{"id":15765,"date":"2024-09-08T16:35:56","date_gmt":"2024-09-08T23:35:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/?p=15765"},"modified":"2025-01-21T16:06:22","modified_gmt":"2025-01-22T00:06:22","slug":"the-slippery-slope-and-the-eclipse-of-the-gospel-women-priests-and-bishops","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/2024\/09\/the-slippery-slope-and-the-eclipse-of-the-gospel-women-priests-and-bishops\/","title":{"rendered":"The Slippery Slope and the Eclipse of the Gospel – Women Priests and Bishops"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Slipperyby Fr. Lawrence Farley –
\nIn the ongoing debate over the legitimacy of the new so-called \u201cdeaconesses\u201d established by some Orthodox in Africa we often hear of \u201cthe slippery slope argument.\u201d Some people use the term with approval, insisting that there does indeed exist a slippery slope from the new Order of deaconesses to that of women priests and bishops, while others speak of \u201cthe fallacy of the slippery slope argument\u201d, affirming that there is no real connection between the new Order of deaconesses and the possibility of ordaining women priests and women bishops.<\/p>\n

The slippery slope argument itself runs like this:<\/strong>\u00a0 as soon as the Orthodox Church allows vested females, whether female altar servers or women functioning like male deacons, sooner or later the Church will ordain women priests and bishops.\u00a0 That is, I suggest, because for the majority of the faithful the real obstacle to the ordination of women clergy is not Biblical or theological, but visual.<\/p>\n

They have never seen girls or women functioning liturgically in the altar, and so the sight of women clergy is emotionally jarring for them, and they therefore conclude that such ordinations are wrong.\u00a0 But as soon as the sight of vested females functioning in the altar becomes commonplace, the sight will no longer be emotionally jarring, and the resistance to the ordination of women to all Church offices will disappear.<\/p>\n

Many scholars rightly point out that there is no real theological connection between serving as an altar server and ordination to the priesthood and episcopate.\u00a0 That is true.\u00a0 But it is also irrelevant, because the laity are not moved by the theological considerations that move scholars.\u00a0 By \u201cHoly Tradition\u201d many of the laity mean simply a combination of what their grandmothers told them and what they see and experience in the church services.\u00a0 When the latter changes, the laity as a whole will accept the change because they are moved by familiarity, not by the teaching of the Bible or the Fathers.\u00a0 There are exceptions, of course, but this is broadly and universally true.\u00a0 That is why the slope is slippery:\u00a0 visual familiarity with vested females functioning in the altar will eventually bring with it acceptance of vested females functioning as priests, and then bishops.<\/p>\n

The truth of this assertion should not need debating<\/strong>, for the connection between female servers and female bishops has already been demonstrated in the West time and time again.\u00a0 We do not need a crystal ball to examine the future, just a history book to document the past.\u00a0 Or, in the case of aged dinosaurs like myself, a good memory.<\/p>\n

The churches of the magisterial Reformation and its daughters\u2014that is, the Anglican\/ Episcopal churches, the Methodist churches, the Presbyterian churches, the United churches\u2014all uniformly traveled down this road.\u00a0 Take, for example, the Anglican churches, the ones I know best because of my own involvement there.\u00a0 It all began with allowing girls to serve as altar servers.\u00a0 If we could have altar boys<\/em>, why not altar girls<\/em>?\u00a0 No one at that time was thereby arguing for women priests or women bishops, and it was solemnly intoned that the introduction of female servers (called by some wags \u201cserviettes\u201d) had nothing to do with the completely different question of women priests.<\/p>\n

So, altar girls were introduced.\u00a0<\/strong> Then came the introduction of deaconesses, first considered a different Order from that of deacons and who did not<\/em> serve in the altar (we had some scholars among us, after all), but quickly later declared to be exactly the same as deacons except for their gender. Then came the introduction of women priests.<\/p>\n

The manner of the introduction is instructive:\u00a0 it did not begin with a worldwide Anglican synod of bishops considering the matter and agreeing that it could go forward, but by three retired bishops in a defiant and renegade act\u2014not in Africa, as with us, but in Philadelphia in 1974.\u00a0 When no real canonical consequences resulted from the ordinations, other liberal bishops were emboldened, and soon the ordination of women became normative.\u00a0 I remember well the comment of one bishop about it:\u00a0 \u201cThere are Biblical reasons against it, but no theological ones.\u201d\u00a0 You could almost hear Fathers like John Chrysostom spinning in their grave over the sundering of theology from Biblical truth.<\/p>\n

