http://www.monkfish-abbey.org/blog/20060308/grid-blog-for-international-womens-day-hammer-time/This was an interesting blog. I confess, the whole idea of a "national womens' day" confuses me. I mean, women have been around as long as men have, so why do they require their own special day to celebrate them? Am I alone in finding the cultural disparity of the existence of a National Womens' Day, but not a National Mens' Day? Is this the genderized version of white guilt, that we feel so bad about the wrongs perpetuated against women in the past that we now give them their own day to amp up their ego and "self esteem" while not extending that same "courtesy" to men?
But I don't want to get aside my topic here, the whole reason I'm coming in with this blog entry.
The above-linked post is interesting to me. It's engendered a whole slew of responses, perhaps more than the author was prepared for. Then again, the conspiracy theorist in me thinks that she might secretly have hoped for this kind of response, because as we all know, there's no such thing as bad publicity. You write something that pisses people off, they're going to share their ire with others, who out of curiosity or perhaps a desire to commiserate with their friend will then check out the thing that caused such vitriol. On the other side, you have those who vehemently agree with something and come in to see it and show their support. Either way, the one who's created this thing gets attention.
It should come as no surprise that on a blog whose title espouses a celebration of National Womens' Day, the topic is highly feminist-friendly. The author of the blog, a lady named Rachelle, has indicated in her response to various responses she's received to her blog that her purpose wasn't to attack anything, but to allow some ladies the space to tell their stories to hopefully reach a place of healing, but the reality is that her blog singles out a lightning rod for controversy, particularly amongst religious circles (and very particularly amongst egalitarian and ecumenical circles): Mars Hill Church. You can find out about the church at
http://www.marshillchurch.org/ I've been attending the church for 6 1/2 years of its 9+ year life.
One thing feminists and other egalitarians have difficulty with regarding Mars Hill is the fact that the congregation's leadership doesn't allow women to be pastors. This seems to particularly gall Rachelle in her blog, as she claims being ordained as a pastor herself, and she can't seem to understand why Mars Hill would in any way deny women who somehow feel "called" to leadership, and deny them their opportunity to fulfill this calling.
The reality is that Mars Hill doesn't deny women leadership positions within the church; we have female deacons, an office mentioned in the Bible which is functionally secondary only to the calling of the pastorate. But the Bible is quite clear that women aren't to be elders. There are going to be some looking for a verse which explicitly states, "Women cannot hold the office of elder in a congregation." They aren't going to find a verse like that. But let me give you some verses they will find.
1 Timothy 3:1-7 - "Here is a trustworthy saying: if anyone sets his heart on being an overseer, he desires a noble task. Now the overseer must be above reproach, the husband of but one wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not given to drunkenness, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him with proper respect. (If anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God's church?) He must not be a recent convert, or he may become conceited and fall under the same judgment as the devil. He must also have a good reputation with outsiders, so that he will not fall into disgrace and into the devil's trap."
The Greek Paul used here was definitively masculine, for those who want to point to an English translation's use of the masculine pronoun as evidence of a patriarchal attempt to hold women down because of prevailing social mores at the time of translation. More to the point, even getting outside his use of the masculine pronoun rather profusely in what he wrote there, Paul also indicated that an overseer (the footnote in my New International Version says "traditionally 'bishop', a title synonymous with "elder" or "pastor") must "be the husband of but one wife". Outside of some strange and distinctly anti-Biblical homosexual family arrangement, there's only going to be one husband in a marriage, and it isn't going to be the woman. This is just one case of Biblical mandate that the office of elder/bishop/pastor is filled by a man.
From there, we get into the Biblical arguments which surround this very key passage. The pastor is to lead his congregation, and is responsible before Christ for the spiritual health of those entrusted to him. Titus 1:7 indicates that elders are entrusted with God's very work in this world, and He's going to call an accounting from them for their work on His behalf.
Going further into the family structure, as the Bible constantly uses the family analogy in regards to a congregation of believers in a localized sense, and the family of believers as a gestalt under Christ, the Bible lays out the duties and responsibilities of the leadership in a family, placing it firmly under the authority of the man, not to the demeaning or lessening of a woman, but in acknowledgment of the different roles men and women have in God's design. As far back as Genesis, the headship of the man is demonstrated both prior to the Fall, in God's gift to man of naming the things He'd created, and is then demonstrated in a punitive light during the curse given after the Fall, when God states in Genesis 3:16b, "Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you."
This is more properly displayed in the New Testament in Ephesians 5:22-24, where it says, "Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, His body, of which He is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything." This is followed with Ephesians 5:25-33, which states: "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to Himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does for the church - for we are members of His body. 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.' This is a profound mystery - but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband."
You'll notice that in laying out this family structure, the wife isn't given some manner of subsidiary nature, but is given a very different nature from the man. She's called to submit to her husband, but her husband is then called to love his wife in the same manner that Christ loved the church. Christ died for the church; He gave all of Himself so that we might be reconciled to relationship with Him. So while it might gall the wife to submit to her husband (and it galls her because of the passage from Genesis I mentioned above; this is her part of the curse bestowed on mankind by God after the Fall), her husband has an intense responsibility to sacrificially love his wife, something he isn't going to be inclined to do. If anything, Paul here appeals to everyone's basic sense of self-preservation and self-interest, by noting that the man who loves his wife loves his own body. Paul appeals to our inherent desire to care for our own needs! So from these passages, I have difficulty seeing how a woman submitting to her husband is in any way doing something which demeans her or places lesser value on her in the whole.
This indicates, however, a generally submissive role in terms of authority in the church. We've already established, by drawing parallels between the leadership of a family and the leadership within the worship body. For further examples, let's point to 1 Timothy 2:12, where Paul says, "I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent." The greater context of this verse's overall passage was dealing with women who were being disruptive during worship in the congregation which Paul had given to Timothy to pastor. However, in verse 13, Paul continues in saying, "For Adam was formed first, then Eve.", pointing to an order within God's design. If God had intended Eve to have authority over Adam, wouldn't it have made more sense to have made her first, and to have taken Adam out of Eve's body instead of the other way around? Some might call this a specious argument on the basis of suppositional discourse, but the general inclinations of the text quoted seem to point heavily in this direction. I can also point to 1 Corinthians 11:7-8: "A man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of man. For man did not come from woman, but woman from man; neither was man created for woman, but woman for man." This ascribes a place of imminent specialness for women, indicating they are in fact an object of glory for the man they're given to, and glory isn't a word used lightly in the Bible! But it again points out the very different roles of men and women in God's design, and more than that, though it might be tough for egalitarians and feminists to swallow, it points out an admittedly subservient role in relation to men in the family structure and the church leadership structure.
There is plenty of evidence of women in the Bible who were likely deacons, including Priscillla in the New Testament, It isn't to say that women aren't capable of pursuing a calling to teaching, as Rachelle's blog indicates, but that women aren't able to pursue a calling to be a pastor. This isn't to say that there aren't some women who aren't feeling this calling, but the Bible indicates there is a great deal of spiritual activity occurring in the world, and not all of it is from God, one reason why the Bible entreats us to test the spirits, as indicated in 1 John 4:1. If a woman is feeling the calling to the pastorate, and we accept from the above evidence that the Bible makes it clear a pastor can only be a man, then one has to wonder what spirit, exactly, the woman is receiving this "calling" from. Sounds sinister, doesn't it? No one said living in a world of spiritual awareness would be all puppies, flowers, and peaceful spirits floating about and inspiring Anne Geddes paintings. There are sinister forces out there who would love nothing more than to lead people away from the truths presented plainly in the Bible, and instead into half-truths and outright falsehoods which will ultimately lead people away from God's word, and direct rebellion against God Himself.
The pastor of Mars Hill Church, Mark Driscoll, frequently comes under attack for his staunch defense of the pastorate being open to men only. He's standing on Scripture, and while I can't speak for him, I'd feel pretty safe in saying he's willing to take his lumps when he's doing so because he's using Scripture as his ultimate authority for his statements in this area. However, Rachelle was quite adamant in her blog about her willingness to take Mark on specifically, despite her later statements that she wanted the blog to be a place where women could feel free to post about negative experiences they've had so they could receive healing and peace.
A quote from her blog: "“We have a hammer. Are we going to use it?” I issued a call for a grid blog on gender equality for International Women’s Day. Men could write. Women could write. Any topic about gender equality was game. But if they were interested, could women in Seattle write about what it is like to live in a city under the influence of Mark?…."
She goes on to say: "The thing is, this isn’t a difference over worship style, or a debate about the appropriate size for a church. Those are style differences. This isn’t even a peripheral theological debate, such as a disagreement over whether or not you should baptize infants. This, this “women’s” issue—women’s freedoms, women’s roles, women’s voice—this is a justice issue, a gospel issue.
When a woman is told she has to limit her potential so a man can realize his—that’s injustice.
When God-given gifts of leadership are denied because of someone’s gender—that’s injustice.
When men are told they must carry all the authority and all the responsibility for family and organizational decisions—that’s injustice.
When women are threatened verbally and treated as inferior—that’s injustice.
And God wants justice—oceans of it. Fairness—rivers of it."
Let's respond to each of those things.
"When a woman is told she has to limit her potential so a man can realize his—that’s injustice."
You're right, a woman told to limit her potential so a man can realize his is an injustice; but you're keeping a particular phrase out of your statement that makes it an injustice. That statement is "At her expense." The Bible isn't calling women to limit their potential so men can realize theirs, it's indicating the different roles that women have from men, and those roles aren't in the area of spiritual leadership over the entire congregation. When looked at from this perspective, the truth becomes evident. Contextualization is everything, dear.
"When God-given gifts of leadership are denied because of someone’s gender—that’s injustice."
