Reclaiming a Wesleyan Argument for the Ordination of Women
Photo by Allen Taylor on Unsplash
The worst argument I ever heard against the ordination of women was that women simply don’t look right in clerical vestments. This was shared with a friend of mine, an Episcopal priest, at a Christmas party. She was not impressed. No biblical, theological, or historical grounds, just aesthetics. She also didn’t make a scene at the party. Thank goodness for tact. There are good arguments for a male-only priesthood, as in Roman Catholicism, Orthodoxy, and some parts of Anglicanism, or the tradition of male preachers, as seen in the Reformed tradition. There are also good arguments for ordaining women, particularly from the Wesleyan tradition. The problem is that many who engage in this discussion rarely use any of them.
I’m not immune to making bad arguments. I have made bad arguments discussing this very topic. But lately, the arguments seem to be getting worse. We are losing our ability to present our thoughts without falling into blatant logical fallacies. The two most common are the ever-present ad hominem – attacking the person rather than the argument – and the strawman – arguing against something that the person never said in order to undermine and divert the conversation. Neither approach is ultimately helpful. And in the case of arguments, or even just discussion, about the ordination of women, these arguments actually hurt the ministry that women are faithfully carrying out.
Recently on Twitter, a storm has erupted over the words of Southern Baptist leader Albert Mohler, who has stood up for the SBC’s interpretation of Scripture to mean that only men should be ordained and serve as pastors. This has become another flashpoint in the Baptist world because of high profile ordinations of women at Saddleback Church, the largest SBC church in the country. The arguments from some Wesleyans related to both Saddleback’s actions and Mohler’s comments have been striking, but not in a good way. Attacks have been launched against Mohler’s character. One Twitter user argued against Mohler’s use of a quotation from a 19th c. Baptist theologian because at one point that same man had argued for slavery. This is nothing less than the irredeemable impulse of “cancel culture,” only being used by an evangelical. Evangelicals by definition believe that redemption is real, that past sins have been erased. Cancel culture and evangelicalism are antithetical in this respect. So a truly evangelical response is to address Mohler’s argument directly. But rather than deal with the content of Mohler’s claims, we were graced with ad hominems and strawmen.
In terms of Saddleback, the reaction was equally problematic. Prominent evangelicals within United Methodism who have argued for decades for fidelity to denominational canons quickly erupted in praise for Saddleback’s rogue ecclesiastical actions. It was striking to see conservative Methodists praising Saddleback’s canonical lawlessness while at the same time liberal Methodists were praising German Roman Catholics for offering blessings to same-sex couples in defiance of the Vatican. Both argued that it was the work of the Holy Spirit. And essentially in its structure it is a very similar argument. It seems that the Holy Spirit – whom we are not supposed to blaspheme – can easily be used to justify our ecclesiastical wish lists.
Part of the problem with Wesleyanism’s inability to discuss the ordination of women is that many arguments made for it – or at least aired – are either completely secular or based on subjective experience. Prominent evangelical leaders have argued for the ordination of women in the Wesleyan movement based on secular concepts of equality and their own experience of women’s ministry – by which they have been blessed. Equality as a blanket declaration is not a biblical concept; it’s very modern. It’s not an inherently bad thing to hold, but it’s not rooted in the tradition. And our experience, however important, must be held up to the expectations of Scripture. Interestingly enough, those evangelicals who regularly use these arguments will reject them when made by progressives talking about gay and lesbian persons, denying the stark similarities.
I recently heard an argument for the ordination of women in the Wesleyan movement in which opponents were not only made out to be hateful Neanderthals (ad hominem argument), but the argument for the ordination of women rested on pragmatism; we should use all the workers we can get. In no way was there any sense that ministry is a calling and vocation originating with God and confirmed by the church’s witness to that work. Laced throughout the argument was an inherent clericalism, the idea that whomever we appoint to serve the church in this way must by nature be better than other people, therefore we devalue women if we don’t appoint them. This argument may work if we’re talking about secular leadership roles, but ministry should not be defined by those categories. A stole is not a symbol of honor, it’s a yoke.
Part of the problem that we face when discussing the ordination of women is that we’ve made it into a dogma, an unquestionable claim. I’ve watched over the years as those who take a more traditional stance are ostracized, called names, and even asked to leave their churches. As a historian, I can’t help but notice that in using this approach these same people would reject John and Charles Wesley, Francis Asbury, and even Phoebe Palmer. Not one of them supported the ordination of women. Arguments that historical figures would agree with contemporary claims – the “if they knew what I know” approach – stand at the pinnacle of arrogance. G. K. Chesterton rightly named it “the tyranny of the present.”
In reality, Wesleyans don’t actually have dogmas, or at least we shouldn’t. We have never organized our belief systems in that way. If we were to have dogmas, anything outside of the Nicene Creed would be a stretch. But the practical effect of our dogmatizing this issue is that we have forgotten how to talk about it, even in a positive way. And when the church no longer teaches its people why they believe what they believe, the world will often step in and fill in the gaps. In this case, reference the secular ideologies, personal attacks, and pragmatism that I’ve already mentioned.
