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Saying “No!” is always harder than saying “Yes!” I apologize if I say some things that make people uncomfortable, because as we were reminded in that opening long quotation in my first address, and Mary Eberstadt’s writing, we are living at a very mixed up time. And the main presenting problems are, what has been described as “pelvic problems”. That is to say, the problems are somehow to do with sex, sexuality or marriage.

Some time ago when I asked our staff of twenty something who in their own close family had no-one mixed up seriously regarding, sex, sexuality or marriage, only two put up their hands. So in a group of 10-15 people only 1 will have no problems along these lines. I know this maybe sensitive for some. But tomorrow if you have messed up, you will learn that the true Anglican Tradition is that there is forgiveness for all sin

But today I am saying two changes are required. First, saying “No!” to the Church remarrying people after divorce; and, then saying “No!” to more women being ordained as Bishops and Presbyters. For that, I submit, would be to return, supremely to the Scriptural way, and the true and traditional Anglican way until relatively recently on both counts. So, with that introduction.

So the first change required is no more remarriage or public blessing after divorce in Churches.

The breakdown of the family is today in epic or tsunami proportions and has a negative effect on poor people most of all. The restoration of the heterosexual lifelong family is a glaring social need. And “saying no” is no more than a recovery of the biblical and traditional Anglican understanding of Marriage. This tradition has been passed down from the Apostles and the early fathers and teachers of the Church in the modern world. The Church of England’s position was summed up in mid-20th century like this:

a) No marriage in church of any divorced person with a partner still living, since the solemnizing of a marriage is a formal and official act of the Church, and the Church must not give its official recognition to a marriage which (for whatever reason) falls below our Lord’s definition of what marriage is:

b) But the relation of such people to the Church or their admission to Communion is another matter, one of pastoral care for the sinner, and properly a matter of pastoral discretion

That is what I swore to up-hold and will continue to do so. But since 2002 Clergy can take a strict or liberal line. The problem has been since the Reformation and with the other Reformed churches. However, it started with Erasmus. He was a compassionate Roman scholar who wanted somehow to legitimise divorce in the Roman church; and he influenced Continental Reformers who influenced church leaders in Britain; and, of course, at the time in the 16th century many Reformed clergy were no longer single but getting married with Luther leading the way. So sadly there was no surprise when Free Churchmen in this country and Presbyterians in Scotland were trying to legitimise remarriage after divorce for adultery. But Calvin on the Continent and Knox in Scotland did not major on saying Jesus permitted it in some cases. No! They said that adulterers should be executed. But if the state didn’t do its business, adulterers should be considered “as dead”. So as death ends a marriage, you can be free to remarry! And this teaching is in the Protestant Westminster Confession of 1647:

“In the case of adultery after marriage, it is lawful for the innocent party to sue out a divorce, and, after the divorce to marry another, as if the offending party were dead (Chapter 24.5).”

But the English Reformers under Elizabeth and even in the Commonwealth didn’t agree. For when the Westminster Confession was discussed in Parliament (after it had been adopted by Scotland in 1647), the pro-divorce clauses were rejected by the English in 1648 when they had the Westminster Confession printed out for English use. Since then the English Anglican Reformed tradition has always been a stricter tradition. And 20th and 21st century research has proved that they, I believe, have been right. There are two reasons.

First, it is now agreed by many that Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 19.9 and the exception for divorce for sexual immorality (ESV) refers to “incest”. For the word is clearly used elsewhere for incest (1 Corinthians 5.1 and a man having his father’s wife) and it seems to be used for incestuous relationships in the Jerusalem Council’s Letter (Acts 15.29). So it is translated as “illicit marriage” in Matthew 19.9 (NJB – New Jerusalem Bible). You must realize that for accusing Herod of an incestuous marriage, John the Baptist was imprisoned and then beheaded on the order of his incestuous wife, Herodias. So John’s execution would have generated a cause celebre. Therefore people would have known what Jesus meant by not calling an incidence of a married man sleeping with a woman not his wife, “adultery”. For that’s what it would be in all other cases. But calling it by a word which is used for a range of illicit sex, and certainly for incestuous relationships, people would have known what that exception meant (especially when we have just been told Jesus has just moved into Herod’s territory).

