Are they related?

The story generally is that the ordination of women is unrelated to the adoption of same sex marriage and the ordination of the great variety of GLBTQ+, etc...  So the folks who have left the ELCA or the Episcopal Church over the issue of same sex marriage and its consequences for who should be ordained think that they are quite happy to retain the ordination of women but to draw the line there.  That far and no further.

The reality is that the two may not be related in the minds of those people who left but they are surely related for the church bodies in question.  Take the Lutherans, for example.  There is no Lutheran body which ordains only men but also accepts same sex marriage and ordains men of other sexual identities.  On the other hand, based on 2014 data supplied by the Lutheran World Federation, 96.5% of Lutherans in Europe and North America that ordain women also support same-sex lifestyles and their full incorporation into the life of the church -- at all levels.  The numbers of Lutherans who ordain women but do not ordain practicing homosexuals, approve gay marriage, and approve of the variety of claimed sexual identities and genders is small and getting smaller every day.

If for this reality only, Lutherans who are not willing to fully incorporate the full dimension of sexual identities and genders into the life of the Church and give full approval to them, should pause to reconsider the ordination of women -- if they currently do ordain women or are contemplating it.  It is probably not politically correct to say this and I am sure that the people involved do not want to hear it, but this is the reality among Lutherans (and Episcopalians).

According to the LWF, the cause is “to make the issue of women in the ordained ministry explicit in order to embrace the full and equitable representation of women and men in leadership. This would be a sign of the continuous reformation and transformation of the church. It is not only about women, it is about the church, what kind of church do we want to witness in the on-going reformation.”  This is clearly the direction of the LWF with respect to GLBTQ+ as well.  In fact, it is generally a short period of time between the choice to ordain women and the acceptance of GLBTQ+ marriage and clergy.  In most of these churches, it is the span of a generation or two.  In some, it is much shorter.

Some women may think it unfair to lump together the issues of same sex marriage and homosexual clergy with the ordination of women, but it is the inevitable conclusion of a church once that church body has decided to ignore the unbroken history, tradition, theological rationale, and Scripture passages that attest to the ordination of men only.  After setting aside Scriptural and confession reasons for maintaining the prohibition against the ordination of women, it is much easier to set them aside for other causes and other reasons.  Call it the Domino Theory or not but that has proven to be the case for those churches who have ordained women. 

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