The CBE Scroll

Karen Till, CBE member and friend, is the author of this post about being a homeschool parent and an egalitarian.

My journey towards equality and gift-based leadership began about three years ago when I read Cunningham and Hamilton’s book, Why Not Women. I was ready for it. At the time I was struggling with much of what the “homeschool way” was teaching about gender roles. I see now that God was preparing my heart.

We have homeschooled our children for 14 years. We have 5 children—our oldest graduated a year ago and our youngest just started school this year. When we began we felt called and challenged by the Lord. I was delighted to take the task on and thrilled to have my kids with me instead of sending them away. My dream to have a family and be a stay-at-home mom, just like my mom, was being fulfilled. A lot of people thought that we were strange to venture out this way. We live in Canada and the homeschool movement came a little later for us than in the USA.

When I got married my husband was a new Christian from a family where his parents both worked. When I announced that I was going to stay at home and be a homemaker I think that they thought I was pretty lazy. Then the home schooling thing came up and I’m sure they thought I was crazy. That’s a bit of a background on our journey.

The homeschool community is a culture, religion—to some a cult—in itself. I loved many aspects but certain things were hard to understand. For example, many people thought women should dress very modestly and with head coverings. Definitely the more “earthy” you were the better: grind your own grain, natural foods, bake your own bread. Many also believed that couples should let God plan their family – and I mean no interference on your part—because it showed you had more faith. Moms should stay at home while dads provided for the family. All of these were what proved you were a godly woman. Of course, you needed to do this all with great delight and in an organized fashion.

I began to have difficulty with this culture as our children got older and their gender roles began to be more defined. It was both implied and explicitly stated that there are certain things our boys must do, because they are boys and they will one day be leaders. Our girls must learn to be good homemakers because that is their place in life. I started to feel pressure about how my kids behaved and what they wore. We were not a family that believed that girls must wear dresses, but many of our friends did. Then the whole courtship idea started bouncing around. It is assumed that your children will marry because…. they must, and certainly the daughters must marry. I didn’t know if I wanted to find spouses for my children. It is a scary thing to be responsible for putting people together. I think that God did a great thing when he created romance. I would rather let it take its course. Courtship in many ways seemed like a patriarchal concept.

The pressure got more and more intense and I resisted. I began to question and see flaws in this thinking. God showed me that our spirituality is not caught up in our gender and certainly it isn’t about the clothes we wear. I knew I was a Spirit-filled believer and I really believed that God used women in his kingdom—I wasn’t sure if they could be leaders but I believed that women could “speak” in church.

Truly, my reformation began in a very dry, empty time of my life when I was so thirsty for something more. