is a major theme, and throughout I am guided by the key hermeneutical principle that the relationship between symbol and narrative is a posteriori rather than a priori – that the meaning of symbols is determined by their narrative context rather than vice versa – as well as the hermeneutical principle of “Christological subversion.”

Another key theme – referred to in a previous essay in response to the Anglican Diocese of the Living Word – concerns Master Passages. Master Passages are key biblical texts that provide the crucial context for theological interpretation of other biblical passages. For the Anglican Diocese of the Living Word, the key Master Passage is 1 Timothy 2:19, and all other NT passages are interpreted in light of this.

I discuss not one, but several Master Passages in Icons of Christ, and I have written essays responding in particular to the Anglican Diocese of the Living Word in their challenge to my readings of these passages:

1) Genesis 1 to 3 contains the two creation narratives through which all of the rest of Scripture interprets the theological meaning of marriage and sexuality. I argue that the two creation narratives mean that to be created in the image of God means to be either male or female, and that the creation narratives point to both mutuality and equality between male and female in marriage (Icons, chapter 5). In my first response to Perkins, I note that he seems to have missed the significance of these passages for my understanding of the necessarily mutual relationship of male and female.

2) In my discussion of the Gospels, I introduce the notion of “Christological Subversion,” “a special use of irony or paradox” in which throughout the New Testament, the person, words, and actions of Jesus take our normal conceptions of what should be the case and turn them upside down (Icons, 77-78). The key example (and Master Passage) in the Gospels would be Mark 10:43-45: “But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Note how Jesus in Mark’s Gospel explains what it means to imitate Christ: to be servants to one another as Christ was a servant to us.

In Paul’s epistles, I centered on the three following Master Passages:

3) “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Phil. 2:3-8).

Mark Gorman argues in his book Cruciformity that this is the key “Master Story” (Gorman’s expression) for interpreting all of Paul’s spirituality.² For Christians to imitate Christ is to be conformed to his death. I summarized Gorman: “This ‘master story’ of Christ’s self-emptying serves as a paradigm for Christian service” (Icons, 100-101).

4) “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (Eph. 5:1-2).

Ephesians 5:22-33 is the central NT passage in which Paul discusses the relationship between husbands and wives, introducing Paul’s famous parallel between husband and wife and Christ and the church. However, too often the passage is read in isolation from its context. Verses 1-2 is key for the interpretation of the entire passage, making clear that all members of the Christian household – husbands, wives, servants, and children – are to pattern their household relationships after the cruciform pattern given them by Jesus. All members of the household are to walk in love by giving themselves up for one another as Christ gave himself up for us. I argue in chapter 7 that this imitation of Christ is crucial for all in the family to submit themselves to one another: “[T]here is a Christological moral model that is provided as the paradigm for each of the members of the household addressed, and the model is not that of Christ in glory (Christos Pantokrator), but the self-abasement of the crucified Christ who voluntarily took up the role of a servant, and who loved the church and gave himself up for it” (Icons, 111).

5) “For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you” (2 Cor. 4:5-12).

This is the single NT passage in which Paul specifically describes how it is that apostles (and by implication, other ministers of the gospel) imitate or resemble Christ. As I write in my book:

As Paul imitates Christ in becoming a slave to those to whom he ministers, he expects those to whom he ministers voluntarily to become slaves to one another. (Icons, 102)

The priest is not Christ. The priest is a jar of clay. The priest represents Christ primarily by pointing away from him or herself and by pointing to Christ. But the priest also represents Christ in that he or she shares in Christ’s suffering. . . . So the priest does represent Christ, but as an icon who points away from himself or herself and his or her own competence to the competence of the crucified and risen Christ. . . . It is Jesus Christ who saves, not the priest. But the priest also takes up the ministry of Christ after the pattern of Christ as Servant and that will mean suffering. (Icons, 240-41)

Second Corinthians 4 describes the practice of Christian ministry as exemplified by the apostles, of those who carry a treasure in jars of clay, carrying in their bodies the death of Jesus, so that Jesus’ life is manifest in their bodies (2 Cor. 4:7-12). This model of cruciform spirituality is the correct pattern for the manner in which the ordained minister does or does not represent or resemble Jesus Christ. (Icons, 341)

Perkins at one point in his Review seems aware of what is actually the central argument of my entire book involving what it means to resemble Christ, but he dismisses it with a short comment:

Elsewhere, [Witt] rejects the iconographic significance of sex difference altogether, downplaying or dismissing a sacramental and liturgical iconography in favor of a kind of moral or ethical pseudo-iconography. Following Sumner, Witt argues that the priest imitates Christ not so much in his body but rather in his kenotic self-emptying — in pointing away from self and towards Christ (214-217, 229-232).

Perkins is absolutely correct that I am agreeing with Sumner here, but Perkins seems to have missed or ignored that my argument for a “moral or ethical” iconography is not simply a matter of following Sumner, but is based primarily on my reading of Scripture. Pages 51-201, 295-327 of my book are devoted to discussion of Scripture, and pages 75-169, 295-327 focus exclusively on the NT. Crucial to that discussion throughout are the notions of “Christological subversion,” “cruciformity,” and “mutual submission” of Christians to one another. I make this claim because it is the consistent teaching of the NT about what it means to resemble Christ, and what I have designated above as the five “Master Passages” are at the heart of my argument. Central to my argument throughout is that the way not only ordained clergy, but all Christians, resemble Christ is through a cruciform spirituality that demands mutual submission to one another. Throughout my book, I deliberately present what Perkins calls a “moral or ethical pseudo-iconography” as the very heart of what it means for Christians to imitate or represent Christ, and I do so as a deliberate alternative to both what Protestant complementarians and Catholic sacramentalists claim is the way that ordained clergy represent Christ. That Perkins dismisses this in a mere two sentences, and ignores the centrality of these biblical passages to my argument is unfortunate.

The New Testament does indeed tell us what it means to resemble or imitate Christ. It does so by consistently pointing to Christ’s self-giving on the cross (“cruciformity,” Gorman), and not by suggesting that Christian males imitate Christ’s authority or that ordained clergy resemble Christ through a sacramental resemblance of his masculinity. Such an iconography is indeed one of “moral resemblance” because that is the only example the writers of the canonical Scriptures provided the church for the way in which Christians resemble Jesus Christ.

 

Why the Title Icons of Christ?

Perkins really does not like the title of my book. He writes: “This in persona ecclesiae argument fails because – ironically, given the title of his book – Witt misunderstands both the purpose and function of iconography.” Later, Perkins writes: “But in addition to misunderstanding the purpose of icons, Witt also misconstrues how icons function. He emphatically insists that the priest acts as an icon by ‘pointing away from himself or herself (as does John the Baptist in Grunewald’s famous triptych to the crucified and risen Lord” (231). “Witt says that the priest points away from himself six times on pages 231-231 alone, and he repeats that claim throughout the book (e.g., 240, 290, 342, 342).”

