Some Historical Background

I

did not write my book Icons of Christ with the intention of changing the minds of those opposed to women’s ordination, although from time to time I have heard from people who have told me that the book changed their minds Rather, I wrote for three different groups:

First, for those within my own tradition (Anglican/Episcopal) who were disappointed at what seemed to be an upsurge of those opposed to women’s ordination within theologically conservative Anglicanism. Women’s ordination had not been an issue of contention at the beginnings of the founding of the Anglican Church of North America in distinction from the Episcopal Church in the mid 2000s. Those of us who had been members of TEC before the split did not leave TEC over either WO or the 1979 BCP. Many of us were members of dioceses and congregations that supported WO before the split. I myself was confirmed as an Episcopalian on May 15, 1982 by Bishop William Frey of the Episcopal Diocese of Colorado. Bishop Frey supported women’s ordination as well as the 1979 BCP, and afterwards moved from Colorado to Ambridge, Pennsylvania, where he became the Dean President (1990-1996) of what was then Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry, where I have taught Systematic Theology and Christian Ethics since fall 2007.

Trinity School for Ministry/now Trinity Anglican Seminary has had a policy since its founding that there could be disagreement on the issue of women’s ordination. While there have always been members of the faculty who opposed WO (including my dear friend the late Rev. Dr. Rod Whitacre), since its beginnings the majority of the faculty have favored WO, and there have always been women serving on the faculty, including my dear friend the late Rev. Dr. Martha Giltinan. And, yes, despite their disagreements about women’s ordination, Rod and Martha were good friends, and Rod entirely supported Martha as a member of the faculty, although he did not receive communion if she presided at the Eucharist. Rod taught women who were seeking ordination, and he treated them no differently than he did his male students. Bob Duncan, the first archbishop of the ACNA, was the bishop of Pittsburgh, a diocese that supports the ordination of women. I myself have served on the Commission On Ministry in the Diocese of Pittsburgh, and we approved both men and women for ordination to the diaconate and the priesthood.

Second, I wanted to provide a summary resource for those interested in the question of women’s ordination that brought together the scholarship of both Protestant and Catholics, since Protestants and Catholics have different understandings of the purpose of ordination. No other book had done this previously.

Third, I wanted to provide support for women like many of my students, who were pursuing vocations to ministry, whether lay or ordained. Many of the women students at Trinity regularly win the graduation awards in the areas of Scripture or theology, most notably for preaching. I first began writing the essays that became the book at the request of my friend and fellow faculty member, the Rev. Martha Giltinan, to provide support for these students.

I was initially reluctant to begin this project because, although I was defending a position held by the majority of those within the ACNA and the global Anglican communion, I knew the project would make me a lightening rod for those opposed to women’s ordination – and so it has become. I would much rather spend my time writing books about Systematic Theology or Anglican theology than defending women’s ordination.

Some final observations concerning the status of women’s ordination in the ACNA:

Because I teach at Trinity, and the seminary has been critically involved, first, in its early days, as part of the renewal movement in the Episcopal Church and as an attempt to restore orthodoxy in the face of growing liberal Protestantism in TEC, and, in more recent years, through Trinity’s involvement in the founding of the ACNA, I know something of the history of the ACNA’s development. I have served on the committee that produced the Catechism. I was part of an early meeting that helped lay out the theological vision behind what became the new Prayer Book. I was asked to give a presentation to the committee that discussed the question of Women’s Ordination in the ACNA. In addition to my own contributions, Trinity faculty members have participated in various commissions in the ACNA’s founding including not only myself, but colleagues who contributed to the 2019 Prayer Book (notably the Rev. Dr. Martha Giltinan) and the Catechism (notably the Rev. Dr. Joel Scandrett, the Rev. Dr. Jack Gabig and Dr. Phil Harold).

From the beginning of the ACNA, there was a consensus understanding that the ACNA was not being formed because of disagreement with women’s ordination in the Episcopal Church. For those of us who affirmed women’s ordination, there was a concern to respect the views and positions of those who opposed it, and there was an understanding that the majority of those of us in the ACNA who support women’s ordination should allow room for those who for reasons of theology and conscience are opposed to women’s ordination. If the Episcopal Church had made unwelcome those of us who opposed same-sex unions, and earlier had made unwelcome those who opposed women’s ordination, the ACNA was not going to force women’s ordination on those who were opposed to it. One of the compromises that was reached in this area was that no women in the ACNA would be ordained to the episcopate. This was not because those of us in favor of women’s ordination were theologically opposed to women bishops, but because out of charity, those of us who affirmed WO did not want to place those who were theologically opposed to WO in the uncomfortable position of sorting out whether or not they could recognize as valid the orders of various members of the College of Bishops.

In 2018, Trinity Professor and ACNA bishop Grant LeMarquand and myself were approached by some bishops within the ACNA who requested us to write a short outline explaining the case for women’s ordination. I want to emphasize that we did not write this of our own initiative, but in response to a request of the ACNA College of Bishops. At the beginning of this essay, we wrote:

The purpose of this paper, therefore, is not to attempt to coerce any diocese into the practice of ordaining women as presbyters. This statement acknowledges that the reasons given for not ordaining women are coherent (although we disagree with them) and that it has the weight of much (but certainly not all) of the history of the church on its side. What the signers of this paper contend is that the argument in favor of ordaining women is also coherent and that there are important arguments in its favor. . . . This scriptural witness leads us to believe that the ordination of godly women as leaders in Christ’s church should continue to be authorized in ACNA dioceses that have decided, or may in future decide, in favor of this policy.

In contrast to the commitment of those of us who approve of women’s ordination not to impose our position on those who do not, the commitment has not always been mutual. Only a few months ago, a number of ACNA clergy opposed to WO released a resolution calling for a moratorium on ordaining women in the ACNA. They who had been promised by those of us in the ACNA who affirmed the ordination of women that we would not impose our position on them responded by attempting to impose their position on us.

Finally, while the ACNA’s position of “two integreties” is unusual, it is necessary if the ACNA is going to stay together as a church. While the majority of bishops in the College of Bishops oppose women’s ordination, many of these represent small dioceses. The largest dioceses in the ACNA support WO, as do the majority of its members. As there are laity and clergy who do not support women’s ordination in dioceses where it is practiced, there are certainly (at least laity) who support women’s ordination in those that do not. If those who support women’s ordination were to force the practice on those dioceses that do not support it or even on those congregations within our own dioceses that are opposed, people would vote with their feet. The contrary is also true however. I cannot imagine anything that would be more likely to lead to a split in the ACNA as radical as the split with TEC than if those opposed to women’s ordination in the ACNA were to attempt to restrict the ordination of women in those dioceses or congregations that support it.

Insofar as the ACNA has an official stance, its position is that women’s ordination is adiaphora, not in the sense that whether one supports the practice or not is “indifferent,” but that we have agreed that this is a practice that should not be church dividing, and that the church needs to recognize the moral, intellectual, and spiritual integrity of those who disagree with us on this issue, and accordingly, we need to continue to find ways in which those who may disagree with one another about this issue can nonetheless continue to worship in the same church and to recognize those who disagree with us as fellow Christians who should be treated with charity.

Hermeneutics

Why does the impasse continue between those in favor of and those opposed to women’s ordination? I have already addressed these issues at some length in previous essays on my blog. I do not want to simply repeat what I have already written, so I will refer readers to previous essays. My own research and negative responses to my book have led me to the following conclusions:

First, the question of whether or not to ordain women to church office is not an issue that can be resolved either by appealing to the plain teaching of Scripture or to church tradition. No passage of Scripture states “Women should be ordained,” but neither does any passage state “Women should not be ordained.” The only two passages in the NT that discuss what might be considered criteria for exercising office in the church occur in in the Pastoral Epistles: 1 Timothy 3:1-12 and Titus 1:5-9. The requirements in these passages are concerned with moral behavior, not gender. Even the requirement that the bishop/presbyter be a “one woman man” (literal Greek) exactly parallels a similar requirement for women – that women should be “a one man woman.” The concern here is not gender, but sexual morality – no polygamist or (more likely) adulterous bishops or presbyters. Moreover, the pronoun used throughout the 1 Timothy passage is the neutral tis (whoever), which applies equally to both men and women.

Any argument either for or against women’s ordination is then necessarily a matter of hermeneutics – how we now apply the teaching of the writings of the Bible written two millennia ago in the vastly different context of the twenty-first century. Such arguments are necessarily inferential.

I make this point at length in the following two essays:

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

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

The second hermeneutical issue concerns the difference between a “regulative” and “normative” hemeneutic for the interpretation of Scripture. It is no coincidence that the two most prominent apologists for complementarianism (Wayne Grudem and John Piper) are Calvinist Baptists who endorse a regulative hermeneutic: the church is forbidden to do anything that is not explicitly commanded in the Bible. In this regard, from the point of view of a regulative hermeneutic, there is as much distance between advocacy of infant baptism and the plain sense of Scripture as there is between women’s ordination and the plain sense of Scripture. Not only are there no clear examples of women’s ordination in the New Testament, there are no clear examples of either infant baptism or women receiving communion.

In contrast to the regulative hermeneutic is the “normative” principle, or a “permissive hermeneutic”: anything that Scripture does not prohibit is allowed. For Anglicans, the primary example of a normative hermeneutic would be Richard Hooker’s The Laws of Ecclesiasticql Polity: although Scripture does not explicitly command written liturgies, episcopal polity, or the exchange of wedding rings, they are permitted. Hooker also provides an additional helpful distinction between matters that Scripture explicitly teaches and merely “historical” matters. Hooker complained that the Puritans added to Scripture by making a direct connection between merely historical happenings in the Bible and matters that are doctrinally or morally binding. In Hooker’s own words: “When that which the word of God doth but deliver historically, we counter without any warrant as if it were legally meant, and so urge it further than we can prove it was intended, do we not add to the laws of God, and make them in number seem more than they are?”¹ Too much of the historical opposition to women’s ordination makes the same error as the Puritans – assuming that because something happened at one time in the history of Israel or the New Testament church, it must therefore provide a permanently binding doctrinal or moral precedent.²

NT scholar Ben Witheringon makes a similar helpful distinction between matters that Scripture teaches and matters that Scripture “touches on.” “The basic rule of thumb is that while principles remain the same, practices often do and should change with the differing cultural situations.”³

Rationalist A Priori Versus Inductive A Posteriori (Follow the Bouncing Ball!)

At the center of my previous essay “Follow the Bouncing Ball” was a distinction between rationalist deductive approaches to theology and inductive a posteriori approaches that “follow the bouncing ball.” Rationalist approaches begin with a few a priori principles, and then follow them through consistently. As examples in the area of atonement theology, I referred to Anselm of Canterbury and Charles Hodge. In contrast, a posteriori approaches proceed inductively, following the subject matter of the biblical text and theological tradition, and being open to constant correction.

Concerning women’s ordination, complementarians proceed deductively while egalitarians proceed inductively. For example, the most detailed studies on women in the Old Testament, in Jesus’ ministry, and in Paul’s letters, have been written by egalitarians The most thorough studies of the cultural background of the Old and New Testament concerning relations between men and women have been written by egalitarians. The best studies of the place of women in church history, and the church’s historical treatment of women have been written by egalitarians. (See the previous essay for bibliographical references.)

In contrast, the complementarian approach proceeds deductively rather than inductively. A total of four New Testament passages provide the key to the complementarian argument, and the rest of the Bible is then read in light of these passages. The use of the Greek word kephalē (“head”) as a metaphor in two passages in Ephesians 5 and 1 Corinthians 11 is interpreted as meaning “authority” to imply a general hierarchical rule of men in general over women in general. From this is extrapolated a notion of male “headship” that is then read back into the entire Bible, including passages in which there is no metaphor for “head.” Two verses in 1 Corinthians 14:34 and 1 Timothy 2:12 are read as universal and permanent restrictions on women leading a congregation in worship.

