Chapter 38: Sydney’s Anglican Movement for the Ordination of Women

Last Saturday, 17 September 2016, I travelled to St Albans Anglican Church at Epping, to attend the Annual General Meeting of MOW Sydney, the Sydney Branch of Australia's National Anglican Movement for the Ordination of Women. MOW Sydney was founded by a group of Sydney Anglican women, led by Patricia Brennan. The group campaigned for the priestly ordination of Anglican women in Sydney and beyond. These women pioneered a movement that inspired hundreds of Anglican women who were trained and ordained outside Sydney, and now lead many flourishing Australian Anglican parishes with their priestly ministry. But the male dominated Sydney Anglican Diocese still bans the ordination of women.

In the 1980s and 1990s, MOW Sydney's mission to enlarge and enrich Australian Anglican women's contribution to church service was strenuously opposed by Bishop Donald Robinson and a fiercely misogynist faction of the Sydney Anglican Synod who insisted, and still insist, that women are Biblically required to submit to male domination, and refrain from any kind of church leadership, teaching or preaching. These men and their subjugated female allies succeeded in subverting the women's ordination movement with fears of slippery slope moral decline. The Sydney Anglican misogynist faction unscrupulously defamed MOW Sydney members, while also subverting Sydney Anglican women to betray their own gender, by inventing  an erroneous "complementarian" theology that undepins a submissive female diaconate managed by men. 

The untimely death of slandered Patricia Brennan, MOW Sydney's inspired and ethical leader, saddened and subdued MOW Sydney's severely harassed members. Nevertheless, they continued to meet to consolidate and pursue their mission. Memories of MOW Sydney's activist glory days were collected and published in a hefty tome entitled Prophets, Preachers, and Heretics, and the battle for Anglican women's priestly ordination in Sydney continues. More than glory days nostalgia is needed to promote the cause of Anglican women's priestly ordination in Sydney.

At Saturday's MOW Sydney AGM, speakers Robyn and David Claydon, of the Lausanne Movement for Women's Ministry, gave insights into how to walk through ministry doors previously closed to Anglican women. Greater awareness of the effects of male subjugation of women has validated women's ministry internationally, as the Claydons have witnessed, so MOW Sydney's mission may eventually succeed.

After its sojourn in the wilderness, MOW Sydney has reformed, and in 2017 it is celebrating its Jubilee year. Last Saturday MOW Sydney elected a new young President, Angela Peverell. Angela has declared her priestly vocation, and is engaging with the ministerial minefield of the Sydney Anglican Diocese by distance study through Melbourne's Trinity College, combined with her Anglican parish service. Angela leadership for MOW Sydney, administrative and online expertise, and strong advocacy for Sydney Anglican women. She leads a newly restructured, incorporated MOW Sydney,  with an active social media presence, and a committed member network throughout Anglican parishes in Sydney, New South Wales and Australia.