Then, since women priests were common, women bishops followed in short order.\u00a0<\/strong> Of course, throughout this whole process, there was protest\u2014brave clergy and laity pointing out that the ordination of women was contrary to Scripture and the universal and immemorial practice of the Church.\u00a0 Letters were written, counter-letters were written, conferences held, etc. etc. etc.\u00a0 But the die was cast and the result inevitable:\u00a0 women clergy were here to stay.\u00a0 Please note the genesis of the whole thing:\u00a0 the introduction of vested females in the church services.<\/p>\n

This pattern was more or less followed by all the other mainline Protestant churches\u2014ordinations, protest, debate, all leading to the same result.\u00a0 The reason for the inevitability of the result will be discussed below.\u00a0 But we do not need to wonder if the current ordination of women \u201cdeacons\u201d will lead to women priests and women bishops.\u00a0 We have already seen from many other churches that this is the predestined result.<\/p>\n

The often-trumpeted triumphalistic notion that what happened everywhere in mainline Protestantism could never happen here in Orthodoxy is simply magical thinking.\u00a0 Are we that much holier than them?\u00a0 Smarter?\u00a0 Is it because we are \u201cthe true Church\u201d?\u00a0 The \u201ctrue Church\u201d suffered dramatic losses in the fourth century when the Arian heresy ran rampant among us.\u00a0 If heresy could do such damage in the true Church in the fourth century, why could heresy not do like damage in the twenty-first century?<\/p>\n

We see this too in the growth of such heresy among us even now.<\/strong> In the past people like Elizabeth Behr-Sigel, Eva Topping, Metropolitan Kallistos Ware, and Metropolitan Anthony Bloom have stated their support for such ordination.\u00a0 \u00a0Today Carrie Frost has written that \u201cwe should welcome that conversation\u201d about women priests and bishops, and Valerie Karras has said many times that she sees no theological reason why women may not be so ordained.\u00a0 Given such support, is there any doubt about the final goal of having women priests?\u00a0 It scarcely matters whether or not there is a theological connection between altar servers and priests.\u00a0 The final goal has already been set and agreed upon.\u00a0 It is disingenuous and dishonest to keep harping about there being a lack of connection when the goal has been made clear for anyone with eyes to see.<\/p>\n

We turn now to the question of causality and why the move from vested females in the altar to women clergy is inevitable.\u00a0 The answer can be summed up in one word:\u00a0 liberalism (or \u201ctheological liberalism\u201d, which admittedly is two words).<\/p>\n

That is why the mainline Protestant churches pursued the path they did.\u00a0 Theological liberalism has been afflicting them for over a hundred and fifty years (Strauss\u2019 Life of Jesus<\/em> was published in 1835), questioning and denying everything from the existence of hell to the divinity of Christ, to the virgin birth to the historicity of Christ\u2019s miracles and of His Resurrection.\u00a0 Having rejected the Tradition of the Church that they received at the Reformation and thereafter, they were at the mercy of whatever was culturally ascendant in their day.<\/p>\n

Thus, when feminism became culturally ascendant in the 1960s, its dogmas were accepted by the mainline churches too.\u00a0 The move to ordain women clergy did not arise from a closer examination of the New Testament, but from capitulation to whatever was currently ascendant in the surrounding culture.<\/p>\n

We see the same thing occurring among some Orthodox today where the Tradition of the Church is being rejected as authoritative.\u00a0 This does not mean that the Tradition is being rejected in toto<\/em>, but only when it conflicts with secular dogmas, such as feminism.<\/p>\n

For example, secular culture has no interest in the miracles of Christ<\/strong>, and so liberal Orthodox bowing down to secular culture can accept His miracles and still conform to secular culture.\u00a0 But our culture has a great interest indeed in saying that a woman can do any job that a man can do and so liberal Orthodox bowing down to secular culture reject the exclusion of women from the priesthood.<\/p>\n