Exegetically, there are serious problems with the complementarian interpretation of these passages, which I address not only in my book, but in several essays. Even more important than proper exegesis of the passages is that the complementarian procedure is a priori and deductive rather than based on a careful following of the internal logic of the texts. The complementarian notion of “headship” is based on the interpretation of a single word whose meaning is determined (for complementarians) by claims of how it was used by non-Christian authors outside the New Testament rather than by the manner in which Paul himself defines the meaning of the metaphor by his own contextual use. Context makes clear that the prohibition in 1 Corinthians 11 is about disruptive interruption of others leading worship, not about one’s own leading worship. Context indicates that Paul’s concern in 1 Timothy 2:12 is about false teaching: the passage is not imperative but indicative, and the interpretation of difficult vocabulary and grammatical construction of the passage indicates that Paul is not addressing the teaching of women in general over men in general, but an uninformed teaching of false doctrine. See the following:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This deductive methodology becomes evident when complementarians discuss other passages in the Bible. Because there is no reference in Genesis 1-3 to the woman’s subordination to the man before the fall into sin, complementarians must provide a series of inferential arguments to imply a prelapsarian subordination of men to women that is not actually in the text, e.g., man is created first, the man “names” the woman, etc. See my essays:

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

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

A straightforward reading of Jesus’ ministry provides no evidence that Jesus taught or endorsed a subordination of women to men. Jesus provides no distinctive teaching that applies only to one or the other of the sexes. Jesus included among his followers both men and women in a way that was not typical of first-century Mediterranean culture. Jesus’ teaching that his followers should be servants of one another challenges any understanding of top-down leadership. As I point out in my book, opponents of women’s ordination do not provide any close reading of Jesus’ actual ministry or engagement with women. Rather, abstract arguments are used that have no basis in a reading of the Gospel texts themselves. Complementarians appeal to a theologically problematic notion of trinitarian subordinationism to claim that from all eternity, the Son submits to the Father. Catholics appeal to a medieval notion that the priest presiding at the Eucharist represents Christ (in persona Christi) to conclude that only a male priest can resemble a male Christ – an argument that became prominent only with an encyclical of Pope Paul VI in 1976. Again, neither of these arguments is based on a close reading of the biblical texts, least of all the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ own teachings or actions in relation to women.

See chapter 6 in Icons of Christ: “Disciples of Jesus.”

The point is that the complementarian and Catholic sacramental oppositions to women’s ordination are a priori and deductive rather than based on a careful inductive reading of what Scripture actually teaches about relations between men and women in either the Old Testament, the ministry of Jesus, or the New Testament church.

Three Connected Historical Shifts

The question of how to assess three historical shifts may be as important as how to interpret Scripture. Specifically, how do we view three major historical developments in the last several centuries?

The first shift is the shift from an agricultural to a post-industrial culture. In Icons of Christ, I followed Tikva Frymer Kensky and Carrie Miles, who herself was following economist Gary S. Becker, who won the 1992 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences as well as the 2007 Presidential Medal of Freedom. In his 1982 book Treatise on the Family, Becker argued that the traditional “sexual division” between men and women is based on the fact that women give birth and breast feed and men do not. In pre-industrial societies, where many children are needed to produce labor, and women need to be near children to care for them, the work of women is necessarily domestic because this is where women can be near children. Conversely, dirty, hard, and dangerous work is done by men because they do not (for biological reasons) have to be near children. Accordingly, women work in the domestic sphere, and men work in the public sphere.

Miles follows Becker in arguing that it is this connection between biology and division of labor that accounts for the subordination of women in pre-industrial cultures. As the industrial revolution has changed the economic realities by which food is produced, and which makes large numbers of children necessary for survival, there have been corresponding changes for the sexes. Families have fewer children because they are not economically necessary for survival, and because of modern medicine, there is a lower infant mortality rate; there are fewer farmers because a small number of agricultural workers can produce the food required of large numbers of people; most of the work done by men is no longer physically dangerous; more women now work outside the home, and do so not not because they are “bad mothers,” but because they are able to do so.

The second modern movement has been an embracing of social freedom, or what I refer to as “freedom in one’s person”: this included the abolition of slavery, workers’ rights, recognition of racial equality as well as the equality of women. I note in Icons of Christ that Christians played a major role in this development: people like John Wesley, the abolitionist William Wilberforce, the Christians involved in the civil rights movement of the 1960s.

The last move has been the recognition of female equality in the churches. Historically, women were excluded from positions of leadership not only in the church but outside the church as well because they were considered to be less intelligent, emotionally unstable, and more subject to temptation than men. Around the mid-twentieth century, a major change occurred as all mainline Christians pronounced in favor of the intellectual, moral, and spiritual equality of women with men. Complementarians as well as Catholic sacramentalists are clear that they support this equality, but it is a real shift from the church’s historic position. In this sense, the position of both Protestant complementarian and Catholic sacramental opponents of women’s ordination is just as innovative and non-traditional as is the position in favor of the ordination of women. I document this in chapter 3 of my book, but also read the following essays:

Concerning Women’s Ordination: The “Tradition” Challenge

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

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

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

I don’t apologize for affirming that the above three changes have been largely positive in their effects. Who would want to live in a world of high infant mortality, scarce economic resources, and lack of medical and hygienic changes that have led to living longer and healthier lives? Who would want to live in a world in which slavery was essential to the economy, where people had little to no choice in their pursuit of work, where workers had no say in the conditions of their employment, where racism was endemic, where voting was the exclusive prerogative of wealthy male property owners? I note that contemporary opponents of women’s ordination write their protests on word processors in order to upload them to the internet. This at least indicates a willingness to accept the advantages of some post-industrial developments in their own case.

However, parallel to these social developments are also political developments that have occurred since the Enlightenment, many of which have produced negative consequences. There are at least two additional factors leading to the modern dilemma: (1) the rise of modern individualism, and (2) the loss of the notion of a common good.

