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Apparently God had a problem. On the one hand, he had created a cosmos that was bound
by physical laws, one being the second law of thermodynamics, which dictates that everything is
slowly coming to a halt due to increasing entropy, or randomness. This means that in biology,
genetic material tends to fragment, mutate, and lose vitality. Those of us who are older experience
this in our own persons, but it’s especially onerous when one generation tries to confer life to
another. His solution was to have living things share genetic material in order to ensure that (most)
bad features are diluted and (most) good features are encouraged. Thus, we read “He created them
male and female and blessed them. And when they were created, he called them ‘man’ (Genesis
5:2.) Having solved the problem of genetic vitality, he commanded that we enjoy the solution. “Be
fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it” (Genesis 1:28.)
No sooner had God created man, male and female, than there were problems. By chapter 3
of Genesis, the woman had eaten the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, given some
to her husband, who obediently ate it, and blamed both God and his wife in the process. Curses
were imposed. The differentiation of man and woman had already been established, but it was
formalized in these divine curses. Of note, the woman was told, “Your desire will be for your
husband, and he will rule over you.” The genesis, if you will, of marital tension? And the man would
henceforth have frustrating work and eventual death.
Man has indeed been faithful to the mandate to be fruitful and multiply, as well as to exhibit
the lasting reality of the curses of Genesis 3. One would hope that God’s people would be immune
to competition between the genders, but such is not the case. No sooner was Moses sent to liberate
the Jewish people from their Egyptian bondage than Aaron and Miriam contested Moses’ authority.
“Has the Lord spoken only through Moses? Hasn’t he also spoken through us?” Note that of the two
usurpers, only the woman, Miriam, was punished with leprosy. Moses alone had been chosen as
God’s delegated agent, “…why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?”
Another example of female assertion found in the OT is that of Deborah, who was listed as a judge of
Israel, though it appears as though her authority was political and secular, rather than sacerdotal.
Deborah warned Barak that if he failed to take leadership in the battle against Jabin and his acolytes,
she would step in, with consequences. “…But because of the way you are going about this, the honor
will not be yours, for the Lord will hand Sisera over to a woman.” Whatever her role, it should be
noted that she was reluctant to interfere in mens’ affairs, and only did so because of the non-
performance of men. More on this anon. Nevertheless, positions of responsibility in the Tent and
later the Temple were reserved not only to men, but to the descendants of one man, Levi, and still
further to the descendants of another man, Aaron.
The Church of the NT continued to reserve authority to men, as evidenced by Jesus himself
being a man, and the 12 disciples all being male. Deacons? Men. Much is made of Paul’s
commendation of Phoebe as a diakonos of the Church in Romans 16. The NIV translates this as
servant, which is in keeping with Paul’s use of this word regarding himself in Ephesians and
Colossians. He can hardly mean deacon in the sense of elected office. Paul issues stern warnings
about women speaking in church, teaching, not covering their heads, or having their heads shaved.
Christians have continued to honor the contributions of women to ministry, starting with Jesus and
continuing throughout Church history. But they also discriminated between the sexes regarding
authority and sacerdotal roles, until recently.
The 20th century has been characterized by social and cultural revolution, generating
liberation movements to redress perceived wrongs from the past. Nowhere has this trend been
more evident than in Protestant denominations who have, by and large, removed all sex restrictions
in terms of Holy Orders. A very brief rundown of how women were ordained to sacramental,
priestly, ministry in the Episcopal Church in the United States is representative of the course of
events in other Protestant denominations. Canonical legislation allowing women’s ordination was
introduced in 1970, defeated , and reintroduced in 1973, failing again. Finally, in 1974 a retired
Bishop volunteered to ordain eleven female deacons in Philadelphia even though General
Convention had not yet made the necessary canonical changes. The ordination was censured at the
time by the House of Bishops, although two years later the orders were ratified and the practice
regularized in General Convention. In the interim, some of these women started to celebrate the
Eucharist despite injunctions from their diocesan Bishops. The initiative to ordain women seemed
to revolve around two notions; one regarding equality, and the other, competence. The manifest
equality of the sexes as presented in the Bible was understood to mean sex equivalence, and the
subjective standards for ordained ministry led many to think women could do the job as well as
men. As barriers to advancement for women in other professions were being removed, the
Episcopal Church was simply following suit. At the time, Dioceses were assured that the ordination
of women was entirely up to the particular Bishop, and that none would be forced to comply.
