Should Christians Have Female Clergy?

THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER:

The choice of Sarah Mullally to be the Archbishop of Canterbury, 106th in a 1,428-year line of succession, is truly a world-historical moment. She is the first woman to be the spiritual leader of both the venerable Church of England and of the Anglican Communion, a major sector of world Christianity with 85 million or more members in 47 national branches — though this second role is problematic, as we’ll see.

England’s national church (Scotland and Wales have their own separate Anglican bodies) only began ordaining female priests in 1994, and consecrated its first female bishop in 2015. The Anglican Communion’s first female bishop, the late Barbara Harris of Boston, was consecrated in 1989 by America’s Episcopal Church.

Mullally, 63, one of three women considered leading candidates, holds Britain’s highest honor for women, the royal title of Dame, to honor her prior career as England’s chief nursing officer in the National Health Service. She has held the prime church position of Bishop of London since 2018. She succeeds Archbishop Justin Welby, who resigned last year under pressure for mishandling a sexual abuse scandal.

Immediate Dismay

This appointment provoked immediate dismay from the two major organizations of overseas conservatives centered on Africa: the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) and Global South Fellowship of Anglican Churches (GSFA). No surprise there. When the Church of England authorized blessing ceremonies for same-sex couples (though not full marriages) in 2023, these groups declared they therefore no longer recognize the Archbishop of Canterbury as Anglicanism’s world leader and said the mother church in England “has chosen to impair her relationship with the orthodox provinces in the Communion.”

Immediately after Mullally’s appointment, GAFCON stated that “the majority of the Anglican Communion still believes that the Bible requires a male-only episcopacy” so it is “impossible” for her “to serve as a focus of unity.” However, “more concerning” was her support for the same-sex blessings, deemed a violation of her consecration oath to banish “erroneous doctrine contrary to God’s Word.” GSFA’s response did not address Mullally’s gender but likewise lamented her “departure from Anglican tradition and the teaching of Scripture in matters of marriage and sexuality.” Added controversy comes from the June election of partnered lesbian Cherry Vann as the archbishop heading the Church in Wales.

Global South bishops plan a potentially climactic meeting next March 3-6 at Nigeria’s capital, Abuja. The host Church of Nigeria resolutely opposes both female clergy and the same-sex opening. Nigeria’s Anglican  membership of some 22 million is similar to that in England, but in the latter case actual Sunday attendance has slumped to an average 574,000.

In the Church of England, some parishes also maintain the belief that women should be neither priests nor bishops. Under a special 1993 deal, in place of their local bishop they continue to receive “alternative episcopal oversight” under Rob Munro, a like-minded residential bishop and honorary assistant bishop in other dioceses with dissenters.

Rabbi, Imam, Lama

Protestant denominations often have top female officials nowadays, but none can reach high office in Catholicism or Orthodoxy, which limit the priesthood to men. Thus, a substantial majority of the world’s Christians live under male-only leadership. For that matter, we are unlikely to see a female chief rabbi in Israel, or a ranking imam in Islam, nor do Buddhists expect the next reincarnation of the Dalai Lama to be female.

The Catholic Church is bound by decrees that forbid female priests. When a former Archbishop of Canterbury notified Pope Paul VI in 1975 that Anglicans were preparing for female ordination, the pontiff replied that such change is “not admissible” and “for very fundamental reasons.” Those reasons include Jesus Christ’s example of choosing only male apostles, then imitated in the “constant practice of the Church,” which has “consistently” taught that this exclusion accords “with God’s plan for his Church.”

Those points were soon elaborated in Inter Insigniores, a 1976 declaration from the Vatican doctrine office endorsed by Paul. This belief was reaffirmed in Pope John Paul II’s definitive 1994 apostolic letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, which declared that “this judgment is to be definitively held” by all Catholics. Text here: www.newadvent.org/library/docs_jp02os.htm/  The 1994 decree omitted the 1976 concept that male priests are also appropriate because they take upon the role of Jesus Christ in celebrating the Mass.

With Orthodoxy, there is no agreed doctrine on the reasons the priesthood is restricted to men, according to prominent Russian theologian Metropolitan Hilarion. But a representative posting by the Orthodox Church in America explains that “Holy Tradition has never supported it” across 1,950 years, and whatever society may think, church ordination is not “a matter of justice, equality, political correctness, or human rights.”

Protestant Pioneer

In Protestantism, the first American woman ordained to the clergy, in 1853. was Congregationalist Antoinette Brown, but she soon converted to Unitarianism, then left the ministry, and few other 19^th Century women were ordained. As early as 1870, though, Britain’s Salvation Army allowed women to become officers and to preach. By 1904, the Army assigned Evangeline Booth as its commander in the U.S.

Other U.S. evangelical Protestants were also pioneers. For instance, women were formally ordained to be evangelists and missionaries from the 1914 founding of the Assemblies of God, and then to be pastors leading congregations starting in 1935. Evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson founded another Pentecostal group, the Church of the Foursquare Gospel, in 1923. One report estimates that beginning in 1964 some 2,500 women have been ordained in the conservative Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), though few lead congregations. The more liberal U.S. “mainline” denominations mostly voted to ordain women with minimal opposition in the decades after World War Two.

In recent times, the SBC has been at the forefront of hardening opposition to female leadership among evangelicals. In 2000, it inserted this in its statement of faith: “While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.” A 2023 amendment revised the last phrase to now say “the office of pastor/elder/overseer is limited.” That same year, the SBC began expelling congregations that ordain women. But it has not ratified a proposed constitutional amendment stating that the SBC “does not affirm, appoint or employ a woman as a pastor of any kind.”

Protestants rely upon only the Bible, not church tradition, and the crucial passage here is I Timothy 2:11-15, where the Apostle Paul writes that in the church context “I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over men; she is to keep silent.  For Adam was formed first, then Eve . . .” So-called “complementarian” evangelicals believe the last phrase defines male authority as God’s design from the creation of humanity. “Egalitarians” respond, for instance, that Paul was countering ill-educated and aggressive women in the particular context at Ephesus, and that the original Greek word could also address relations of a “husband” and “wife,” not women in general.

Evangelical Protestant resources:

The “complementarian” Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, founded in 1987, promotes belief that “some governing and teaching roles within the church are restricted to men.” It posts this fair-minded summary of the numerous Bible passages in the debate, by Southern Baptist theologian Bruce Ware:  https://cbmw.org/2007/06/26/summaries-of-the-egalitarian-and-complementarian-positions/  Christians for Biblical Equality, formed in 1988, posts ample Bible scholarship  from the “egalitarian” stance at https://www.cbeinternational.org/view-resources/