A focus on individual freedom apart from community and apart from any known good, whether individual or communal (common good) leads to a reductionist understanding of freedom as a mere freedom to choose between options. I echo Carey Miles in my book in agreement that it is the combination of various economic freedoms resulting from the industrial revolution combined with the notion of “freedom” as meaning “individual liberty” as mere choices between options that has led to larger numbers of single people, higher divorce rates, sexual promiscuity, and new understandings of sexual identity. To some extent, this is understandable. If the primary motivations for “traditional” sexual morality had to do with economic survival, disappearances of consequences would lead to disappearance of motivation.

It is the understanding of freedom as “choice” that lies behind the history of modern western politics. My friend political scientist David Koyzis distinguishes between five stages of “liberalism”: first stage liberalism (Hobbesian commonwealth); second stage (John Locke and Adam Smith) the “night watchman” state; third stage (Thedore Roosevelt) “reform liberals”; the regulatory state; fourth stage (Franklin D. Roosevelt, Maynard Keynes) the “equal opportunity” state; fifth stage (post-modernity) the “choice enhancement” state.⁴

Koyzis argues that modern Western political conflict is largely between different varieties of “liberalism” that find themselves at odds with one another. So-called “conservatives” support some variation of stage two liberalism, arguing against government intervention in business, and restricting government action to the security functions of police and military. A previous generation of “reform” and “equal opportunity” liberals argued for government intervention to protect the fairness and safety of employment, to prevent manufacture of unsafe products, to restrict monopolies, to make racial or sexual discrimination illegal. Postmodern “progressives” argue for a choice enhancement state in which it is the obligation of government to promote the choices of individuals, whatever they might be. But all sides in these developments are actually “liberals,” and it is an arbitrary decision whether one stops the progression of liberal “progress” at one stage or another. These divisions are reflected in the churches as well, with “culture war conservatives” as advocates of early stage liberalism, and “progressive liberal Protestants” as fifth stage liberals.

The problem with liberalism as an ideology is that it has no conception of the common good, and tends to reduce all of politics to relationships between governments and individuals. (This is true of both so-called “conservatives” and “progressives.”) In contrast, Koyzis finds an alternative to liberalism in both Roman Catholic subsidiarity and Reformed sphere sovereignty. Both subsidiarity and sphere sovereignty find a place for mediating communities between the state and the individual: families, churches, work places, schools, various kinds of voluntary social organizations. Roman Catholic subsidiarity echoes the centrality of the “common good” in Thomas Aquinas’s own understanding of politics, but also has affinities to Anglican Richard Hooker’s notion of various kinds of law in The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity. The Reformed understanding of sphere sovereignty echoes the way in which social changes occurred in cultures where the Protestant Reformation took effect, particularly the notion of “vocation” as not only a sacred but a secular calling. Here again, Anglicans can find affinities not only with Thomas Cranmer’s hopes to transform society through Prayer Book worship, but also the social concerns of the eighteenth and nineteenth-century Evangelical Revival.

This unacknowledged common acceptance of the historic liberal conception of individual libertarianism is reflected in that both “conservatives” and “progressives” in modern American politics understand social life to consist of a direct relationship between individuals and the government. Government is both the solution to all problems, but also the source of all evil. One’s entire political responsibility consists in voting and making sure that those in political office promote one’s own agenda in preference to the agenda of those with whom one disagrees. Social life becomes a competition between those who have competing individual interests, and, since your interests are at odds with mine, compromise is impossible, and coercion is ultimately the only way to get things done.

In their own way, both the politics of the new “alt-right” and the politics of the progressive “woke” reflect this understanding that the promotion of my own individual liberty is in competition with others who do not share my choices. Both find a solution in elections that involve getting a majority of those who hold my position in power, and using that power to restrain the choices of those who disagree with me. Because the competition is a competition between mutually alternative choices, there can really be no rational discussion or compromise. All one can do is disparage as morally bankrupt those with whom one disagrees, and attempt through political coercion to limit the choices of those whom one views as threatening one’s own choices. It is important for Christians to recognize that the “choices” (allusion intended) between the radical right and the postmodern left are false dichotomies, and that both represent non-Christian ideologies. I tell my students that 2016 was probably the first truly post-Christian American election – in which the presidential choices were between Hugh Heffner and Gloria Steinem.

The notions of subsidiarity/sphere sovereignty provide an alternative to the dead ends of the autonomous individualism that is at the center of political liberalism – whether “conservative” or “progressive.” First, politics is not primarily about the relationship between government and individuals. Far more important are the mediating communities in which we live out our day to day lives: families, workplaces, churches, schools. Second, genuine pluralism is a good and positive thing rooted in creation. Not everyone in society has to agree about everything, and one of the advantages of mediating structures is that they enable people to live in proximity to one another without having to resort to coercion even when they do not agree about everything. Third, government’s role is not fundamentally coercive, but does entail administering justice when conflicts between different mediatory groups become irresolvable. Fourth, and this reflects Catholic subsidiarity more than Reformed sphere sovereignty, government’s role is not only the negative role of protecting citizens from assault and sorting out conflict, but the positive role of promoting the common good. Fifth, political ideologies (all of them – whether “conservative” or “progressive”) are fundamentally idolatrous insofar as they expect of human institutions the salvation that can only come from God. Sixth, politics is not the “zero sum” game of one ideology in combat with another, but a series of genuine conversations between those who do not agree on everything, but who nonetheless are able to work together to achieve a common goal. Seventh, “authority” is not about the power of some coercively to impose their will on others, but rather the delegated ability that enables a group of people to accomplish a task that cannot be accomplished by individuals alone.⁵

This understanding of politics as mutual conversation provides an alternative to the “zero sum” battle of contemporary political ideologies that simply pit one side’s coercion against the other’s, but also provides a kind of tool that enables one to appreciate the positive benefits of the three social developments of modern culture – the industrial revolution, social liberties “in one’s person,” fundamental equality between men and women – while avoiding the accompanying dangers of the modern individualism that has its roots in the political liberalism that begins with John Locke but ends with post-modernity. I think that at least one implication of Koyzis’s discussion is that the coalescence between modern post-industrial society with its accompanying recognition of social liberty in the areas of racial relations, the work place, and the family are not inevitably tied to the extremes of modern “liberal” individualism. One wonders how things might have been different if modern western political philosophy had been more influenced by Thomas Aquinas’s notion of the common good rather than John Locke’s notion of the civil contract.

