In the past few weeks, I have written a series of essays about the ordination of women to the priesthood. The effort has been fruitful, at least for me. Thank you to the many readers and followers who have joined The Anglican in this series, posted your comments, and wrestled with the subject.
In this last essay, I want to do these three things:
Confess why I have shared my thoughts about women’s ordination now.
Show why overlapping jurisdictions are the primary challenge we need to address if we are going to live together as one Province.
Suggest a way forward: how to be a church of faithful people who disagree on women’s ordination but can still stay on mission together.
Writing this way has given me the time and space to organize my thoughts on a subject that had remained, I am sorry to say, unexamined for a long time.
Perhaps ‘unexamined’ isn’t the right word; I have thought long and hard about it over my entire ministry—ever since the ordination of the Philadelphia Eleven I mentioned in an earlier column. Even still, in all truth, I was ambivalent about it in my early years. I didn’t know enough to have a coherent view of the debate. How could it matter so much? But then, in the last decade, I was essentially agnostic about it.
So, in these essays, I thought and prayed, read and listened to the still small voice within and expressed my belief. I said that ordination to the priesthood should be reserved for well-qualified men. I have explained why in several essays, so I will not repeat it here.
But I want to confess why I have offered my opinion now.
During the first decade or so of watching the Anglican Church in North America come together as a Province, I did not want to spend much time thinking about women’s ordination. Honestly, I didn’t.
And here’s why.
First, I cared deeply about the unity of our Province. I did not believe then, and I do not believe now, that women’s ordination should be the issue which divides the ACNA. I know some clergy and bishops already describe themselves as being “out of communion” with other members of the Province over this question. I hear the theological seriousness behind that language. But I continue to hope that, as the ACNA grows and matures, we will discover ways to live faithfully together.
If we separate, which some are calling for, we would all be diminished by loss.
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