Almost Perkins’ entire positive argument for exclusively male ordination consists of what amounts to a several-page discussion of what it means to be an icon. Key to his argument is the following definition: “In evaluating this claim [that the priest is an iconic representation of Christ], we need to have some sense of what an icons is. Icon literally means ‘image.’ An icon, therefore, is a visual representation of something else.”

The heart of Perkins’ argument is contained in the following few sentences:

While the priest does represent the Church to God along with representing Christ to the Church, the priest never represents the Church to the Church in the Mass. In the Eucharistic celebration, the priest is not a mirror in which the Church sees itself but rather a window through which the Church sees Christ. Whenever the priest speaks to the assembled parish, he does so either as a prophet bringing the Word of the Lord (as in the Summary of the Law . . . .) or as an iconographic agent through whom Christ himself acts to absolve or to bless the assembly. The priest does speak on behalf of the assembly – but only when he speaks to God, who does not need icons. All of the iconographic significance flows from the priest’s Christ-to-Church orientation. Put differently, the priest in the Mass serves as a representative of the Church to God and as an icon of Jesus Christ to the Church.” (my emphasis).

Perkins’ argument can be summarized as follows:

1) When the priest speaks to God on behalf of the church, the priest is a representative, but not an icon because God does not need icons.

2) When the priest speaks to the church, the priest speaks as an icon in the sense of being a physical visual representation of Jesus Christ: “Icon literally means ‘image,’ . . . a visual representation of something else.”

Perkins summarizes the Seventh Ecumenical Council and the Anglican-Orthodox Dublin Statement of 1984 to state that an icon is a “means of entering into relationship with the person or event it represents.” Perkins states that Orthodox (!) Bishop Kallistos Ware (whom I cite at length) “misconstrues how Christ becomes present through the priest – or through anyone, for that matter! Christ’s presence is manifested in his human icons not when they cease to be visible for who they are, but precisely by manifesting Jesus Christ through who they are, in their very particularity.” Perkins insists that “[e]ven when icons quite literally point to Christ [as does John the Baptist in Grunewald’s triptych] we are edified not by ignoring them but by contemplating and imitating their devotion to Christ . . .” (my emphasis).

Thus:

3) An icon does not point away from itself, but manifests Christ’s presence in its particularity.

Given that “we see Jesus Christ through an icon of a female saint just as clearly as we do through a male saint,” Perkins asks, “how can we be sure that the sex of Jesus is iconographically determination of the priest sex – but not other aspects of Christ’s human particularity?”

Perkins answers by appealing to the historical data I discussed in the previous essay: “[W]hen we considered the apostolic office and the priesthood more broadly, we found that Jewishness is incidental, whereas maleness is universal.” He continues to point out (as discussed in my previous essay) that Melchizedek was not Jewish, but he was male, and that the early church ordained only male priests: “When we look beyond the terrestrial life of Christ into the early history of the Church, we find that ethnic Jewishness is not necessary among the successors of the apostles.”

Thus:

4) Jesus Christ could be seen as an icon through a woman just as clearly as through a man!

5) However, only men can be priests because OT priests and in the early history of the church, only men were ordained.

In response to Perkins’ complaint that “Witt misunderstands both the purpose and function of iconography,” this is another case in which Perkins rather misses the key point of my book. He focuses on the title – Icons of Christ – but here I have access to information that Perkins does not have. Specifically, Icons of Christ was not the original title of the book!

For almost its entire pre-publication history, my chosen title for the book was Treasure in Earthen Vessels, based on the King James translation of 2 Corinthians 4: “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.” In this title choice I was deliberately pointing to Paul’s understanding of how ministers of Christ resemble Christ, not by drawing attention to themselves, but by pointing away from themselves to the crucified and risen Christ – “that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.”

In other words, the point of my original title, and central to my argument throughout the book, is that clergy are not icons in the specific sense in which Perkins defines “icon” – as a physical image or visual representation of Jesus Christ – not even as someone who manifests Jesus Christ in terms of “their very particularity.” While there may be much about the ordained priest that is admirable, and clergy may indeed manifest Christ in various ways, to focus on the priest’s own particularity (particularly as a physical image) is precisely to miss the point of what the priest is doing. Contrary to Perkins, it is not the priest’s function when celebrating the liturgy to draw attention to him or herself so that the congregation can be edified “by contemplating and imitating their devotion to Christ.” While the purpose of a literal physical icon is to be looked at in contemplation, the last message that a priest presiding at the Eucharist should deliver to the congregation is “Look at me!” As I wrote:

The ordained priesthood, is then, by its very nature, paradoxical. In performing the role of the priest, the priest acknowledges his or her own incapacity to play that role. The priest is not Christ, but points to Christ” (Icons, 232). . . . It helps, as Sumner suggests, to think of the priest as an icon of Christ, but in a specific sense. The apostle Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 4:5-7 [see the complete quotation above]. The priest is not Christ. The priest is a jar of clay. The priest represents Christ primarily in pointing away from himself or herself and by pointing to Christ. . . . So the priest does represent Christ, but as an icon of Christ who points away from himself or herself and his or her own competence to the competence of the crucified and risen Christ. It is Jesus Christ who saves, not the priest. But the priest also takes up the ministry of Christ after the pattern of Christ as Servant, and that will mean suffering. (Icons, 240-241, emphasis added)

“Icons of Christ” had originally appeared as the title of an ordination sermon I had preached that was later published in The Living Church, and which contained some of the same words that would later appear in my book: “It helps, I think, to understand the priest as an icon of Christ.” In that sermon, I went on to write: “I think this gets us some way toward resolving the apparently irreconcilable differences between Evangelical and Catholic understandings of priesthood. The priest does represent Christ, but as an icon.”

I went on to write of the priest’s authority: “Your authority as a shepherd comes from outside of yourself. The only authority you have is that which you share with the Good Shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep.”

Of the priest as preacher of the Word: “First, the primary job of the preacher is to communicate the word of God about Christ as contained in the Scriptures. Do not forget that the point of preaching is, once again, to point to Christ. Your sermons should focus on the Good Shepherd, who Jesus is, and what Jesus did.”

In administering the sacraments: “As a shepherd, your chief job in leading worship is to help the congregation share in something objective and outside ourselves that has been given to the church. . . . And, again, finally, the purpose of the liturgy is to point to Christ. If it does not do that, the liturgy has failed in its purpose.”