I would also suggest that the notion of politics as conversation leading to compromise, and authority as the delegated task to accomplish a given good could also provide insight into how we might better deal with theological disagreement within the church. Too much theological disagreement reflects the zero-sum approach of contemporary secular politics rather than a charitable discussion between Christians who are fundamentally in agreement about the creedal center of Christian faith, but who find themselves at odds about how to resolve disagreements concerning faith’s implications.

The Historical Shifts and Women’s Ordination

The three cultural shifts from agricultural to post-industrial society, from a hierarchical society with limited freedoms to the understanding of social freedom that led to the abolition of slavery, workers’ rights, racial and sexual equality, and, finally, the recognition of women’s equality in the church, are connected. The move toward recognizing social equality that began approximately at the time of the Reformation, and which took several centuries to result in the abolition of slavery, the recognition of the rights of workers, to racial equality and civil rights for minorities, and recognition of the equality of women would not have taken place without the transition from a pre-industrial to a post-industrial culture.

Carrie Miles points out in her book The Redemption of Love that it is misleading to refer to pre-industrial societies as “patriarchal” because they are not so much the rule of men over women as the rule of a handful of powerful men over everyone else: men, women, servants, and slaves. Moreover, pre-industrial cultures are always slave cultures. Unwilling workers are needed to do the work required to produce the food and labor required in a society in which muscle power is the way in which things get done. In Miles’s words: “In ancient history, there were only a few patriarchs, but a great many slaves.”⁶

A key issue concerns how we view this not-quite-patriarchal culture that provides the social-cultural background of the Bible. It is crucial to recognize that there is nothing particularly revelatory about the economic and social culture found in the Bible. There is indeed an imbalance of power between men and women, particularly in the Old Testament, but this reflects the social structures of the Near East, which was a pre-industrial society. In the words of Jewish scholar Tikva Frymer-Kensky: “The social system reflected in the Bible did not originate in Israel, nor is it substantially different in the Bible than elsewhere in the ancient Near East.”⁷

This ancient Near Eastern social structure is reflected in numerous places in the Old Testament. Although the creation narratives of Genesis 1 to 3 point to monogamy as God’s ideal for marriage, the patriarchs and later significant figures in Israel’s history such as Kings David and Solomon had multiple wives. Another fundamental illustration of this social context is the existence of slavery in the Bible. As noted above, ancient cultures were slave cultures, and the Bible is not an exception. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob owned slaves. King Solomon in particular was both known for (and criticized) for his use of slave labor.

Old Testament law generally applies to human beings in general, and there are few laws that specifically refer to women. There are however a handful of laws that, while not commanding slavery, nonetheless regulate it. Following a brief series of laws about altars, the very next section of OT law following the giving of the Ten Commandments concerns slavery (Exodus 21:1-11, 20-21, 32). The law makes a distinction between Hebrew and non-Hebrew slaves, and, while modifying for a more humane treatment of slaves, still accepts slavery as something taken for granted. For example, in verse 21, if an owner strikes a slave in a manner leading to the slave’s death, there are consequences. However, if the slave lives for a day or two, there are no consequences, “for the slave is his money” (21).

Particularly significant for this discussion are verses 7-11, where a distinction is made concerning female slaves and male slaves. Specifically, if a man “sells his daughter to be a slave” – the assumption is that the new owner is taking her to be a wife either for himself or his son – should the new owner become unsatisfied, he cannot simply sell the woman to a foreigner. If he takes another wife, he is still obligated to provide the first with food, clothing, and “marital rights.” Should he fail to do this, she is to be released “without payment or money.”

One possible interpretation is that what is being discussed in this passage is not chattel slavery, but “debt slavery.” A person becomes a slave in order to pay off an unpaid debt, and can only be enslaved for a maximum of seven years.⁸ In the case of the daughter, she would be sold to pay off an unpaid debt of her father. The law provides a certain amount of protection for the woman in that she must be cared for, and cannot simply be resold. Nonetheless, it is significant that she has no choice in the matter, and her father has the right to sell her to another man. (Even if she is a concubine or perhaps a wife in contrast to a “bond slave,” she has no say in the matter, and she is sold for money.)

How do contemporary Christians respond to a passage such as this? The passage is indeed problematic in that no contemporary Christians believe that slavery is morally permissible – to the contrary it is recognized as a great evil! Given that even those opposed to the ordination of women insist (sometimes emphatically) that they affirm the moral and spiritual equality of women and men, the notion that a father could sell his daughter to another man is even more problematic.

Given that no contemporary Christian believes that slavery is morally permissible, these passages are indeed troubling. It won’t do to respond to such an observation by stating without qualification: “Witt must not believe the OT Law was from God,” Nor however will it do to claim as one of my critics stated: “the Bible treats the sexes in their integrity, inextricably enmeshed in, and shaped by, the relations of the natural family and the typology of the irreducibly sexed cosmos.” Selling your daughter to another man in order to pay off a debt is not an example of “treat[ing] the sexes in their integrity.”

One possible approach is a combination of cultural relativism combined with a notion of progressive revelation: As I noted in my book, Jewish writer Tikva Frymer-Kensky acknowledges that the Bible accepts social distinctions between king and subject, master and slave[!], and male and female, while correcting abuses within these relationships. At the same time, however, the Bible does not justify these conditions by claiming divine origin for them, nor expects either slaves or women to simply accept them, and to some extent attempts to regulate them.

