I appreciate the opportunity to propose the topic of our next discussion. There are wise thoughts and wise people on this blog and it is an honour to wrestle with you. I'd like us to wrestle this month with a topic that is rather controversial to many people as I am very eager to hear all your thoughts on it. So here it goes.
Are certain gifts of leadership reserved by God for men and men only; gifts such as teaching and preaching? Can a woman lead men in the Christian context? Can a woman be the prime leader of a church? Can a wife be the leader in a home?
Are Paul's teachings on women in 1 Timothy 2 and 1 Corinthians 14 merely instructions for a time and culture that when understood in context do not need to be applied literally today? Or is there something to be said for the fact that Paul draws a distinction in the leadership roles of men and women in the early church? Why did Jesus have only male apostles?
I believe that Paul's instructions regarding women were true and had a purpose for their time as did Jesus surrounding himself with 12 male apostles, but that in reality when the New Testament is taken as a whole we see revolutionary treatment of women. This is true especially in the actions of Jesus such as his treatment of the Samaritan woman at the well.
Paul's instructions for women to be silent cannot be considered apart from his teaching that in Christ there is no longer male or female, and Jesus surrounding himself with 12 male apostles cannot be separated from the important leadership role women played in the early church and in Jesus' ministry on earth as well. Jesus first appeared to women after his resurrection and instructed them to go tell the men he was risen.
I believe that roles in the church and even in the home should be based on people's gifts and not on their gender. I believe that the progression shown by Jesus and the early church toward women was meant to keep progressing. I believe that many of our modern Christian churches are missing out on great leaders in their midst due to limiting the role of these gifted leaders because they are women.
I would follow and be taught by a female lead pastor. I follow my wife in the areas that God has gifted her, especially when I do not have the same gifts.
Your thoughts?
Love, tony tanti
78 comments:
good topic tanti. I just handed in my position paper on women in ministry, and sort of wish I'd waited so I'd benefit from this discussion first. Tuna has yet to hand his and so he better footnote us if he uses us.
where to start? first i'll admit presuppositions.
I have been what they call a "complimentarian" (women shouldn't be the Leader in church or home) most of my life, mostly I would say because I 1) grew up in that tradition, 2) believed it to be the "obvious" reading of the Scripture, and 3) i didn't really put a lot of thought into it.
This last one changed a bit in college and I became what they call "undecided" but if push came to shove would have defaulted to tradition. We can't just sit on the fence though. Real people are involved here. Although I am open to discussion on the issue (as we always should be on every issue) I have decided I'm an egalitarian.
it is worth noting that you aren't just asking about ministry but the home as well. This complicates matters since most of the discussion in this area has (wrongly) been restricted to ministry alone. it would be interesting to debate why that is.
I think this will be our most "text-based" discussion yet since the whole thing hinges on interpretations of various texts, whereas our last topics were more broadly theological. good.
2 points to start: 1) Romans 16:7 says "Junias was outstanding among the apostles." Debate rages over the gender of this name but there would not be any debate if the women in ministry issue were not concerned. Junias was a woman. 2)When Gal 3 says "in Christ there is no male and female" in context it is pretty clearly talking about ACCESS TO SALVATION. Egalitarians tend to not even use it lately (or so I'm told). I would like to challenge this though since I think the key to the whole passage is that it goes on in the 1st part of chapter 4 to say that they (Jew/Gentile, Master/Slave, Male/Female) are all "full heirs" in Christ.
What is fully inherited?
Just a ticket to heaven? Or are all considered full heirs to all the blessings, gifts and OPPORTUNITIES granted so graciously in Christ both in heaven and also TODAY in the church?
Ok TUna, stop whining, my marathon post is over. For now.
Ab asino lanam - Wool from an ass, blood from a stone impossible
Great topic, Tanti.
The texts are so difficult to argue from because one side says they are contextual and the other side says they are universal and then both use them to support their own argument.
My position: I don't see that there should be differences in levels of leadership between men and women.
For me, it comes down to this one question: Why would God limit the opportunities for believers to share the gospel and God's love?
Put in a different way, why would God forbid women in leadership, thus reducing opportunities for church ministries or for church planting just because of genetics?
To be honest, though, the issue itself doesn't bother me nearly as much as the incongruity shown by our churches that say that women can't have a leadership role in church but then gladly send them into the missionfield to do jobs they can't do here. Since women can lead churches in countries as close as Mexico, then it's somehow simply forbidden in Canada and US. When I see that happen, it seems to be to simply be an issue of convenience rather than conviction.
Here are a couple other ideas in this argument that really bother me (and my responses):
* Men are logical and women are emotion thus men should lead because leading requires logic. (My response: that's such a 1950's way of thinking. Emotions should play a key part in any decision but to the same degree that logic WON'T play the entire part in any decision).
* If God can't find a man to do the job, he'll send a woman. (My response: Is that right? There are about 3 billion men in the world and God doesn't always do a good job of convincing people).
Fear, great point about full heirs. I remember Maxine Hancock speaking at CBC and talking about how we need to consider that Jesus redeemed us not only for heaven but to get back to God's original intention for the male/female relationship pre-fall.
Trembling, I appreciated your last two points, those are classic points which I've heard people make and been frustrated by.
What do we do with Paul appealing to the order of creation to support his point about men being in authority in 1 Timothy 2?
DRC, fantabulous topic. I was hoping we would be able to discuss this in this group. Frankly, I was hoping to bring it up when it was my turn, but now I'm going to have to think about something else; such as how would one prioritize which children get rescued from a volcano assuming there is not time to get them all. This will be a topical discussion for the benefit of Tuna.
Anyways. I'm gonna sympathize with Fear's upbringing in that mine sounds like it was pretty similar. I grew up in a complimentarian environment, both in the family and the church. I don't know whether this position has flowed through my family and church because of a deep conviction or whether it was just a matter nobody putting too much thought into the matter; e.g. women have been subjugated in the church for nigh on two millenia, why change now.
I started to put more thought into this as I was finishing high school, through my bible college years, and it still occupies a good portion of my thought life today.
My conviction is now something along the lines of this: I think our church's ill treatment and subjugation of its women has been one of the collossal mistakes of our faith. There is no telling how much we have missed out on by not encouraging and developing the leadership and intellectual giftings of our sisters in Christ.
Interestingly enough, this past weekend my home church in Regina finally got around to taking a vote of its membership regarding allowing women to be elders. The vote came out 60 to 34 in favour allowing women but did not pass due to church policy requiring any motion to have at least a 2/3rds majority in order to pass. And in retrospect, this 2/3rds thing might have alot to do with the church's resistance to change that we all griped about in the last discussion.
I don't understand why there is sooo much opposition to women in church leadership. I haven't been able to find to find any convincing biblical arguments for why they are being limited, and I actively try to find them in books and tradition and whatever. That might have quite a bit to do with my inherent biases but in my experience most of the opposition to women is not academically based. Maybe you guys have different experiences in that department.
I also like Fear's expanding on the idea of "full heirs" in Christ. There is definitely a lot more to being an heir when start to unpack that.
Trembling brings up one of my biggest gripes on this whole issue; that of allowing women to pastor churches anywhere other than Canada and the US. This is a very big deal and illuminates alot of double standards and I believe racism as well in our denominations. White women will not be tolerated to lead a white church, but a black or latino or asian church is fair game?
I'd like to understand more about the argument against women so that I can see where the other side is coming from. So maybe some of you know some of the popular arguments out there.
Again, great topic DRC. I'm really looking forward to informing my opinion with the wisdom of this group and learning a little more grace as this issue really gets me fired up.
Tanti, a couple of my thoughts on the 1 Tim 2 passage. (These are just quick snapshots... not a polished argument because I'm pressed for time).
1 Tim 2:11 -- "A woman should learn in quietness and full submission". -- Most of us have probably heard the arguments about this verse already: that the men were likely more educated than the women and therefore should be teaching (and perhaps there were assertive but uneducated women who wanted to teach) and that there may have been a problem with orderliness among women in the service (refer to 2 Tim 9-10 & 15b).
1 Tim 2:12-14 -- "I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner." --Paul builds onto the argument above by referring to the created order. He also does this in 1 Cor 11:8 also, however we rarely consider that passage (about headcovering) to be universal... so why this one?
1 Tim 2:15 -- "But women will be saved through childbearing - if they continue in faith, love, and holiness with propriety." -- I had a tough time with this for a long time but finally found an answer that I thought clarified it. Women saved through childbirth does not suggest that women must bear children to be saved. Anyone who's taken Greek knows that prepositions are tricky. We often (inaccurately) define "through" as "because of" while a more accurate definition might be "during" or "throughout". This is a reference to the curse where the woman was told she'd experience pain in childbirth. Christian women in the 1st century may have wondered why they still suffered from the childbearing pains during pregnancy if they were now saved. I believe this passage assures them of their salvation.
Just some quick thoughts, randomly written. Gotta run.
Okay. 1 Timothy 2. IF ever a passage called for a look at context it was this one, yet the complimentarians (who otherwise swear by the historical-critical method) rest their case on the "plain" or "obvious" reading of the text.
THERE'S NOTHING PLAIN ABOUT THIS TEXT! But when you look at context some things become, if not obvious, at least a whole lot clearer.
Paul wrote to Timothy, the pastor at Ephesus. From what I'm told, this is the place:
- with the cult of Artemis, who women prayed to so they'd be safe thru childbirth
- where Artemisian worship saw women boistrous in worship, asserting themselves over others (For all the good intentions in much of feminism, this sounds like some of the ultra-feminists we have today. Apparently some of Ephesian men liked their Artemesian women, as the riot in Acts attests)
- with a major problem with false teaching, especially the door to door variety ("Old-wives tales")
When we look at context we realize Paul is saying: "Men, teach the women at home! Women, you are free, you are free to be like Christ, not like Artemis! Follow Christ, and you'll see!"
Note the following points:
1)In this society where females are not traditionally educated, being told to learn quietly is not the equivalent of "sit down and shut up" but "Let the women learn!" Presumably so they can eventually teach better!
2) Women should not be "usurping authority". (the word authentein appears only here in the Bible, and even the KJV uses "usurp").
3) Eve was supposed to HELP Adam, not decieve him. It has nothing to do with hierarchy. Point is, don't repeat Eve's error.
4) The household spread of false teaching could be prevented if the men of the house would wake up and begin teaching the women at home instead of letting Tom, Dick or Harry come in and capitalize on the newfound freedom in Christ these women are experiencing and use it for deception. Men were supposed to CARE FOR the women. (i.e. Teach better than Adam did!)
How come men through the ages take it that they are to RULE OVER women when the whole point of man's dominion was to CARE FOR creation? Even IF women are seen as secondary to the men why could not a man PROTECT, HONOUR, CHERISH, EMPOWER and TEACH the woman to the point that she could in turn give leadership?
I say its time men stand up and be men by speaking up for the women. Of course, we need to speak up for men too. The point of egalitarianism is not for men suddenly to become squashed and insignificant. All should step up to the high call of humble Christian service, and leadership if it goes there.
Enough of these uneducated, power-hungry, culture-driven pastors. Let's have servant leaders. Men AND women who are willing to listen and learn quitely and in full submission and to take leadership as God puts it on them instead of grasping at it themselves.
Not only that, let's have men AND women alike take more interest in what goes on in their homes. How false teachings are running amuck in our homes today. It is clear that the church does not for the most part form our worldviews today. The pulpit has lost out to the media. I'm not endorsing full-out Dobsonism here but our homes and churches should be united in the task of growing in Christ's love and Truth. They were not united in Paul's day and it was ticking him off.
If only we appropriated 1 Tim 2 according to what it was really saying and lost this hierarchal oppression which we've carried wrongly through the ages! I am only getting more passionate about this the more I study and think about it.