Of the power of the keys: “Again, it is important to remember, that as a priest, you do not proclaim forgiveness on your own authority. You are a sinner, just like the person who comes to you. . . . It is because Christ has forgiven you, that you, as a priest can proclaim that Christ forgives others. In order to do this, you yourself need to acknowledge your own sins, and you need to accept Christ’s forgiveness.”

Of pastoral ministry: “Finally, there is one last way in which the priest acts as an icon and shepherd of Christ. The priest is pastor and spiritual director. [Pastoral care] is not about solving people’s problems. Only Jesus can do that. It is about taking the time to be with people, to love them, to pray with them, and to share in their joys and their sorrows. And that is one of the best ways to point to Christ.”

I concluded: “But, once again, to be an icon of Christ means that this is not a job that you have to do. This is a job only Jesus Christ can do, he has done it for two thousand years, and he will now do it through you. And this is good news. The message you have to proclaim is also good news. Jesus Christ has died and risen so that we can be forgiven. Christ has enabled us to to share in the divine life that is the Triune Love between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And Christ has called you to be an ambassador of that Love. This is grounds for rejoicing. Christ has called you to lead his people in worship, to share with them his body and blood so that they may become his body. That is a ‘shout out loud’ reason for joy” (emphasis added in all immediate quotes above).

In that sermon, I repeatedly compared the priest to an “icon of Christ” in a deliberately paradoxical manner because I wanted to challenge both Evangelical and Anglo-Catholic understandings of Christian ordination. Against certain sorts of Evangelical Anglicans, I wanted to make clear that the priest really does exercise a ministry of Word and Sacrament, in which Jesus really does work through the priest as (in very specific senses) Christ’s representative. At the same time, against a certain type of Anglo-Catholic, I wanted to make clear that the way in which the priest is an “icon of Christ” is not through any intrinsic dignity of power in his or her own office, but precisely through drawing attention to Jesus Christ, not to his or her own ministry.

Unfortunately, in spite of the point that I made over and over again in that sermon, I received concerned responses from two Evangelical Anglican clergy – one a bishop – who interpreted me to be saying almost the opposite of what I had intended, that to be a priest meant to be an icon in the sense of claiming that one is in one’s own person a kind of representation of Christ, or even of God! They expressed concerns of “sacerdotalism,” and that I was claiming a kind of God-like authority for the priest! Both interpreted me not as challenging a certain kind of Anglo-Catholic understanding of ordination, but of affirming it.

Although the title Treasure in Earthen Vessels made clear the point that I was trying to make in my book, and pointed back to Paul’s articulation in 2 Corinthians 4 of what it meant for ministers of the gospel to resemble Christ, a pre-publication reviewer did not like that title, and the publisher agreed. When asked for an alternative title, I thought back to the title of that sermon, but I was also concerned that I might again receive negative feedback from Evangelicals who misunderstood what I meant by the expression “Icons of Christ.” I agreed to the title change because I thought it sufficiently clear from the context of the book that I was not using the expression “Icons of Christ” to mean that the priest was either a physical representation of Jesus Christ or that the priest had some kind of inherent authority or power in him or herself that is not entirely a delegated authority.

My understanding of what it means for clergy to resemble Christ is well expressed in the conclusion of Chapter 10 of Icons of Christ:

[I]nsofar as Christ’s servant ministry is the pattern of all Christians, it is also the pattern for all ministry. Insofar as the role of the ordained minister is to point away from himself or herself and to point instead to Christ, it is not his or her sex that is significant because it is not his or her own person that counts, but the person of Jesus Christ. If a male priest can represent the female bride of Christ, then certainly a female priest can represent Christ himself in that the priestly role of ordained clergy is one of self-abnegation. The model for ordained ministry is that of Jesus Christ’s suffering servanthood – the model for all Christian discipleship to which all Christians are called, both men and women. In its worship, the church does not rely on its own identity or accomplishments (including gender or sexuality); the church has nothing of its own to offer; the church’s worship is entirely a participation in the worship of the risen Christ, and it finds its identity entirely through participating in the vicarious humanity of the incarnate, crucified, and risen Christ. As for the church, so it is for the ordained minister. The ordained priest represents Christ as did John the Baptist; by pointing away from himself or herself to the crucified and risen Christ. (Icons, 242-242)

In the end, I gave the book the title Icons of Christ not because I did not understand what an icon is, but because I did. My intention was to challenge what is actually a new understanding of the priest as a physical representation of the male Jesus Christ by reclaiming an earlier and actually traditional use, that a priest represents Christ not by physically resemblinng Christ as a “representation,” but by pointing away from him or herself to Christ.

The term “icon” appears only a few times in the book, but that the use was deliberately paradoxical should have been clear not only by my own use and Sumner’s, but by the way the term or similar language appeared in other authors I cited.

In my discussion of Orthodox theologians Kallistos Ware and Elisabeth Behr-Segel, I include citations like the following:

“The priest at the Divine Liturgy is not ‘another Christ’ . . . .” Throughout the recitation of the Eucharistic Prayer, the priest “is not Christ’s vicar or icon . . . .” During the Prayer of Consecration, “the celebrant does not serve as an icon of Christ.” “[N]or is the priest an icon in the literal technical sense of the term . . . . the priest points to the invisible spiritual presence . . . of the one High Priest, Christ. . . . A painted icon is indeed intended to bear a physical resemblance to its prototype, but a priest is not a painted icon” (cited in Icons, 214-217, emphasis added).

I cite Roman Catholic priest Yves Congar: “Statements such as sacerdos alter Christus [‘The priest is another Christ’], have to be understood in their true sense, which is spiritual and functional, not ontological or juridical” (cited in Icons, 218, emphasis added).

Finally, there is my summary of a key passage from Sumner:

The priest’s role is not then, one of power; rather, the model for the priesthood is that of an “icon,” pointing not toward himself or herself, but to the other of the crucified Christ. In terms of symbolism, the priest is first a symbol of the church: “The priest exists to show the Church something about itself, to reflect back its proper and necessary nature as a body turned toward Jesus Christ.” The priest is then both an icon and not an icon of Christ: “The priest is not an icon of Christ, but rather of the Church as it seeks to attend to, imitate, be the Body of Christ.” One could say then, that the ordained minister represents both Christ and the church. The priest represents Christ not by him or herself being another Christ (an alter Christus), but in pointing away from himself or herself to the crucified and risen Lord Jesus Christ who is the head of the church which is his body. The priest represents the church insofar as to be the church means to be the body of Christ in a manner that imitates Christ in his own self-effacement. Sumner states in a footnote that “the priest by this account is in persona ecclesiae rather than in persona Christi, though the element of nuance comes in the fact that the ecclesia is defined by its attention to its Lord. (Icons, 231-232, emphasis added)

In consequence, part of me is reassured that Perkins disagrees with the title of my book. He is mistaken, however, when he claims that I do not understand what icons are. To the contrary, my use of the expression Icon was deliberately contrary to a literal understanding. It is not that I do not understand that an “icon” is a physical representation. Rather, in reference to ordained clergy, I am deliberately using the term paradoxically: “The priest is then both an icon and not an icon of Christ.” The priest is not at all a literal icon in the sense of a physical representation. Rather, the priest functions as an icon metaphorically by resembling Christ in the only way in which the NT says that anyone resembles Christ – through a cruciform self-abnegation that draws attention not to oneself, but to the crucified and risen Jesus Christ. To cite Paul again: “For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.” Again, the priest is not Christ. The priest is a jar of clay.

