Activities in the Primate House
by S. M. Hutchens
A press release of September 10, 2021, issued in Nairobi by GAFCON, the international association of conservative Anglicans, of which the Anglican Church of North America is an active supporter, reports:
In a hybrid in-person and online meeting, the GAFCON Primates spent two days in prayer, fellowship, discussion and discernment about many challenging issues in today's world. Discussions included conversations about the coronavirus pandemic and its impact on worship, ministry, discipleship and outreach; the challenge of the "other virus" of departures from biblical authority; and the great hope that is seen as the gospel of Jesus Christ is being proclaimed and embraced even in the midst of difficult circumstances and terrible persecution. Archbishop Stephen Kaziimba, Primate of the Anglican Church of Uganda said, "Even when our church buildings are closed in the pandemic, the gospel is being proclaimed and embraced. God is being glorified as lives are being changed and enriched by Christ."
Noting that the Anglican Church of Kenya had consecrated the first woman as a diocesan bishop, the Primates passed the following resolution:
The Jerusalem Declaration affirms that the Bible makes a distinction between salvation issues and other secondary issues. In our discussion, the Primates acknowledged that while there is disagreement and ongoing discussion on the issues of the ordination of women as deacons or priests, and the consecration of women as Bishops, we are agreed that these are not salvation issues and are not issues that will disrupt our mission: to proclaim Christ faithfully to the nations.
Because GAFCON is widely considered the principal remaining bastion of Anglican orthodoxy, a counterweight to the apostasies of Canterbury and its fellow-travelers, and the Great Black Hope of Western Anglican conservatives, its proclamation that women in holy orders is a secondary matter that does not disrupt its mission "to proclaim Christ faithfully to the nations" in effect makes that premise acceptable wherever the claim of "Anglican orthodoxy" survives. The female priest and bishop has been officially legitimized in the largest communion of continuing Anglicans. Its toleration in the Anglican Church of North America is merely a reluctant form of acceptance, a profoundly antithetical and ultimately intolerable state of affairs with a bad history in continuing Anglicanism.
Dubious "Secondariness"
The wisdom of the GAFCON bishops in declaring the ordination and consecration of women to holy orders a secondary matter in "proclaiming Christ faithfully" is brought into serious question by three principal considerations.
First, bishops who claim to value and represent the Bible and Christian tradition are here departing from it, claiming knowledge and justifying practices that are both doctrinally and church-historically foreign to both, but are certainly approved and energized by cultural egalitarianism and the churches that have allowed it to dominate their way of thinking.
Second, these bishops are effectively turning back the clock to the 1970s, when women's ordination became the issue that tore official Anglicanism to shreds and provided most of the impetus for the traditionalist opposition these bishops ironically claim to represent. The trumpet of "secondariness" gives forth nothing if not an uncertain sound on the legitimacy of the movement's original raison d'être.
Third—and the most decisive reason for disputing the episcopal wisdom of this assignment—is the theological question of whether the symbolism of women officiating at pulpit, lectern, and altar, forbidden by St. Paul, testifies to the Christian doctrine of the Son of God, or to some other Christ, and thus, contrary to the bishops' confident assertion, does not and cannot faithfully proclaim the Christian God to the nations. That it does in fact proclaim the one, true God cannot simply be assumed, and this crucial consideration elevates the issue to a primary, not secondary, level. It brings to mind the evangelistic efforts of the Arians, who converted large numbers to their religion during their years of influence, who had subsequently to be converted to orthodox Christianity.
S. M. Hutchens is a senior editor and longtime writer for Touchstone.
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