Anglican Mainstream

Andrew Goddard

I am grateful for Anglican Mainstream’s invitation to write a response to David Phillip’s article “As Night follows Day”

Evangelical dialogue about this issue is particularly important at the present time with increasingly tense debates about women bishops. There are some promising signs – such as the resolution passed last month by the Church of England Evangelical Council (CEEC) which addressed the issue of evangelicals and women bishops and affirmed that evangelicals should model “a true unity in diversity on this issue of order” and “express unity and partnership in the gospel as a model for the wider unity and partnership in the Church of England”. It also noted a proposed symposium in early 2010 between Awesome (a group for evangelical ordained women in the Church of England, both priests/presbyters and permanent deacons) and Reform.

David Phillips addresses two main questions in his article relating to ordaining women as presbyters and endorsing homosexual practice. Firstly, “are the cases different?” – his answer is “no”.

Secondly, “is it fair to argue that the acceptance of one will lead to the acceptance of the other?” – his answer is “yes, almost inevitably, just as night follows day”.

Women’s ordination and same-sex relationships: Are the cases different?

David first rejects the claim that the issues can be distinguished as “first order” and “second order” and argues that liberals also recognise this distinction is not viable. Anglican Mainstream, which officially does not take sides in relation to women’s ordination, has officially embraced such a distinction, stating in 2005 that it held women’s ordination to be a “second order” issue clearly distinct from the issue of homosexuality. This could open up an interesting discussion about the first and second order distinction but it does not address the question in hand as even if one showed that two issues cannot be distinguished by this means it would not in itself prove the cases are not significantly different.

Clearly, if one believes that “the ordination of women as presbyters is contrary to Scripture” then one will see it in the same category as homosexual practice which, as in Lambeth I.10, is “contrary to Scripture”. The point is that any evangelical supporting the ordination of women as presbyters does not view it as “contrary to Scripture”. This means that (whether or not they accept the first and second order distinction) they have grounds for refusing to put both of these views in this single category and have justification for reaching different judgments on the two issues based on Scripture.  To claim that women’s leadership is contrary to Scripture so they are the same is simply to beg the question under dispute.

This leads to his second response – David writes, “I find the arguments badly lacking” in relation to the claims that women's ordination is biblical. This does not address the problem either. There are all sorts of issues where David will find the arguments of fellow evangelicals that their view has biblical support to be badly lacking. I may be wrong, but I suspect this would be the case, for example, regarding a claim that baptism must biblically be administered only to those able to profess faith themselves or that it is wrong for Christians ever to fight in war or that it is acceptable to marry again during the lifetime of a former spouse. This does not mean he cannot recognise their integrity as evangelicals seeking to be faithful to Scripture. Nor does it mean that he thinks that their “unbiblical” views on that subject are essentially the same as “unbibilical” defences of homosexuality. Nor does it mean that they must logically support homosexual practice as it follows from their “unbiblical” views on these other subjects! I am also intrigued that he can so dogmatically assert “the Bible itself confines it [the office of presbyter] to men” when the explicit textual basis for such a specific restriction is so weak and debated: how close is our office of presbyter to anything in the New Testament and how clear is the injunction in 1 Tim 2 that women cannot be presbyters especially given the Greek word is not used in the central verses dealing with women?

His third argument at this stage is a fascinating piece of rhetoric – a straw man in the form of a straw man! I’ve never ever heard anyone argue that because (some) Anglo-Catholics oppose women’s ordination we must support it. Such an argument would indeed be a straw man but to raise it here is itself a straw man. Even if it had some basis in reality, which it doesn’t, it does nothing to advance David’s argument.

Women’s ordination and same-sex relationships : Does accepting one lead to accepting the other?

Having presented these points to claim that the argument for women’s ordination and for homosexual practice is essentially the same, David proceeds to argue that “acceptance of one will lead to the acceptance of the other”.

Sociological or (Theo-) logical connection?

The first major problem here is it is unclear whether the claim is that there is a sociological connection or a (theo-)logical connection. His first three points appear to defend the former view as he appeals to “the facts of history” (national denominations embracing one then embrace the other), “division” (resulting from the breaking away of conservatives opposed to the ordination of women thus lessening the voice of those opposed to homosexual practice within a church) and “pressure from outside the Church”. 

While he is right to warn that there are sociological pressures which would push the Church into accepting both positions and that we need to be aware of these, he fails to acknowledge that this is far from the only reality. Most provinces of the Anglican Communion now ordain women but most remain opposed to homosexual practice. Perhaps the best counter-example is that of the Church of Uganda which has prominently supported women presbyters and also firmly opposed homosexual practice.  Does he seriously believe that it is only a matter of time before ACNA will go the way of TEC because it is headed by Archbishop Bob Duncan who has ordained women and accepts women presbyters?

There is no logic in the view that “because I can show some bodies supported A and then later supported B, it follows that B follows A as night follows day”, especially when there are numerous counter-examples that could be cited. It is as flawed logically as the revisionist argument – which David Phillips also seems to give credibility to – that “because the church was wrong on X and changed its mind, so it must be wrong on Y and should change its mind”.

The deeper argument appears, however, to go beyond the circumstantial, sociological connection to hold that because the two positions are basically of the same kind there is some sort of logical necessity between them such that those who accept women in leadership but oppose homosexual practice are being inconsistent and illogical. Are his arguments here any more credible? 

The question of pro-gay evangelicals

The second problem is that he appears – his fourth point – to be arguing: “some claiming to be evangelicals who supported women’s ordination are now supporting homosexual conduct”. Again it cannot be denied that this is the case and the reasons and legitimacy of such a stance need to be engaged with by evangelicals and not simply dismissed.