 

Is the Priest a Physical Representation of Jesus Christ?

Perkins’ argument that the priest is a literal icon (a physical representation of Christ) is extremely brief, consisting of only a few sentences and an additional paragraph.

First, “the priest never represents the Church to the Church in the Mass” (my emphasis).

Second, “Whenever the priest speaks to the assembled parish, he does so either as a prophet bringing the Word of the Lord (as in the Summary of the Law . . . .) or as an iconographic agent through whom Christ himself acts to absolve or to bless the assembly. . . . All of the iconographic significance flows from the priest’s Christ-to-Church orientation. Put differently, the priest in the Mass serves as a representative of the Church to God and as an icon of Jesus Christ to the Church.”

Third, Perkins insists that when reciting the Words of Institution, the priest is indeed acting in persona Christi (in the person of Christ), specifically playing a dramatic role in a drama in which the priest literally and physically resembles the male Jesus Christ:

Witt’s argument, however, rests upon false dichotomies between narrative prayer and dramatic enactment, as well as between the actions of God and the agents of God. . . . More importantly, while the anamnesis of the Eucharist narrates a past event, through that narration Jesus Christ breaks into the present. Even as the priest recites with his mouth the words of the liturgy, praying to God with the congregation, he also ritualistically and dramatically enacts Christ’s fourfold Eucharistic action — taking bread, blessing, breaking, and distributing it. In this mystical encounter between Jesus Christ, the celebrant, and the people of God, any attempt to maintain a clean boundary between narrative and drama is bound to fail.

To address each point in turn:

First, Perkins conflates the difference between a representative and a representation without actually acknowledging that he has done so. In a key paragraph in Icons of Christ addressing German theologian Manfred Hauke’s claim that priesthood is representational in that a male priest represents a male deity while a female priest represents a female goddess, I responded that while this might be true for polytheistic religions, it is not at all the case for Israel’s monotheistic faith: “[A]ny such notion of the priest acting as a representation (in the sense of image) of Israel’s God would have been prohibited by the anti-iconic nature of Israel’s religion summed up in the second commandment (Exodus 20:4-5).” OT priests did indeed act at times as representatives of God to the people, and at other times as representatives of the people to God. But here, Hauke and others (such as Perkins) fail to distinguish between a representative (in the sense of a spokesperson) and a representation (in the sense of a physical resemblance). Priests in the OT were representatives of God, but they were not physical representations (Icons, 259).

Similarly, during the celebration of the liturgy there are times when the celebrant acts as a representative both of the people and of Christ, but in neither case is there reason to believe that the celebrant does so through a literal physical representation. Perkins points to what he seems to think is an inconsistency in Orthodox Bishop Ware’s argument: “Ware himself notes that, outside the Eucharistic canon proper, the priest does speak and act in Christ’s name while facing the people.” What Perkins misses here is that Ware had already made it clear that “speaking in Christ’s name” has nothing to do with physical resemblance. In “absolving” or “blessing the assembly,” the priest is acting as a representative, not a physical representation of Christ. As I stated on page 345 of Icons, “Again, it is important to remember that the ordained minister does not proclaim forgiveness on the basis of his or her own authority. The pastor is a sinner, just like the person who comes for confession. . . . It is because Jesus Christ has forgiven him or her that the presbyter can proclaim that Christ forgives others.”

Second, a central theme of Perkins’ argument is an appeal to tradition, but just as Perkins ignored what the actual tradition was when he appealed to a tradition of exclusively male ordination, so in Perkins’ brief remarks about “iconographic significance,” he bypasses the history of the development of eucharistic theology and liturgical celebration. Specifically, there is no claim in the tradition before the mid-twentieth century that the priest exercises what Perkins calls “iconographic significance” in the sense that a male priest is a physical representation of a male Christ.

In chapter eleven of Icons, I discuss the notions of priesthood and sacrifice in the OT, the NT, and in the early church. In the conclusion of that chapter, I summarize: “What is missing from the writings of the church fathers is any detailed discussion of this relationship between Christ’s priesthood and the priesthood of the ordained clergy. . . . There is no warrant in the writings of the church fathers for the claim that the church should exclude women from ordination because the priest represents Christ, and only a male can represent Christ” (Icons, 200-201, emphasis added).

In chapter twelve, I discuss the history behind the in persona Christi position that in presiding at the Eucharist, a male priest represents a male Christ. I point out that this is a Western medieval development that is first articulated in the later writings of Thomas Aquinas. I point out that Thomas’s position seems to have originated with a desire to provide an Aristotelian explanation for the relation between form and matter in the sacrament. As the matter of baptism is water, and the form the words “I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,” so Aquinas finds a parallel in the Eucharist in that the matter is bread and wine and the form is the words of the Institution Narrative: “This is my body; This is my blood.” So Aquinas concludes that the eucharistic consecration takes place exactly at the moment when the priest recites the Words of Institution – to the point that he claims that nothing else would be necessary apart from the recital of these words and a valid intention on the part of the priest to “do what the church does.”

At the same time, although Aquinas claims that the priest acts in persona Christi, he nowhere suggests that the priest is a physical representation of Christ (an icon in Perkin’s’ sense) or that the priest must be male to represent Christ. To the contrary, Aquinas specifically states that all Christians (not only the priest) represent Christ through the sacramental character bestowed in baptism:

[E]ach of the faithful is deputed to receive, or to bestow on others, things pertaining to the worship of God. And this, properly speaking, is the purpose of the sacramental character. Now the whole rite of the Christian religion is derived from Christ’s priesthood. Consequently, it is clear that the sacramental character is specially the character of Christ, to whose character the faithful are likened (cuius sacerdotio configurantur fideles secundum sacramentales characteres) by reason of the sacramental characters, which are nothing else than certain participations of Christ’s priesthood, flowing from Christ himself (quaedam participationes sacerdotii Christi, ab ipso Christo derivatae). ST III.63.3 (my emphasis).

