As Night Follows Day? (Part 3)

(Editor’s note: The following article was written by David Phillips, general secretary of the Church Society, the oldest evangelical organization in the Church of England. The article originally appeared in its entirety here. Parts one and two ran earlier this week on Gender Blog. In today’s final post, the author picks up with the fourth of five grounds for the veracity of the argument that the acceptance of women’s ordination by a church or denomination tends toward the affirmation of homosexuality.)

Fourthly, as Michael Vasey demonstrates, evangelicals are not immune to misreading Scripture in order to conform to their own desires or to the spirit of the age. There are increasing numbers of people claiming to be evangelical who are arguing publicly that the Bible has been misunderstood and it really supports homosexual conduct. Whatever the details we have seen an apparent instance of this over the summer. A vicar of a church in Chelmsford Diocese who after only a few months left his apparently evangelical parish after the uproar when he preached that homosexual practice is wrong. Likewise when Jeffrey John was appointed as Dean of St. Albans we found that some who claimed to be evangelical were not only unconcerned but apparently welcoming of the fact that he teaches that homosexual practice is acceptable. For myself I think the matter is so clear that anyone who can read the Bible as permitting such sin is not an evangelical because they have a distorted way of approaching Scripture.

Fifthly, the nature of the arguments used in favor of both are disturbingly similar. I have already mentioned the trumpeting of justice and equality. It ought to be sufficient to say that it cannot be just to encourage people to disobey the Word of the Lord, but apparently our ideas of justice trump His. Others argued that the ordination of women is a ‘gospel imperative’ and in the last few weeks this has been articulated again amongst the largest of the break-away Anglican churches in the US which now wants to ordain women and so follow the same disastrous route as the body they left. The argument is that without this change the gospel we preach will not be taken seriously. Not only is this nonsense, it suggests that the gospel is not the power of God unto salvation and it is exactly the same argument some use in favor of accepting homosexual practice.

Then there are spurious arguments about words. The interpretation of the word ‘head’ is the most celebrated. People became convinced that ‘head’ did not mean what Christians had previously thought it meant. Indeed I have heard it said that those of us who read it as such are ‘uneducated’. The ‘educated’ view is apparently that there are a couple of readings in ancient Greek where it means something different and therefore these must be the meaning in the Bible. I find it hard to credit that people can take such an argument seriously yet it seemed to sweep all before it. Now we are seeing the same thing with arguments about words in Romans or Leviticus concerning sexual immorality. Many seem convinced that the real sin of Sodom was anything but Sodomy. The arguments can sound clever, even bamboozle people, but they are feeble and so devoid of any real evidence that unless people were obsessed with proving their argument it is hard to see why they would give them any credence, but alas they do.

I believe the same can be said of other arguments. For example it is argued that Mary Magdalene was sent by Jesus to tell the disciples of the resurrection. She was thus sent and so can be called an Apostle (which means one sent). Therefore women can be presbyters. This is a string of non sequiturs - they do not follow logically from one another. Moreover, it ought to be obvious that the argument is wrong because it reaches a conclusion that is contrary to what Scripture actually teaches. If this sort of argument can be allowed it is hardly surprising to find others saying that David and Jonathan were homosexual lovers and therefore homosexual practice is acceptable. The premise is wrong, the logic is wrong and the conclusion is wrong, but who cares so long as we can make the Bible say what we want it to say? The damage has been done because people have been encouraged to mishandle the Word of Truth.

Therefore, recognizing that many will be far from pleased with the conclusion, I am forced to say that the acceptance of the presbyteral ministry of women within a Church more or less inevitably leads to the acceptance of homosexual practice. I hope this is not so, but I fear it will be.

Nevertheless there is still hope, hope that some will see the mistakes and that enough remain to argue the case. But, if other churches are anything to go by, without the Lord’s intervention the outlook is bleak.