That's my long-winded speel for today. I don't know if I can give you the views for the other side CSU, they aren't convincing me anymore.
dum spiro, spero (while I breathe, I hope)
tt - great topic. i've never really looked into it before so i'm hoping to be enlightened. that hope has started to be fulfilled thanks to some people who have done some solid investigating and research. mr t and fear, thanks for those posts. very informative. it seems like this may be another topic that we all agree on. so maybe i'll ask some questions:
is our ("our" meaning our generation) view influenced from growing up in a gender equality society? possibly wanting to challenge and refute our parent's beliefs? how does this fit in with fear's grenz quote about valuing ALL of church history (not just the first century when women leaders were plentiful)?
i'm a believer that GIFTED women should be leaders in churches, just as GIFTED men should be. unfortunately, the only experiences i've had with women delivering sermons have been painful.
getting back to the bible though, i think the majority of the NT suggests women SHOULD be leaders, not CAN be leaders.
i love the way the NASB translates Acts 18:26:
"[Apollos] began to speak out boldly in the synagogue. But when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately."
so this man who had "been instructed in the way of the Lord" (vs. 25) and "was eloquent" and "mighty in the scriptures" (vs. 24) gets schooled by two women. after this teaching he went to Achaia and proved through the scriptures that Jesus was the Christ. how sweet is that?
one observation is that, not only did Priscilla and Aquila teach him, but he LISTENED and used what these women had to say. for all of the props Apollos was given, he still didn't have it all together. he took what the ladies said and went on to have an even more succussful time in Achaia.
i'm not sure if these two women were unique, but they were definately gifted. after all, Priscilla did write the book of Hebrews.
i continue to look forward to this discussion.
Wasn't Aquila a man? Not that it would take away from underachiever's point as Priscilla clearly wasn't.
GIFTED is the key word and should be a big part of this discussion. I've had the privelage of hearing good teaching from a woman but I know what you're saying underachiever. I think that this lack of inclusion of women goes so far back that whole generations of women grew up believing they were "less than" and never considered the possibility of preaching or leading. Sometimes (and this happens with both genders) the people who perservere and want to become leaders and preachers etc... are so determined that they ignore the obvious, they may not be gifted for it. This goes back to our calling discussion of two months ago and I think it ties in because I believe just as there are women out there who are gifted but have never developed those gifts there are men and women out there who aren't gifted and have tried to develop those gifts and it ain't happening. This is a frustration.
As far as not only following the traditions of the first century church, I hear what you're saying but I disagree. We rightfully have thrown out some traditions which developed after the first century and keeping women out of leadership is one of those traditions that was never right in my opinion. I can't imagine a time when it would have been more counter cultural to have female leaders than in the first century for a new sect of Judaism. I suppose in some ways Jesus gave in to the realities of the culture at the time (like having all men in his 12) but he certainly pushed the envelope in other ways and the envelope should have continued to be pushed.
Wow- doozie of a topic Tanti. Thanks for leading us here as this is something I'm glad to hear each of your opinions on and I have always had some lingering issues and questions that I'd love to pose. I'll try not to be intimidated as the only woman posting on this blog on this particular topic. I think I know you all well enough to know that you won't expect me to represent all women everywhere. =)
I am also in the egalitarian camp believing that both men and women have been gifted in the area of leadership and should be supported as such in the church. I think that fear clearly outlined the likely reasons for Paul's comments in 1 Tim 2. The other passage oft referred to in this debate is 1 Cor 14:33-35. Similar idea in that it is regarding order in worship and seems to be commanding women to remain silent in church. Do the same contextual arguments apply here?
I have 3 comments/issues today. (There are probably more, but since I've heard rumors about Tuna whining, I'll stick to the 3 that I can't stop thinking about.)
1. I agree with trembling that my biggest contention with this issue is the inconsistency of women being allowed to lead in other countries. I had never thought of the racial issues that dug up until csu mentioned it, but that is a great point. I'll leave this one where it is for now.
2. Ordination. (In the Alliance anyway) I was recently emailing with a former CBC student and friend of mine. She has decided to graciously part ways with the Alliance to pursue ordination in the Anglican church. It is sad to me that the denomination that nurtured and trained her could never fully support her in her obvious gifts and calling. She could be accredited and serve in ministry, but never get the "ultimate stamp of approval" from the C&MA. So, here's my issue. Ordination isn't reserved simply for those pursuing a specific role, such as senior pastor. It's reserved simply for men. I assume a man who became a children's pastor would be encouraged to pursue ordination, whereas a woman who becomes a youth pastor is not. Forgive me, but to me this seems like a last ditch effort to distinguish men from their female collegues who were, until that point, their equal. I confess that this is an issue where I have stuggled with pride because I ask myself why I am not allowed to enter that realm? Why can't I read the books, write the papers, and get the title? I am not really that interested in ordination, but maybe that's because I've always told myself that I couldn't do it anyway. What's up with this? Why does our denomination allow men to become reverends but not women?
3. I'm interested in fleshing out the women's role in marriage. That is really intriguing. We seem to be on the same page regarding women leading in the church, but what about the home? I'm not sure where I stand on this one. Ephesians 5 and Colossians 3 seem to lay out a heirarchy. This has always been a struggle for me because I feel I have leadership gifts, but I work at supressing them in my marriage at times because I've been led to believe (not by my husband, by the way) that it's anti-biblical for me to "lead" in our relationship. I have lots more I could ask about this issue, but I have a screaming baby that won't be ignored any longer. Thoughts?
Excellent metaphor hansens. this issue truly is a screaming baby that won't be ignored any longer. although i'm tempted to tackle your 1 Cor 11 question and the household codes question, I'll leave it to others for now 'cause I want to address the question Underacheiver raised:
Here's a quote from Craig Keener, from "Two Views on Women in Ministry":
"To be sure, the burden of proof rests on any person who advocates a view no one ever thought of before, because ... it should surprise us that we would be the first to discover it! Often, however, the church has missed or surpressed truths that are clear enough in Scripture to allows us to accept the burden of proof and advocate a position previously not widely accepted.....
Most Protestants today recognize that the Reformation did not settle all questions of which particular church traditions may still require revision....however, it should be noted that some reform movements have always affirmed the ministry of women....
alongside justification by faith and an appeal to Scripture's authority, the earliest Waldensians [persecuted by the Roman Church in the Middle Ages] were accused of letting women preach. Women's ministry also became increasingly accepted in ... the Wesleyan revival.
Pentecostal and Holiness groups were ordaining women long before modern secular feminism and unbiblical arguments for women's ordination made it a divisive issue in some circles. [Note that ultra feminism (i.e. Artemisian attitudes) and unbliblical arguments aggravated rather than helped the issue!]
Many Baptist and other evangelical churches permitted more freedom for women's ministries until the fundamentalist-modernist controversy of the 1920s; ... and the Christian and Missionary Alliance (in its earlier years) also affirmed women in ministry."
Verveces tui similes pro ientaculo mihi appositi sunt (I have jerks like you for breakfast)
my bad about the aquilla = woman thing. night shifts, brain farts and lack of being in the Word can do that to a guy. thanks tt for the rebuking / iron sharpening.
hansens - i'm interested in the whole "women leaders in marriage" topic too.
fear - good point about the wesleyans. i think they've been ordaining women as well as letting them preach for the last century.
one question that i struggle with (as my mental capacity has declined since leaving academia) is how is leadership in the house defined? is it just the person who makes the last call when no compromise can be reached? not having children, how is "leadership" altered after children enter the picture? love to hear from the parents out there.
ass wool
Tanti wrote: "I suppose in some ways Jesus gave in to the realities of the culture at the time (like having all men in his 12) but he certainly pushed the envelope in other ways and the envelope should have continued to be pushed."
You're absolutely right, Tanti. Jesus could have quashed slavery at the same time and the xenophobic culture (i.e., Anti-Samaritan) of the day but chose not to. A few other things would have been nice, too, like a little more clarity on his return so that the Tim LaHaye's of the world would stop making me so angry.
TheHansens brought up a great point about head-of-house issues. I was talking to a complimentarian once and they asked me if I felt that Scripture said that men were the head of the family. It seemed fairly clear so I said yes. Then they said that the church is a family, too, ergo: men should be the head. (That's a summary and I know that guy reads this blog so KC, if you're reading this, sorry about the brief summary; I'm sure it didn't do your argument justice). Anyway, the more I've been thinking about it, the more I disagree: After all, what does home leadership look like? Where does it come into play? I can only think of two areas: In setting an example for the rest of the family and in decision-making. And in both of those cases, I think both man and woman would (should) be equal (i.e., both husband and wife living like Christ as an example to the other, and both husband and wife participating in the decision-making). In fact, I would suggest that it is an unhealthy relationship where that DIDN'T happen... I can't think of any complimentarian who would disagree. So how is the husband the head of the household? What SPECIFICALLY should a husband do? I've asked this question and heard "give leadership" or "be the final word on big decisions after accepting input from the wife". Is there anything else I'm missing? When I look at the home life of complimentarians, I don't see any male leadership different from the home life of egalitarians. TheHansens, what does husband leadership look like in your home?
Okay, so I had my comment opened since about 3PM and was on a long business call and forgot about it. I got back to the comment and just posted it (at 4:19 PM) and then noticed that during that time Underachiever asked very similar questions but in a shorter post. I know that shorter posts will make Tuna happy... also because Underachiever used the enviable words "ass wool" at the end of his post. Tuna loves ass wool.
I just wanted to make it clear that I wasn't just taking Underachiever's questions and writing longer posts based on those same questions.
copyright infringement!
Is there more that the 'man-as-leader-in-marriage' thing is based on the interpretation of the wives submit to your husbands bit in the NT? (Colossions 3 and Ephesians 5) and I've often wondered why we can look at some things as contextual for their time and interpret them slightly differently for our own time but this passage doesn't seem to receive that scrutiny. This was a patriarchal society, the Colossians goes on to tell slaves to obey their masters 4 verses later, does that mean Jesus was for slavery for all time?
The second part of the Ephesians passage, and the much longer part too by the way, speaks of husbands serving their wives as Christ served the church and loving them as themselves. It seems clear in reading it that this is calling on men to serve and give of themselves and be unselfish. How this passage became about authority and being the final word on decisions is beyond me.
Lovin the posts, where's the Tuna though?
I'm back and this times it's personal.
What a great time for this topic since I am in the midst of a writing a paper on this. I am as well an egalitarian. It makes sense to me that women should be able to hold all the offices that men do. I have seen great women in ministry and men and I have listened to pointless and boring sermons from both men and women. Gifting and calling is the issue not gender. Completarians try to discuss this issue without puting down women but the more you flesh out what they are saying you come across some pretty distrubing points. One has been stated earlier, that women can be missionaries and teach natives, they can be childern's pastors and youth pastors but what they can't do is teach white men. That is completely absurd. Thinking about it, I think our best and brightest teachers should be teaching childern and youth because it is in those ages that you form most of your core believes and hopefully as an adult you are also trained in testing what you are hearing to see if it is correct. If you think that women should be reglected to teaching childern and youths you are also saying that these groups don't matter. I think you could logically hold to a completatarian view but to do this you would have to say that women shouldn't teach anyone, that they should be completly silent in church.
I think I have come to a pretty complete view on the role of women in ministry but I am still thinking about the idea of heirarchy. The Bible does seem to support this idea and even within the Trinity there exists a sense of hierarchy. Jesus often talked about submission to the Father. That didn't make the Son less then the Father. I don't know if this idea of heirarchy effects us, but it seems to. In our culture we misunderstand the Biblical concept of submission. Today that word holds so many negative connotations. You can see that many of the laws and rules that God gives us are for our benefit. But I don't understand what is to be gained by having a heirarchy in a family? I want to be obedient to God's intend order but I want to know the reason.