However, as his own reference again to Michael Vasey (who was also my personal tutor at theological college) shows, there have also been people claiming to be evangelical who were not supportive of women’s ordination  and supported homosexual conduct.  Perhaps many members of Church Society are on that same slippery slope which Michael occupied and is also not unheard of in other parts of the Church of England!

Here again the simple fact is that each case must be subjected to biblical and theological scrutiny in its own right.  Just because there are evangelicals who hold view A alongside view B does not mean that all evangelicals who hold view A should really also hold view B and will ultimately come to do so.

The same arguments for both?

With what he gives as his fifth argument, there is, finally, the seed of a possible case. It is indeed possible to argue for women’s ordination on grounds which are the same as those used in favour of homosexual practice. That may be, as David says, appeals to “justice” or “equality” or a “gospel imperative” or a form of missiological pragmatism (interestingly part of Michael Vasey’s defence). However, the overwhelming majority of evangelicals supporting women’s ordination do not use these forms of arguments but explicitly biblical arguments, both positively relating to biblical teaching about women and to explain why the texts David reads as timeless, exceptionless prohibitions are not best understood in those terms. David may not agree with these arguments but he must at least acknowledge that this is the form of evangelical defence he will find if he reads any of the extensive serious evangelical scholarship defending this view over the last four or five decades. And that argument is found across the full spectrum of evangelicalism, including even some otherwise very conservative Reformed evangelicals such as Roger Nicole.

There is also high quality evangelical scholarship showing the significant differences between the two subjects (see suggested reading below) and that a biblical hermeneutic supportive of women’s ordination does not automatically lead to support for same-sex relationships. Although David does not engage with this material, at the very least, one would hope that he recognises that while the voice of Scripture in Old and New Testaments is uniformly negative towards homosexual practice there are clearly times and places in Scripture in which women are called and used by God in a wide range of significant activities and offices as well as times and places in which some form of restriction is put on women’s ministry.  That fact alone should mean that evangelicals – whatever their conclusions about women’s ministry – recognise that there is a significant difference between these two issues for anyone who takes the Bible as their supreme authority and that accepting one therefore need not lead to accepting the other.

Arguing about words?

David then draws attention to “spurious arguments about words”, equating debates about “head” to debates about “words in Romans or Leviticus concerning sexual immorality”.  But, if we are serious about biblical authority then we surely need to argue about words. He does not mention, for example, the problems with how to understand the key term authentein found in 1 Timothy 2 but nowhere else in the New Testament. His reference to “head” claims that “People became convinced that ‘head’ did not mean what Christians had previously thought it meant”. That reaching of new conclusions about the meaning of biblical words is, presumably, not in itself a conclusion to be rejected.  If Luther had not concluded that “what Christians had previously thought it meant” was wrong in relation to “the righteousness of God” then the Reformation would have been very different if it happened at all.

I am also far from convinced that there is a simple “what Christians had previously thought it meant” in relation to “head” or that even David would happily subscribe to all that major Christians have said in the past about the nature of being “head”. For example, must we all accept Calvin in his Commentary on 1 Cor 11 who discusses man as head of the woman and states “as regards external arrangement and political decorum, the man follows Christ and the woman the man, so that they are not upon the same footing, but, on the contrary, this inequality exists” ?  Today even conservatives tend to avoid equating headship with gender inequality (preferring to talk of “equal but different”) even though that connection is regularly present from the Fathers onwards. Are we all bound to agree with Calvin on Ephesians 5 that “Christ has appointed the same relation to exist between a husband and a wife, as between himself and his church….As Christ rules over his church for her salvation, so nothing yields more advantage or comfort to the wife than to be subject to her husband. To refuse that subjection, by means of which they might be saved, is to choose destruction”?   Is questioning this and other traditional understandings of “head” on the basis of scholarship really to engage in “spurious” argument and simply to be dismissed by saying “I find it hard to credit that people can take such an argument seriously”?

Conclusion

A central feature of evangelicalism – the supreme authority of God speaking through Scripture combined with the conviction that God has yet more light to shine from out of his Word and that the church must therefore be semper reformanda – seems to be lacking in this article. No relevant biblical text is discussed in any detail but it is simply asserted that “we stick doggedly with what the Bible actually teaches” and that those who disagree are obviously wrong because they reach “a conclusion that is contrary to what Scripture actually teaches”.  In place of the living and active Word of God illuminated by the Spirit who inspired it, we seem to have an uncritical ecclesial and social conservatism that simply asserts we cannot change our position on X because if we do we will not be able to avoid changing our position on Y, because as sure as night follows day, if you accept X you must accept Y.

As noted at the beginning, there are important discussions to be had among evangelicals about our differences over women’s ordination, both in relation to Scripture and theology and politically in the light of the struggles to find suitable legislation for women bishops. There are undoubtedly arguments which have been advanced for women’s ordination that are un-evangelical and some of these could push their supporters to a more positive view of homosexual practice. These are all perfectly legitimate areas for evangelical debate and critique. But to treat all arguments for women’s ordination in that category is quite simply either to bear false witness or to display ignorance of the literature and debates of many decades.  To suggest further that support for women’s ordination must (or even “almost inevitably”) lead to support for homosexual practice is as flawed a piece of argument as the claim that because night follows day and it is impossible to precisely state when day turns to night then night and day are indistinguishable.

Andrew Goddard, November 2009.

Some suggested literature:

Dick France’s excellent Grove booklet from 2000, A Slippery Slope? The Ordination of Women and Homosexual Practice – a Case Study in Biblical Interpretation and various writings of William Webb including his Slaves, Women and Homosexuals: Exploring the Hermeneutics of Cultural Analysis (from 2001) and his article “Gender Equality and Homosexuality” in Pierce & Groothius, Discovering Biblical Equality (IVP, 2005).

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