For Aquinas, the sacramental character of Christ is the incarnate “image” of God the Father, and all baptized Christians are enabled to partake in worship because, through baptism, they participate in Christ’s priesthood, and in this way resemble Christ. Aquinas writes:

Every sacrament makes the human being a participator in Christ’s Priesthood (per omnia sacramenta fit homo particeps sacerdotii Christi), from the fact that it confers on him [or her] some effect thereof. But every sacrament does not depute someone to do or receive something pertaining to the worship of the priesthood of Christ: while it is just this that is required for a sacrament to imprint a character. (ST. III.63 ad 1)

Thus, for Aquinas every sacrament (not just ordination) enables all human beings (not only ordained males) to participate in Christ’s priesthood. Only a priest can administer the sacraments, but all baptized Christians equally participate in Christ’s priesthood, and in this way, all baptized Christians equally resemble Christ. If an ordained priest would have to be male to participate in Christ’s priesthood and to resemble Christ, it would follow that only males could be baptized because Aquinas is clear that is through baptism that Christians come to participation in Christ’s priesthood and come to resemble Christ. (See the discussion in Icons, 204-208).

Following my discussion of Aquinas, however, I make clear that the East (the Orthodox Church) has never accepted the Western view that in celebrating the Eucharist the priest acts in persona Christi. I refer readers to my discussion on pages 210-217 of Icons of Christ, but here include only a few brief quotations from Kallistos Ware. When the priest recites the Eucharistic Prayer, “at no point in all this does he speak as if he were himself Christ. . . . [T]hroughout the eucharistic prayer, he is not Christ’s vicar or icon, but – in union with the people – he stands as a supplicant before God. . . . . at no point in the actual prayer of consecration does he speak in persona Christi. . . . At the most important of all priestly acts, the recitation of the eucharistic anaphora, according to the Orthodox understanding, the celebrant does not serve as an icon of Christ” (Ware, cited in Icons, 214-215, emphasis added).

 

Is the Eucharistic Prayer a Drama?

In earlier discussing the role of the priest addressing the congregation, Perkins had stated that there is a clear dichotomy between instances in which the priest is addressing the congregation and when the priest is addressing God. When the priest is speaking on the part of the church to God, the priest is not an icon, not a representation. When the priest speaks to the church as a representative of Christ, however, the priest is an icon, a visual representation, not merely a representative. In each case, a definite choice must be made. In instances in which the priest engages in prayer on behalf of the congregation (in persona ecclesiae), the priest is not an actual visual representation. In praying to God, a male priest presumably can represent the church as the female Bride of Christ since no physical resemblance is necessary. However, when the priest addresses the church on behalf of Christ (in persona Christi), as in proclaiming law or promise, the priest is not merely a representative but is actually a visible representation, and so only a male priest can be a visible icon of the male Christ: “Put differently, the priest in the Mass serves as a representative of the Church to God and as an icon of Jesus Christ to the Church.”

This clear dichotomy and necessary choice diseappears when Perkins discusses the Eucharistic Prayer itself. A plain-sense reading makes clear that the eucharistic canon itself is a prayer on behalf of the church. The Prayer begins and ends with the words “us” and “them,” and Jesus Christ is referred to throughout in the third person: “On the night he was betrayed, our Lord Jesus Christ took bread . . .” The use of personal pronouns establishes who is speaking (“we,” “us,” the church), and who is spoken about (“he,” “Our Lord Jesus Christ”). Based on Perkins’ own criteria and explicit demand for a choice – the priest speaks “either as a prophet bringing the word of the Lord . . . or as an iconographic agent through whom Christ acts” – the Eucharistic Prayer is a case in which the priest is addressing God, not a case in which the priest is serving as a representative of Christ to the church. Accordingly, in terms of Perkins’ own criteria, when praying the Eucharistic Prayer, the priest is not an icon of Jesus Christ.

However, in this case, Perkins makes an exception. To follow Perkins’ own earlier demand for an unequivocal distinction between “a representative of the church to God” and “an icon of Christ to the church” is now to make a “false dichotomy” between “narrative prayer” and “dramatic enactment . . . as well as between the actions of God and the agents of God.” The clear distinction between prayers to God (not an icon) and addressing the congregation (an icon) disappears: “Even as the priest recites with his mouth the words of the liturgy, praying to God with the congregation, he also ritualistically and dramatically enacts Christ’s fourfold Eucharistic action — taking bread, blessing, breaking, and distributing it. In this mystical encounter between Jesus Christ, the celebrant, and the people of God, any attempt to maintain a clean boundary between narrative and drama is bound to fail” (my emphasis).

Theologically this will not work. In both cases – the priest addressing God on behalf of the people or addressing the people on behalf of Christ – the priest acts as a representative, but in neither case is the priest a visual or physical representation of Jesus Christ. Moreover, a plain-sense reading of the Eucharistic Prayer makes clear that in no sense is this a case in which the priest is engaging in a drama in which he (as a male) is representing a (male) Christ. In the examples Perkins refers to in which the priest addresses the congregation, the message of address on behalf of God or Christ is clear from the text itself: “The Lord be with you.” “Hear what the Lord Jesus Christ says.” “Hear the word of God to all who truly come to him.” In prayers addressed to God, the addressee is also clear from the text itself: “Let us pray,” “Almighty God, to whom all hearts are open, and all desires known . . ..”

The Eucharistic Prayer clearly belongs to the latter category:

It is very meet, right and our bounden duty, that we should at all times, and in all places, give thanks unto thee, O Lord, holy Father, almighty, everlasting God, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Therefore with angels and archangels, and with all the company of heaven, we laud and magnify thy glorious name, evermore praising thee, and saying . . . .

God is addressed, and Jesus Christ is referred to in the third person throughout this prayer to God the Father:

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, who of thy tender mercy didst give thine only Son Jesus Christ to suffer death upon the cross for our redemption . . . .

O Lord and heavenly Father, we thy humble servants entirely desire thy fatherly goodness mercifully to accept this our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving; most humbly beseeching thee to grant, that by the merits and death of thy Son Jesus Christ, and through faith in his blood, we and all thy whole Church may obtain remission of our sins, and all other benefits of his passion. And here we offer and present unto thee, O Lord, ourselves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy and lively sacrifice unto thee; humbly beseeching thee, that all we, who are partakers of this holy communion, may be fulfilled with thy grace and heavenly benediction . . .