I am going to stop here, not because I don't have anything more to say but because I have to get back to work.
You all can take as many shots at me and my hatred of reading as you want, when you are as great as I am you can handle it.
okay so we're on to household codes. in answer to tanti's question about why Eph 5 doesn't get handled in the same way as the slavery passage in Eph 6, as far as I can tell it is because of the "children obey your parents" bit in the middle. since this is more likely a universal command (rooted in the 10 commandments)it makes it harder to lump the husband/wife bit in with the slaves/masters bit. it also makes it harder to let Eph 5:21, "Submit to one another", stand for the whole section. Which is why it is so often seen in the section above in our translations.
But what a misnomer that is! I find it unbelievable that we don't connect it to the rest of the submission stuff that follows. It clearly gives context to the whole deal!
Obviously we have no problem with women submitting to men. It is in our frame of reference. And Paul does instruct them not to get all Artemesian on him but to keep up the servant's attitude. Slaves too. Children too. Keep obeying.
But here Paul clearly calls the husband to submit himself as well. In fact, his call is more radical. he is to go against the tide and give himself totally (as Christ did for the church) in love for his wife.
And masters are told to treat their slaves the same way their slaves treat them! (v9) Friends, Romans, countrymen: this is huge!
But how does a parent submit to his or her child? Well, fathers should not exasperate their children it says. I think this is pretty huge too. I know how easy it is to exasperate. Maybe theHansens will back me on this I don't know.
I think parents submit to their children (while obviously the children is still to be the obeyer) by respecting them as fellow human beings. I say sorry to my kids. I try not to decieve my kids in order to get them to do what I want. I try to explain to them rather than power-play them. (NONE OF THIS GOES ALL THAT WELL ALL THE TIME NOR DOES IT COME EASY). But if they are just objects, if they are just kids, and not other people that I am responsible to raise and respect, well, the household becomes a pretty ugly place in God's eyes I imagine.
"Submit to one another out of reverence to Christ." Hierarchy? I think we read it in. Love like Christ is the point.
Also, we are still working from a whacked concept of leadership and submission, as TUna said, if we think it requires hierarchy. Jesus form of leadership had very little to do with hierarchal models and so even if the man is the leader, hierarchical values are from the pit.
What does leading look like in the home? Just veto power? I think my wife has veto power on some things and I on others. And depending who is in the worse mood probably the most clear headed one has veto power. I think a marriage of mutual submission and working stuff out is more what God had in mind. After all was the point of all this for us to make the best decisions or was it to be united in Christ in making decision together? Also, leadership is about pushing the otehr forward, and how does a marriage get anywhere with only one person pushing?
And doesn't the Bible talk about believers and non-bellievers being un-equally yoked? Doesn't it follow that married believers are then equally yoked? You know, like oxen side by side? I'd assume Jesus is sitting in the buggy, not the man.
That's my 3 dollars and two cents.
By the way if you want to know how great TUna is see www.tunajacksonfanclub.blogspot.com
Isto pensitaris? (You get paid for this crap?)
In debates I've had with complimentarians the "husbands submit to your wives" passage has come up (and in fact, most of them have brought it up) but I don't think (to them) it changes anything because Christ is still HEAD of the church even in his submission. In the same way (they say) they submit to their wives but are still head of the house.
However, I can't think of any of the complimentarian couples I know in which the wife isn't fairly dominant in the relationship. (I don't mean that in a bad way, I just mean the women aren't meek, mild, silent baby-factories). So how does this headship / leadership / submission play out in a complimentarian marriage?
I guess all of us are egalitarian so maybe we have to ask someone. That's our homework for this Thanksgiving weekend: Ask a complimentarian about household leadership.
(How great is Tuna Jackson? Rather than purchase sun glasses, Tuna stares down the sun... and wins everytime).
I spent a good amount of my free time late last night typing a post and had internet connection problems so I lost it while trying to publish it... I didn't have the mental energy to redo it, and now some of my comments seem too late. Alas...
One thing though- fear, you mentioned that in the past, ultra feminism and unbiblical arguments aggravated rather helped the issue of women in leadership. This is precisely my fear. I never want to seem too forceful so I try to keep my expressed opinions on this issue rather subdued. Don’t you think that most complementarians see women who try to advocate for equality as overstepping their bounds? How is a woman supposed to deal with this issue? It’s easier for a man to take an egalitarian position than a woman.
Heya Fellas and Ladies,
Great posts so far. I've really enjoyed reading all the wisdom and experience you've all gleaned over time on this topic; I mean that quite sincerely.
Trembling brought up one of the main arguments i keep hearing from the complimentarians; i.e. Jesus, while giving himself for the church, was still the head of the church.
The more I read the more convinced I become that I have a pretty simplistic view of what it means to be a good leader. I think often being a good leader involves deferring to others when we find ourselves outside of our giftings. Although Tuna might never find himself outside of his wide range of giftings, most of us would agree that we are definitely limited and those we are in relationship with tend to have very complimentary giftings that we would be fools not to defer too. A good leader is sooooo much more than just a person carrying a veto card.
That being said, what does a typical egalitarian do with the passage about husbands submitting to their as Christ did for the church, keeping in mind the lordship of Christ over the church.
This discussion always makes me afraid that I am just reading into the text what I want to believe.
I like Fear's reference to a marriage of believers being equally yoked. Nice work. I have never heard that passage related to this discussion but I think it works quite well.
Also, what about the texts like Matthew 19 and Mark 10, etc... that talk about the two becoming one flesh. The one flesh idea sounds pretty symbiotic to me, it wouldn't make sense for one flesh to struggle over leadership.
Spatula
Some additional thoughts:
Often times some of these issues can get messy when some ungracious and overly vocal feminists start getting involved and fighting for their cause. This tends to have the effect of making fence sitters on the issue fall back to traditional views. Such was the case at my church two weekends ago when they had the vote concerning women as elders. There were a couple very assertive women who didn't show much grace and I know of a few people that voted against the motion solely because of that.
But here is my question. Is it really a satisfying victory for women if they are merely conceded the right to be ordained or made an elder by the typically male power base of the church. In my experience, the causes we are talking about seem to be championed by men more often than women. Maybe that is not the case, but that is my experience of it. I often wonder why more women don't seem to be active in this department, but I think perhaps the subjugation of christian women has been more thorough than I expected. I know plenty of women voted against the motion at my church a couple of weeks ago.
Chesterton had a famous quote along these lines that got him in a wee spot of trouble with the feminists of his day: "Twenty million women rise to their feet with the cry, 'We will not be dictated to'-and proceeded to become stenographers."
Porkrind
great quote csu.
hansens and csu, this is why i feel men need to step up and speak for women, and in so doing fulfill one of their purposes in the created order we go back to so often: that purpose being to CARE FOR (rather than the overly simplistic notion of RULE OVER as we have taken it to mean) the woman.
Women need to speak up though. How they do that makes a world of difference, however, and if they have a submissiveness (i.e. meekness) to their speaking up, not only will it go further but I think it will also fulfill what Paul was asking them to do in 1 Corinthians and 1 Timothy. Ironically, I wonder how many of our complimentarian churches today would be egalitarian if the Artemesian women in our churches had stopped to listen to Tim and Cor rather than just spouting their own self-promotive spew.
Good points about leadership CSU.
Headship is a tough issue here. We really need to grapple with what is meant by it and how it affects this discussion.
Here's a thought I'll throw out there. 1 Cor says God is the head of Christ. Christ submits to God (or the Father I suppose might be more accurate) and from this complimentarians glean (do they not?) that the woman, although equal with the man, submits to his leadership.
For Christ submits to God, sure, but then God puts EVERYTHING under Him (Phil 2) and gives Him ALL AUTHORITY IN HEAVEN AND EARTH. SO even if the woman somehow submits to the man in a hierarchal fashion, why is she not in turn given authority appropriately in the home or the church or what have you?
I think Trembling's challenge is appropriate. Everyone accost a complimentarian this Thanksgiving and find out some key arguments because we may be missing some things.
Ex Nihilo (I have no latin motto today)
Ex Nihilo means "I have no latin motto today"??? I didn't know that.
Obviously part of the debate comes from how these particular passages are read. And I find that when I'm debating with someone who is arguing from a basis of entrenched tradition (like complimentarianism or that there will be a rapture) my ideas end up sounding like I'm just trying to find loopholes to the traditional reading. I'm convinced I'm not and I believe I treat the Scriptures fairly (in fact, I honestly think I'm treating them better!) but a debate with a complimentarian or a pro-rapture pundit seems to require extra finesse in explaining my point without sounding like we've got a list of excuses. I don't want to finish the argument and simply have reacted to every Scripture they've thrown at me.
I don't know if that makes sense and maybe it's me because I'm not a good verbal debater but it's something I get very frustrated with.
I proclaim this Thanksgiving to be "accost a complimentarian".
Wonderful stuff. Trembling touched on my biggest frustration, that being that traditionalists tend to try to make me feel like I'm making excuses for the Bible and throwing out things Christians have always believed. This is of course BS, especially with something like the rapture arguement as it is one of the younger (and dumber) ideas in Christian history. I'd rather throw out a traditional view than hold on to it in the face of it contradicting other biblically based views.
I think we have to step back and take a narrative approach to these marriage passages the same way we do with women in leadership passages. With leadership we can point to examples of women leading men in the early church and when we read scripture through that lens and realize that a literal reading of 1 Timothy for all women for all time makes Priscilla a hypocrate and sinner you come to the conclusion that you can't read it that way. It doesn't fit.
It's a little harder with marriage as we don't have details of marriages in the Bible really. (correct me if I'm wrong on this one) Jesus and Paul were single, some of our OT heroes had hundreds of women and the couples in the NT that are mentioned are not mentioned in detail. So what is our example? What does the narrative in the Bible tell us about marriage? I don't know if I have an answer to that but I think of Jesus redeeming us, not to be in relationship with God like Noah, or Moses or any other pre-Jesus person of the faith, Jesus redeemed us to be in relationship with God as it was in the Garden. Sin gone, or at least paid for. We are redeemed to live with each other and God like Adam and Eve before the fall. Partners. I don't recall Adam being given authority over Eve, in fact didn't God make a pretty clear distinction between Adam and Eve's relationship with animals (authority) and with each other (partnership)?
Also, it is worth noting again that these instructions are coming to people in a patriarchal society. Wives submit to your husbands right alongside slaves obey your masters. Jesus called people to do things appropriate for their culture but I can't imagine that he meant us to take those as hard rules for all time. Men being head of the house was a given in that culture, Jesus didn't need to teach that, the point is that he was telling them to be head of the house the way HE is head of the church, by serving. The point is not that man is the head or in charge, it's that the headship of man was being turned upsidedown. It was a revolutionary teaching for its time. I don't take it to mean I am head of the house today, that is not true for my culture or my marriage.
Is accost equivalent to agrivated asault because I might have got myself into a little bit of trouble.
I agree with much that has been stated already. It bothers me too that when you promote a new view it means that you hate tradition or that you don't take the Bible seriously. I have been reading a few history books for a class I am taking. One of the subjects that has come out is the issue of slavery. The church should have been leading the way in changing society, and some were, but bye and large the church miss handled this situation. Though it is much easier now to say such things.
It seems that most of agree that women should be allowed to hold all the church offices that men do but I am wondering how do we go about changing people's attidues. This is an issue that could destroy churches and families. But on the other hand it could help in the promotion of the gospel and in being the people of God we are called to be. When the history books are written on our times will it say that we weren't proactive enough or that liberal evanglicals caused a schizm in many churches over a non-issue. I am not wanting to shoot for the middle of the road here. I don't think that is going to help but I am not sure how to go about this?
I haven't completed working over my complimentarian for the weekend, but I had a thought or two about how things would work in an egalitarian church/home.
