Forward in Faith NA bishops stand firm against the ordination of women
by Michael Heidt, Anglican Ink:
Speaking at Forward in Faith’s regional meeting at St. Vincent’s Cathedral this August, three FIFNA bishops spoke out forcefully against the ordination of women.
Bishop Jack Iker of Fort Worth was first to speak, expressing “dismay” over the continued ordination of women in the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA). Referring to ACNA’s decision to allow for “two integrities” regarding female ordinations, Iker stated:
I am extremely dismayed, because the [ACNA] College of Bishops has decided to fudge the issue by allowing ‘two integrities.’ There are two practices, one is apostolic, universal, scriptural, the other is schismatic, rebellious, feminist and revolutionary. Begun by the Episcopal Church illegally and forced upon the Church.
Iker then said that Forward in Faith, the Reformed Episcopal Church and the Anglican Mission in North America “came into ACNA” believing “we’d go into a theological discussion of the issue and move the right way forward. Now we’re being told that we signed on to ‘two integrities’.”
This, stated Iker, was untrue, “revisionist,” and a continuation of “something you know is divisive, that continues to divide the church and create impaired communion… The beginning of the breakup of the Anglican Communion was the ordination of women. We’ve been dealing with this for 40 years and it continues to be a divisive issue.”
“I do not have an answer,” the bishop concluded, “But we did not sign on saying we would accept it.”
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