Now online: “16-18th c. Collection: Women’s Ordination”

Discussion in 'Announcements' started by JonahAF, Sep 26, 2022.

  1. JonahAF

    JonahAF Moderator Staff Member Typist Anglican

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    16-18th c. Collection: Women’s Ordination

    One of the most controversial topics in the Anglican world today surely is the question of women’s ordination. In thinking of how (or whether) we should add to the conversation, the best course of action seemed to be to disregard subjective views and simply let the tradition speak for itself; to surface the words and teachings of the Anglican divines, such as they may be on the subject.

    It is indeed surprising that no work of any kind has ever been written about the views on Women’s Ordination in the Anglican tradition. There exists no book series from acclaimed scholars ;  no one eminent book or monograph ;  not even an academic thesis ;  not one journal article ;  not even a single online blog post somewhere, from a lay perspective. The silence is deafening, from all quarters, on what is surely a pivotal topic of debate and question, for one of the largest Christian traditions in the world. This silence makes it something of an imperative, for those who deal with historic and archival materials, to provide an analysis of them from this angle. Therefore with this publication, we hope to make a significant academic contribution to this topic.

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    In this collection we have assembled the published views and theological reflections from eleven Anglican divines. As with the other 16-18th c. collection, we attach the scans of the original page, to provide opportunity for verification (and correction). Present in this collection are 16th c. theologians, 17th., and 18th. c. ones, which gives a sweep and scope to the assembled material. We also recognize that 11 divines is just a start, and more research is needed. Therefore in the coming future we hope to amend this page with even more mentions, citations, and quotations, from the most esteemed divines and theologians in our beloved Anglican tradition. Enjoy!

    16-18th c. Collection: Women’s Ordination

    womens-ordination.png
     
    Rexlion, Othniel and Lowly Layman like this.
  2. Lowly Layman

    Lowly Layman Well-Known Member

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    Well done! Thank you for doing that detective work
     
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  3. Rexlion

    Rexlion Well-Known Member

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    It is not surprising to see that the consensus of learned churchmen during that period reflected the understanding that women are not to perform the functions of ordained ministers.

    Nor does it surprise me to see that a few people questioned the understanding from time to time, because a certain portion of strong-willed women who think they know better have always existed in each and every generation. :p
     
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  4. ZachT

    ZachT Well-Known Member

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    Just to clarify my tone here, I think this a great initiative that I'm sure will be fantastically useful for many people - and if I stumble upon any other useful additions I'll be sure to pass them along for your consideration to add to the collection. My feedback is that it could probably do with a bit of editing to categorise quotes with similar content together - separating the writings with unique contributions from those that merely restate Ephesians, and in turn from those that say something general without any direct commentary on WO at all (e.g. Whitgift's comment that only priests and deacons should be permitted to preach or interpret scripture -- which as an aside, doesn't bode well for us here on this forum!).

    However, I'm not sure the bit of your post I've quoted above is true. A quick search for "women's ordination" in the Journal of Anglican Studies gave me 40 hits, the second of which gave me an academic thesis and a book examining Women's Ordination within the context of the Anglican tradition.

    Threlfall-Holmes, M. (2013). (Review of...) Trevor Beeson, The Church's Other Half: Women's Ministry
    - An academic review of an Anglican book. The academic paper views the book through the lens of WO movements from the 19th century onwards. The book itself (written by a Dean, sure, but I'll address the lay preference at the end of this post) analyses WO/Women's Ministry broadly from the foundations of the Anglican tradition in the Celtic/Anglo-Saxon Early Church through to the present day. Given that's the payoff from my very first search, I'm confident a brief perusal through those 40 articles, and a few other academic journals would provide more academic papers on the topic.

    I'm not sure of what value a distinctly "lay" perspective will be. In the Anglican Communion academics tend to get ordained, at least as deacons, but usually as priests. Some remain 'secular' priests, attached to a University, but most eventually go on to become Deans and Bishops. It's quite unusual for an academic to intentionally avoid ordination, and yet maintain a vibrant Anglican faith - the two usually go hand in hand. If you exclude all books, papers and articles from authors that belong to the clergy then you've eliminated maybe 90% of Anglicans who write books, papers and articles - including the authors in your own collection (which contains 1 lay person, 1 unknown author, 5 priests, 3 Bishops, and 1 Archbishop of Canterbury).
     
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  5. Shane R

    Shane R Well-Known Member

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  6. JonahAF

    JonahAF Moderator Staff Member Typist Anglican

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    We meant specifically from the aspect of the Anglican tradition itself. Dr. Linsley’s work is simply her own views from her own name. In this she does not differ from any other recent scholars who analyse the question from their own name and perspective. However, what is the traditional Anglican perspective, simply across centuries? There simply doesn’t seem to exist any study of any large amount of Anglican divines on this question.
     
  7. JonahAF

    JonahAF Moderator Staff Member Typist Anglican

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    That’s worthwhile, but we put our emphasis on the thought leading right up until year 1800. Perhaps we should have made it clearer (it is called the “16-18th c. Collection” after all). There is a widespread misconception that until the 19-20th centuries the Anglican theologians have simply had nothing to say on the issue of women’s ordination. We wanted to make a contribution to such a study.
     
  8. Rexlion

    Rexlion Well-Known Member

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    Tough crowd.... :whistle: