Holy Orders

Review of Icons of Christ: Plausibility Structures

PART 1: WHY IS WOMEN’S ORDINATION PLAUSIBLE? PART 2: WITT’S CONSTRUCTION OF HISTORY PART 3: ERRORS OF PHILOLOGY PART 4: SYMBOLISM AND CONCLUSIONS PART 1: WHY IS WOMEN’S ORDINATION PLAUSIBLE? Icons of Christ : A Biblical and Systematic Theology for Women’s Ordination. Witt, William G. Waco: Baylor University Press 2020. 439 pp. $59.99 (cloth); $44.99 (paper). Professor…

Anglican Orders of Ministry Part II

In sixteenth-century England, unlike in much of Europe, circumstances allowed for reformation through the ecclesiastical hierarchy, rather than in (total) defiance of it. This has created a unique, sometimes confusing, but, as I hope to show, beneficial position for the Church of England. The Church of England both maintained her historic structure and embraced the…

Anglican Orders of Ministry Part I

During the Reformation the Church of England, along with a minority of other Protestant churches[1] maintained its pre-Reformation episcopalian polity, with its three orders of deacon, presbyter, and bishop. In this two-part essay, I explore the Anglican orders of ministry. In this first part, I begin by discussing episcopalian polity generally; in the subsequent piece…

The Protestant Problem with Priesthood

Many aspects of Anglicanism can perplex other Protestants—including at times the suggestion that Anglicans are Protestants (the English Martyrs, the 39 Articles, and all that notwithstanding).[1] Those things to which suspicion attaches are generally aspects of Anglican polity and liturgy that seem “Catholic”—that is, those things that share names or appearances with what one might…

Holy Orders and Headship

In October, the Rev. Dr. Emily McGowin wrote an article defending women’s ordination against objections from those who insist only a man can become a priest and administer rites in persona Christi. There have been several responses to her article already, and I do not want to simply echo those articles. But McGowin raised a…

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