Oh No She Didn't: The Church and Women

Let me begin by apologizing for the time between my last Kimball post and this one.

Let me go on to say that I hope this post garners the kind of conversation the previous one did.

Let me further say that, like the previous post, good and faithful Christians find themselves on opposing sides of this issue. Which means that somebody is wrong, and we need to stay in loving conversation to try and work this out.

Almost last, but not least, I am on the more "liberal" side of this as opposed to the more "conservative" side on homosexual relationships. This just shows what a difficult task this parsing out of biblical teaching is.

Finally, many of the arguments I make about the church and homosexuality, other Christians would make about the church and women. I don't think they hold up as well, and I'll explain why.

As we begin, it should be acknowledged that I don't ever think a Christian can simply disregard a biblical truth because they find it outdated or impractical. I've had folks on the same side of the "women's issue" as me, whose argument was, simply, "well, some parts of the Bible have to be disregarded when they don't fit out lives." I disagree with that simple an approach, and find it an inappropriate way to deal with biblical teaching. Where I come from on the role of women in the church I come from because of what the Bible teaches and not in spite of it. If I truly believed that the Bible demanded that my wife be silent in all spiritual matters, I would abide by that. More importantly, she would too (not that I'm in the habit of speaking for my wife, but I have heard her express just such a sentiment on numerous occasions).

The view that I take on the role of women is one that the church would describe as egalitarian.

The Christian egalitarian view holds that the Bible, properly interpreted, teaches the fundamental equality of men and women of all racial and ethnic groups, all economic classes, and all age groups, based on the teachings and example of Jesus Christ and the overarching principles of scripture as articulated in Galatians 3:28. While Bible passages are subject to various interpretations, Christian egalitarians believe that:

• there should be no gender distinction in roles of men and women in the function or leadership of the church, to include ordination of women, or in society in general
• in marriage the wife and husband not only are created equal as female and male, but there is no biblically-prescribed hierarchy giving the husband any authority over the wife.

Those who would oppose the egalitarian view are called complimentarian. The idea here is that men and women have specific roles, with the man's role being over the woman and the woman's role to compliment the man.

While the church might call me an egalitarian, I'd add a complimentarian caveat. I believe that men and women compliment each other without a hierarchy. I believe that men and women are created by God to be equal, but not the same.

However, for my purposes today, we'll go with egalitarian, the belief that women can serve as leaders, teachers, pastors, etc. just as men can.

Most of the scripture that seems to prohibit this has to be understood within its context. This is tricky. Because context varies doesn't necessarily mean that the truth bends accordingly. But it can mean that. This is why we have to look at various teachings within various contexts to see if an ongoing truth is being taught.

In my previous post on homosexuality (and the follow up discussion) this issue of context arose. The point I made there was that teaching on the issue over a wide span of contexts was consistently against it. No examples of God approved homosexual relationships exist within the biblical story.

This is not the case for the teachings on women. For every time the Bible says "a woman must be silent" we have an example of a woman who is called by God to stand up and lead God's people in some form or fashion. So we have to do the difficult work of context clues.

Most of the passages that are referenced by the complimentarian view come from the writings of Paul. It is because of this that Paul is often (unfairly) accused of being a chauvinist.

Paul's writings are letters, often written to specific churches. So, when he says "a wife must submit to her husband", we have to discern if there is a principle to follow, a practice endorsed, or if practice and principle go hand in hand.

My belief is that it's almost impossible to say that the principle and practice in terms of women in leadership goes hand in hand. Paul himself seems to be saying that women shouldn't speak and then turning around and praising God for various women who have helped him by taking lead roles in ministry.

Let me just take one problematic passage to show what I mean about discernment, principle and practice.

Paul writes to a church and says that "women must be silent". What that seems to say is that it is never appropriate for a woman to speak up in church (in fact, many believe that IS what it says). But then there are examples of women who do and are praised for it. So, what is going on?

Paul is writing to a church that existed in a society where women were second class citizens, mostly uneducated, and submissive to male authority. He begins preaching a message from Jesus that says that "in Christ there is no Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male or female". What begins to happen, as a result, is that female converts begin asserting their rights in very disruptive ways.

Because of this, Paul writes to this specific church and says, basically "tell the women to be quiet and stop interrupting. If they have a question, they can ask it later."

Imagine this scenario. Years ago I worked with a group of teenagers in San Antonio. Imagine that I moved away and found out that many of the teens that I had introduced to Jesus were now disrupting worship gatherings and shouting out at the preacher in the middle of the sermon. Assuming that my opinion carried some weight with these teens, I might write to the church and say "tell the teens to stop talking."

Now imagine some other church, thousands of years later, coming across that letter and using it as the reason why teenagers are never allowed to pray, read scripture, or speak or lead in any way in church.

What the church ought to do is apply the principle that those who are new to the faith and eager to learn, need to know that there is a time and a place to ask questions.

In another scenario, Paul talks about the importance of women submitting to husbands. This has been used to say that women cannot hold places of leadership. But Paul was, again, writing to women who have always ahd to submit. Many of them are using their newfound freedom in Christ as a sort of fight for their rights. Paul reminds them that they are called to follow the example of Christ, who submitted his will on behalf of others. Better to do right than demands rights. But Paul also says (and this would have been scandalous at the time) that husbands are to love their wives as Christ loved the church. That means an even greater call to submission, service, and sacrifice. And Paul begins the entire passage by saying to both parties "submit to one another out of reverence for Christ." For Paul, sharing the love of Christ with someone was more important than asserting rights, even if they those rights were rightfully ours.

This is why I didn't serve alcohol at my wedding or why I don't call the cops on my neighbor when her dog poops on my lawn or why I'm not caustic to a customer when they act similarly towards me. I have every right to do all of these things. But I also want to be in right relationship with my teetotaling grandmother or my neighbor or my customer, so I don't assert those rights, I submit myself, my rights, my desires.

This isn't Paul saying that wives should stay in abusive relationships or even that the church should treat them as secondary. It is Paul asking all Christians to put Christ and the cause of Christ over themselves. He also asks slaves to be the best slaves they can be. This isn't Paul advocating slavery, it is Paul realizing he can't lead a slave revolt, and asking slaves to be Jesus in all circumstances. He also demands that masters love their slaves, another scandalous notion for that time. Those who used this passage to endorse slave ownership by Christians weren't seeing what Paul meant at all.

And, I believe, those who use these scriptures to keep women "in their place" aren't seeing what Paul meant either. I think they're good and faithful people, I just think they're wrong. I think a proper understanding of Paul's writing and other teaching shows that God meant for men and women to live in partnership as equals.