Secondly, paediatric research has shown the wisdom of the stricter tradition. One ground breaking study (and remember studies result in averages not inevitabilities for there are always shining exceptions) – well this study found that 1) Children from divorced families were almost 5 times as likely to have problems (with health, school, esteem, behaviour) as children from intact homes (including intact homes where there was conflict between the parents). 2) Compared to intact families, psychosomatic problems were twice as likely to affect children from single-parent families but children from step-families were 6 times as likely to suffer this kind of illness. 3) Reports of their behaviour upsetting others were twice as likely to come from single-parent children, but step-children were 10 times as likely to report it and parents confirmed their behaviour was causing problems. 4) Children living in multiple families on average have many more problems than any other type of family. 5) Compared to intact families, when it came to psychosomatic health problems, children in single parent families were nearly twice as likely to have problems. Step-children were 6 times as likely. Those in multiple-broken down families were nearly 10 times more likely to suffer. 6) When it came to schoolwork, children with single parents were about three times as likely to need extra help. Step-children did slightly better. But children in multiple-disrupted families were 8 times as likely to need help with their schoolwork.

So how sad the Government has now enacted no-fault divorce and the UK’s Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Act (2020) is due to come into force in less than a month’s time, on 6 April 2022. But whatever the world is doing loosing up I believe, because it is required by Scripture that the Church should corporately not agree to remarrying people after divorce but tighten up.

We now come to my second change required is no more women to be ordained as Bishops or Presbyters

We need to work for a complementarian ministry as the norm. It was only late in life that I was convinced this was not a secondary issue. And there was one particular reason. That was when my attention was drawn to the massive study by Manfred Hauke, (a Roman Catholic), entitled Women in the Priesthood, and subtitled “a systematic analysis in the light of the order of Creation and Redemption.” And particularly I was convinced by his argument from 1 Corinthians 14.37 (which some say is a late addition but that doesn’t persuade the best textual critics). But, this verse, I have discovered is rarely discussed in most of the discussions regarding the ordination of women. Most stop at 1 Corinthians verse 35. Paul you may remember has been discussing women speaking in the Church and he says (1 Corinthians 14.33-34):

As in all the churches of the saints, the women should keep silent in the churches, but should be in submission, as the Law also says

So 1 Corinthians 14.37 is seldom discussed which says:

If anyone thinks that he is a prophet or spiritual, he should acknowledge that the things I am writing to you are a command of the Lord.

Obviously, there is a difficulty in picturing what exactly is going on, but link that with what is taught in 1 Corinthians 11 and 1 Timothy 2 and Christ choosing 12 male Apostles (while uniquely accepting women among his band of friends) and at least you have to say that men had some measure of precedence in the early church. Nor, as has been suggested, is Paul in 1 Corinthians 14.37 appealing to his own authority as an apostle of the Lord and so consequently, he means, “all that I have been prescribing is virtually coming from the Lord.” For Paul distinguishes precisely his own directives, church custom and the Old Testament on the one hand, and the commands of Jesus, on the other hand. Many will know that it is very clear in 1 Corinthians 7. There it is clearly spelt out which are Jesus’ remembered actual words and which are Paul’s actual words. 1 Corinthians 7.8 to the unmarried and widows I say … and 1 Corinthians 7.10, to the married I give this charge (not I, but the Lord), but then 1 Corinthians 7.12, to the rest I say (I, not the Lord); and 1 Corinthians 7.25, Now concerning the betrothed, I have no command from the Lord, but I give my judgment …; and 1 Corinthians 7.40, and I think that I too have the Spirit of God. So 1 Corinthians 14.37 looks like 1 Thessalonians 4.15, where we have another particular remembered teaching of Jesus that was probably orally transmitted:

For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep.