I think God has declared us all equal, but also expects us to find and accept roles in church and home according to our gifts/callings/passions/maturity/abilities and even based on how we "fit" with the others that are there. I think some (maybe even many?) women actually prefer a non-leadership role in the home. Maybe some men don't like leading. Maybe no one wants to do anything. In the church, by definition, only a few actually lead. So when we say we think roles should be open to women, I certainly don't think we're saying women HAVE to lead in the church or the home.
In the home, I think there is enough leeway given in the Bible for families to decide to run themselves a variety of different ways. Thing is, a man, in a perfect egalitarian home, SHOULD be SURE, if he is to lead, that that that is the model he and his wife agree on. Then they should talk about how that's going to work. Maybe you want to decide to share leadership. Each in areas of strength. Maybe you want the woman to lead.
Heck, maybe every family should have this conversation, and have it again every couple years! However you want to work it out it has to be in a relationship of mutual sumbission if it is going to be a Christ-like home.
In the church I think we have a little less freedom though, since, sure, you could decide unanimously as a church not to have women in leadership but then one new family comes to the church and you have to ask yourselves all over again if you are giving the women in that family every opportunity God would want them to have. Might as well cut to the chase from the get go.
As per Tuna's question, how do we make this happen? How about slowly, but not too slowly? Respectfully. With dialogue rather than usurping and power-plays. Biblical discussion and heart sharing in a safe environment would be ideal.
And I think if a church becomes egalitarian they should expect to break it in slowly. Even break its first female leader in slowly. I don't know. I just think there aren't actually many models of how good female leadership is to look and so you can't expect a woman to just come in and do it like a man or for everyone to be used to it right away.
But you can't let the issue go untreated and undiscussed for long. Otherwise you aren't dealing with it at all.
Happy Thanksgiving all.
Philosophum non facit barba (A beard does not define a philosopher)
You know ever since I started becoming an egalitarian I've begun to wonder what it means to be a man? What does it really mean to be a woman?
I think we operate on stereotypes based on generalities, which may be more or less accurate, but then when someone doesn't fit the mold, my oh my, what do they do? Question their sexuality or question the mold? Either way, its scary stuff.
I think there are general female traits and general male traits. I also recognize that only women can have babies and only men can be circumcised. But what else, biblically speaking, HAS to be different?
Gender stereotypes. HOw accurate are they? If accurate, we've got problems because the mold is breaking. If inaccurate, we've got problems too, because the mold is binding.
Stereotypes, and the breaking of them, can hurt in many different ways. Obviously in this blog we're talking about women being held back. However, a lot of women thrive on homemaking and serving roles, and this role has actually been downgraded in our society. Even in the church I wonder how many women are complimentarian somewhat because they are tired of being told a woman has to work in an office to be worth anything.
Often men are thrust into leadership who are not interested nor gifted but they believe they must in order to prove their spiritual mettle. I'm all for challenging men to step up, but is this always right?
And how many gays has the church produced by telling boys they cannot cry and that they have to play in sports that require a jock strap? If more boys were affirmed that its okay they like ballet or love Breakfast at Tiffany's, and could discover the manhood that fit for them, I wonder how fewer we'd have struggling with homosexuality to begin with. I'm not blaming homosexuality on the church, but I often wonder if we realize what a factor our gender perceptions and attitudes have affected this phenomenon.
If this is too tangential for this early in the month I apologize to Tanti, adn to you all. Please keep on course, there is much to discuss. But I feel this is a closely related issue, and I've even thought about doing my thesis on it. (I probably won't though, so don't get too excited)
Gramen artificiosum odi (I hate Astroturf)
Good tangent Fear, it's almost not even a tangent since stereotypes are part of the root of the problem here.
Good point about women being complementarian just because they don't want to be made less-than for not being leaders. It would be great if they'd step back and fight for their fellow women who are though. I think the single biggest struggle of a passionate egalitarian woman is to not look down on women who disagree and don't pursue leadership.
The same concept drives some ungifted men to go into leadership because this belittling of the non leader has gone on for men for all time, and shouldn't.
A man who is gifted with compassion and nurturing may be slightly less common but it doesn't make it any less meaningful. Just as a women who is not gifted in those ways shouldn't be criticized for it. There are general differences between men and women but the exceptions are many and I'm not convinced that many of the generalizations aren't just caused by our culture anyway.
What bugs me is when men and women use their stereotype as an excuse. The man who doesn't work on compassion and emotion because it's not "masculine" and the woman who doesn't search to find if she has leadership gifts because it's not feminine."
I agree with DRC, i see no tangent in Dr. Fear's post. Good points to bring up.
I wonder to how much of an extent our so called stereotypical gifts are just a product of tradition and conditioning. There are obviously some giftings that are predominantly gender specific, but when it comes to things like leadership in the home and family we have to keep in mind that we have been training and nurturing and even enforcing leadership on males for many thousands of years.
It would not be surprising to me if many women, as Fear pointed out, did not want to be leaders in the home or church. I'm going to make a big generalization here, but for the most part it is men who seem to be the most capable leaders in our culture. I'm not speaking about potential here because in that regard i believe both genders to be blessed in equal measure. I'm just referring to the way our society encourages giftings in each gender that tend to parallel the stereotypical roles of male and female.
I'm sure the situation would be quite different today in the church for example if we had been raising up and nurturing the leadership gifts of our women over the last two centuries to the same degree as the men.
It is tough to know what to do though. As fear said, people don't really know what a strong and gracious female leader would look like in the church. At least not in the evangelical denominations.
For my part, if I was asked for names of women I would recommend for the senior pastor of a church I would have a terrible time coming up with any. I wish that wasn't the case, because I would have no problems following a capable leader that happened to be a lady; and I'd love to see a lot of those roles in the future being filled by strong women of Christ. But unfortunately it takes times.
Nice new layout for the site by the way. Pretty posh.
Smorgasbord
I love where this conversation has gone. So interesting. I have lots to say, but only a minute to type... Here's my main question then. CSU, what is lacking in the women you know that none of them would be someone you would recommend as a senior pastor? What is it that we're not fostering in women that might empower them to be better potential leaders? You don't know a single woman who you would consider a strong and gracious leader?
Whoops, let me clarify what I meant. I know many women who I consider to be strong and gracious leaders; I was referring specifically to the role of senior pastor and preaching duties and all that goes along with that. I'm sure there are plenty of women who could fill that role quite admirably, I just don't know any at this point of my life. Somebody introduce to me to one so that I might marry her.
As for your other question about things lacking;I think there are lots of reasons why this might be the case:
1)Leadership giftings are often encouraged in boys and subdued in girls in their formative years. Which is only compounded by societal expectations that tend to be stereotypically gender specific.
2)There is a lot of pressure from the more traditional churches against allowing women leadership roles; and I know many people who have are seem to be content just doing the children's pastor gig instead of trying to change anything.
3)In the church context; for a guy who shows an inclination to preaching and teaching there would be all sorts of encouragement for him to go into ministry and get behind the pulpit. For a woman with the same giftings she would face an uphill battle a good portion of the way. My point is that even if women might technically be permitted to regularly preach or lead in a few of our churches, the encouragement is not there and there is still tons of opposition.
When I think of some of the best male leaders and teachers and preachers I know; I think that the majority of them had their gifts recognized early. The gifts and abilities were nurtured by friends and family and mentors, lofty goals were encouraged and seen as attainable, etc... The leadership road just seems to be easier for the male, especially in the church. I strongly believe that there shouldn't be that gender bias, but I think that it is still predominant.
If I gave the impression that I believe males make better leaders that was definitely not what I meant. I'm just saying that society and especially church society tend to make it easy for a male leader and difficult for a female one.
I know a few women who would make excellent lead or preaching pastors. theHansens being one of them.
CSU is right though, there are barriers for women that don't exist for men and many women don't even acknowledge the barriers let alone push through them to pursue leadership gifts in themselves.
So what do we do? Just accept that change will come slowly or force change to move quicker and risk offending people?
Frankly I'm at the stage that I no longer care if my view on this offends a traditionalist because their view offends me.
schizm.
This might be a bit of a tanget but I think churches shouldn't look for those who really want to be leaders, man or women. Someone should run away from leadership as much as they can and if they still are called on then they should lead. This goes for churches as much as politicians.
I was thinking as well about women who I would support as a senior pastor and the list isn't long. Again this isn't to say there isn't qualified women but they don't come to the surface the way that men do. In college many of the women who were wanting to be senior pastors scared me. They seemed like they were more concerned with making waves then promoting the gospel. Like I said earlier, leadership should be given to those who are qualified but who as well try their best to run from it.
Maybe the place we start in trying to bet more women into leadership areas is by encouraging those around us to pursue education and ministry opportunities. It meant a lot to me that people encouraged me on. That solidfied in me the sense that God had called me for this purpose. This can be more easily down with younger women but with adult women as well we can encourage them on to get into areas of ministry that they might be hesitant to. God has called us at times to push people off the diving board because they won't jump on their own.
CSU, just so you know- I didn't at all get the impression that you thought men would make better leaders than women. I was just curious about what is lacking in the potential female leaders around us that holds us back for considering them senior pastor material. I think we all agree that for the most part, women are not encouraged to pursue church leadership, even if their giftings should take them that way.
But, I'm not convinced that encouraging women to pursue education and ministry opportunities is the only way to tackle this problem. As I mentioned above with the woman I know who left the Alliance to pursue ministry in the Anglican church, there comes a point where women are held back at a denominational level. So how are we ever to start seeing great female leaders, modeling gracious and humble leadership to the next generation, if they are never given the opportunity at the institutional level? Sure, encourage all the women you know who are gifted to get into ministry, but why push them off the diving board if there's no water in the pool?
Also, I am guilty of being one of those women who don't push through the barriers precisely because I don't want to be that woman who seems more interested in making waves than promoting the gospel. I will continue to try and tackle this issue in individual conversations with people, with as much grace and wisdom as I can, but I don't think I should be the one to raise a motion at general assembly.
TheHansens is quite right about the denominational barriers. We can deal with the nurturing of giftings all we want but there still have to be institutional changes to realize the equality we all long for.
The Alliance's refusal to ordain women must be such a huge slap in the face to all our female pastors out there in our denomination. Its such a double standard; why do we even open up pastoral roles to people we are not willing to annoint in their ministry then?
I assume this a national office level issue and not just something that can be dealt with at the local church level.
I don't know too much of the politics of why this is still the case. It seems to me that it is not an intentional withholding of blessing on the ministry of our female leaders but rather a last ditch effort to keep them out of the lead pastor role. Maybe I'm quite out to lunch on that but that's the impression I get.
At the same time, it seems like most people who are staunch egalitarians are more concerned with not offending (which is a noble cause)than about getting this issue on the table. Its definitely a problem that needs to be tackled with grace through conversation and relationships like thehansens said, but at what point do you just have to risk offense and be aggressive in getting this problem dealt with. Like Tanti said, it seems the traditionalists aren't too concerned about offending the egalitarians, but when that relationship is put in reverse it seems that nothing happens for fear of offending.
pseudopygrapha
Funny that overly agressive and ungifted men who push their way into leadership don't sully the water for their entire gender. And there are many of them.
I liked Tuna's comments on humility and theHansens comments on her honest reasons for why she hasn't been agressive. Interesting that theHansens' attitude fits in well with Tuna's idea of humility as a prerequisite.
Conclusion, if theHansens plants a church in the lower mainland and is lead pastor, I will attend and serve in said church.
as will I.
nice word CSU. what is that again?
I must say that, despite tanti's vented frustrations (which I totally understand) I would still encourage us to push our complimentarian friends while still trying not to offend. Or better put: not be a jerk about it. I think if Christ is on our side then he'll want us to overcome, and not succumb to those fiesty temptations. And if He's not, well, I'd rather find out through gracious conversation than fall flat on my face in the proccess of dissing somebody.