That the social structures of the Old Testament were recognized as problematic is evident as early as Augustine of Hippo, who responds to the complaints of those who note that Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David and others are praised as being “righteous,” although they could do “without sin in days gone by,” things that would be sinful today: “God gave them one commandment and has given us another.” Augustine appeals to a kind of cultural relativism, combined with progressive revelation: Although God’s justice is always and everywhere the same, “the times over which it presides are not always the same, for it is the nature of times to change.” Augustine draws a parallel between things that are appropriate in one time and context but not in another. For example, we should not grumble because an innkeeper has his shop open in the morning, but not in the afternoon or on a public holiday. We should not complain because things that are allowed to be done in the stableyard are not allowed in the dining room.⁹

Augustine’s suggestions have some validity when we recognize for example that the patriarchs were polygamists or slave owners – and Christians today would disapprove of these practices. If we accept the notion of progressive revelation, this includes the realization that a historical revelation means that God reveals himself within the context of a particular time and culture but that there is also a historical movement to revelation that does not leave the people of God within the limits of their particular cultural setting. The recognition of abolitionist Christians in the nineteenth century that slavery was incompatible with Christian faith reflects such an understanding.¹⁰

I would suggest that there are two tools that would help modern Christians to make these distinctions about how the modern church should hermeneutically appropriate the Old Testament. The first is provided by the way in which the NT church appropriated the Old Testament in order to include Gentiles in the church without demanding that they abide by Jewish ceremonial practices such as circumcision or dietary laws. Leviticus 17 to 19 contains legal material that applied not only to the native Israelite, but also the “sojourner in the land.” Christopher Seitz argues persuasively that this passage lies behind the Jerusalem Council’s decision in Acts 15:19-21 as to the criteria by which Gentiles might be admitted into the church. Seitz argues accordingly that the Ten Commandments should be understood as “positive law,” not “natural law.” However, Seitz is understanding “natural law” in the modern sense as those moral principles that can be known by anyone apart from revelation. I would suggest rather that the Ten Commandments and the Sojourner material in Leviticus are both positive law, but also reflect “natural law” in a sense in which I will explain in what follows.¹¹

Theologically, the standard by which such judgments are made is that of God’s original intention in creation correlated with the movement of redemptive history. When Jesus’ opponents tried to justify divorce on the grounds of Old Testament law (Mosaic commandment), Jesus appealed behind the law to God’s original intention in creation: Moses permitted divorce because of hardness of heart, but Jesus appeals to God’s original intention as expressed in Genesis 1:24 and 2:24. The apostle Paul appeals to the normativity of the same Genesis passages in Ephesians 5:31.

Thomas Aquinas saw the connection between the problem of slavery and the creation accounts. Aquinas did not directly challenge the practice of slavery as it was practiced in biblical times. Nevertheless, his hermeneutical approach to the question made theological distinctions that make the practice of slavery problematic. In his discussion of the Old Law, Aquinas allows the biblical narrative to challenge the traditional custom of slavery on which all traditional economies were based (Summa Theologiae, Supplment, q. 52). Aquinas notes that the Old Testament is in conflict with Aristotle’s belief that, since the slave is the master’s property, slavery should be perpetual. Thomas notes to the contrary that, since the Lord God had delivered Israel from slavery, Israel was then bound to serve God, not the Egyptians. Hence, in Israel, slaves were not the owner’s property, and had to be freed after seven years, and allowed to rest on the Sabbath.¹²

Similarly, Aquinas raises an important distinction concerning natural law in a discussion of whether slavery is an impediment to marriage. Aquinas argues that while marriage is a part of natural law (rooted in God’s intention for humanity in creation), and would have obtained even if there had been no fall into sin, slavery is part of positive law, exists only in a fallen world, and is a punishment for wrong-doing. Marriage is a good to be pursued for its own sake. To the contrary, slavery is an evil to be avoided for its own sake. On the question of whether a slave can marry against his or her master’s will, Aquinas appeals to the freedom enjoyed in Christ (Gal. 3:26, 28). The natural law as the foundation of marriage over-rides the positive law that has made a person a slave.

Thus, for Aquinas, while the Bible speaks of both heterosexual marriage and slavery, they are not the same kinds of things, and they do not fall under the same kinds of law. As part of God’s original intention in creation, heterosexual marriage is a positive good, and falls under natural law, which is immutable. Slavery exists only as a consequence of the fall into sin; it is an evil to be avoided, and falls under the category of positive (specifically judicial) law.

On Aquinas’s principles of biblical interpretation, there would be no inconsistency in arguing that the abolition of slavery is consonant with the thrust of the biblical narrative, while what the Bible teaches about the normativity of heterosexual marriage is immutable because part of God’s original intention for creation. For Aquinas, assumptions about slavery are qualified not by an appeal to cultural relativism but by three biblical themes: first, the biblical doctrine of creation of humanity in the image of God as male and female; second, humanity’s fall into sin and suffering (including slavery) that is a consequence of sin, and, finally, the theme of Christian liberty, as foreshadowed in Israel’s redemption from slavery, and fulfilled in Christ’s atoning work that liberates from sin.

There is an exact parallel to the problem of slavery in the Old Testament and the questions of the subordination of women to men and of the ordination of women to holy orders. Complementarians regularly complain when those in favor of women’s ordination point to parallels with how Paul in the New Testament (Philemon) pointed to Onesimus’s freedom, and how later Christians advocated abolition. Slavery, they insist, is not a creation ordinance, but a consequence of the fall. Marriage is an institution created by God. Egalitarians should not equate marriage with slavery, as if Christian marriage were a form of slavery!

This, however, misses the point of the real question, which is not whether heterosexual marriage is a creation ordinance (it is!), but whether the subordination of women to men is a creation ordinance. A plain sense reading of Genesis 1-3 is that subordination of women to men is a consequence of the fall. As noted above, it is for this reason that complementarians of necessity have to infer the subordination of women to men in Genesis chapter 1 and 2. It cannot be found in a literal reading of the passage!