However, in 1997 legislation was passed which prohibited Dioceses from excluding women from the
ordination process, a “Conscience Clause.” By 2016, 37% of ordained clergy were female, and male
postulants became commensurately rare. All episcopal elections feature female candidates, some
have no male candidates. All this in 52 years. Note that concurrent with the introduction of female
clergy, there has been a catastrophic drop in attendance in Episcopal churches. In the mid 60’s, the
Episcopal Church constituted 1.73% of the U.S. population. Now, the figure is .45%, about a quarter
of what it was only 60 years before. Women’s ordination is not the only factor disaffecting
parishioners; to some extent it is just another of the progressive policies that have been introduced,
usually at the expense of Biblical teaching and behavior. However, today the clerical face of the
Episcopal Church is 40% female. Ditto the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (40%) and the
Presbyterian Church in the USA (38%.)
Even though Protestant denominations have surrendered to the incursions of liberation
theology, there have been cogent protests from within. In his 1948 essay Priestesses in the Church?,
C. S. Lewis observes that in liturgical worship involving ordained ministers, there are times when
the minister faces liturgical East and speaks to God on behalf of the people. There are other times
where he turns around and, facing the people, speaks to them on behalf of God. Lewis cogently
argues that in this latter situation, the minister must be male to represent Christ who is addressing
his bride, the Church. The Bible abounds with references to the spiritual interplay between God and
man as having sexual overtones, specifically in Romans 7:4, where Paul says he has betrothed his
flock to Christ. Belong to another, or be married to another (KJV.) The Greek is ginomai, a diverse
term that implies a change of status. Francis Schaeffer, in his book, Death in the City, and chapter
The Universe and Two Chairs, is unparalleled here: “The Bible tells us plainly that Christ promises to
bear His fruit through us… This verse says that each of us as a Christian is feminine. At conversion
we are married to Christ, who is the bridegroom, and as we put ourselves in his arms, moment by
moment, he will produce His fruit through us into the external world. That is beautiful and
overwhelming. Just as with the natural bride who gives herself to her husband and puts herself in
his arms, there will be children born into a home. The bride can’t just stand with the bridegroom at
the wedding ceremony. She must give herself to him existentially, regularly and then children will
be born to him, through her body, into the external world.” This insight may explain why men seem
to be more obtuse and slow to recognize the claims of Christ in their lives. Those who are
habituated to the role of initiator may find it awkward to be placed in the role of responder. Having
female clergy can only exacerbate this problem. J.I. Packer wrote an article for Christianity Today in
1991, Let’s Stop Making Women Presbyters. In it he summarizes the cogent arguments that
inveighed against the practice, one of which was as follows: “To minimize the maleness of Christ
shows a degree of failure to grasp the space-time reality and redemptive significance of the
Incarnation; to argue that gender is irrelevant to ministry shows that one is forgetting the
representative role of presbyteral leadership.” If Lewis, Schaeffer and Packer are correct, to have a
female performing sacramental ritual is to lose the romantic aspect of our relationship with our
Lord and Savior, and thereby miss his invitation to cede our will to him.
This leaves the Roman Catholic Church the only remaining bastion of male-only holy orders.
Not that the issue has not been raised. Thomas Aquinas posed the question rhetorically in his
Summa, Question 39: The impediments to this sacrament. Article 1 asks: Whether the female sex is
an impediment to receiving Orders? The three objections could have been written today. Women
could be a prophet, why not a priest? They were delegated authority in sacred history, why not
orders? And how is the soul of a women inferior to that of a man? He responds that orders
constitute a sacrament, and therefore fall under the requirements of a sacrament. If legal
requirements are not met, you can have the form of a sacrament but not its underlying reality, its
signification. He goes on to repudiate the argument about deaconesses and priestesses on linguistic
grounds.
