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Dual Integrities: The Promise & Peril of an ACNA Compromise

Dual Integrities: The Promise & Peril of an ACNA Compromise

Last updated on: October 19, 2026 at 11:57 am by Talley Cross

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Dual Integrities: The Promise & Peril of an ACNA Compromise 2026-10-19T11:57:07-04:00 Talley Cross

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dual integrities

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This post on dual integrities was first published by the author on Substack for Anglicans for Truth, Renewal, and Accountability (ATRA) on October 5, 2026.

The ACNA’s principle of “dual integrities” creates space for faithful Anglicans who disagree about the ordination of women to remain united in one church. In theory, dual integrities is a model of mutual compromise, but how it’s practiced often tells a different story.

Although dual integrities calls for mutual compromise, the burden of compromise seems to fall disproportionately on women priests and clergy, and on those who support them. In reality, women priests and clergy must accept that not every ACNA diocese, parish, priest, or layperson will consider their ordination valid. They and their supporters are often expected to endure criticism, ridicule, and even public disparagement from fellow ACNA clergy and laity, frequently without meaningful accountability. New church leaders are allowed to sideline women priests and clergy, and those who support them, by secretly changing longstanding church practices without informing the church. If dual integrities is to be more than a half-baked idea or one-sided accommodation, its obligations must be reciprocal, behavioral expectations must be formalized into clear guidelines, and church leaders must be willing to enforce those guidelines when they are violated.

So how did we get to dual integrities? How can it be practiced with integrity? And when does it go awry? I’ll look at examples of the framework working as intended, consider two cases where it breaks down, and then turn to my favorite part: the practical guardrails and accountability measures the Province should implement to help make dual integrities a genuinely Christian way of living together amid disagreement.

What Is Dual Integrities?

The concept of dual integrities is based on Article VIII.2 in the Constitution & Canons:

“The Province shall make no canon abridging the authority of any member dioceses or networks (whether regional or affinity-based) and those dioceses banded together as jurisdictions with respect to its practice regarding the ordination of women to the diaconate or presbyterate.”

Dual integrities emerged as a practical compromise within the ACNA, following the split with The Episcopal Church. Given the deep disagreement over women’s ordination, the ACNA could not have survived without allowing both viewpoints to coexist. A full account of how the ACNA arrived at this arrangement is beyond the scope of this post, but the Rev. David Roseberry, Diocese of Churches for the Sake of Others, provides helpful historical background here. As a result of dual integrities, dioceses within the ACNA, bishops, other clergy, and congregations can hold different positions while remaining under the ACNA umbrella.

For those in the ACNA with strong convictions on women’s ordination, dual integrities requires their restraint. Those who support women’s ordination should acknowledge that other faithful Anglicans disagree with them. Those who oppose women’s ordination – if they want to stay within the ACNA – should acknowledge that women priests are legitimate ministers within the church’s current framework, even if their personal beliefs differ. The arrangement does not require agreement; it requires charity, respect, and mutual submission.

When Dual Integrities Works

The Rev. Tara Jernigan, Diocese of the Southwest, paints a picture here of positive coexistence with her male-only priesthood peers. Pay attention to the words she uses to describe habits of mutual restraint, respect, and charity characteristic of a positive embrace of dual integrities:

“[Most of them] do understand that women priests are not here to hurt them or take anything from their ministry. Most of them don’t get their feathers too ruffled when they realize I am not interested in compromising their conscience or forcing their recognition. Most of them will serve alongside me, though they won’t accept the Sacrament at my hand. We collaborate together, respect one another, and talk theology over a cup of coffee or a beer together. I honor that and will continue to protect their conscience, perspective, and presence in the Church we both love and serve.” [bold emphasis added]

In a recent Substack post, the Rev. Hannah Miller King, Diocese of the Carolinas, provides a slew of thoughts on what it’s like being a female priest in the ACNA. While she laments the targeted attacks, harassment, and other negative experiences as a female priest, she praises those on both sides of the women’s ordination debate for their kindness: “It’s also worth saying thank you publicly to those who engage women in the ACNA with charity and respect (regardless of your views about ordination).” A key part of her positive feedback involves dual integrities functioning at its best – shaping both her and those who disagree with her more fully into the likeness of Christ:

“Being a female priest in the ACNA [also] looks like…

-getting to practice humility, charity and grace towards people who hold different convictions from you.