The historical subordination of women to men in the Bible is thus exactly parallel to the existence of slavery in the Bible. One cannot simply pick and choose. To embrace the abolition of slavery, to reject racism, to endorse other positive effects of modern technology, and yet to continue to embrace a sexual “distinction of labor” based on a patriarchal culture that no longer exists is incoherent.

As pointed out above, however, neither do we want to embrace modern individualist liberalism, whether that of John Locke or post-modernity. There is an alternative position rooted in a positive doctrine of mediated relational communities and the common good that can affirm the positive developments of mutual equality for men and women, rights of workers, and racial equality without affirming modern liberal individualism.

Are Women Human?

When Icons of Christ was first published, it contained an informal syllogism which I recognized at the time was not a strict syllogism, but whose meaning was clear. The syllogism was an illustration to a further point concerning the fundamental disagreement between those who did and did not support women’s ordination. A reviewer focused on the syllogism as if it were the entire point of my argument. I will return to the syllogism because it does help express the point, but I will express it more strictly in the form of If-Then statements:

Those in favor of women’s ordination presumably argue:

If X is human
Then X is eligible for ordination.
Women are human
Therefore Women are eligible for ordination.

To the contrary argue those opposed to women’s ordination:

If X is human
And Only If X is male
Then X is eligible for ordination.
Women are human
But Women are not male
Therefore Women are not eligible for ordination.

I then went on to write:

Scripture (presumably) speaks of the ordination of males to the presbyterate. However, it is not self-­evident in the passages where it does so whether those males are ordained in virtue of their maleness or in virtue of their humanity. The initial plausibility is that they are ordained because of their humanity because the kinds of things that they are required to do are the kinds of things that human beings in general are capable of doing: for example, preaching, teaching, leading others, or (although not mentioned in Scripture), administering the sacraments. If an argument is to be made against the ordination of women, it needs to be an actual argument that makes the case that only male human beings can be ordained by virtue of something specifically significant to their being male, and that excludes women from being ordained by virtue of something specifically significant to their being female. The burden of proof is thus on those who oppose women’s ordination.

Theologically, this is the crucial issue. If there is going to be a case in favor of exclusively male ordination, then there must be a theological reason that points to something exclusive about men that makes men only capable of being ordained, or something exclusive to women that prohibits them from being ordained. Evangelical complementarians and catholic sacramentalists provide contrary arguments as to what this distinctive male capability is. For complementarians, the issue is about authority. Because of “creation order,” or different but equal “roles,” women are in a position of subordination to male authority. For sacramentalists, because Jesus Christ is male, only a male priest can resemble a male Christ.

As I argued in Icons of Christ, and elsewhere on my blog, the catholic argument will not work because Scripture is clear that the way in which not only clergy but all Christians resemble Christ is through cruciform spirituality – through imitating Jesus Christ’s own model of kenotic self-emptying. Moreover, liturgically, when the presiding minister leads the congregation in worship, the minister first represents and acts on behalf of the church, and only represents Christ insofar as he or she represents the church. See the following:

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

On the other hand, the complementarian argument from “creation order” or from “roles” is not a valid argument because it does not point to a created ontological distinction between the nature of men and women and their teleology that is something intrinsic to their natures as such. Complementarians apply to “men only” activities that are simply human activities: exercising authority, teaching, preaching, leading a congregation. In contrast, complementarians distinguish between men and women by applying to women activities that are not distinctively human, but animal activities — bearing and caring for children — and they restrict the roles of women to these activities. This is in effect to deny the humanity of women.

A quotation from Dorothy L. Sayers that I cite in my book is relevant here:

But the fundamental thing is that women are more like men than anything else in the world. They are human beings. Vir is male and Femina is female: but Homo is male and female.

This is the equality claimed and the fact that is persistently evaded and denied. No matter what arguments are used, the discussion is vitiated from the start, because Man is always dealt with as both Homo and Vir, but Woman only as Femina.¹³

Another indication that complementarianism is deductivist in its approach is that its key assumption about “roles” lacks biblical foundation. Complementarian anthropology presumes that it is the “role” of all women is to be be wives and mothers, and the two activities essential to being wives and mothers – submission to husbands and giving birth to children – is how women fulfill their vocations, not by teaching or exercising authority over others.

A plain sense reading of what the Scripture actually says about women raises the question: where are the children? The creation mandate in Genesis 1:28 addresses both men and women to “be fruitful and multiply.” The second creation narrative of Genesis 2 says nothing about either female subordination or children. Children are not mentioned until the account of the fall when the woman is told that she will bring forth children in pain, and her desire will be “for” (not against) her husband, but instead, he will rule over her.

Numerous women are mentioned in the Gospels as “disciples” of Jesus, but none of them are mentioned as being the mothers of children or as being subordinate to husbands: Mary and Martha were not married. There are no references to the husbands or children of other women such as Mary Magdalene. In Acts 16, Lydia is mentioned as a woman who runs a business (“a seller of purple”) in whose home the church comes to meet. There is no mention of either husband or children. Priscilla and Aquila appear in the book of Acts and elsewhere as a missionary couple who run a joint business (tent makers) and who are associated with the apostle Paul not only in Acts but elsewhere. There is no indication of whether they had children or whether Priscilla was in submission to Aquila.

In a rare use of the word “authority” (exousia) in a discussion of marriage, Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 7 that husbands and wives do not have “authority” over their own bodies, but that their spouse does. While allowing marriage as a positive good, he encourages celibacy. His only reference to “children” is in the context of the sanctification of children in a marriage where one of the two spouses is not a Christian. In Paul’s household codes of Ephesians 5, Paul mentions children only in relation to both parents and to the father (Eph. 6:1-4). In Romans 16, Paul mentions numerous women – the deacon Phoebe, Priscilla and Aquila (again), the missionary couple Andronicus and Junia (described as “apostles”), and several other women. No children are mentioned. Nor is there any description of these women as being in submission to the authority of men, whether husbands or male church leaders. This does not mean that none of these women were married or that they did not have children, but the pattern simply does not reflect the complementarian understanding of the “role” that women play in Christian marriage or the church. One is struck not so much by the way in which women in the NT are described in terms of the complementaian model but in the sheer lack of evidence for the model in the NT’s actual references to women.