I think the best we can do is continue sparking this conversation in our spheres of influence (pausing to consider that those might be larger than we think) and to continue to make sure that conversation seeks to properly apply the Bible, not become a war of presuppositions.
i agree with tuna about leaders who want to be leaders too badly, but on the other hand, once someone has the unction and affirmation to pursue pastoring, or to maintain pastoring in the face of opposition and disrespect, we should not misinterpret their perseverence and confidence as self-promoting pride. sometimes a mark of a good leader is that he or she has not shied away from the call (which, let's face it, is almost a burden too big to bear, considering how many churches chew pastors for breakfast. speaking of which, can you imagine a female senior pastor and how much she'd have to deal with disrespect? i've worked for many women bosses and although I believe I submitted and respected their leadership, I have always felt I was in the minority. i think for several decades even women senior pastors will desperately need the support of a strong board, and they'll have to be comprised of a significant number of men, or else she'll be martyred).
i did my homework by the way. i asked a complimentarian why she was a complimentarian, and while she wasn't too sure on the church-leadership issue but she had a great point on the home-leadership issue. made me stop in my tracks anyways. i'll include the quote here and be done with it for now. i have some thoughts, but i think it is a good reminder that this case is not totally clear cut ...
(try to read this without your interpretive filter on)
"You wives will submit to your husbands as you do to the Lord.
For a husband is the head of his wife as Christ is the head of his body, the church; he gave his life to be her Savior. As the church submits to Christ, so you wives must submit to your husbands in everything." Eph 5
Questions:
1) is the Bible our "norming norm"?
2) how do you explain this text?
3) if you read this with an egalitarian slant, are you sure you aren't doing eisegesis (reading in) rather than exegesis (reading out)
4) could you be a complimentarian at home and an egalitarian at church?
5) could a complimentarian husband delegate some aspect of home leadership to the wife?
Peccatum tacituritatis (Sin of silence)
pseudopygrapha: false gospels written under false names.
This is the only definition i could find online. The word doesn't exist in any of the online dictionaries I referenced. Last time I heard the word used it was in reference to a Tim Lahaye book that I may or may not have been reading.
Headship of men was a given in that culture, is that the point of Ephesians 5 or is Paul speaking into headship with instruction about it rather than speaking about headship? Paul used similar language in telling servants to obey their masters, this was not a teaching on slavery it was a teaching into the idea of slavery. The point wasn't slavery it was mutual respect by slave and owner. Just as the marriage passages are about mutual submission and service by husbands and wives.
To assume Ephesians 5 is telling all men to be the heads of every marriage for all time is to read the Bible in the way I don't.
I agree with you that the historical/cultural context should cause us to recognize in this text a radical departure from the top-down sort of domineering husband to wife relationship that would have been common in those days, and I also agree that this text is not warranting a "shut up and do the chores" sort of submissiveness in wives...
...but I don't think it can be labelled mere assumption for complimentarians to take from this passage that "all men [are] to be the heads of every marriage for all time". Sure, Paul is speaking into headship, but he doesn't speak against it, in fact he affirms it and grounds it in a parallel with Christ's relationship to the church. I'm not saying there aren't biblically appropriate ways that this can still be reconciled with an egalitarian reading ... but we can't deny the difficulty of this passage.
I am trying to suspend my opinion of this passage in order to grapple with the perspective of complimentarians in a way that does not over-simplify them as merely presupposition-driven. (Egalitarians can make the same mistake.)
Even if we appeal to hermeneutics (the question you raised, as to HOW we read the Bible) it is difficult to argue through this passage. I'm not saying its impossible, in fact, if I may paraphrase GK: we must not join those who see something as difficult and therefore leave it untried.
confidence in the veracity of the WOrd of God for all time tells me that this passage as well as any other can be trusted to be used by God to have His way. I believe GOd would have us strive toward egalitarian modes of thought, and I trust that an honest treatment of this passage as well as the others will drive us there, provided those on either side of the fence allow it, through our discussion, to do that.
Maybe I'm naive, but if I don't hope for that then what's the point of discussion except as a search for those who agree with me so that I may saddle up to them more closely?
I'm not saying you oversimplify tanti. I like and appreciate your answer. It is in fact what I would say is my answer. But I'm not so sure its as easy as all that either.
Amantes sunt amentes (Lovers are lunatics)
I appreciate the rebuke Fear. I'm just saying that is how I see it but my one-sided bias doesn't lend any help to a more fulfilling discussion.
I do hold to my point though and though you're correct that Paul is affirming the headship of the husband he also affirms the authority of a master in a master/slave relationship. I just don't think headship of slavemaster authority are the point of either teaching.
I also acknowledge the trickiness of this passage as the temptation with Paul's letters is to read them as direct instructions to us today. That is even how I was taught to read them at a young age. When a narrative approach is taken and these passages are put in context they become less tricky but no doubt still not easy.
On of my profs told me once that he sees Paul's teaching as points on a line. A projected line like a harpoon throw. Using slavery as an example; Paul taught about respect of slaves and obedience by slaves. This was a step beyond the view of the day but cannot have been Paul's intention to the be the final teaching on this issue. We see in Philemon and elsewhere that Paul is hinting that it's time to be done with slavery.
Paul's teachings on women may be further back on the harpoon projection but were no doubt a step beyond the norm and there is implications that he advocates for this progression to continue elsewhere. How would Paul himself line up his teaching of wives to be submissive with his non-distinction between the authority of Priscilla and Aquilla?
If I believe Paul meant one thing but practiced something that went against his own teaching I have to rethink my interpretation of his teaching don't I?
i didn't really mean it as a rebuke, but if it came across that way, you took it well. i guess i have questions, even of the view I hold, especially in the face of a tough eph 5-6 passage. so in keeping with that, let me ask
? - does the master/slave now parallel the boss/employee relationship? if it does, you still have lingering authority/submission issues, even if the submission is "on the job" and voluntary?
? - does Paul really say either way whether Priscilla & Aquilla's marriage had headship in it?
? - is the harpoon thing strong enough to lead to an outright rejection of male-led families, in the same way that we now see slavery as WRONG? i mean, i think it is pretty clear on how a husband is supposed to treat his wife, and oppression is certainly wrong, but doesn't Paul leave the door open for families to choose the old-fashioned model if they want to?
he certainly didn't seem to want to squash the idea altogether.
? - why reference the Christ/church relationship? (that's a big question I think)
all that said, i do wonder how many look the other way on oppression in the home, simply calling it headship, when it in no way represents the kind of thing Paul was talking about in Eph 5, even if he was allowing for it.
I think no matter what family model you use, Eph 5 is powerful stuff for husband and wife to live like Christ. Eph 6 is powerful stuff for employees today too, who so often seem to think they are getting paid to gripe (myself included). where is the passage that condemns jerky christian bosses though?
i digress (thats latin for "i digress")
Good points Fear. I'm not saying homes where the man is the head are wrong, I'm saying the harpoon theory leads me to view these passages as instructions to the leader in the home regardless of gender. As you pointed out well Fear the leadership can change hands depending on the situation as well so it's not always the same person.
The point cannot be stressed enough that this headship or leadership is described by Paul as service, sacrifice, selflessness etc... I believe this is why the Christ/church example is given, to give an example of a radical departure from what headship was assumed to mean. I still think it is primarily part of a radical instruction into what was a given in their culture.
I have huge questions about the appropriateness of any member of the home enforcing things or oppressing the other member of the "one flesh."
I guess one of my other big influences for reading it this way is that the "authority" or "headship" of men just doesnt work. I can't think of a single couple where it's really being done, including and almost especially traditional couples. Also Christ is head of the church and he is flawless, perfect, each instruction is correct without fail. I don't know about you but I've never met a husband who's evenly close to perfect.
good points. well said tanti. i think you raise a good question of complimentarians of the home: what does it mean that that man is the head?
i think "headship" carries whatever baggage people want it to carry. for some maybe it means the woman staying at home and the man is the breadwinner. for soem i think maybe it means the man has veto power on things. for some unfortunately i think it just means the man is able to come home and sit on his roost, after all, every man needs a roost. for some, and I've seen this, i think the man is the sole identity-former and speaker for the family. everyone else falls in line. the wife, at least when the husband is around, really just fades into the background. this is sad, to me. for some maybe it means the man is to lead the household spiritually the way a pastor does the church (and this is by far the most admirable of the complimentarian applications of the passage I think). even then, though, i sure would rather have a "one-flesh" sort of give and take where each submits to the other, and each takes responsibility for the spiritual growth and practices of the family. certainly, even if Paul was allowing for "headship" to remain, this is more what he was proposing as the way things ought to work.
i'd really like to hear from anyone if they actually accosted any complimentarians, and what if anything they learned.
Hey guys, I've been out of the loop lately: busy with work.
I accosted a complimentarian but we didn't get a chance to talk much. We'll talk more later. Two interesting things he told me:
First, he seemed to indicate that we're squishing three views into two: we're suggesting that egalitarianism and complimentarianism are opposites on a spectrum; he seemed to suggest that complimentarianism was the middle road between egalitarianism and a hierarchal view.
Second, when I asked him about home leadership we talked about how submission, leadership, and living as an example is mutual... so WHAT is home leadership? His answer was that it had to do with responsibility; namely, men need to encourage their families in godliness and will be held responsible before the throne someday for doing (or not doing) that.
He mentioned something else, too, about Adam being considered the first to sin and that God called Adam in the garden. Unfortunatley, I have a migraine right now so I can't remember all the details and I don't feel like getting my Bible to look it up.
Anway, it was an interesting conversation but cut short. We're going to grab coffee and talk about this at greater length in about a week and a half.
My initial response to our conversation is this: I need more clarification on the difference between the hierarchal view and the complimentarian view since it seems to me that women in leadership is a hierarchal issue. Also, I'm still not convinced about the responsibility-before-the-throne issue being solely with the man... shouldn't women (wives/mothers) have the same responsibility? Why would it be different?
Today's sermon was about holding onto the truths of God tightly with a closed fist and reaching out to engage culture with an open hand. We tend to hold on to the "no women in leadership position" fairly strong but seem to be relaxed on so many other issues when, I believe, keeping women out of leadership makes us appear to be out of touch with our culture (by comparison, the opposite stance of allowing women to act in leadership roles won't do any harm and puts us in touch with our culture).
I have nothing funny to say here.
Paul calls both Adam and Even the first sinner at different times to make different points:
-------------------
1 Timothy 2:14
14And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner.
Romans 5:14
14 Still, everyone died—from the time of Adam to the time of Moses—even those who did not disobey an explicit commandment of God, as Adam did. Now Adam is a symbol, a representation of Christ, who was yet to come.
-------------------
I appreciated your comments Trembling, I also struggle with absolving women of spiritual responsibility. I'll be curious to hear more when you get more clarification from your complimentarian friend.
good points guys. i appreciate that trembling still posts during a 25 hour work day and with a migraine to boot.
i look forward to hearing about your coffee. i too plan to continue dialogue with the key complimentarians in my life. this is good.
your complimentarian friend has made a classic move by putting egalitarians and hierarchalists on either end of a spectrum with himself in the middle. while i appreciate what seems to be a good approach to his complimentarianism, i reject the distinction. in reality it is hierarchalists on one end of the spectrum and uber-feminists on the other (i.e. Artemesians). In the middle is where our debate is occurring.
he makes a good point thought that we can't lump all hierarchalism in with compli... any more than all feminism can be lumped in with us.
however, he may have to admit that his view lends itself to hierarchalism, if it isn't just a veiled form of it anyway.
thing is, with his veiw, maybe he might as well be an egalitarian. i think you could actually be a complimentarian and still believe in women as seniro pastors and elders, simply by the way you define and structure leadership in your church.
chew on that one. i'm out of latin.... for noooowwww ha ha ha ha ha!!!! (evil laughter fades into the background)
Interesting theory about spiritual responsibility lying with the male from Trembling's buddy. I don't have a problem with that idea as long as it isn't, to borrow a term from Tanti, exclusionary; i.e. just becuase that particular interpretation of the text could imply spiritual responsibility for the male, that doesn't require it to be SOLELY with the male. The female could just as well have an equal measure of spiritual responsibility which isn't dimished on the basis that it isn't mentioned in this text.
