(RNS) — At an Anglican theological conference in January, UK priest and political commentator The Rev. Calvin Robinson stirred up a long-simmering controversy when he called women’s ordination a “slippery slope” akin to a “Trojan horse” and to “cancer.”
“This is how the liberal infestation of the church began,” Robinson insisted. “The doors were left open for the Marxist ideologies to gain a foothold, gender theory, queer theory, critical race theory — it all began with feminism.”
Robinson’s provocative remarks, delivered in an Anglican Church in North America diocese that ordains women, led to his removal from the remainder of the event. Months later, nearly 300 ACNA clergy have signed an open letter opposing women’s ordination to the priesthood, a wedge issue that has divided ACNA members since its inception in 2009, and an entire diocese has published a resolution calling for a moratorium on ordaining women.
On May 26, “The Augustine Appeal” appeared on the North American Anglican, a socially and theologically conservative publication. Authored by three ACNA priests and published weeks before ACNA elects its new leader, or Archbishop, the letter states that the “unresolved issue of women’s ordination to the priesthood imperils the mission of our Province.” It also expresses hope that the College of Bishops will find “a creative solution to restore orthodoxy” and institute a male-only priesthood. As of Friday (June 7), the appeal had been signed by 296 ACNA clergy.
A few days after the appeal was posted, a new resolution was published on the same Anglican site, this time by an elected group representing the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth (ACNA). The diocese asserts that when it joined ACNA in 2009, it did so only provisionally, given the ordination of women in parts of the denomination. Now, it wants to be in “full communion,” — but to make that possible, it says ACNA must come to a consensus on women’s ordination.
“(W)e call upon the college of bishops, under the leadership of the next archbishop of the Anglican Church in North America, to agree to a moratorium on the practice of the ordination of women in order to facilitate full communion throughout the province as we come to a common mind on this issue,” the resolution says. The authors of the resolution and a spokesperson for ACNA declined to speak to RNS for this story.
Since ACNA’s 2009 split from The Episcopal Church and Anglican Church of Canada over the latter two’s acceptance of LGBTQ+ clergy and marriage for same-sex couples, the denomination, also referred to as a Province, has allowed each diocese to decide the issue of women’s ordination. The church’s bylaws bar the Province from restricting dioceses’ authority to decide whether to ordain women priests and deacons. ACNA doesn’t allow women to become bishops.
Following Robinson’s ejection from the event, some ACNA priests voiced concerns over what they saw as organizers’ silencing of the truth. Among them were two priests, the Rev. Jay Thomas and the Rev. Blake Johnson, who later joined with the Rev. Ben Jefferies to author the Augustine Appeal. All three authors are graduates of Nashotah House Theological Seminary in Wisconsin, a theologically conservative Anglican seminary that identifies as Anglo-Catholic. Jefferies and Thomas are also regular contributors at the North American Anglican. Ten priests who signed the letter, including the three authors, declined to speak to RNS for this story.