Natural Law and Women’s Ordination

In the above discussion, a reference was made to Aquinas’s use of the notion of “natural law” to distinguish between a particular social practice (slavery) and God’s original intentions in creation. In much modern discussion, the notion of “natural law” is misunderstood to refer to those moral principles that can be known prior to and apart from revelation, and a “natural law” ethic is understood to mean an ethic based on reason alone, and referring to moral principles that should at least in theory be known by all reasonable human beings.

However, for Aquinas, natural law is not a matter of epistemology but rather of ontology.¹⁴ Natural law reflects moral principles built into creation itself as a reflection of and participation in God’s creation of an ordered universe. Natural law reflects God’s own nature as Goodness Itself; God is the Summum Bonum or Chief Good, and the Creator of a good universe. Christian ethics and spirituality are teleological and eudaemonistic insofar as natural law reflects the nature of all human beings as created in the image of God and oriented toward that union with God that will result in complete well being (happiness) when human beings see, known, and love the triune God in the beatific vision. This teleological and eudaemonistic structure contrasts with both deontological command ethics and consequentialist outcome ethics which place their center either in duty and rules (eudaemonism) or the consequences of actions (consequentalism).

Aquinas’s distinction between natural law and positive law is crucial for his interpretation of the Bible, and he is followed by Richard Hooker on these issues. A “positive law” is simply some kind of command that must be obeyed, for example, a “stop sign.” Positive laws can either be in accord with “natural law” or have no particular connection to natural law. Positive laws that outlaw murder would be of the first kind. A positive law that specifies that income tax forms must be submitted on April 15 would be the latter.

All of the commands of the Bible are positive law, but some biblical positive law reflects natural law (for example, the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount) and some reflects merely positive law in that it is restricted to a particular period of redemptive history (commands concerning temple worship) or reflects the particular historical and social situations of the Bible (for example, commands concerning the monarchy or the charging of interest, or, as argued above, slavery).

As noted above, Hooker notes another crucial distinction between matters of biblical law and merely historical matters. Not everything recorded in the Bible is law; many Scriptural references reflect historical happenings, and have no subsequent moral implications whatsoever.

For those who do not subscribe to the regulative principle, the distinction between natural and positive law is crucial for making decisions about church governance and polity. As does Aquinas, Hooker recognizes that the OT ceremonial law is no longer binding because having been fufilled in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. Civil laws of the OT are no longer binding at all, although moral principles connected with them would be. For example, although Israel had a king, contemporary Christians are not obliged to be ruled by monarchies.

In the area of positive law, Hooker is clear that even NT positive laws are not binding on the church unless they are clearly rooted in natural law. Against the Puritan complaint that episcopal church polity and written liturgies are not clearly commanded in Scripture, Hooker responded that while these are not commanded, neither are they forbidden. Moreover, even specific matters of positive law in the NT would not necessarily be binding on the church today unless they are clearly matters tied to the economy of redemption or reflections of natural law. On Hooker’s hermeneutical principles, the church would be free to baptize infants even though there are no clear examples of infant baptism in the NT. The nineteenth century church was entirely in accord with Hooker’s principles when it opposed slavery.

The implications for the question of the ordination of women are clear. Hooker believed that women should be subordinate to men because unfortunately like the entire church of his time he believed that women were less intelligent than men – he referred to the “imbicility” of women. Given however, that the entire church now acknowledges the ontological, moral, and spiritual equality of women with men, the historic warrant for female subordination is no longer valid. Consistently with Hooker’s hermeneutic and his understanding of the distinction between natural law and positive law, natural law means that insofar as women are equally created in the image of God, and equally capable of knowing and loving God, that women can equally proclaim the Word and administer the sacraments.

As I wrote in Icons of Christ:

The crucial question is whether there are any essential differences between men and women that are significant for exercising church office. Specifically, granted that there are obvious physical and social differences between men and women (only men can be fathers, sons, or brothers; only women can be mothers, daughters, or sisters), do any of these have anything to do with the capacity to speak or teach or exercise authority (Protestant complementarianism) or to preside over worship or celebrate the sacraments (Catholic sacramentalism), or exercise pastoral care for parishioners, that would indicate that certainly not every woman, but women with the specifically necessary callings and gifts could not perform these functions?

Final reflection: Division of Labor

One of the more odd objections raised against egalitarianism is that egalitarianism involves a rejection of any notion of authority or any “division of labor,” that egalitarians deny any distinctions between those in positions of authority, and those who follow authority. Certainly I believe in a “division of labor” in the sense of distinctions between those in positions of leadership and those in subordinate roles. I am a teacher and I exercise a certain kind of authority in my classroom. My argument is not that no division of labor exists, but that differences are based on qualifications, and they are not universal. For example, an illustration I use in my book is the distinction between a teacher and a police officer. In the classroom, I might exercise authority over a student who is a police officer. Outside the classroom, however, if I break the speed limit while driving, the same student might well give me a speeding ticket. Moreover, authority is not simply a matter of some exercising authority over others in a deontological sense. Authority is the representative direction of one or more who have been delegated by a group as a whole in order to accomplish a specific task that individuals alone cannot accomplish. In the book, I provide the example of an Amish farmer who directs others in the building of a barn.

Again, such authority is not necessarily permanent, nor is it based on physical sexuality.

I make clear in Icons of Christ that there is a certain authority involved in ordination. Ordination would be a delegated task in which ordained clergy act on behalf of the assembled congregation (in persona ecclesiae) to lead the gathered church in worship by proclaiming the Word and administering the sacraments. There is nothing inherent in this delegated authority that would exclude women from either proclaiming the Word or administering the sacraments.

I hope to write one more essay in this series – on the fundamental theological difference between paraticularly complementarian opponents of women’s ordination and the personalist trinitarian incarnational approach that is essential to my own approach to theology, but these things take time that I do not have a lot of right now.