This pattern continues when recounting the Words of Institution:

Hear us, O merciful Father, we most humbly beseech thee; and grant that we receiving these thy creatures of bread and wine, according to thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ’s holy institution, in remembrance of his death and passion, may be partakers of his most blessed body and blood: who, in the same night that he was betrayed, took bread and, when he had given thanks, he brake it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, Take, eat; this is my Body which is given for you . . . .

To point out that this is not an example of sacred drama presented to a congregation, but a prayer addressed to God by the congregation is not to engage in a “false dichotomy,” but rather to engage in a straightforward reading of the plain-sense meaning of the text.

Perkins acknowledges my reference to Jesuit Edward Kilmartin’s statement “that the Eucharistic canon is not a drama in which the celebrant enacts the role of Christ but rather a ‘narrative of thanksgiving’ and ‘a unified prayer to the Father,’” to which he responds that this “rests upon false dichotomies between narrative prayer and dramatic enactment . . . . In this mystical encounter between Jesus Christ, the celebrant, and the people of God, any attempt to maintain a clean boundary between narrative and drama is bound to fail.”

Kilmartin was one of the most significant liturgical theologians of the twentieth century. I summarize in Icons of Christ Kilmartin’s critique of medieval Western liturgical and sacramental theology as the “product of a splinter tradition of the Western Latin Church,” as well as the criticisms of Western eucharistic theology by Orthodox theologians Kallistos Ware and Elisabeth Behr-Segel. As I summarize Kilmartin’s criticism of the “average Catholic eucharistic theology,” this medieval Western tradition has “no grasp of the literary structure and theological dynamic of the Eucharistic Prayer.” The “words of Institution” are posed in “midair” with no connection to the actual structure of the canon. The priest “enacts a drama” while the congregation becomes a passive audience, the presiding minister is isolated from the community of faith in that he primarily represents Christ, and only represents the church insofar as Christ is the head of the church: “Ecclesiology enters by the back door, and is equivalently absorbed into Christology.” The Eucharist is celebrated “for the church,” but is not the “sacrament of the church.” By agreeing that the Eucharistic Prayer is indeed a “dramatic enactment” of the Last Supper, Perkins is echoing this “splinter tradition” of Western medieval sacramental theology.

In contrast, Kilmartin argues that sacraments have to be considered within an entire salvific-historical and Trinitarian context that is not Christomonist, and does not neglect the mission of the Holy Spirit. In the liturgical gathering of the church, sacraments presuppose a Trinitarian and ecclesiological structure. The Eucharistic Prayer is a unified prayer “to the Father” in thankful recognition of the action of Christ, followed by a petition that the Father’s faithfulness will be expressed through the sanctification of the Holy Spirit.

The Eucharistic Prayer is not then a dramatic reenactment of what Jesus did at the last supper, but a prayer spoken on behalf of the entire gathered community. The “words of institution” cannot be separated from the prayer as a whole, and the priest is not to be understood as if he were playing the role of Jesus Christ in a play. Sacraments exist for the building up of the church, and it is not the priest, but the “liturgical community” which is the “subject of the sacramental celebration.” The priest has a representative role, but primarily as a “representative of the church,”

Thus in the Eucharistic Prayer, the priest speaks primarily in the name of the Bride of Christ, and acts in persona ecclesiae (in the person of the church). The priest represents Christ only because he or she first represents the church, of which Jesus Christ is the head. It follows then that women can certainly be ordained: “For the priest must be seen as representing the one church composed of males and females and so the Lord of the church and the Spirit who grounds the unity of faith and love” (On Kilmartin, see Icons, 218-223).

 

A Moral Iconography After All?

This is really Perkins’ entire positive theological argument for exclusively male ordination, and it is assertion more than an actual argument. When the priest prays on behalf of the church, the priest acts as a representative (not an icon). When the priest addresses the church on behalf of Christ, the priest is an icon, and icon must be understood in the sense of physical representation – and this distinction between representative and icon must not be confused. Nonetheless, although on a straightforward reading the Eucharistic Prayer appears to be a prayer to God and therefore according to Perkins’ own criteria not an icon, when the priest recites the Words of Institution, the prayer suddenly shifts from narrative to dramatic reenactment, and the male priest now acts out the role of the male Jesus Christ at the Last Supper (icon after all). This would be the point at which we would expect Perkins to “drop the other shoe”: Because Jesus Christ is a male, only a male priest can represent Jesus Christ.

Instead Perkins makes an unexpected move. Rather than following the modern Roman Catholic argument that only a male priest can represent a male Christ, Perkins states that “while icons must be visibly associated with the person or thing represented, they do not necessarily have to bear a visible resemblance. Moreover, we see Jesus Christ through an icon of a female saint just as clearly as we do through a male saint (emphasis added).” Perkins points to the Virgin Mary as “a particular woman [who] manifests the glory of God more fully than any other (non-divine) person in salvation history.”

This would seem not only to undermine the standard logic of the new Catholic argument against women’s ordination based on symbolism, but also Perkins’ own argument in two ways:

1) If we can see Jesus Christ through a female saint “just as clearly as we do through a male saint,” then the claim that we need a male priest in order to have a visual representation of Jesus Christ collapses.

2) If the Virgin Mary “manifests the glory of God more fully than any other (non-divine) person in salvation history,” then the focus has shifted to what Perkins had dismissed earlier as a “moral or ethical pseudo-iconography”; historically, the reason that Mary “manifests the glory of God more fully than any other (non-divine) person in salvation-history” is not only that she is the theotokos but because of her response to Gabriel’s message: “Let it be done to me according to your word.” The Fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum is a moral response.

Perkins raises the extremely relevant question: “So how can we be sure that the sex of Jesus is iconographically determinative of the priest’s sex – but not other aspects of Christ’s human particularity?” How indeed? Perkins appeals to Scriptural data: “The answer is simply the biblical data we explored last time. We are no longer reasoning towards but rather from the biblical and traditional affirmation of male priesthood. . . . The Bible does not extend iconographic significance to other particularities of the Incarnate Christ, not even the most critical particularity – his Jewishness. . . . [W]hen we considered the apostolic office and the priesthood more broadly we found that Jewishness is incidental, whereas maleness is universal.”

I have already addressed Perkins’ appeal to OT priesthood, NT apostolate, and ecclesial tradition in my previous essay. I would add here, however, that when speaking of how disciples of Christ imitate or resemble him, the Bible “does not extend iconographic particularities” to the masculinity of Jesus Christ at all. Rather, as my discussion throughout Icons of Christ of the biblical exegesis of the key “Master Passages” shows (see above), the NT consistently and only speaks of one way in which apostles and other ministers of the gospel resemble Jesus Christ – through cruciformity.