So, is there a positive Wesleyan argument for the ordination of women? Yes, I believe there is. But I also think that it is a development within the tradition and how it reads scripture; key leaders did not hold to this development during Wesleyanism’s formative years and neither did most Wesleyans until the movement was a few centuries old. This recognition demands humility on our part.
The argument around who can be ordained developed as a Wesleyan understanding of ordination developed and the movement came to understand the repercussions of the doctrine of Christian perfection. At the heart of a Wesleyan understanding of ordination is preaching. Wesleyans have been, and continue to be, a preaching order, just as Wesley envisioned it. In his day, of course, this preaching order was composed of laymen, with a small number of women allowed to “testify.” In this way, comparisons of a Wesleyan understanding of ordination and a Catholic understanding are not useful; we’re not talking about the same thing.
As the movement developed and Wesleyan churches were founded, ordination and preaching were cemented together in our theological outlook. Not all preachers were ordained, but if you were ordained it was expected that you would preach. Scriptural exposition and testimony were often interwoven in Wesleyan preaching. And when Phoebe Palmer commenced her international preaching tours in the early 19th c., she drew out a link between testimony, or public proclamation, and Christian perfection. She argued that those who have received the gift of holiness, whoever they are, they must testify to the gift. And in this way, men and women were called to stand before the church and to testify to God’s work.
Palmer highlighted a link within the tradition between the experience of holiness and public proclamation to God’s work. Given the link between ordination and proclamation that already existed, Palmer showed that the tradition included an inherent argument for the ordination of women. If one can be sanctified and speak of God’s noble deeds, one can preach, and therefore be ordained. In this case, Wesleyanism developed a vision of ordination that requires two distinct acts of God, a double-calling: the first in setting the person free from sin, and the second in calling the person to ministry. Both need to be witnessed by the church.
Note, of course, that Palmer never made this developed claim herself nor sought ordination. The development of the idea is what I’m trying to show. But also see how this development – understanding the links between sanctification, preaching, and ordination in the Wesleyan tradition – can help interpret texts like Joel 2:28:
And it shall come to pass afterward
That I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh;
Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
Your old men shall dream dreams,
Your young men shall see visions.
Christians have interpreted this Scripture passage as a vision of a post-Pentecost world. St. Peter made that connection in the book of Acts. The word “prophesy” here is translated “testify” in other translations. It’s also the word that Wesley sometimes used for preaching. In the Old Testament, Miriam and Deborah can be seen as precursors of this expanded vision. And in the New Testament, women continue this work. In Acts 21, we read of an evangelist by the name of Philip whose four daughters also “prophesied.” When the Spirit is poured out, both sons and daughters will proclaim the work of God. Reading the resurrection narratives where the women proclaim the Resurrected Christ before the men do, one can surmise in that case that it wasn’t the women who were without the Spirit’s work, but the men who only proclaimed Christ later.
If we look at the historic development of these ideas, we can see that the Holiness Movement within Wesleyanism was the first to take these ideas and introduce ordination for men and women. The Wesleyan Methodists led the way in the 1840s, followed by Free Methodists and Nazarenes. For a time, Protestant Methodists ordained women. Mainline Methodism embraced the ordination of women in the 1950s, but only because of the Holiness Movement within it. At the 1956 General Conference, it was the president of Asbury College (now University) who stood up and introduced legislation to open ordination to women, driven by a Palmer-inspired linkage between holiness, preaching, and ordination.
So Wesleyanism does have a positive argument for the ordination of women – and men. But let me be clear that it is not unassailable. I have not developed a dogma, nor do I want to. Nor do I think that I have exhausted all arguments that could originate within the tradition. But hopefully, I have offered a positive corrective to the bad arguments that seem to fill social media and coffee hour chatter. I can think of no better reason for this than to be of service to faithful ordained women in the Wesleyan tradition, those who proclaim the Risen Christ and the freedom from sin that he makes possible. And also to enable their ministry, shorn of bad arguments that ultimately attempt to provide a secular and pragmatic foundation which is no foundation at all.
I will finish with a story, or perhaps a testimony. Growing up in the Church of the Nazarene, holiness preaching was very common. I’m thankful for the Wesleyan witness that I received. Nazarenes have had ordained women since the day they were founded. And I was able to meet one of the early Nazarene preachers when I was a kid. Her name was the Rev. McKinney. I never knew her first name as no one referred to her by it. She must have been in her 80s or 90s when I knew her. She was frail and needed assistance to walk. But I can still remember the fire in her eyes, the fire of holy love. She was a holiness preacher still and that fire continued to burn. It was obvious. The love of God had been poured into her heart and it continued to overflow from her. I wish I could have heard her preach when she was younger. I wish I could hear her preach now.
Thankfully, there are women and men today in whom that same fire burns.
Ryan N. Danker is a member of the Firebrand Editorial Board and President of the Charles Wesley Society.