WOMEN’S ORDINATION : UNRAVELING THE CONFUSION

Scripture and Apostolic Teaching

God ordains men only. This is the official teaching of the Lutheran Church of Australia. It is a teaching based on scripture. It is integral to the apostolic faith.

The Constitution of the Lutheran Church of Australia refers to the Theses of Agreement as a document containing teaching which is the “expression of the common consent of the two churches.” Agreed to by leaders of both the former ELCA and UELCA it has been accepted, and never revoked, by synods of the Lutheran Church of Australia.

Regarding the Office of the Ministry it states :

“…1 Corinthians 14 : 34, 35 and 1 Timothy 2 : 11-14 prohibit a woman from being called into the public ministry for the proclamation of the word and the administration of the sacraments. This apostolic rule is binding on all Christendom.”

Throughout the history of the church, until the last century, the church has remained faithful to this apostolic rule. Church fathers such as Ignatius, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Chrysostom, and Augustine, to name a few, all maintained, on the basis of Christ’s word and the teaching of the apostles, a male only pastorate. Interestingly, church mothers, including Hildegard of Bingen and Catherine of Siena, to name only two, also opposed the notion that women could be ordained.

This, too, was the view of Martin Luther, who wrote, in his treatise On the Councils and the Church :

“… only competent males are to fill this office, as one read here and there in the epistles of St. Paul….in summary, it must be a competent and chosen man…”

The Lutheran confessions assume a male only pastorate.

On a world-wide basis today the majority of Christian churches, including the Roman Catholic, Russian and Greek Orthodox, confessional Lutheran and, despite the impression given in the media, a large number of Anglican dioceses in Australia, still uphold this teaching. If an ecumenical council such as those of the early church were held today, this apostolic teaching would be confirmed.

Ordination of women occurs today among some reformed churches, protestant sects and more liberal synods of Episcopalian and Lutheran churches.

No scriptural case exists for the ordination of women. The scriptures explicitly prohibit a woman from being called into the public ministry. Any group agitating within a church for the ordination of women can do so by one method only : subverting the apostolic faith, substituting false doctrine for true and then letting their case rest (as all false doctrine does) on a textless vacuum.

Truth and Unity

Jesus Christ prayed not only that His church might be one, but that it might be preserved in the truth. He prayed that it might be one through the revelation He had given to His apostles. It can only be one when it submits to His authority and to apostolic teaching. Truth is foundational to unity. Where doctrinal truth is undermined, disunity results.

The last synod of the Lutheran Church of Australia exposed disunity within the church. Doctrinal truth regarding the Office of the Ministry has been undermined and consensus achieved in the Theses of Agreement threatened. Division, disunity and confusion have resulted.

Members of the Lutheran Church of Australia who still confess a men only ministry are understandably concerned about what has occurred. They have been marginalized within the church for upholding the teaching of the Lord. They are rightly disappointed that the leadership of the church has let the situation drift to the extent that it has. That is was necessary to pay for an advertisement in The Lutheran, an official publication of the church, in order to bring this gathering to the attention of LCA members and that The Lutheran refused to publish a report of the last retreat of this kind, is an example of the difficulties faced by those who maintain a position of orthodoxy within the Lutheran Church of Australia.

Authority, Culture and Submission to Christ

The issue of women’s ordination is important in itself. It is also important in a broader context. It reveals difficulties within the church on other presuppositional matters : at the heart are issues of authority, of the relationship of the church to the world and its culture, and of submission to scripture and Jesus Christ Himself. The Lutheran Church of Australia is in crisis with respect to each of these and the controversy surrounding women’s ordination is but one manifestation of this. I will refer to these three issues repeatedly in the course of this address.

Christian Decision Making

A fundamental part of the cultural revolution which has occurred in our society over past years is a revolt against established authority. It includes the rejection of objective truth and the spurning of opinions which cannot be verified either empirically or existentially by becoming meaningful to “me”. People who have absorbed the culture of postmodernism reject any teaching which does not feel right and sit easily with their own subjective opinion. If an idea cannot authenticate itself to “me” now, then it has no authority. Human beings themselves, either individually or collectively, set themselves up as autonomous authorities.

The church is always is an ambivalent position in relation to the world and its culture. It has to listen to the world and the philosophies of each age in order to understand the world and relate its unchanging message to the thought forms of the day. It also needs to stand aside from the world, evaluate the culture of the day by its own objective and Christian criteria and, when necessary, dissent from it. It is certainly not the task of the church to accommodate itself to a contemporary mood of relativism and subjectivism. The church cannot surrender the finality of Jesus Christ and cease to submit to His authority. The confession which results will be misunderstood by the world in one way or another, but this is an inevitable consequence for a church which faithfully carries the cross.