His views have been reinforced in recent times. The Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of
the Faith published, with the approval and order of Pope Paul VI, Inter Insigniores in 1976. This
comprehensive and balanced document answers, among many other questions, the objections
anticipated by Aquinas. Regarding the distinction between the functions of prophet and priest, we
read: “In the Pauline letters, exegetes of authority have noted a difference between two formulas
used by the Apostle: he writes indiscriminately “My fellow workers” (Rom. 16:3; Phil 4:2-3) when
referring to men and women helping him in his apostolate in one way or another; but he reserves
the title of “God’s fellow workers” (1 Cor 3-9; 1 Thess 3:2) to Apollos, Timothy and himself, thus
designated because they are directly set apart for the apostolic ministry and the preaching of the
Word of God. …In fact we know from the book of Acts and from the letter of Saint Paul, that certain
women worked with the Apostle for the Gospel (Rm 16:3-12; Phil 4:3). Saint Paul lists their names
with gratitude in the final salutations of the Letters. Some of them often exercised an important
influence on conversions: Priscilla, Lydia and others; especially Priscilla, who took it on herself to
complete the instruction of Apollos (Acts 18:26); Phoebe, in the service of the Church of Cenchrea
(Rm 16:1). All these facts manifest within the Apostolic Church a considerable evolution vis-a-vis
the customs of Judaism. Nevertheless at no time was there a question of conferring ordination on
these women.” With regard to the protest that women in sacred history were accorded authority,
we read about Mary: “Even his Mother, who was so closely associated with the mystery of her Son,
and whose incomparable role is emphasized by the Gospels of Luke and John, was not invested with
the apostolic ministry. This fact was to lead the Fathers to present her as an example of Christ’s will
in this domain; as Pope Innocent III repeated later, at the beginning of the thirteenth century,
‘Although the Blessed Virgin Mary surpassed in dignity and in excellence all the Apostles,
nevertheless it was not to her but to them that the Lord entrusted the keys of the Kingdom of
Heaven.’” Finally, regarding the objection that the soul of a woman is in no way inferior to that of a
man, we find: “On the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit filled them all, men and women (Acts 2:1,
1:14), yet the proclamation of the fulfillment of the prophecies in Jesus was made only by ‘Peter and
the Eleven’ (Acts 2:14)…In spite of the so important role played by women on the day of the
Resurrection, their collaboration was not extended by Saint Paul to the official and public
proclamation of the message, since this proclamation belongs exclusively to the apostolic mission.”
The gracious and comprehensive treatment of the issue of women’s ordination in Inter
Insigniores was followed by Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, wherein, Pope Paul VI reaffirmed prior policy on
female ordination, stating “the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on
women.” To their credit, the Roman Church in the United States has persisted in this stance in spite
of a dearth of male clergy and postulants for Holy Orders. Adherence to a male-only priesthood
may be a primary factor contributing to an average increase in church membership of 38% in recent
years. Notably, much of this growth is comprised of younger people, who though they were raised
in a period of cultural liberation and rights activism, may prefer the forms of prior times.
So it’s clear that people may have opinions about women’s roles in leadership and
sacramental roles, but does God? Advocates of women’s rights in Protestant churches are fighting
their battles, certain that they are doing God’s will no matter what popular opinion might be. Yet it
would be hard to argue that behavior that repels people and keeps them out of church is somehow
pleasing to God. Couldn’t the opposite be argued, that God desires his bride to be attractive, not
only to himself, but to the unredeemed, simply for evangelical reasons? If creation is any indication,
God loves variety and distinction. With the differentiation of form comes difference in function and
purpose, and with these comes confusion without authority.
So what of the hackneyed concept of authority? Let us start by redeeming this concept from
those who think it simply refers to domination or control. Without trying to explain the
inexplicable, it appears as though there is a essential and necessary element of authority within the
Godhead itself. Regarding his relationship with his Father, Jesus says, “…I do nothing on my own but
speak just what the Father has taught me. The one who sent me is with me, he has not left me alone,
for I always do what pleases him.” (John 8:28b-29) “For I did not speak of my own accord, but the
Father who sent me commanded me what to say and how to say it…So whatever I say is just what
the father has told me to say.” (John 12:49-50) Jesus also invokes the notion of authority when
speaking about the coming Holy Spirit. “But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will
send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.”
