Prophets and Midwives

This year we are celebrating the 50th anniversary of the ordination of women in the Anglican Church of Canada. Let us lift up four of the many who bring unique, challenging, prophetic work that breathes life into the bones of this old body, the church. From the time a woman said, “I have seen the Lord,” and through all the centuries since, women have been proclaiming the radical hope expressed and lived out by Jesus. Women have always been leaders of the faith, and with the many religious and lay ministers, ordination brings their particular perspective to shine on leadership in our time.  

The person I have known the longest is Canon Alyson Barnett-Cowan, former president of the Canadian Council of Churches. In 2025, she was awarded the King Charles III Coronation medal for her service as director of Unity, Faith and Order with the Anglican Communion, from 2009 to 2015, and as ecumenical officer of the Anglican Church of Canada from 1991 to 2009. She successfully convinced the Canadian government of the time that peace and justice were not only acceptable, but essential aspects of religious activity. With genuine warmth and humour — and steely resolve — Barnett-Cowan has negotiated Christian ecumenical work and unity. A prophet in the midst of hierarchical and historical anxiety, she has modelled new ways of being in communion.  

Canon Martha Tatarnic will be well known in the Diocese of Niagara. Tatarnic has shown creativity liturgically and in community-building as co-rector of St. George’s, St. Catharines. While she prepares for her cycling marathons, we can be certain she is also thinking about ways to bring women’s stories into the history and significance of the faith. Aside from her podcasts and ongoing parish ministry, Tatarnic has also written: The Living Diet: A Christian Journey to Joyful Eating, Why Gather? The Hope and Promise of the Christian Church, and most recently, Anne Boleyn: Reputation, Revolution, Religion and the Queen who changed History.    

From the west coast, Diocese of New Westminster, Laurel Dykstra has been a creative and courageous voice for climate concerns, for the wisdom of indigenous people, and for relational spirituality that connects rather than divides. Dykstra started the ministry of Salal + Cedar Watershed Discipleship Community as a place for sacramental practice in nature and concrete action for ecological justice but found community along the way. Dykstra is responsible for both the big picture and coordinating moving parts. 

And finally, Gerlyn Henry. Henry leads the parish of Broadview in Scarborough, Diocese of Toronto. She has thousands of followers on TikTok and Instagram. Her goal is to make the life of spirit and faith accessible to both seekers and the disenchanted. She communicates with humour and insightful interpretations of scripture. For many folks, her videos are their pathway to faith. 

For those who wonder about the future, we need to remember the women who stand at the foot of every cross, who risk their lives to give birth to new vision, who will not accept death as the last word. Women are midwives of the faith, releasing what no longer brings sustenance, delivering fragile new ideas, shouting out with joy at life in creation, in community with all that lives, and reaching out into the starry night to show us the way of the Divine, in this holy earth, in the stars, in the complexity of quantum thinking, and in each other’s faces.