One of the most disturbing aspects about the debate on women’s ordination is the lack of basic understanding by many within the church – particularly the laity – that what the scriptures have to say is the starting and finishing point for judging the matter. Very often our own subjective opinions, un-Christian cultural influences and sinful reason get in the way. Even when confronted with a text, there is a tendency to dismiss it if it is not in tune with pre-conceived ideas.

I recall a conversation I had some time ago with a prominent lay member of the LCA who has a long and productive history of service to the church. He had just returned from a church sponsored trip to the United States and experienced services there in congregations of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America taken by women pastors. “I felt quite comfortable about it”, he said, “I didn’t know how I would react, but I felt good and can’t see what the problem is regarding women pastors.” He made his own emotions his authority.

Others make reason their authority. They may put the issue in the realm of social justice. “It’s a question of justice, of equal rights” or “we should be inclusive of women, not exclusive and narrow minded” or “we should not be oppressive to women”.

“I know of women who could preach just as well, if not better, than some male pastors” some say, assuming that the issue should be decided on a functional basis.

And, even worse, the comment which assumes that a majority opinion decides the issues “There seems to be a lot of people wanting it. It’s inevitable.”

Unfortunately, the notion that criteria other than scripture alone should be used to decide the issue pervades the thinking of some pastors, also. At a seminar on women’s ordination held at Luther Seminary a few years ago a seminary lecturer gave a paper dealing with what was termed the “development of doctrine.” A number of criteria were suggested as bases for evaluating doctrine, but the “sola scriptura” principle enunciated by Luther was not mentioned.

Here, at the fundamental level of how we make decisions and approach issues from a Christian perspective, Lutheran theology speaks clearly. We are not free to make decisions based on our own sinful reason or subjective feelings. In baptism we have been united to Christ in His death. Our sinful self, whose egoistic rule was dominated by sin, is finished. We have been crucified with Christ and are dead with Him and buried with Him. At the centre of our lives – individually and as a church – is a cross which bluntly reminds us that the mind set which urges us to act autonomously and rely on our own reason or emotions to decide these matters is finished.

But, also in our baptism, we have been united to Christ in His resurrection. Not only has the old self-ruled life come to an end but a new life of liberation from self and sin has begun. This new life to which we have been raised and which we are called to live is radically different from the autonomous, individualistic, do-it-my way existence experienced before.

The scriptures use a number of prepositions to describe our new relationship to Christ. Probably the commonest is the expression “in Christ” (which, according to the biblical statisticians occurs in one form or other 164 times throughout the N.T.) but the expressions “with Christ” “on Christ” “under Christ” “through Christ” “for Christ” and “like Christ” all add shades of meaning to what it means to be united to Christ. The transformation is so complete that Paul can say it is “no longer I who lives but Christ who lives in me.”

In our baptism a radical discontinuity with the past has occurred and the old ways of making decisions have finished. Through our baptism we bear Christ’s name. Our reason and wills are resigned to the mind and will of God. God claims us in our totality. The commands of Christ form the path that we follow. We live only in so far as we are united to Him as Lord and submit to His authority.

Nobody takes kindly to the idea of being under the authority or rule of another, particularly in the culture of today. Words like submission, subordination and subjection all carry the connotation of an injustice being done, of an affront to human dignity. But the call to all who wish to bear the name of Christ and carry His cross is a call to submit to Jesus Christ, to His commands and to the scriptures. It is the call to the men and women, the laity and clergy of the Lutheran Church of Australia.

The Lord Jesus Christ endorsed the authority of the Old Testament. His appointment of twelve men (despite His culturally unfettered high view of women) was with a view to their later teaching ministry. He Himself named them “apostles”. They were to be His personal representatives, sent out to teach in His name and with His authority, so that whoever listened to them was actually listening to Him. In the New Testament epistles we see the apostles self-consciously exercising their apostolic authority, writing in the name of Christ (not in the name of the church), teaching the truth and insisting that their teaching is the standard to which the church must conform and confess. The texts from 1 Corinthians and 2 Timothy, which the church has always regarded as foundational to scriptural teaching regarding the Office of the Ministry, form part of this instruction. Paul’s statement that his teaching that women be silent is a command of the Lord, counter-cultural even in its first century setting, clinches his argument and leaves us in no doubt that his apostolic teaching is based on that of Christ Himself.