(John 14:26-27) Further, “When the Counselor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the
Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father, he will testify about me.” (John 15:26) And finally, “But
when he, the Spirit of Truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he
will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.” (John 16:13) And this
mutual accommodation of authority does not require subordinationist heresy. Oswald Chambers
points out that submission to authority is only possible amongst equals. “There is no moral virtue in
obedience unless there is a recognition of a higher authority in the one who dictates.”
Thus we see that God has deigned to include in his creation something of the divine essence.
Creation in so many ways reflects the order and beauty of its Creator, so that as we behold his work,
we can gain insight into his essential nature. In our world, authority is needed to prioritize activity,
to preserve order and efficiency, and to harness unique skills that peoples’ dignity might be
preserved. The story of the centurion who asks Jesus to heal his servant, without even asking Jesus
to be present. The soldier points out that the organizing principle of the military is that of authority,
and he assumes, correctly according to Jesus, that the spiritual domain and the physical are also
modeled on authority. “I tell you the truth, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith…
Go! It will be done just as you believed it would.” (Mt 8:10,13)
If such qualities are in fact divine in origin, it follows that violating them in some way
violates divine will. So best accept differences and see them as opportunities for worship and
celebration, not abrogation. Sex distinctions appear again and again in matters pertaining to
worship, even unto the sex of animals offered for sacrifice. When the sacrifice is offered with
intention as a sin offering for the High Priest or leader of the people, then it must be a male. As was,
of course, Jesus.
This discussion would not be complete without commenting on the possibility that men
have accelerated the drive to ordain women. As in the case of Barak, one motivation for women to
take over roles traditionally held by males is that men often fail to function as they ought. They are
stepping into a vacuum not of their own creation. Or is it? Deprived of their unique qualification for
the priesthood, it’s easy for men to abdicate and turn their attention elsewhere. It can be argued
that social and cultural changes have greatly diminished the prestige of clergy, to say nothing of
their ability to earn a living. I’ve addressed the issue of male abdication in eternal matters
elsewhere, (https://roguecleric.com/where-are-all-the-men/), a problem which faces the Church at
large, Catholic and Protestant alike.
A positive note from the conclusion of the Inter Insigniores. “It therefore remains for us to
meditate more deeply on the nature of the real equality of the baptized which is one of the great
affirmations of Christianity; equality is in no way identity, for the Church is a differentiated body, in
which each individual has his or her role. The roles are distinct, and must not be confused; they do
not favour the superiority of some vis-a-vis the others, nor do they provide an excuse for jealousy;
the only better gift, which can and must be desired, is love (1 Cor 12-13). The greatest in the
Kingdom of Heaven are not the ministers but the saints.”
The ordination of men alone to the priesthood and the episcopate shows that historical
church discipline is not an end in itself, but a means to an end. By being careful about received
tradition, we might unwittingly protect spiritual truth that outweighs cultural relevance.
Apostolic Letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis of John Paul II to The Bishops of the Catholic Church On
Reserving Priestly Ordination to Men Alone. Dicaster for Communications, The Holy See, Rome, Italy,
1994.
Chambers, Oswald. My Utmost for His Highest, Dodd, Mead & Company, Inc. 1935, July 18.
Inter Insigniores, On the Question of admission of Women to the Ministerial Priesthood. Sacred
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Rome, Italy, October, 1976.
Lewis, C. S. “Priestesses in the Church.” In God in the Dock, Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans,
1970, p120.
Packer, J. “Let’s Stop Making Women Presbyters,” In Christianity Today. Wheaton: Christianity Today
International, February 11, 1991, page 20.
Schaeffer, Francis. “The Universe and Two Chairs,” In Death in the City, The Complete Works of
Francis A. Schaeffer, Volume Four: A Christian View of the Church. Westchester, IL: Crossway Books,
1982, page 294.