The CBE Scroll

Comment by Lori

June 19, 2006 @ 5:15 am

I know that future historians will judge the American church about the status of women, because the rest of the world already does. As I indicated in an earlier post, I live in Great Britain, where it’s pretty much taken for granted that women can serve in the church however God calls them.

My husband is a Local Preacher (lay preacher) with the Methodist Church, and I am training to become one. Women have had this right for fifty years here. Indeed, our district’s longest serving female local preacher started in 1952.

I remember last year my husband and I attended an ecumenical bible study. We started discussing controversial issues in the church, and I mentioned how gender roles were such a big deal in the American church (I’m American myself). I will never forget–and it breaks my heart when I think about it. They laughed. First they were incredulous, then they burst out laughing. This group of people from various denominations literally could not understand why anyone would deny a woman the right to serve as God called her. In fact, one man summarized the attitude of the group by asking me exactly that. All I could do was shrug and agree with him. I don’t understand it, either.

I know what many complementarians will say. “Well, we know the truth. The rest of the world is just too liberal and ungodly.” Maybe so, but you have to wonder when the rest of the world has changed its mind on an issue but you haven’t. Instead of reflexively dismissing the rest of the world as the “enemy,” maybe it’s time to consider whether they’re trying to tell us something.

Comment by Kathryn Vance

June 20, 2006 @ 1:02 am

Thank you Lori. As I’ve said in other blogs, I came to be an egalitarian because it is the only position that makes sense from Genesis to Revelation with regards to the relationship between the sexes, how believers are to relate to one another, and how women may serve the Lord. Comps may say they love a lost and dying world; here’s their chance to prove it. Let the preacher who brings the saving message be a woman. Let the Spirit move in the body of Christ as He will, not as our stereotypes dictate. It is not “liberal theology”; it is what He wants.

Comment by TeriLynn

June 20, 2006 @ 6:30 am

That’s very interesting that Britain doesn’t have the gender issues. Wonderful actually. Do you know if Sweden and the Scandinavian countries have the same attitude as Britain? I think Australia is a bit leaning toward male preferences.

I wonder how the world reacted when America was dealing with the slavery issue. That was certainly messy.

Comment by Ruud Vermeij

June 20, 2006 @ 11:29 pm

In The Netherlands there certainly is a gender issue in the evangelical churches. As a matter of fact I think most of them are still complementarian.

Comment by Lori

June 21, 2006 @ 2:21 am

I should be perfectly honest and say that not everyone here believes in the egal. position. There are pockets of resistance, which unfortunately, I’ve encountered. :( Indeed, the former Archbishop of Canterbury is still very outspoken against the idea of women in ministry.

However, overall the British church is egalitarian. Most of the local preachers, at least in our district, are women. I’ve only personally heard one person speak against the idea. Complementarians are in the minority here, not the other way around.

Comment by sally

June 22, 2006 @ 9:56 pm

In Anglican Sydney it’s absolutely complementarian. Those of us who think otherwise hardly dare say anything because there is an unspoken culture that does not allow dissent to the ‘party line’.

Comment by TeriLynn

June 26, 2006 @ 9:13 am

Quote from post “How will Church Historians Evaluate our Generation:”

I think they will wince as they consider evangelical theologians holding to a subordinationist view of the Trinity and receiving a broad complementarian audience. I think they will further wince as they think of process theologians, in the name of evangelicalism, telling us that God does not absolutely know the future. I think they will wince as they consider our waffling on life issues such as abortion, on sexual moral/ethical issues such as homosexual ordination. I actually believe there will be more wincing than this.

I’ve been lamenting these things myself wondering where the purity of Christian thought on life with God has gone. How did we come to these things? Has there been too much thinking on these issues without an equal amount of searching the Scriptures? Do these problems parallel the general lack of real Bible Study among many Christians? I see a lot of helicopter theology with verses plucked out of context and used creatively but not accurately.

It seems that the average Christian today is not interested in learning how to accurately study the Bible. They would rather be told what the correct doctrine is without checking it out for themselves like the Bereans that Paul praised. Is this a result of our being in the era of fast-everything from food, to shopping by phone, to internet information? And how do we encourage them to come back and enjoy the process as much as the end result?

Comment by Lori

June 27, 2006 @ 8:05 am

In response to #7, I have thought about this very carefully before posting, because I don’t want to sound offensive. However, in my years of studying the issue of women in the church, one thing I have noticed time and time again is that people will throw out a few proof texts and think that solves the issue. Just recently on another forum, a comp. woman told me, “Paul obviously forbids women from teaching in I Cor and I Timothy. How could you argue about that?” When I try to point out things like the original languages or cultures, it just makes people angrier, as if my having studied the issue in depth has somehow made me suspect. Again, I’m sorry if this sounds bad, but it’s just the attitude I’ve seen. “The bible says it right there in plain English. Why can’t you just accept it?” I would love it if somebody could provide an explanation for this antipathy to studying God’s Word.

Comment by TeriLynn

June 28, 2006 @ 12:28 pm

re: post #8

When I was in a patriarchal Christian commune some 34-35 years ago, women were told that because they were prone to error they must look to men to interpret Scripture. Basically, we had to get our beliefs approved by the men before we could be free to talk about them.

In a recent book by DeMoss, titled “Lies Women Believe”, she makes the suggestion that women “may” be inclined to error. In fact her whole book was about how easily women are deceived. Any woman that buys that stuff is likely going to be fearful of studying lest they misread and end up believing wrong. It encourages women to repeat what others say instead of searching to discover for themselves. And most of the comp books to women are NOT an educated, solidly biblical challenge to the readers.

The thing I’ve noticed about DeMoss is that she starts outside the Scripture from a premise. One should not START from any approach, but should seek to extract the points from the Scriptures without adding into Scripture. Teaching from preconceived premises is what I experienced in my years in fundamentalist churches, of the way that most comp women are taught. First they are given the “party line”, and then Scriptures are found to support it. Because that is what they are accustomed to hearing, then that is what they repeat to others. Few women convinced of hierarchical teaching know what it means to study Scripture.

Sad picture. And the question still is, how do we encourage them to study and search the Scriptures for themselves?

Comment by Lori

June 29, 2006 @ 1:14 pm

Please, let’s not get started about Lies Women Believe. I saw it on a Christian bookstore shelf once and picked it up out of curiosity. Let’s just say I put it down again pretty quickly. I, too, noticed that the authors (I believe Elizabeth Elliot co-authored it) began with their own biased beliefs and tried to pass them off as the Word of God. That’s not my idea of good Bible study material.

Comment by Kathryn Vance

July 1, 2006 @ 10:33 pm

Elizabeth Elliot is indeed from the complementarian viewpoint. I salute her missionary work, but she evidently believes a woman’s place is in the kitchen, or so I’ve read. That is so sad. Historians may well shake their heads at the things people once believed when they write the story of our generation; however, they will also see hope. They will see an entire generation of women and men joining together for equality for all. Biblical egalitarians will be right there in the heart of this movement.

Comment by Lori

July 3, 2006 @ 8:11 am

Now, I must admit that I have no idea if this is true or not. If it isn’t, then I will be glad to apologize. However, on another forum somebody said that Eliott actually advocates a woman not leaving an abusive marriage. Something about how the wife can be a good witness to her husband by “turning the other cheek.” I have only ever read Eliott’s book Passion and Purity, however, which is addressed to single people, so I can’t confirm it myself.

Comment by TeriLynn

July 11, 2006 @ 7:22 pm

re: post #12

I’ve read where Elliot has said that. And she has repeated it in public, so it seems to be a pretty firm belief of hers at one time. She may have changed her stance on it since though.