What’s Not in the News

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.

What is happening in the Anglican Church in North America is not as spectacular as what just happened in the Church of England. It does not make media headlines. But it is going to cause greater damage than the Mississippi River at flood stage. The river can cover fields, ruin crops, drown livestock, and drive people from their homes. But what is happening in the ACNA can send countless lost souls into a godless eternity.

Photo: WGEM News