Doctrinal Controversy and Pastoral Care

One of the most disappointing features of the last fifteen years of the history of the Lutheran Church of Australia has been the lack of leadership in matters of doctrinal controversy. At a time when the church has needed clear leadership by pastors obedient to Timothy’s exhortation to rebuke unsound doctrine (a central tenet of responsible pastoral care) we have witnessed instead the abrogation of leadership. The Presidents of the church has appeared insecure and unsure of themselves. The impression has been conveyed that the debate about women’s ordination has more to do with pressure politics, i.e. who can manipulate the General President most successfully and who can get the numbers on powerful councils of the church – such as the GCC, seminary council and the CTICR, and influence the editorial position of The Lutheran, than it has with concern for biblical truth. The pact of silence by the Presidents in the lead up to the last synod was breath taking in its boldness and disastrous in its effect. When other members of the church were required to make a confession regarding a doctrinal matter, the Presidents exempted themselves. When the shepherds stop shepherding their sheep the sheep become confused and scatter, often ill-equipped to deal with the issues at hand. Jesus Christ’s command to the teachers of His church is “feed my sheep”, not “umpire their games.”

To suspend belief in a doctrinal matter for over a decade while it is “reviewed” is an extraordinary thing for a church to do. Every Christian doctrine has its problems : textual, literary, historical, philosophical and moral.

Take, for example, the love of God. The problems are tremendous : the problem of evil, of innocent suffering, of calamity and catastrophe, of the so called silences of God.

Can we as a church afford to suspend our belief in the love of God until we have solved the problems? Do we wait until the CTICR produces its next booklet putting both sides of the question and instructing us to make up our minds? Do we send out pastors two by two to congregations to present both sides and see what the laity feel? Should we hold a vote on the matter at the next synod?

The idea of course is absurd. We cling to our belief in the love of God, despite the problems, because of Lord Jesus Christ and His apostles taught it and exhibited it. Likewise, we maintain that men only can be ordained because it is clearly apostolic teaching, a command of the same Lord Jesus.

A significant part of the crisis in the church today is whether Jesus Christ is Lord of the church, so that the church submits to His teaching, or whether the church is the Lord of Jesus Christ, so that it may modify and manipulate His teaching wherever it finds it unpalatable.

Linguistic Battles and Post Modern Culture

It is hardly surprising that underlying the debate on women’s ordination runs a linguistic battle in which God’s word is questioned, evaded and manipulated. Here we see the forces of postmodern culture influencing the teachers of the church. The effect is to empty scripture of its true content and create confusion regarding the meaning of texts which for two millenia have been accepted by the church as self-evident.

One of the techniques employed involves the subversive reading of a passage to deconstruct its original meaning. Instead of taking the meaning at face value we are invited to look beyond the surface meaning and expose power relationships that underlie the text. A text is approached, not to find out what it objectively means, but to unmask what it is hiding.

To use an example of this technique applied to a non-biblical text, take an excerpt from the American Constitution, which states:

“… we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

If deconstructed the meaning of the passage could be changed as follows : Although the text speaks of equality it actually refers only to men and therefore excludes women. Although it speaks of liberty its author, Thomas Jefferson, owned slaves. Therefore, although the surface meaning is about equality and freedom it is contradicted by these other factors and is a passage which actually enshrines the rights of wealthy males who signed the document themselves, grounded their privileged status in God and denied equality to women. The fact that the ideals enshrined in the Declaration of Independence did eventually lead to the abolition of slavery and women’s suffrage is overlooked.

It is similarly possible to deconstruct texts written by Paul. He writes that women should remain silent in the church and elsewhere condemns homosexuality. If these statements are put in an historical-cultural context it could be concluded that Paul was a white, Jewish male culturally conditioned to a sexist, homophobic expression of an out dated religion. That his teaching was merely expressing the command of Jesus Christ, to whose authority he was submitting, and whose attitude to women and sexual sinners was free from cultural shackles, is overlooked.

This so-called “hermeneutics of suspicion” and the influence of postmodern culture on the church are seen in the booklet Women in the Ministry : a study on Women and the Public Ministry, produced by the CTICR in the early 1990s. Its destructive influence on the Lutheran Church of Australia has become evident now in the confusion and division it has inflicted on the church.

The booklet’s starting position is women in the public ministry, which is not the position of the church. It refers to arguments in favour of women in the public ministry (which deconstruct the church’s position) as “affirmative”, while referring to those arguments which uphold the church’s position as “against”. It places these two contradictory positions side by side but often swapping the columns so that it is difficult to follow which arguments are which (an exercise which would fail an elementary test of journalistic clarity). It refers to various unidentified “scholars” who cast doubt on the church’s teaching and asks the laity to make up their minds on the matter, with no clear guidance as to the source, qualifications of validity of the opinions of these sceptical scholars quoted. The message conveyed is that because the scriptures are not clear we must trust our own scholars who can understand and interpret the unknown scholars who in turn can interpret unclear scriptural passages accurately for us.

How different this approach is from that of Luther! In The Bondage of the Will he argues for the essential clarity and perspecuity of scripture, citing various biblical texts:

“…. those who deny the perfect clarity and plainness of the scriptures leave us nothing but darkness.”