It would be an injustice if God-given gifts of leadership were being denied, but I can tell you that in Mars Hill, women with those gifts aren't being denied. Don't believe me? Ask any one of our female deacons, or ask our Deacon of Womens' Studies. I'm not a deacon of the church; do you know what this means? It means that unless I'm given contrary orders by one of our elders, I have to submit to any authority one of our female deacons exercises over me, whether telling me to be quiet on an issue I want to speak out on, or simply asking me not to use a church resource I might want to appropriate. This doesn't mean such an arrangement has ever happened, but in the church authority structure, deacons have more authority than members, and their authority is only exceeded by the elders, and then by Christ Himself. This, to me, doesn't sound like gifts of leadership are being denied. It does, however, sound like they're being channeled according to the overall gender roles defined by an authority no less than the Bible itself, the very living Word of God, hallelujah, praise the Lord, and all bow before Him!
"When men are told they must carry all the authority and all the responsibility for family and organizational decisions—that’s injustice."
You know what? Get on your knees and repent now, because you have taken a bold step in doing nothing less than placing yourself above the very authority of God's Word. You would demean God's commands so you can feel like your gender isn't being "oppressed"? You lay claim to the mantle of Christianity, which places me and any other Bible-believing Christian in the place of exercising our responsibility before God to indicate the sin you're perpetuating, and point you to Christ for repentance and forgiveness, or for an acknowledgment of the sin you're committing, willfully and unrepentantly, before Him. You would call what the Bible demands as a man's role in the family "injustice"? The only injustice in this case I see being perpetuated here is your use of authority in claiming an ordained priesthood, with full acknowledgment that some will lend your words more credence on this basis alone, and then turning around and using it to perpetuate your own political agenda, motivated by gender no less! This agenda is in this particular instance Godless, and that which is not of God is of the devil, pure and simple. God has laid out the responsibilities within a family for both men and women, and any attempt to teach something contrary to these Bible-defined roles is in effect preaching a Word different from the one He's given us. The Gospel of John says that Jesus Christ Himself is the Word of God, and if you're preaching a different Word than the one presented to us, you're preaching a different Jesus Christ than the man presented to us, Who died for us, and by Whose sacrifice we can be restored to right relationship with the very God who created every single thing in existence by nothing more than the absolute power and authority of His spoken Word! His very will incarnated all that is! Read the entire second chapter of 2 Peter if you want an idea of how seriously God takes this! "All Scripture is God-breathed", and we accept the very verses I've quoted in this missive as Scripture; would you then attempt to malign the Word of God, change it to fit your own preconceptions, in the face of this very real threat from God Himself, through His apostle Paul's words?
"When women are threatened verbally and treated as inferior—that’s injustice.
And God wants justice—oceans of it. Fairness—rivers of it."
You're right: When women are threatened verbally, that's injustice, and you're further correct in expanding this to their treatment as being inferior, and also correct in saying God wants justice. You are NOT right in saying He wants fairness. Nowhere in the Bible does it say He wants fairness. Justice and fairness are not the same things.
I can say with complete authority and safety that were a woman being verbally abused at Mars Hill, the person, man or woman, engaging in this abuse would face a very large population of the church inclined to extend the "right fist of fellowship and the left foot of justice", restrained only by our submission to our elders and their wisdom in how to more properly handle the issue so that the abuser can hopefully be pointed back to Christ, and experience repentance and Christ's endless forgiveness.
But are you instead claiming, I wonder, if there is "verbal abuse" occurring because it's said from the pulpit that women can't be pastors? In this case, you're deluded. You claim it's abuse because you're being told women can't have something you want them to have, and something you've lain claim to that you have no Biblical basis for having (your "pastorate"). In this case, the injustice being perpetrated here is using authority you've laid claim to, which others are willing to acknowledge primarily because of ignorance on the issue of Scripture's stance on the pastorate, in order to lambast a brother in Christ who preaches not out of his own desires (aside from the desire to submit to Scripture as our ultimate worldly authority), but simply by demand of the Scriptures he's submitted himself to, and the God who wrote them through divine inspiration of men He created.
You tread on dangerous ground, Rachelle. You claim you love Jesus, but you would then subjugate His Word, both spoken by Him and perpetuated by His apostle Paul of Tarsus, because it doesn't fit with what you think should properly be done.
Men don't often like the roles God has assigned to us. When I marry, I have responsibility for pastoring my wife and my children in a Godly manner, raising them up in the teachings of the Bible and maintaining a household where my wife doesn't find it needlessly difficult to submit to my authority or to Christ's, and where my children will understand their sin nature with a humble heart, and willingly choose at an age where they can understand this to submit themselves to Christ so that their faith ceases being the one my wife and I have provided for them, and becomes their own.
There is but one truth, the truth presented in God's Word, the Bible. Not the Watchtower, not the Book of Mormon, not the Koran, not L. Ron Hubbard's "Dianetics", not Ayn Rand's treatises on Objectivism, on and on. God was quite clear on the issue of Truth when He said via His incarnation as Jesus Christ, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No man comes to the Father except through Me." Jesus was further clear on the fact that you can't serve two masters, that you either serve God or you serve something else.
In other words, you're either for Him or you're against Him. If you're for Him, you submit yourself to His Word. If you're against Him, you place yourself above His Word, and if you want to try to have it both ways, you'll say you submit to His Word, but will attempt to pervert the plain meaning of it to fit your own agenda.
Which are you doing?