Nonetheless, a significant shift appears in Perkins’ argument at this point. In Icons, I had pointed out, following Roman Catholic Sara Butler, that “the Roman Catholic magisterium has explicitly repudiated” anthropological theories of a “hierarchical” ordering of the sexes (Icons, 273). Perkins responds that “Witt indefensibly reads the magisterium’s silence about male-female anthropology as an explicit repudiation of it. But, as the sentence immediately before that in Butler’s writing makes clear, speculation about anthropological sex difference is considered appropriate, so long as one does not pretend it has magisterial endorsement.”

Perkins misses a crucial distinction here between “hierarchical” order of the sexes, and “anthropological theories.” The Vatican has indeed repudiated any anthropology of the sexes based on a “hierarchical” ordering. Butler is emphatic that the Roman magisterium has endorsed an egalitarian anthropology of the sexes! To quote Butler: “[U]ntil recently Catholic theologians generally did explain the Church’s practice, at least in part, by appealing to the difference and ‘hierarchical’ ordering of the sexes. They appealed as well to the Pauline texts that prohibited women’s public teaching in the Church and their exercise of authority over men.”³ Butler is clear that this is no longer the case; “Because the contemporary magisterium has abandoned the view that women are unilaterally subject to men, it obviously does not supply this as the reason that women cannot be priests” (Butler, 47). In a detailed discussion of Pope John Paul II’s theology, she makes clear that the Pope affirmed an “egalitarian understanding of marriage” (Butler, 34-38).

This question of hierarchy is distinct from the question of “anthropological theories” as such. I was specifically challenging the views of Manfred Hauke, a Roman Catholic who not only embraced an “anthropological theory,” but included a hierarchy of the sexes within that theory. Concerning anthropological theories as such, however, my point (following Butler) is that the anthopological theories concerning the “complementarity of the sexes . . . does not appear among the fundamental reasons given for the [Catholic] Church’s tradition.” Perkins challenges me: “The magisterial response to anthropological speculation is ‘could be!’ whereas Witt wrongly construes it as ‘absolutely not!’” If the magisterium’s response was “could be,” then certainly they would have at least included it as one among other fundamental reasons. Regardless of our disagreement of interpretation, it becomes clear in his final discussion that Perkins not only wants to endorse some kind of “anthropological theory” concerning the “complementarity of the sexes,” he justifies this anthropologicla theory with a “moral” or “ethical” iconography.

Perkins discusses a number of current anthropological theories which he finds unsatisfactory: male symbolic priority, male transcendence and female immanence, masculine initiative and feminine receptivity. He labels them “Failed Explanations,” with which I clearly agree, since these are the very theories I discuss at length in Chapter 14 of Icons of Christ.

Nonetheless Perkins approves of two such anthropological theories, which he discusses in concert, but which I will discuss separately:

1) Without developing the notion at length, at several times Perkins mentions “the Christological iconography of Ephesians 5,” in which Jesus Christ represents the “Church’s bridegroom and High Priest.” Perkins actually agrees with me that at times, the priest “acts in persona ecclesiae, representing the Church to God. Throughout Scripture and tradition, the Church is typically described in analogically feminine terms as the Bride of Christ.” Perkins does not develop the theme at length, but states: “While all Christians reflect Jesus Christ in the order of salvation, and all are called to live lives of sacrifice and submission, there are different instantiations of Christological iconography. Within the sacramental vocations of marriage and ordination, husbands and priests have respective duties of sacrifice. The husband gives himself up for his wife as a living icon of cruciform sacrifice. The priest celebrates Christ’s own Eucharistic sacrifice and gives himself up for the Church.” Perkins does not develop this at length, but a variation of the standard new Catholic argument is that as Christ is the Bridegroom and the church the bride, so the ordained male priest functions toward his congregation as Jesus Christ the Bridegroom, and his congregation as the female Bride of Christ.

Granted that Perkins does not explicitly endorse this argument or develop it at length, I refer readers to my discussion in Icons, where I state: “There really is a parallel between nuptial imagery of YHWH and Israel, and Christ as the bridegroom and the church as his bride. . . .” Again, however, I point to the “narrative context” of Ephesians 5, where Paul instructs all Christians to “walk in love in the way of Christ, just as Christ loved us, and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” The model then is “Christ-imitation for all (not men only), which Gorman calls ‘cruciformity.’ . . . It is the narrative structure of the passage that defines what is meant for Christ to be bridegroom and the church to be bride. To read this passage as if its point was that ordained clergy should be male because Christ is male is to divorce the nuptial symbolism from its textual context to make a theological point that was nowhere in Paul’s mind, while simultaneously missing the point that Paul was actually making about the cruciform imitation of Christ that applies to all Christians – women as well as men.” (Icons, 262-263).

I point readers also to Edward Kilmartin’s discussion of the bridal imagery of the church in the context of liturgical theology. Kilmartin insists that the church is not a “continuation of the incarnation,” and warns against “overstress[ing] the christological aspect of the mystery of the Church [which] entails the danger of a monphysite eccclesiology. . .” Missing from Western medieval sacramental theology is the concept of a “personal mission of the Holy Spirit,” which is the bond of union between Christ and the church, but also the distance between Christ as head and the church as body. The imagery of the church as “Bride of Christ” “expresses the distance” between Christ and the church.⁴ I note that Perkins refers to the Holy Spirit only sporadically in his essay, generally as an adjective: “Spirit-filled,” “Spirit-bearing.” He does not discuss the role of the Holy Spirit within the context of the presence of Christ in the Eucharist – a key concern for Orthodox theologians, but also for contemporary liturgical theologians like Kilmartin. The word “epiclesis” appears nowhere in his Review.

The Western model misses the “community’s active role in the liturgy” (Christian Liturgy, 248). In the Western model, the celebration of the Eucharist “takes place within the Church rather than as the sacramental celebration of the Church.”⁵ To the contrary of the Western model, the active subject of the Eucharistic Prayer is not the priest, but the “concrete eucharistic assembly” (Eucharist in the West, 372). The presiding priest acts as “representative of the Church’s faithful and therefore the faith of the local community” (Eucharist in the West, 375). “The Eucharist is not a dramatic representation of what Christ did at the Last Supper. Rather, it is the Eucharistic celebration of the Church, the Body and Bride of Christ. The Eucharist is the response of the Church to the command of Christ to do what he did in a way that corresponds to the nature of the Church” (Christian Liturgy, 338).

