12 comments

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  Ted

  1 year ago

  "There seems to be a lot of fear surrounding what would happen if women were released to run amok in ministry..."
  
  Let them run amok, I say. Let us all run amok. We probably need a lot more amok around here anyway.
  
  Thanks, Kimberly.
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  Michael Cline

  1 year ago

  Not to toot our own horn (because we have tons of examples where we have done just the opposite), but I'm proud of my denomination for being so "pro woman." The Wesleyan Church was one of the first to ordain women for vocational ministry and just this past week, we elected our first ever female General Superintendent (long overdue).
  
  I guess I write this in order for my sisters to take heart...we don't all think you belong in the kitchen.
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  Maria Kirby

  1 year ago

  The kitchen is a more powerful place than you might imagine. It's next to foot washing. It's nice to see more men entering into domestic ministries.
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  Kimberly

  1 year ago

  agreed... I'm a big fan of the kitchen. after all, that is where the communion feast is prepared!
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  mountainguy

  1 year ago

  So we men aren't manly enough to deal with our own dirty underwear? Sexism is a shame for the church, and for humankind in general.
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  Nathan

  1 year ago

  Odd that only men have commented...
  
  Honestly, this is an issue I have a bit of a struggle with. I think there is an inherent tension between different parts of the Bible on the issue of women in authority, though it seems to be a difference between what was written and what was actually done. There are historical and biblical examples of women in leadership, and yet the descriptors of church leaders refer explicitly to men and Paul offers up the command of silence (though this could be a later interpolation). Perhaps some of the resistance to women in authority is based on fear, but perhaps some of it is based on theology. Maybe that theology is wrong, but then that should be demonstrated and debated.
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  markvans

  1 year ago

  Certainly there are theological issues at play here. And those have been debated A LOT. I used to be a "complementarian" because I felt constrained to be so by Scripture. In fact, I would argue that a traditional evangelical approach to Scripture always, if we're honest, leads towards complementarianism. It wasn't until I shifted in my assumption about the nature of Scripture that I was able to embrace a more egalitarian stance.
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  Nathan

  1 year ago

  I'd be interested in hearing more about that shift and what specifically precipitated it.
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  kathyescobar

  1 year ago

  nicely said. thanks.
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  Ted

  1 year ago

  It's true that there are a number of complementarian prooftexts, and these have been dealt with by many people in many ways, some more convincing than others. I don't think it's difficult to see egalitarianism as the logical outworking of the social implications of the Gospel, even if Paul did not fully develop this or even fully understand it himself. If in Christ there is no Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female (and if this too-neatly lines up with the cultural studies trifecta of race, class, and gender, take it up with Paul), Paul seems to have spent the most of his time dealing with the first of those pairings, perhaps leaving for the church the theological (and obviously social) task of working the rest of it out. Moreover, Paul was probably no more interested in a slave revolt or women's rebellion in the wider Roman culture than he was keen on armed insurrection against the state. This does not mean we are free to recapitulate the sword, slavery, patriarchy, or any other form of coercive control in the church.
  
  I think there is a similarity of language by which our place as the bride of Christ (or the household of God) is a threat to the Roman paterfamilias and our place as slaves to Christ is a threat to the authority of slaveholders just as much as "Jesus is Lord" is a threat to Caesar. Some of the arguments used to defend complementarianism are eerily similar to those used to justify slavery in the antebellum South, and while of course it would be uncharitable (and inaccurate) to paint complementarians as raging patriarchalists with Confederate flags in the back windows of their pickup trucks, I think it is tenable to see in complementarianism a vestigial or residual capitulation to patriarchy, and being able to couch oppression in terms palatable enough to be able to sleep at night is a poor substitute for justice.
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  Nathan

  1 year ago

  I agree that egalitarianism is the logical social implication of the Gospel, but that is not unequivocally stated in the Bible. Paul says "no Jew/Greek, slave/free, male/female" but then goes on to describe the explicit requirements for leaders in 1 Timothy and Titus references only men. So this apparent implication wasn't necessarily that evident to Paul or had some degree of restriction and it kind of makes your suggestion that Paul left it up to the church to "work out the rest of it." We can't really ignore those verse just because they sound patriarchal.
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  Ted

  1 year ago

  Which is fine, really, but my point is this: neither is an anti-slavery stance unequivocally stated -- in fact, slaves are rather explicitly called to obey their masters. And yet, none of us would defend slavery on these grounds. This, to me, is a glaring inconsistency.
  
  I'm not suggest we ignore particular verses because they sound patriarchal; I'm suggesting that we refuse to read them as a justification for patriarchalism -- at least not any more than we read the slavery passages as a justification for slavery. If someone wants to construct a complementarian view that is not haunted by the ghosts of patriarchy, they are welcome to the task. I don't want to work that hard.
  
  I recently left a ministry in which I ran afoul of the church's restrictive view of women. We "agreed to disgree"; we also agreed that I should leave. I could have stayed, had I not taken a stand (the practice in question was allowing a woman to lead worship), but it occurred to me: if this were about race, I wouldn't hesitate. So I didn't.
  
  My tradition is very conservative, and I regularly work alongside and eat with people who do not share my proclivities or my passions on these issues. They are decent, earnest people who love God and revere the scriptures and whom I love and respect. I think they are wrong on issues of biblical justice; they think I'm weird.
  
  I have no desire to anathematize those who think differently. And of course I'm present my opinions -- but they are opinions about things I think are important enough to use strong rhetoric.
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