-finding friends who function as “loyal opposition” and will support you even if they wouldn’t hire you.”

In another post, she describes a specific example of positive collaboration through a diocesan-level task force. Although the clergy involved held a variety of perspectives on women’s ordination, they worked together to strengthen and encourage the ministry of women in their churches. They shared stories about how they had grown in respect for, and friendship with, one another despite their differences. Miller concludes:

“As I heard them speak, I felt grateful to be part of a church that creates space for this kind of connection to happen. This practice of ‘bearing with one another’ is not only good for the Church. It is also good for…[a] world…characterized by polarization and ultimatums….In light of this, Christians who can live peaceably together – even with significant disagreements – can be a powerful apologetic to the broader culture.”

While dual integrities came about as a compromise to preserve the ACNA’s unity, when lived out in love, its promise reaches far beyond the pragmatic. At its best, dual integrities becomes a means of blessing, spiritual formation, and mutual sanctification – as well as a powerful witness to the reconciling work of Christ.

When Dual Integrities Fails

Example 1: Public attacks on women priests

A recurring weakness of dual integrity is the unwillingness of ACNA leadership to hold individual priests accountable for their public attacks on women priests – or to address the matter substantively and holistically through ACNA policies and procedures.

Of course, there is an important distinction between publicly saying, “I do not believe women should be ordained,” and saying, “This ordained [female] priest is not a real priest,” and engaging in name-calling, mockery, and other denigrating commentary. The first statement is compatible with dual integrities and expresses a legitimate theological viewpoint. The second is both inconsistent with dual integrities and basic Christian behavior. Yet criticism of women priests by other ACNA priests on blogs, podcasts, conferences, and social media often crosses beyond theological disagreement into abuse. If dual integrities is real, it must mean that ACNA priests on one side cannot continue to publicly question the legitimacy, faithfulness, or spiritual authority of those priests on the other without facing public discipline. Such discipline – if it has ever occurred – has been meted out quietly, while Dean Julian Dobbs broadcasts to the whole province, over email, the “scandal” of a bishop’s recent chapel dedication.

The ACNA cannot presumably create space for women priests under dual-integrities while tolerating campaigns disparaging dual-integrities and portraying women priests as unbiblical – sometimes even in media forums appropriating the ACNA’s own branding! Such behavior communicates that women priests may technically exist within the church, but they are expected to endure ongoing challenges to their legitimacy, authority, and vocation. Requiring one group to absorb repeated attacks as the price of belonging is not reflective of Christian love or unity. It is a form of abuse.

For dual integrities to be practiced with integrity, the ACNA must do more than merely allow women’s ordination. The ACNA’s leaders must hold accountable those priests who refuse to follow the standard of both dual integrities and godly behavior in their vitriolic attacks on women priests. The ACNA cannot simultaneously authorize women priests and tolerate their routine delegitimization without rendering that authorization hollow.

Given that the ACNA currently has no social media policy and no procedure governing its usage by priests – despite repeated escalations to the Province of online misconduct and abusive behavior – it is difficult to see how dual integrities is being implemented with integrity.

Example 2: Secretly changing established church practices

Another troubling misuse of dual integrities I have experienced firsthand occurs when church leaders invoke it as cover for major changes in the gender of clergy staff without transparent communication to their congregations.

I recently left an ACNA church whose leaders had, for decades, supported women’s ordination as priests, with women priests on staff. One day a new rector came in who opposed women priests. Rather than candidly discussing his convictions with parishioners, explaining his intentions, and allowing meaningful dialogue, he gradually changed course behind the scenes. Women are no longer considered for certain roles. A female priest was gradually phased out of a longstanding staff position because of her gender. Future ordinations became impossible – at least one woman was turned away. At the same time, the absence of women priests was masked, intentionally or unintentionally, by the appointment of female deacons. Over time, some parishioners discovered that a significant shift had occurred.

When questioned on these changes, the rector invoked dual integrities, maintaining that the ACNA allows either theological view on women’s ordination. He reiterated his “authority” to make staffing decisions. When I approached our bishop, he too mentioned dual integrities and said that the rector did nothing illegal.

