Update on the Post Below

Some new activity on ACNA Facebook page discussion referenced in the post below.

My friend Alice Linsley is a former Episcopalian priest who renounced her orders because, first of all, she is devoted to the Catholic Faith, and secondly because she became convicted that the ordination of women is a practice that stands in opposition to it.  She has been a vocal critic of the practice since then.  Like me, she sojourned briefly in the Orthodox Church, and also like me found a true home in orthodox Anglicanism.

Mrs. Linsley recently penned an article critical of ACNA's "dual integrity" policy, which was published at Virtue Online.  It is fittengly entitled, "The Mushy Thinking of Neo-Anglicans".  She posted a link to this article and other comments at the ACNA Facebook discussion, to which I responded by posting a link to the Touchstone/Mere Comments article also critical of ACNA from S.M. Hutchens, which, as I noted in the post below, the moderators at the Facebook page initially refused to accept.  As of this morning, to their credit, it's still there.

However, that hasn't stopped certain participants from kvetching about us.  One of them is my friend Chuck Collins, a priest in the ACNA and author of Reformation Anglicanism: Biblical - Generous - Beautiful.  Rev. Collins is a staunch advocate of the Edwardian/Genevan phase of the English Reformation and a critic of Anglicans who see both Caroline and Tractarian divinity as a needed corrective to it.  Unlike many Reformed Anglicans, however, he is an advocate of women's ordination.  He complained with what he deemed to be the proper sarcasm:

I think it's great if ACNA fixates on an issue of which equally committed, biblical Christians disagree while the world is dying to hear about Jesus Christ. Congratulations.

This prompted a response from Cindy Larsen, an ACNA priest:

Chuck, that is why many of us do not respond to such things. We are keeping the main thing the main thing. What matters is Jesus!

Which elicited this response from Rev. Collins: 

Thanks Cindy. In my advanced age, you would think that I would have learned by now. Sigh.

So you see, because "equally committed, biblical Christians disagree" on this issue, and because "the world is dying to hear about Jesus Christ", it isn't worth "responding to such things".  "What matters is Jesus!"  We sad traditionalists, in defending apostolic and Catholic faith and practice, are missing the big evangelistic picture doncha know.

Well, my response at the Facebook discussion to Revs. Collins and Larsen this morning is as follows: 

"What matters is Jesus."

A proposition that stands at the very heart of the argument against women's ordination. Luke 6:46-49.

- What matters is Jesus, who was incarnated in the form of a male as reflective of the masculinity of God everywhere revealed in Holy Scripture.

- What matters is Jesus, who Jesus picked 12 men as his successors.

- What matters is Jesus, who promised to send the Holy Spirit to his successors to lead them into all truth.

- What matters is Jesus, who continued to be Lord of the Church after the death of apostles, and made His will known though Tradition, the "life of the Holy Spirit in the Church" (Vladimir Lossky).

- What matters is Jesus, in whom a male priest stands in persona Christi and hence must be a male.

- What matters is Jesus, who warned about those who called him Lord but refused to do what he says.

Whosoever cometh to me, and heareth my sayings, and doeth them, I will shew you to whom he is like:He is like a man which built an house, and digged deep, and laid the foundation on a rock: and when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently upon that house, and could not shake it: for it was founded upon a rock. But he that heareth, and doeth not, is like a man that without a foundation built an house upon the earth; against which the stream did beat vehemently, and immediately it fell; and the ruin of that house was great.

If there was ever a case in the history of the Church where churchmen and churchwomen refused to do the bidding of Christ, causing a great fall of their house, it is this the adoption of the uncatholic monstrosity known as women's ordination.  What's more "Reformation Anglicanism" may be largely to blame here.  If what I read on Facebook and elsewhere from ACNA clergymen on all manner of issues, the strain in ACNA is already beginning to be seen.

There is only one way to save the house, and that is to rebuild it on the Rock, which is precisely what traditional Anglicans are trying to do.  But this doesn't matter to the proponents of women's ordination in the Anglican Church of North America.  In this article, Fr. Robert Hart complained, "How can we talk about theology to people who answer with sociology, political theory and trendy psychology?"  To that we might add people who answer with glib statements about "biblical Christians" who disagree on the issue and the "untold millions" dying to hear the Gospel.

Comments

[Ken]

Well, first, they are not really "biblical" Christians are they? And, second, if all that matters to them is Jesus, then certainly they would have no problem with giving up their unbiblical innovation in the practice of the Church.

[Embryo Parson]

Yep. See my latest post.

[Mary Lacey]

Did anyone verify Cindy Larsen's credentials and his background? I was under the impression the Anglican church was conservative about such matters.

[Embryo Parson]

The ACNA is presently divided over the issue of women's ordination, thus far still in communion, but whose communion that is "impaired" over this issue, says ACNA bishop Jack Iker (Diocese of Fort Worth).

Is ACNA truly "conservative" or is it more ”latcon”?