And one question for Tanti. Maybe I'm missing something obvious but I can't seem to see how adam is called the FIRST sinner in your Romans 5:14 passage. Clearly he is called a sinner, and maybe even the "chief of sinners" just by the fact that it is his name that is mentioned. Just curious, my engineering degree didn't allow for any electives in hermeneutics or greek much to my dismay.
On a side note I ordered book by Grenz on this issue on the recommendation of a certain Doctor we all know and love. I'm looking forward to reading it so I can contribute a little better to this discussion.
The Romans passage is interesting in that Paul mentions Adam as cause of sin, a symbol, he is not exclusively blamed here but he is blamed. 1 Timothy blames Eve entirely and even excludes Adam from blame.
Seems to me there is an even clearer example of Paul blaming Adam but I couldn't find it today, I apologize. It's not an amazing point or anything.
Fear, I think you're dead on about the two extremes and that our debate is all "on the road."
CSU: Romans 5:12 is the better verse, it was right there 2 verses away the whole time.
well done.
today on a tangent my prof said that he doesn't think egalitarian and complimentarian are good terms to use (and he's had an article published on this point) since both agree men and women are equal, and both agree men and women are different too. he says we should start over.
i see his point but don't think we need to be so drastic. when i use the term complimentarian and egalitarian i take it to mean we are discussing whether women have "equal opportunity" or whether they by nature have a "complimentary" role.
credo quia absurdum (i believe because it is absurd)
I know this was a few posts ago, but I haven't been able to check in for a few days...I just want to say thanks for your kind words guys. Undeserved but much appreciated.
I was trying to figure out how it was possible to be a complimentarian yet still believe in women as senior pastors and elders when I thought about the church we're attending here. They have done away with the term "elders board" and now have a "lead team." Women are a part of the lead team where I understand they were not allowed to be elders. Is this perhaps the complimentarians way of adjusting church structures so that women can share in the leadership? They aren't actually leading anyone by themselves- they're just on a team of leaders... Isn't that what the elders board was anyway? I'm not sure about it all. I've been trying to figure it out.
I'm curious, fear, what your prof would suggest we do to start over after we eliminate the terms egalitarian and complimentarian. Are we just changing our vernacular and starting again? I don't understand his point.
I confess, I didn't take our homework assignment seriously, but now that I see some of you have actually found a complimentarian and entered into discussion, I will do my best to seek out such dialogue. =)
I took my homework assignment so seriously that I have locked up a complimentarian in the closet under my stairs. From time to time I beat him with a small length of garden hose.
On a serious note: theHansens, it sounds like your church is trying to get around the "rule". But just like women who can lead as missionaries, it boils down to semantics. I think it shows that people are just honoring the "rule" when it's convenient.
So we all basically agree on this issue, it seems. Let's talk about a solution:
Sadly, one solution could be an exodus of women leaders to denominations who are more accepting. (Which could relate back to a discussion earlier about someone not knowing many quality women leaders).
Another solution is grassroots change, which I think is happening in the denomination. Slowly.
But there are many hold-outs. My church told us flat-out during our membership interview that women would never serve on the elder's board. I know that this blog is read by my pastor and at least one elder (Hi SJ & KC!!!) so I could be excommunicated next week when I say this, but how would we recommend change in churches like that? We're both coming at the same issue with Scripture. Appealing to logic might be the next step but it makes the egalitarian view seem unfaithful to Scripture (or so the rebuttal goes).
One potential drawback to pushing the solution could result in a push back in the opposite direction: women lose the ability to lead in other capacities (missions, etc.).
Note to faithful readers SJ & KC... no worries, boys. Don't excommunicate me yet over this issue! There are plenty of other perfectly good reasons to excommunicate me... not the least of which is the moonshine still or the guy who is trapped in the cell under my stairs.
i've been wondering where tuna was. but i didn't realize you locked him down there because he was a complimentarian. i thought he was just doing your dishes and some grouting work in your new washroom
i agree it is time to start talking solutions, since we're all flaming egalitarians. i'll think about your question trembling. also, i'm moving now from accosting my complimentarian to converting her.
i also wouldn't mind some talk about gender stereotypes, but maybe that's a future topic. maybe it could play into some of our discussion on solutions.
my grassroots attempt today is that i'm wearing a pink shirt. there are guys all around me in pink shirts so i know it is no big deal, but for me it feels like a huge test of my manhood. isn't that weird?
hansens, that leadership change in your church is exactly what i was talking about. even if a complimentarian believes women are excluded from AUTHORITY, it doesn't exclude team leadership, although it sort of ducks the issue too.
Trembling and Fear, you guys make me laugh. That garden hose comment had me cracking up in the office and making it obvious that I wasn't doing work at that moment. Back to the topic:
Isn't using the term Lead Team just semantics? How can a church which doesn't believe a woman can be an elder let her be on a lead team? Especially when that team is doing the job of elders? Now we're just replacing words to try to make everyone happy which cheats both sides.
I used to go to a church in Regina which had male and female deacons but only male elders. The elders made all the business decisions and the deacons did all the pastoral stuff. Not only do I think seperating the two types of leadership is dumb, I also know for a fact that the female input in this church was not taken seriously by the male "leaders".
My latest "solution" has been to start looking for a church my wife and I can go to where women are equals. This has sadly involved discontinued attendance at a church I enjoy, an Alliance church no less. This issue has always been a big one for me, even before I met my wife, and I guess now I'm finally feeling like I need to live it if I say it's that important to me. I wouldn't go to a church that didn't allow non-believers in the building or didn't allow unmarried people to be leaders. (I thought of playing the race card here but that seems a bit harsh)
The fear there is that the options are limited and I don't really want to go to a United church. Sorry if there are any United readers.
I think the solution does need to be grassroots and maybe it will involve going back to that Alliance church to try to be one of the egalitarian voices that is heard. We'll see.
I won't wear pink though.
Solutions:
DRC I can sympathisize with your frustrations since I know how strongly you and your wife feel about this. I also realize that the Alliance has been putting this issue off for many years and doing all they can to keep it on the backburner. So I can understand your desire to move on to a more progressively minded church, but I worry about where that leaves the Alliance churches when the passion for change leaves its congregations.
The tendency of churches to change semantics in order to accomodate women and maintain the illusion of male power by is just further evidence of trying sweep this issue under the carpet.
I would like to give a shout out to Trembling on his latest posts that have had me feigning a fit of coughing at work in order stifle my laughter. That garden hose bit was priceless.
I have developed an ideology concerning males and the wearing of pink. All it takes is confidence. Other guys will stare you down in a sort of passive confrontation. All you have to do is meet their eyes and don't look away first. That will show them that making fun of your fashion sense is not a good idea.
re: the wearing of pink. i think it ironic that those who insult men who wear pink are actually those least secure in their manhood.
re: leaving the Alliance. while I don't poopoo the tantian desire for another church, sometimes you just have to make that call, but i think it would be really worthwhile for us to seek resolution of this issue within our denomination and sticking with it as long as possible.
today in class we talked about church confessions, and how, implicit in them is a rejection of that which is not affirmed in the confession. and without the rejection the confession is without power (in a godly sense of the word). and i realize that in the Alliance when they decided to allow women as elders but left it up to individual churches to decide, what they did was make a powerless and useless confession.
it may have been an agreeable and appeasing solution at the time (and perhaps a first step), but it was a time bomb, and I think the next step has to be addressed.
logically speaking it is totally ridiculous that the denomination would say egalitarianism is allowable but also allow complimentarianism. logically speaking you have to ask yourself what side you want to err on. Do you want to be wrong as an egalitarian and risk misapplying a vague portion of scripture, or do you want to be wrong as a complimentarian and continue to hold women back (oppression)
re: solution. i don't want us to take ourselves too seriously here (after all we bring the crap to the table) but at the same time I want to take seriously the Subject behind the subjects we are discussing (even in an informal manner) on this blog (after all, the Spirit we do hope is bringing some holy to the table).
therefore i propose that we all think about where we end this discussion. i would like to draft a letter and send it to the head office for discussion at the Assembly level. Heck, we could even have it raised in time for discussion at the district level first, since the two conferences take place in alternating years. I'm not sure what our proposal would be, but we could write up something very short, and sign it, and see what happens.
it could be nothing more than a request that this issue be further dealt with ... but let's ask ourselves ... joking aside, blog informality aside ... do we mean what we say or are we just screwing around here?
i admit i could be wrong in my egalitarianism, but the current state of things is intolerable.
there is much more I could say but i'm in class and we're getting back at it here. what do you all think? I'm running high on starbucks here so maybe i'm getting too excited.
PS: ON a lighter note: A guy in our class just told us about his doctoral thesis, and he did it on the humourous sayings of JEsus. Intereesting eh? He called it "Proclaiming the Messiah's Mirth" but his first, and rejected title, was going to be "The Quest for teh Hysterical Jesus".
Jesus was funny. I'm counting on God having a sense of humour, otherwise I'm in trouble.
Fear, I love your idea of a letter and I agree that the freeing of women to be leaders in the Alliance was a weak move as they left it up to denominations and showed no courage either way. Ironically they likely did that to keep some of their more traditional churches from losing members and now they are losing members on the other side. They ended up annoying both sides without accomplishing anything.
It was a step in the right direction but did that step do more harm than good? And was it a step to them or the final decision?
I think I could stomach sticking it out in the Alliance and trying to give input rather than just leave. Reality is though that as passionate as I may be about this I am not a woman and it is far less personal for me. And I am only half of the decision making in my house.
while i'd encourage you both to stick with it, i can understand. once you have this egalitarian view it is hard not to sit in churches that are overtly complimentarian and not feel a little bit dirty. we listened to MLK Jr's I Have A Dream speech in class the other day and it was so inspiring on one hand and on the other I couldn't help wincing every time he said "freedom for all men". there is still a ways to go. I know that in different minds we have to remember that that means "human", but that jsut goes to show something doesn't it?
i have a lot of faith in the good people in the alliance though, and i have always been impressed with the assemblies and district conferences that i've gone to. i think we have a cautious denomination, but it is a truth seeking one, and i think if asked, they would reopen this file again, if they haven't planned to already.
i definitely think that when you write a letter, which i'm thinking i want to, you should be willing to follow it through. so i'm thinking whether i'd be willing to sii on a committee that did research on this if asked.
because as good as this blog is, and as convinced as i may be, i still think a lot of research is required on this. when you are making a denominational decision you have to try to leave no stone unturned.
Hey folks,
Just got back from Calgary (the Canadian Mecca). Glad to be home.
I'm into the letter but with my wife on staff at our church I have to think carefully about the ramifications.