Dual integrities was indeed created to make space for different views on women’s ordination, but the problem here is not that the rector holds a divergent view from mine. The problem is not the rector’s remit to hire and fire; those responsibilities rightly belong to his office. And the issue is certainly not whether anyone violated a law or canon. Actions can be entirely permissible and still be deeply damaging. The problem here is the rector’s lack of transparency and resultant harm and hurt to parishioners.

Parishioners make decisions about where to worship, serve, volunteer, and pursue vocational ministry based on reasonable expectations regarding a church’s practices. Altering those practices significantly without honest disclosure – especially after decades of established norms – causes both harm and hurt. It deprives people of the ability to make informed decisions about their own lives and ministries. It damages trust. It substitutes transparency for paternalism and effectively tells parishioners that significant changes affecting their church life are not their concern. Parishioners impacted are forced to make a painful decision: either stay in a church whose rector violates them and their values, or depart, after investing years in a beloved community.

A rector’s appeal to dual integrities, in this scenario, falls flat. It does not excuse his lack of candor. He simply adds a second obfuscation to his first, recasting a breach of trust as an expression of principle.

Such behavior contradicts the mutual respect that dual integrities requires, not to mention the far more basic Christian obligation to love one another, an obligation that a rector should be first in a church to model and champion. Pastoral leadership is far more than the exercise of authority or the assertion of prerogative. It is the stewardship of souls through honesty and humility, through respect for human agency, and sacrificial love for every member of the flock entrusted to your care.

The Province Must Act to Change Course

For dual integrities to be viable, it must be practiced with integrity. That requires transparency, mutual respect, and accountability, especially by those exercising spiritual authority. We need clear behavioral guardrails to help people follow what can be a challenging road to walk well. Here are a few things the Province could do to help. This list is not comprehensive, but it’s a start:

Implement the recommendation of the task force “to draft principles of conduct“ (p. 317) with corresponding enforcement and accountability mechanisms. At a minimum, these principles should include:
- An ACNA-wide social media policy for clergy. I’m grateful for Bishop Chip Edgar’s recent Directive on Social Media to help manage online vitriol among clergy in the Diocese of South Carolina. However, his compassion and care need to be demonstrated across the wider ACNA leadership and formalized with clear behavioral guidelines and consequences for violations.
- Guidelines for rectors and church leaders on mandatory disclosures to vestry and parishioners. No rector should ever be permitted to quietly reverse a church’s practice regarding women clergy. Changes of this magnitude should trigger mandatory disclosure to the vestry and congregation, ensuring that parishioners can make informed choices about where to worship and hold their leaders accountable. The diocesan bishop should enforce these disclosures as part of his safeguarding duties.
Issue a formal notice to the ACNA Unofficial Facebook group, requiring it to drop the ACNA name. The group has become a forum for regularly denigrating women’s ordination and women priests, as well as general opposition to ACNA’s dual-integrities compromise. Its appropriation of the “ACNA” name, whether qualified by “official” or “unofficial,” creates a risk of confusion regarding the group’s relationship to the Province and its authority to speak on the Church’s behalf – especially since an administrator of the group is allegedly a good friend of the Dean.
Require any women priests who come to renounce women’s ordination to the priesthood, which does happen on rare occasions, to formally resign their ministerial office under Title III, Canon 6. This is not a question of invalidating holy orders but of complying with basic ACNA canonical and administrative procedures for the sake of transparency and accountability. If a woman priest concludes that women cannot rightly be priests, that conviction should be reflected openly and officially in her ministerial standing within the ACNA.

Without mutual submission and accountability, dual integrities loses its integrity. What was intended as a principled framework for preserving unity amid disagreement becomes little more than a slogan masking institutional dysfunction. At its best, dual integrities cultivates holiness, charity, and mutual flourishing. At its worst, it’s a concept ignored or weaponized by ACNA priests and laity to abuse and exploit God’s people. If this trajectory continues, dual integrities will not realize its promise. And instead of holding the ACNA together, it may become the very fault line along which we divide.

General Christian

Women in Religion

ACNA

About Talley Cross

Talley is a compliance manager at a global payments company. She received her Master’s degree in Middle Eastern Studies from the American University in Cairo, where she was a University Fellow, and worked with the Anglican Diocese of Egypt on Muslim/Christian interfaith dialog projects. Talley has a Bachelor’s degree in Religious Studies from Sewanee / The University of the South. You can read more about the author here.

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