Note too that, though no doubt unintended by liberal Orthodox, the departure from Tradition will certainly not end with the ordination of women as clergy. The final departures will be much more radical (and abominable) than that.\u00a0 In some places the very difference between the genders is being erased.<\/p>\n

Currently our culture not only insists that women can be priests, but also that two men can marry each other<\/strong>, that babies can be killed in utero<\/em>, and that gender can be freely chosen.\u00a0 The liberal mainline churches are naturally falling in line, as are some Orthodox because their guiding principle is not Tradition, but the reigning norms of secular society.\u00a0 If you doubt this, check out the recent actions of Archbishop Elpidophoros<\/b><\/a> and others like him.<\/p>\n

It remains to inquire how Orthodoxy in the West came to this pass.\u00a0 I suggest that it comes from the eclipse of the Gospel in favour of ethnocentrism, the making central of one\u2019s ethnic identity (which often includes a political component).<\/p>\n

Here in the West this ethnocentrism is expressed by hyphenating one\u2019s Orthodox identity:\u00a0 I am not just Orthodox, but Greek-Orthodox (a single word), or Russian-Orthodox, or Ukrainian-Orthodox.\u00a0 If asked the question, \u201cWhich is more important\u2014the Gospel or ethnic identity?\u201d, they will of course answer, \u201cthe Gospel\u201d.\u00a0 But that is the point:\u00a0 the question is rarely allowed to be asked, for the two realities have become fused.<\/p>\n

Often financial survival depends upon the fusion (and con<\/em>fusion) and upon never distinguishing the two.\u00a0 I remember once a priest from such an \u201cethnic jurisdiction\u201d (please forgive the term) asked me how many members we had in our parish.\u00a0 I answered, \u201cAbout 60\u201d.\u00a0 He further asked, \u201cAnd how many come to church on Sunday?\u201d I was a bit puzzled, for I had already told him:\u00a0 \u201cAbout 60\u201d.\u00a0 For him, membership had little to do with Sunday attendance.\u00a0 His church had about 400 members\u2014i.e. dues-paying members, but only a much smaller fraction actually came to Liturgy on Sunday.\u00a0 They were members not because they had responded to the Gospel and given their lives to Christ, but because they were members of the same ethnic group.\u00a0 For them the Church existed to preserve and express their ethnic identity.<\/p>\n

The problem with this is that it becomes possible in such a situation to imagine that one is Orthodox simply because one is a Greek (or a Russian or a Ukrainian or a Serb) and not because one has given themselves to Christ.\u00a0 How does one convert someone who thinks he is already converted?\u00a0 Such people regard themselves as Orthodox Christians when in fact they are secular people of a particular ethnic group with a thin veneer of Orthodoxy painted over top.\u00a0 Their views on sexuality, abortion, and women clergy will be determined not by Orthodox teaching, but by whatever is culturally ascendant.\u00a0 If many in the Orthodox Church today would welcome women clergy, that is the real reason:\u00a0 the eclipse of the Gospel and the Tradition of the Church in certain areas and their replacement with the secular values of our day.<\/p>\n

I hasten to add the obvious:\u00a0 not everyone in such ethnically-defined churches is like this, and there exist there many fine and dedicated people there for whom Christ is everything.\u00a0 I am speaking of a tendency and a problem that exists in some such places, and am not painting everyone there with the same brush.<\/p>\n

What is needed for those afflicted by this tendency is conversion.<\/strong>\u00a0 It must be preached, taught, and insisted upon that what makes a person an Orthodox Christian is not adherence to a particular ethnic group with marginal church attendance, but a life completely given over to Christ and lived according to the Gospel and the apostolic Tradition, even if that Tradition flies in the face of our secular culture.<\/p>\n

If a church group rejects the counter-cultural Gospel and the Church\u2019s Tradition it will eventually wither and die (the fate now overtaking the liberal Protestant churches).\u00a0 And that demise would be a good thing.\u00a0 The eternal stakes are too high to offer a counterfeit and secularized Christianity.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Better for the souls of all to make crystal clear the choice between the truth and error, light and darkness. \u00a0The path into the darkness truly is slippery.\u00a0 It is as the Lord said: \u00a0\u201cIf the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014
\nHT: No Other Foundation<\/a>. (Minor organizational edits and bolding of key phrases done by blog editors done to enhance readability.)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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