Another approach could be called the “hermeneutics of speculation”. Here it is argued, in the Lutheran Theological Journal as an example, on the basis of textual criticism, that verses pertaining to the “command of the Lord” in 1 Corinthians 14 were either not written by Paul himself but inserted by a copyist or have an uncertain position in the chapter. Every effort is made to change the text as it stands to avoid its obvious meaning. We have theologians in our midst who claim to be able to read between the lines but do so only by manipulating the lines.

Reason and the Interpretation of Scripture

What is the place of reason in interpreting the divine revelation in scripture?

On the one hand reason, and/or the accumulated reason of the church, can be elevated to a position of supreme authority over scripture. It can be used to criticize, modify and reject the teaching of scripture because reason cannot understand it. This is a sinful and wrong use of human reason. It was this use of reason which Luther fought against in his struggles with Erasmus and Zwingli. When applied to the phrase “This is my body” it leads to error. When applied to the controversies regarding the office of the ministry it leads to error.

On the other hand, the proper place of reason is not to stand in judgment upon a text, but to sit in humility under it, to humbly grasp it, receive it and obey it. It was precisely because Luther allowed his reason to submit to the text “This is my body” that the doctrine of the real presence was preserved. It is also because of the submission of reason to the texts relevant to the scriptural teaching regarding the office of the ministry that Luther and those who follow him support a men only ministry.

Luther’s strength in his disputes with Erasmus and Zwingli lay not only in his understanding of scripture and his willingness to allow his reason to sit under the text but also in his understanding of the prevailing philosophies of the day. He was able to confront them with faithfulness and confidence because he understood the cultural influences which led them to criticize, modify and reject the text. One of the reasons the Lutheran Church of Australia finds itself in a state of confusion and darkness today regarding the office of the ministry relates to a weakness in understanding the cultural and philosophical influences which have impinged on this debate. If the church was sounder here it would have been more discerning and stood firmer.

It is easy to make too much of the difficulty of interpreting scripture. In most cases its meaning is clear. The main problem is not interpreting the Bible but acknowledging its authority and submitting to it.

Resolving the Confusion

That the attack on the church and its apostolic teaching has involved a linguistic battle which puts the unity and hence the very existence of the Lutheran Church of Australia in jeopardy is not surprising.

“In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through Him all things were made. In Him was life and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it. The Word became flesh and made His dwelling upon us…” (John 1)

God’s Word is intrinsic to His thought and His personality. It is an integral part of His unfathomable being.

God’s language made the world. The order of the universe, all scientific and mathematical laws, the language codes of DNA which are within each of us and essential to our well being, the word spoken with the sacraments and sermons that bring us health and salvation, all have their origins in the Word of God, in the essential Being of God Himself.

Adam and Eve could speak because they were created in God’s image. Language is central to our thoughts and relationships. When truth in language is replaced with falsehood, discord and disunity result.

Satan used words to seduce Adam and Eve into sin. “Did God really say…?” The same question lurks at the heart of this debate. The Word of God, God Himself is being questioned.

It was via language that confusion came to those who by their own reason and knowledge tried to build the Tower of Babel. Our church, too, has been confused by the clever use of language.

Not long ago I attended a service of Eucharist in St. Peter’s Anglican Cathedral, North Adelaide, close to the National Office of the LCA and the Seminary. The celebrant was a priestess, the so-called Master of Ceremonies an openly gay male, the preacher a lecturer at the Anglican Theological College in South Australia. The sermon began “In the Name of the Triune God : Parent, Child and Spirit, Mother of us all.” The same hermeneutic approaches which manipulate scripture and lead to the ordination of women lead also to the toleration of homosexual people in places of authority in the worship setting. Even more importantly they also lead to an attack on the Name of the Triune God.

Those who deny such links ignore the realities of the problems of the churches which ordain women. The results are there for us to see. Ordination of women cannot be regarded as an issue separate from other doctrine. That the Office of the Ministry is for men only is integral to the apostolic faith. It goes to the heart of the Trinity. Change it and all sorts of consequences follow.

But while God’s Word creates and condemns, it also redeems. God’s Word is Jesus Christ, the second Person of the Trinity. God’s language is not just texts on a page, to be debated and criticized. It is God’s mind, His self, His only begotten Son, who became incarnate in the world that He had spoken into existence. That Word died on the cross. He atoned for all human sin. The resurrected Lord Jesus continues to intercede for His church. He calls to Adam and Eve and their sons and daughters and all who have been seduced by the use of language.

It is only Jesus Christ who can resolve the chaos which has overcome this church. It is only through the daily reliving of our baptism – dying to self and rising with Christ, submitting to the authority of His Word and with humility following the way of His commands, that the church will be freed from the influence of a godless culture which has engulfed it. This is the way of the cross. It is the only way to unravel the confusion. Let us pray to the Lord of the church, the Triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, that His Name and His Word will be kept holy among us.

Dr Ian Hamer

Hamilton, Victoria

July, 2002