And, of course, there is one very well-known of the agrapha (they are what we call specific teachings of Jesus unwritten elsewhere, but possibly embedded in reliable oral tradition) in Acts 20.35:

we must … remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’

That is the main reason why I do not believe female ordination is a secondary issue. I see it as a direct command of the Lord reinforcing the other reasons which we haven’t time to discuss.

Secondly, another factor I’ve seen more recently and is related, there are considerations coming from this new concern to recover Trinitarian theology. But how? Well, when we refer God’s essential being, theologians call that the “ontological Trinity”. It is the Trinity in unity with persons but without regard to God’s works of creation and redemption. God as he is. But most of our knowledge of the Holy Trinity comes from the “economic” Trinity – “economic” being the term theologians call the roles and functions of the three persons working in creation and redemption. So there the Father is sending the Son into the world for our redemption, the Son achieving our redemption, and the Holy Spirit applying that redemption to us. So in the economic Trinity, the three persons are distinguished in the economy of redemption (and of course of creation) by what the persons individually do. But in the ontological Trinity the three persons are distinguished only and exclusively by their relationship with Father, the Son eternally begotten of the Father, and the Holy Spirit eternally proceeding from the Father and the Son. So with that background, we re-read the Athanasian Creed, and we remember those words:

And in this Holy Trinity [ie ontologically] none is afore, or after other, none is greater or less than another; But the whole three Persons are co-eternal together and co-equal.

However, then we read later about the work of Jesus (ie economically) as the second person in the Trinity from the aspect of his incarnation he is:

Perfect God, and Perfect Man: of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting; Equal [ie ontologically] to the Father, as touching his Godhead: and inferior [ie economically] to the Father, as touching his Manhood.” (“inferior” of course is 16th language for “subordinate” or “lower” etc – but in position not in value).”

And bearing all that in mind, we remember 1 Corinthians 11.3:

I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God.

So that hierarchical analogy must be referring to the Economic Trinity. And we know that in his earthly ministry Jesus Christ was subordinate to his Father. But the mystery is that the Son in reality in his fundamental being at the same time is totally equal to the Father. Similarly a wife, in 1 Corinthians 11 is said to be subordinate to her husband functionally while fundamentally, created in God’s image, being at the same time equal to her husband in the one flesh union of marriage. And so in the Church all must be treated equally, ontologically, because they are in the image of God and as Christian believers. So Paul wrote to the Galatians (Galatians 3.27-38):

For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male or female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus

And the Galatians needed to heed that message. There were too many Judaizers around probably who ignored that equality. Some of whom may have given thanks go God, “that they were not born a woman.” However the Roman world was very different. The Roman poet Juvenal in his 6th satire tells of a veritable Women’s Liberation Movement in Rome! So when Paul was writing to the Corinthians who probably had seen the priestesses and prostitutes come down each day from Acrocorinth, he knew women in Corinth lived in a very different world to women in a strict Jewish culture. These needed to be reminded not of equality but difference. Some them probably needed to help their husbands take a lead in their families and the household of God, which is the church of the living God (1 Timothy 3.15). So I think it was no coincidence Paul left out “male or female” when writing to the Corinthians those words of a spiritual song or a baptism certificate which he does (1 Corinthians 12.13):

For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body – Jews or Greeks, slaves or free [but then no ‘male or female as in Galatians 3.28] – and all were made to drink of one Spirits

The last significant study, I think, is that of the Anglican Mission in America, which led them to cease ordaining women. Women already ordained stayed in post. Being true to the Anglican tradition requires to follow the American example.

I must finish, but with two post scripts, one, can I say on the divorce issue, the True Anglican tradition unlike the Roman tradition can recognize subsequent marriages, (following Jesus and the Samaritan women in John 4.18 who “had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband”). And, two, the True Anglican Tradition I believe it right to say “No!” to the ordination of women but yes to the ministry of women in many other areas of the churches life.