Adelphoi (Brothers and Sisters),
Order and disorder
Before I leave the comparative safety of the Church of England for the General Convention of the ECUSA, I offer further comment on divorce, women in orders and same-sex blessings within the ECUSA.
Those who argue against me are only able to cite a very few examples of divorced men being retained in ministry before the 1960s and as far as I can see will never be able to cite examples of women who are ordained as presbyters not exercising headship in some way or another (for it is within the vows they take and within most actions they perform).
One thing is very clear to me. The way that the divorce culture and the women's ordination culture are prominently placed within the ECUSA in 2003 can only be justified on modern human rights and secular arguments, never at all on biblical or theological or traditional canon law ones.
But there is an obvious connection between divorce and remarriage, women in orders and same-sex blessings which is deeper than the fact that they are all inter-connected as direct products of the post World War II civil and human rights movements - movements whose ideology now supplies public morality for much of the USA and western Europe.
That deeper connection is that each of the three in a different way violates the doctrine of divine order for the relation of the two sexes, who are equal before God but also different in their God-given natures and vocations.
Divorce shatters what God has joined together - order is broken. Remarriage confirms and solidified the broken order (whatever human happiness may be claimed by parties involved in these acts).
Women in orders shatters the rule first stated in Genesis 1. God created man in his own image, male and female created he them. There is order in God's creation and in this the man is first and the woman second - this is not inferiority for her but second in order. Equal but different. The N T idea of headship of the male is based on this fact of creation. Further, the human relation is an image and sign of the Order within the Blessed Holy And Undivided Trinity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, Three Persons in an ordered relation one to another.
Same-sex blessing also is against the order of creation and the order of holy matrimony. For it is a blessing of serious disorder, of male united to male.
Because so many of us are involved in the divorce culture (directly or indirectly) and because all of us recognize the gifts and graces of women, we do not find it easy to see that divorce with remarriage and ordaining of women are both attempts to set aside the divine order within creation and within the new covenant. We find it easier to see that gay unions are against order because most of us have what is these days called a heterosexual orientation and we find some of the practices of consenting gay men repulsive.
It is no accident that in the post World War II history of the PECUSA, these three have been absorbed into the ECUSA at the same time as this Church set aside her classic Formularies (BCP, Ordinal & Articles) and adopted new liberal ones contained in the 1979 prayer book.
To be saved dioceses and parishes presently in the ECUSA need to return to divine Order so as to be recipients of divine Redemption!
The Rev'd Dr. Peter Toon M.A., D.Phil. (Oxon.)
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