All liturgical acts of the church are prayers of the gathered community: “[T]he sacramental word is, in the first place – a prayer – even when formulated in the indicative” (Christian Liturgy, 173). In praying this prayer, the sacramental minister primarily represents the church as the Bride of Christ: “By expressing the faith of the Church, as formulated in the symbolic language and actions of the liturgy, the minister represents the Church, speaks in the name of the believing Bride of Christ” (Christian Liturgy, 321). It is only insofar as the priest first represents the church, that he [or she] represents Christ as well: “[T]hey represent Christ in the liturgy because they lead the community in worship in the name of Christ. . . . The visible minister, who speaks in the name of the Church, also speaks in the name of Christ, who has missioned the minister to serve as transparency for the operational presence as High Priest of the worshpping community” (Christian Liturgy, 324).

Given that in neither the case of the priest representing the church nor of the priest representing Christ is the priest a literal physical representation but rather a representative, it is certainly appropriate that if a male priest can act as representative of the church (the female bride of Christ), a female priest can represent the male Christ (the bridegroom of the church; see Icons of Christ, chapter 13).

2) Perkins’ final theological argument that only males should be priests is indeed one of “moral” or “ethical” iconography – which he bases on “Sacrificial Masculinity and the Bible.” There is presumably a tie to the connection between priesthood and eucharistic sacrifice, but it is clear that “sacrifice” functions metaphorically here. Perkins begins with “male violence against women” and “male cowardice” throughout the Bible, at least the OT. The key exceptions occur in the NT, specifically Joseph the husband of the Virgin Mary, and more specifically Jesus. Perkins refers to “Jesus’ husbandly regard for the Church – giving his own flesh as a sacrifice to redeem, regenerate, and transform her.” The argument does not really go beyond this apart from agreeing with what I write in Icons about why it was “soteriologically fitting” for Jesus Christ to have been incarnate as a male. Perkins concludes, “We begin to see why it is likewise typologically fitting for the apostles to be male. They, like Christ, are called to rule through service. Like husbands in Christian marriage, they too must become signs of the Church’s reimagined hierarchy.”

As a corrective of male abuse of clerical authority, this section of Perkins’ discussion is edifying, but it hardly qualifies as an argument for male-only ordination. The metaphorical notion of sacrifice has some parallels to my own discussion of the theology of Robert Campbell Moberly (1845-1903) in Icons, 224-229. Moberly defines Christ’s priestly sacrifice as consisting in the “self-offering” of his life. Participation in Christ’s self-offering is at the heart of priestly ministry. As I summarize Moberly: “If Christ’s sacrificial priesthood is found in his self-offering in love, this also must be the nature of the church’s priesthood. . . . In the worship of the Eucharist, the church identifies itself with Christ’s self-offering to the Father, and is also transfigured inwardly by the presence of the Holy Spirit to conform itself to his self-offering as Christ is formed within the church through the Spirit of love” (Icons, 227).

However, nothing in this notion of self-offering would demand a male-only clergy, given that Christ’s [moral] sacrifice is the model for all Christians to imitate and resemble Christ, clergy and laity, male and female. As I summarize: “Moberly puts himself at odds with the modern Western Catholic argument against women’s ordination by placing the significance of Christ’s sacrifice and priesthood not in his maleness, but in his self-offering of sacrificial love.” This notion that all Christians (not only clergy) imitate or resemble Christ through self-sacrificial love is the theme of my entire book, and why I gave it the title Icons of Christ.

 

Complementarian After All?

Perkins concludes his Review with a discussion of “Hierarchy and Order in the Church” which indicates that he might perhaps be at least a “soft complementarian” after all. Despite showing agreement earlier with my challenging of Wayne Grudem’s biblical exegesis, Perkins seems to affirm that husbands have an intrinsic hierachical authority over wives in marriage after all: “Like husbands, [apostles] too must become signs of the Church’s reimagined hierarchy.” (This would put Perkins at odds with the more recent understanding of the egalitarian and non-hierarchical relation between the sexes endorsed by the Roman Catholic magisterium.). Most of this section is a defense of the notion of priestly hierarchy and authority. As noted in my two previous essays, Perkins seems rather intent to misunderstand or misrepresent my views, which he characterizes as “Witt’s resistance to hierarchy and any sort of vertical authority.” At the same time, he quoted me as stating that “Ordained ministry entails a kind of authority, yet an authority reinterpreted through the lens of cruciformity and a Christological subversion.” What I actually wrote was: “There is no rejection here of the notion of authority as such. Insofar as ordained ministry involves genuine leadership, it necessarily entails a kind of authority, yet an authority re-interpreted through the lenses of cruciformity and Christological subversion. Ordained clergy exercise authority by pointing away from themselves to the crucified Christ” (Icons, 343).

Perkins complains about my translation and summary of 1 Peter 5 as “not top-down hierarchical submission . . . but the submission of all to each other.” He disagrees: “The young are particularly, but not uniquely, called to submit.” In writing this, he selectively passes over what I actually wrote: “Verse 5 does indeed call on those who are younger to ‘submit’ (hypotagēte) to the elders/ presbyters (presbyterois). At the same time, however, the submission is not top-down hierarchical submission (Padgett’s ‘Type I submission’), but the mutual submission of all to each other: ‘But all of you (pantes) be subject to one another, (allēlois) and to be clothed with humility: for God resists the proud, and gives grace to the humble’” (Icons, 343-44).The “all of you” in this passage necessarily includes everyone, and “one another” can only mean not only that the young submit to the presbyters, but that the presbyters submit in turn.

This would seem to be another case in which Perkins caricatures what I wrote rather than actually engaging with me. As I agreed with much of what Perkins wrote earlier about apostolic succession and episcopacy, I would agree with much of what he says about clerical authority here. I do not object to clerical authority, but I do insist throughout the book that the Christian understanding of the relationship between authority and submission is different than that of simple hierarchy and obedience. (See my discussion of Alan Padgett’s distinction between “Type I Submission” and “Type II Submission” in Icons, 92-94). I do object to the notion that males simply as males exercise authority over women simply as women, and that this sexual hierarchy is never reversed. Despite the corrections Perkins offers to masculine abuse of power over women, in the end he seems very concerned to preserve the hierarchy and authority of clergy over laity in the church – and to make clear that those who exercise such hierarchy and authority are exclusively males. Which means in the end that at least some men simply as men exercise authority over women simply as women. It is possible that I have misunderstood him, but Perkins seems to be saying that in the end, clergy must be males because, just as in marriage, men exercise hierarchical authority over their wives, so in the church, clergy must be exclusively male because men simply as men exercise hierarchical authority, and are always in charge. Insofar as Perkins recognizes that I do not find such a view of clerical authority as at all in line with what it means to “resemble Christ,” Perkins perhaps rightly recognizes that my book is a deliberate challenge to a certain notion of male authority, one which he seems to endorse after all.