Fear, you asked a great question about what side do we want to err on. It's a thought that has come up in several comversations with several complimentarians. I consistently hear from them that they are complimentarians because they want to err on the side of Scripture. What's interesting is that I, too, want to err on the side of Scripture but when they say that it seems to suggest that I'm not! I'm thinking that my new response will be that I'm going to err on the side of seeing more people brought to the throne of God (which is only possible when we have more leaders to lead more churches -- just think of the churches we could plant and the ministries that could occur and the people that could be reached with double the current leadership). To me, that clarifies the issue: I don't think God cares about the chromosones of the people he's gifted as leaders as long as those people are passionately building up the kingdom.
i fully agree with you and it is that response from complimentarians that most grates me. it is trumping the whole argument. it is an a priori assumption that their view is on the side of scripture! it also assumes a lot about the egalitarian view/viewer. it is offensive actually. maybe the best way to respons would be:
"you mean you want to err on the side of the accepted reading of scripture"
or
"you mean you want to err on the side of a literal interpretation of Scripture ... now tell me, do you believe God has an arm ...?"
or
"you mean you want to err on the side of a 'plain reading' of Scripture ... but can I ask what is the 'plain reading' of 1 corinthians when it says women should be wearing head coverings ...?"
any question that shows the assumption of the person and calls them to realize the need to at least have an honest discussion about the meaning of said Scripture would suffice, while trying hard not to fight offense with offense and staying kind.
I have finally escaped Trembling's torutre chamber. I have lost one foot in the process and have somehow gained the ability to shoot fire from my eyes. You would think this would be incredibly useful but it has caused more harm then good so far.
I agree with you Fear that we should stand behind our words if we mean it. We are still young but we do have a voice and unless we use it, it will not be heard. I am tried of church groups branching off. I don't want to leave my denomination over this issue but I do want them to make a real stand. Even if this stand when against my view it is better then take the Swiz position of neutrality (I hate the swiz so much!)
Hansens I disagree so much with what you church is doing trying to skirt this issue. What if we took the same position in regards to slaverly. We still would have slaves we would just dress them nicer and call them a less offensive name.
I have been reading in preparation for a church history class and it is amazing how often the church grew when it appealed to women and childern. Not to say we should abandon what we believe but we need to make church appealing to all; men, women and children. I do belive if we were to change our stance on this issue it would cause the church to grow and would make a difference in soceity.
In regards to the other posts about God calling Adam to account. This is an interesting passage. Eve did sin first but Adam is called to account first. Adam and Eve both sinned but Adam seems to be held to a greater responsibilty. Is this just for Adam or is it for all men? Do we have a commmand from God that says that men are going to held to account for their families faith or lack there of?
I will be incarated next week at the home of Frenzy. I'm not sure if I will be able to post from there and if the beatings will continue?
I think writing a letter is a good way to take action on what is obviously a serious issue for many of us posting on this site. I would be very interested in taking part in such a move, but I don't know how much clout my signature would hold now that we are not attending an Alliance church anymore. (Which I'm sad about actually and I miss it in many ways.) Although, now that I think about it, our membership is still with an Alliance church.
I also have a lot of faith in the good people of the Alliance and I don't feel as negatively about the previous decision to allow individual congregations to make the decision regarding women as elders. However, I always assumed it was a first step to start warming people up to the inevitable decision of mandating churches to allow women to lead. If it is not an issue on the future agenda of general assembly then I would be disappointed. That's why I'd happily support a letter that re-surfaces this issue so it doesn't get left in its current "floating" state.
I am also making a pilgrimage to the Canadian Mecca this coming week, so if I'm slow to reply to any action, please don't count me out.
Dr. Fear, I love the idea of the letter. How would we go about writing such a thing. Would we email it back and forth between the group members or post it as a new topic or something? Let me say again, I love it. Also, would we just have the members sign on or would it be open to others?
As a semi-permanent resident of the so-called Canadian Mecca I would like to welcome The Hansens to town and also express regret that I didn't get to see Dr. Trembling at all on his recent visit.
i didn't mean for this letter to become the only thing we talked about as a solution ... i think there are micro as well as macro things we should think about. for instance, i think the complimentarians in my life and i really need to get to the place where we can have good discussion about this, etc ...
but about the letter. in answer to csu's question i'd say we write one up through email and then we find a way to put whatever names on it are interested to go on it. i don't see it as a petition campaign, since i think our denomination respects the well-articulated and sincere requests of even a few of its members, but it can't hurt to have as many names on it as people who have heard about it and want to attach themselves to it. i guess having names and addresses on an electronic document would be enough as far as that goes.
for what it is, i think it is important that they be members of alliance churches, or at least long standing attenders. i'm not sure how that works. i for one am not even in an alliance church, or any church at all at present, and so that may complicate things. i also am still an official worker, and ordained, so that may be enough. i don't know how to proceed though. trembling is right that having his wife in the pastorate complicates things for him. it shouldn't, i suppose, but you want to leave no impression that you are just playing politics or whatever.
i had thought i'd just draft something up and email it around for input from whoever was interested. but as i've thought about it i wonder if i should go have a sit-down with my District Superintendent first. He's a good man and there is no replacement for a face to face. then a letter could be written, or not written, based on actual knowledge and advice from a wise and good man on the state of things and the best way to proceed.
if you think i, or you, should do this, say so, because i have to admit i may need the exhortation to get it done.
back to the issue. would our church today allow for the scenario below?
"Hilkiah the high priest, Ahikam, Acbor, Shaphan and Asaiah went to speak to the prophetess Huldah ... She said to them, 'This is what the Lord, the GOd of Israel, says [to the king] ...." (2Kings 22:14-16)
Huldah seemed to have the authority to bring God's Word, even to the king, the high priest, etc...
Does that defend the view that women can't have the offices, but can still have the influence?
Or does that tell us that we have over-attached ourselves to some culturally situated instructions of Paul rather than the overall point that women can do it all?
Fear,
I've asked complimentarians about other women leaders in the Bible, as you mentioned in your last post (Deborah from Judges springs to mind). A common answer I hear is that "if God can't find a man to do the job, he'll send a woman" or "if no man is obedient to do the job, God will send a woman." (I've heard both).
To me that's specious reasoning because it's completely unprovable, making it a very convenient argument for complimentarians. Also, I think it limits God to suggest that he couldn't find a man to do the job. And to say that there are no obedient men out of the millions and millions of faithful Christian men in the world today is a little suspect. (And if that's the case, why are they leading in North American churches?) Still, I hear this nonsensical argument A LOT.
Here's a possible solution: why not push the other way ("toward" the complimentarian view) and argue that no women should be in leadership anywhere, including the mission field. Petition the Alliance to send men to remove the women who are in "disobedient" authority overseas and select men to replace them. When hundreds of North American male pastors discover that they are being hand-picked to move to a third world country, they may consider changing their minds about their position. (Okay, I guess I'm being a little sarcastic... but it could work!)
I also want to apologize to everyone for supporting the letter in theory but not in practice. That makes me sound wishy-washy. My wife just started on the pastoral staff at our church and it's clearly her calling so I don't want to disrupt that. She's waited a long time to do this and I'd selfishly rather see her do her job than for me to announce my position on the matter and take that away from her.
i don't want to sound anti-bible here but maybe a logical argument is the way to go.
i.e.
1) Okay, so God wants men to lead but if they aren't stepping up or they can't then God will use women
2) So then when we are taking resumes for senior pastor at our church let's take them from men and women and if no men are really filling what we're looking for then let's take a woman.
In other words, on what basis do you decide whether men are there to do the leading or not? Whether anyone will take the job? I imagine GOd could've found some man to do agree to take Deborah's place! So maybe it isn't enough that men are willing, but they must be qualified too. Okay, so what qualifications were totally absent from men everywhere that led God to skip the whole gender and go get Deborah?
Godliness? Integrity? Gifts of Leadership? Wisdom? Commitment to God? Faithfulness to His Word? Love for the people?
At this point, if you haven't noticed, using a complimentarian argument we have arrived at an egalitarian way of finding leaders.
You make an interesting point Fear:
According to Alliance practic, God can't seem to find very many men who are qualified or obedient to go overseas, but he's certainly willing to fill North American churches with men who are (in some cases) underqualified (possibly because it would just be too darn awful and extra disobedient to have a woman running the church???)
(And, of course, when I say "North American" I really mean "white Anglo-Saxon" because this doesn't apply to Mexico where women can have leadership over men).
I appreciate the logical, biblical, and emotional arguments being made here. They are all valid. I don't know if Fear and Trembling forwarded the email to everyone that was from one of our readers named Heidi, but I read it today. This email is exactly why we can't let this become just another contraversy. There is too much at stake, too many leaders with unused gifts, too much ignoring of women, too much promoting of ungifted men simply because of their gender and their willingness.
"If God can't find a man..." are you kidding me?! What a ridiculous arguement. God can find a man anytime he wants, He's God, the fact is that many times he didn't look for a man, he used a woman. I think he'd still like to if we'd stop making them play in the sandbox with the kids ministry. Not that there's anything 'less-than' about kids ministry, it's just typically the one pastoral role that any church will give to a woman no matter what their stance is on women in leadership and then they pat themselves on the back for letting women be leaders.
I'll help write and sign on to this letter. I've sat down with pastors and profs to talk about this issue and I agree with Fear that face to face is the best starting point. If you are willing to have that face to face Fear that would be great.
I don't think we can possibly state this too strongly though, this is an issue of dramatic importance and if we are to err on any side I'd rather err on the side that does not oppress anyone. And complimentarians do not err on the side of scripture, they err on the side of selective reading of scripture.
I also understand Trembling's hesitancy here and I cast no judgement if he decides not to sign on. But we must ask ourselves how much this issue means to us. For me it has become enough to consider leaving the Alliance for good. That's a big deal and having come to that point if the Alliance were to discipline members or pastors for expressing their opinions on this then it would only solidify my desire to part ways with what used to be a radical movement. To me it is much more contraversal to be against women in leadership because it goes against many biblical examples and only adheres to a small number of cultural instructions from Paul while ignoring many of his other cultural instructions as Fear pointed out.
It is time for men to step up and demand to be lead by gifted women. It is also time for women who are gifted to step up and lead.
i agree with tanti that this is more important than given credit. why do we only care once we actually come to know a woman who particularly is held back? and then once it becomes personal we feel we can't say anything because we are biased? No wonder no one ever says anything! WE don't care enough unless someone we love is adversely affected, and then when we are personally affected aren't allowed to say our piece because of our "vested interest".
what happened to doing what's right just because it is right? if we leave it to the oppressed to fight for themselves and then condemn them for just being squeaky wheels then no wonder they leave us.
i'm going to post my position paper on my blog (www.thissideofsunday.blogspot.
the turning point in this whole thing for me was realizing there are women out there who may be leadership gifted and empassioned but obey Paul and don't assert themselves boistrously but find a way to serve God within the system ... and likewise realizing that the system is nevertheless holding them back and they are feeling the hurt from that
Complimentarians need to ask themselves: What if I'm wrong? Then I'm an oppressor.
If Egalitarians are wrong, let it be shown and then let's figure out how real male leadership is supposed to take place in the church and home. But at least if we're wrong the most harm we've done is put a few leaders in place who maybe shouldn't have been there. This would be unfortunate, but on the other hand it happens all the time. I'm not trying to downplay the seriousness of going against God's Word. If either side is wrong it is serious. But Complimentarians should at least check themselves and stop being so flippant about this, because I believe the Complimentarian error is incredibly serious.
Let's affirm women. Many if not most of them may find their primary gifting in the home or what not, and even many of them may prefer to follow a leader. Many men feel teh same way. We should affirm the role of the home maker in an age when it is seen as a lowly position. But we should also affirm those women who feel leadership and teaching callings. Holding them back must crush the heart of God. And while Paul did not want these women asserting themselves, since it goes against the servant leadership he wants men and woment to practice, I do believe Paul saw a day when the men would stand up for them.
As a matter of fact the implication of 1 Tim 2 is that men start teaching and equipping these women, and the underlying message in this book is that instead of spreading old wive's tales the women of Ephesus should become bearers of the Truth.
