By Robin G. Jordan
As would be expected, the Moscow Patriarchate and the Roman
Catholic Church have voiced their disapproval of the Church of England’s
General Synod’s approval of the appointment of women bishops. See here and here. Their reaction comes as no surprise. The likelihood of
conservative evangelicals and traditionalist Anglo-Catholics blocking approval
of the appointment of women bishops for a second time was very slim to non-existent.
I have skimmed a number of articles related to this historic
decision. They appeared to confuse the reasons that conservative evangelicals
are opposed to women on the Church of England’s episcopal bench with the
reasons that traditionalist Anglo-Catholics are opposed to this innovation.
Traditionalist Anglo-Catholics argue that Christ appointed
men as his apostles and only men can be successors to the apostles and are the
appropriate recipients (or subjects) of the special grace that has been passed
down an unbroken line of bishops from the apostles.
Conservative evangelicals, however, do not share this view. To conservative evangelicals bishops are first and foremost teachers of the gospel and the Scriptures. For them apostolic succession is not a succession of bishops but a succession
of doctrine. This view of apostolic succession is also that of the English
Reformers. In this view bishops are only successors to the apostles in so far as they teach apostolic doctrine.
Conservative evangelicals’ objection to women on the
episcopal bench is based upon what they understand the New Testament says about
male headship and women’s exercise of the gift of teaching in the local
congregation. While the New Testament does not prohibit women from instructing
other women in the faith, it does not countenance them teaching the whole
congregation at its principal gatherings. Women may exercise other spiritual gifts
in the assembly such as prophesy but not teaching. The primary reason for
limiting their exercise of this particular gift is to avoid the unseemliness of
a wife instructing her husband when the proper response of a wife to her
husband’s headship is submission in all things.
From Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians we learn that in
the meetings of the church at Corinth husbands and wives were carrying on
lively conversations about theological questions and these conversations were
disrupting the meetings. Paul blamed the wives for these disruptions,
instructing them to keep quiet during the meetings and discuss these issues
with their husbands at home.
Another concern we find in Paul’s letters is that women were
infecting each other with false teaching when they gathered together. From
Paul’s letters we can gather that the spread of false teaching was rife in the
New Testament Church and was not confined to the women of the church. James, John, Jude, and Peter also touch upon
this problem in their writings.
When one questionable teaching is introduced into the
Church, even more questionable teachings have a tendency to piggyback on that
teaching. The experience of the past 30 years has shown that the issue of women
in ordained ministry has tended to become linked to the issue of openly gay men
and lesbian women in ordained ministry. Those promoting one are inclined to
promote the other. Women who may initially be biblically orthodox in their
beliefs may become radicalized in their thinking largely through the influence
of those who are promoting their ordination. This may result in not only their
becoming proponents for greater leadership roles for women in the church but
also for gays and lesbians. The two do not invariably go hand in hand but often
as not they end up doing so.
Here in western Kentucky we have levees to protect the area
nearest the Mississippi River from flooding. The Mississippi River becomes
quite swollen in the spring when the snow melts and dumps water into its
tributaries. If you make a hole in a levee, the water pouring through the hole
will make it bigger and increase the flow of water, further enlarging the hole.
The levees are constructed from earth. This process can eventually cause a
serious breach in the levee, inundating the area that the levee was supposed to
protect. The levee itself may collapse.
The same thing can happen to a denomination when the
barriers erected to protect the denomination from strange and erroneous
doctrines are breached. We have seen this happen in the Episcopal Church. Those
who are paying close attention to developments in the Anglican Church in North
America are seeing it happen in that denomination. Those who are supposed to be
driving away such doctrines have torn down the barriers of the Anglican
formularies that were erected to keep them out. They are letting into the ACNA
a flood of unreformed Catholic doctrines and practices. Instead of urging the
denomination’s members to sandbag the breach, they are encouraging them to
widen it.
Photo: WGEM News
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