This is a rant and I am not feeling like apologising for it. This month's topic is winding down and I think its one last chance for a few good men to stand up and rant. (I do intend to meet with the DS for a good conversation about this. Despite my rant I do want to reason this out and I always stand open to correction. But let's not NOT CARE.
And complimentarian women. I know its hard to affirm women as leaders because you don't even feel all that affirmed as a follower to begin with. But think about your fellow women and how much you both desire to be affirmed in what you feel is GOd's calling and gifting on your life.
Let's at the very least reopen this issue. ITs important.
Rant over.
I think one of the concerns many people will have with pushing this issue to the forefront and getting it dealt with is the possibility of many women being pushed/led into leadership simply because they are women and not because they are gifted leaders.
If we are honest I think we would agree that over the last hundreds and even thousands of years it has been mainly men that have been groomed and trained and educated for the sorts of roles that we would like to see opened up to women.
Therefore I think the decision must be made to open up leadership to our women immediately, but that the implementation must be done very carefully.
This puts a huge weight on our bible schools and churches especially regarding the implications of 1 Tim 2 that Fear alluded to: that we should be teaching and equipping women now for the roles that may not yet be open to them yet but always should have been.
Kudos to Tanti for blasting that "if God can't find a man" argument. I can't believe that would actually be used to defend why I woman might "sneak" her way into a leadership role somehow.
I like the passion and conviction of the rants by Fear and Tanti; I realize much is at stake for you and your families based on how the Alliance chooses to tackle this issue. I also like the urgency in your posts, this has been sitting on the backburner for too long, its time for it to boil over.
I'm curious why the forces for change aren't coming from the faculties at our bible colleges. Maybe it is to some extent but it sure doesn't seem to be very vocal. These are the people that should be influencing policy, the kind of people who make a vocation of study/interpretation of the word of God. But I guess God has used a lot of people at the grassroots level to stir up change in the past as well, so why not now.
I'm looking forward to reading and helping to contribute to this letter we are proposing. There is definitely alot of good material in this very discussion to make up a great defense of our case.
It's time to call out the complimentarians in our denomination and have them support their policy in an open and dialectical manner rather than with a closed minded and defensive posture.
We, the church, and those the church is supposed to minister to have missed out on too much blessing and gifting for too long.
At the very least its time for some consistency. If our denomination does not feel women are gifted to lead then we need to stop letting them lead in all aspects of our ministry, foreign and domestic. Let's not disparage the children and the people in the mission fields by saying that they are fit to be led by a woman while we in our patriarchal north american churches are somehow offlimits.
As well the refusal of our denomination to ordain women needs to be attacked with ferocity. This is a such a slap in the face to any woman who chooses to minister within the alliance denomination, as well as to anyone who cares about the health of our churches and our faith.
If we recognize that women are able and even gifted and blessed to lead in our churches overseas and even in some limited roles here then we nead to make that categorical. Otherwise we are without defense against accusations of prejudice and even racism.
Somebody show me were to sign!!
I think the complimentarian argument for women leading children or in other cultures might go something like this:
"Paul's instruction was situational, yes, but it was a situation where women leading was not a societal norm and therefore would have unnecessarily impeded the gospel's spread. So in our churches it isn't the norm and so we don't want to hurt our ministry. But with children it is normal and accepted. And in other cultures the women are accepted as leaders sent with proper commendation and so they are respected. (Are they?) Also they might argue that women leading children and leading overseas are under the authority of men so its okay.
To which I counter the following:
Why is it that only in our churches in this society is it not normal for women to lead? And if they can lead under male authority overseas then could they not lead at home under the denomination's blessing? It seems all we need (if we're complimentarians) is for someone at the very top to be a man.
I obviously think a woman could be our president, but even with the complimentarian arguments there is still a great case to be made, based entirely on insisting on consistency in argumentation, for women as senior pastors or elders.
About this letter. I don't know if we're making a case or just asking for the case to be reopened.
I don't know about coldstorage and underacheiver, but I do know that 3 of us are not currently in C&MA churches and one of us has conflicting interests so I'm not even sure how far a letter will go.
Would you that aren't in Alliance churches right now consider going back if it meant you could have a voice in the potentially exciting changes that could come with persistence and kindness in our own denomination on this? (I know you haven't officially "left" the denomination, but actions speak louder than words.)
I need to meet with my DS to get perspective on this. I would suggest that when this topic gives way to the next on Nov 1 we keep a dialogue on this post as well concerning where this all ends up.
If this issue were reopened I would go back to the Alliance to have my voice heard. I'm still a member and a leader in the youth ministry at SAC and frankly with my 2 attendances on Sunday morning in the last few months I've been there more often than some.
Great passion guys, Fear I loved your point about women even in Ephesus being trained which implies that the command to not teach was temporary and specific to that location. That ties into the Spilsbury harpoon theory.
Unit, you bring a perspective I've never thought of, that being the racism inherent in the overseas exemption of this rule.
Tell us when you have this meeting Jon, I'll watch your blog for your position paper.
As I was talkikng with Fear a interesting point came out. We have been focusing on our discussion on women senior pastors. The comments that have come out have been about the few women who we know that would do well in this kind of role. But more to the point what about women elders? I know many women who would make great elders. They may not see themselves serving in that capicty but I think they would do well. Elders board are hurting because of the lack of women on them. There are some ideas and points of view that women offer that I would never offer in a million years. not because I am closed minded but because I am man. I do support women having the opportunity to be pastors but the need that is really pressing is women elders.
true. i can think of dozens of women who would be great, and maybe should be, elders in their lifetime. it is a tough assignment, one i think many men would be happy to share. elders boards would most certainly benefit. and even though it is hard, i imagine few elders have ever come away from it not having grown in their faith. service = growth, i've found. especially service in leadership, especially when you have those capacities. to not get a chance to exercise them must be like having a muscle you never use.
i suppose we are nearing the end here. coldstorageunit will be bringing us our new topic in a few days.
i'd still like to hear from you on this topic so if you accost any complimentarians or anything in the next while post us here. i am really curious about this one. i'll try to post an update on my meeting when it happens.
a final comment though: the complimentarian i "accosted" seems to have come around. our discussions helped i think but what did it for her actually was just being made to think it through, and then she had a chance meeting with a female christian leader she really respects ... and that "sealed the deal" as they say.
once you see that it is biblically warranted, it is hard to look at the church, or women leaders, the same way again.
this issue is not over for me. i feel something has been stirred up here. i pray for redemptiveness to it. in other words i hope god makes something holy from all this crap.
okay i lied, i have two more things to say.
1) i was intrigued by csu's question about why this issue isn't being raised by our faculty at our denomination's schools. i am in no position to know whether it is or isn't, and so i can't comment either way, but i will say that i have some concerns about how much an institution which by definition has to put so much effort into attracting donors and doing fundraising can have a prophetic voice within the denomination. (or even fulfill its role as a theological presence)
incidentally, this is an issue on the local church level too. we all deny it, but numbers are huge indicators of our success. and how can you balance a concern with numbers with a concern to tackle tough issues. which leads to ...
2) i have heard of several churches where the kaibosh has been put on this women issue. this is defensible from certain stand-points. for instance, if you had a vote once, or nearly tore your church in two before, why do it again? also, sometimes the time is just not right for a good healthy discussion.
BUT, heavy-handed dismissal of an issue such as this, let alone prolonged side-stepping of it, can be a dangerous game. is this not a great opportunity to practice and model to our church people what it is to discuss the truth in love? is this not an opportunity to prove the bible's veracity and to trust it to see us through rather than avoid an issue out of fear?
i understand how hard it is at ground zero (in the pastorate) to balance ideals with reality. trust me. I know. and so i know this is easy for me to say from the sidelines. but this is a huge concern when biblical/theological issues are SHOT DOWN before they are even allowed to be raised. if this is a trend in our churches it does not bode well for us ... and that goes way deeper than just this issue.
the sign on the school i'm at says "The Word of our God will stand forever." Do we believe that? Can it withstand scrutiny? Can it speak to modern issues? Or must we cow-toe around them for fear of upsetting the traditionalists.
Perhaps that's not what's happening. Maybe what is happening is that a decision has been made and it just so happens to please the traditonalists. If so, then let's have it explained for us again. IF not, then let's make the decision. Right now it is pretty sketchy, and while I think the original decision was meant to empower local churches, it has actually left most of them up a creek without very many paddles.
i talk too much. pardon my last shots here. sorry if holy crap had become fear's whipping post. i do not mean to take over here. i guess i am just a big blog nerd. being stuck in the podunk prairies might not help either.
i love the church. i love you all. God have mercy on our souls.
God will and does have mercy on our souls, thank God.
I've been very inspired by this discussion and Fear, you have nothing to apologize for. The timing of you writing a position paper on this could not have been better and in many ways it makes sense that you would be the one with the most to say and we all need to hear it from the most learned one on the subject.
Let's not let this rest, let's not let those who cannot back up their position with scripture get away without having to at least explain themselves. Let's not let another generation of great women slip into the background and miss out on what the Alliance could become with their input.
It's time to fish or cut bait and I don't think Fear overstates this when he says that this issue may determine the future survival of this denomination. No doubt that there would be hard times during the time that it is being discussed, people will leave just because it's being brought up. The reality is though that people on the egalitarian side are already leaving because it's not being dealt with.
well, i happen to know that i have far less to offer for next month's daunting topic so let me spout a bit more on this one while i have time ...
... some stuff I picked up from extensive readings in the Pentateuch this morning (aided by a certain author, T. Fretheim):
Re: the creation "order":
-why does it follow that woman is subordinate to man, from whose rib she comes, when man is not also assumed to be subordinate to the dust?
-in fact man and women are to "subdue the earth" (which implies there is work to do, even in a good creation, does it not?)
Re: man's "rule" over women:
-it is described as a consequence of the fall (gen 3:14-19) and not prescribed for creation. redemption and effort is needed in this area now.
-in fact, man could not find a "helper" (a designation used of God in Psalm 121) among those subordinate to him and GOd makes one to rule alongside him in unity.
my appointment with you know how may be awhile due to scheduling difficulties. i'm a bit disccouraged, not necessarily because of that but because i just picked up the "Journal for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood" and then its egalitarian counterpart "The Priscilla Papers". I was as put off by things in both journals. It feels like the Republican/Democratic divide in the US. the issue is far from clear or resolved, at least in the US. don't let our unanimity in this blog lull you into a false sense of consensus in evangelical circles.
I am also so inspired by October's discussion and find myself more adament than ever that this issue not be allowed to drift off half-dealt with. The truth is, as your "complementarian" friend proves, fear, many people have just not fully thought through or researched this issue and are basing their opinions on pieces of "theology" they've heard along the way. When presented with the arguments such as those on this blog, I imagine many "complementarians," women especially, would become egalitarians.
What was the letter about from "Heidi?"
I agree with Tuna that a more common issue that churches would be dealing with is that of women as elders. In my mind I was assuming we were talking about this as well as the senior pastor thing all along. This is the decision that was left in the hands of individual churches, right? If I'm correct, an Alliance church could not decide on it's own to hire a woman as a senior pastor right now, but they could decide to allow women to serve as elders. Is that because women can't be ordained? (I mean, is that why they can't be senior pastors in our denomination? Just curious-I've never thought about that.)
I'm afraid I couldn't commit to switching to the Alliance church in our new community. Not because I don't wholeheartedly support the call to action regarding women in leadership in the denomination, but because there are other reasons why that church is not the best place for my family right now. I'm sorry if that renders my opinion useless, but I would still like to be a part of this in whatever way I can. Looking forward to the report from your DS meeting, fear. Don't be discouraged by your further reading. I don't think we should expect to see a quick turn of the tides and a consensus among all evangelical churches. We're seeking to make what progress we can in our own denomination. We need to trust/hope that there are other folks doing the same things in their own denominations and that together we'll see surges of change in the Church universal.
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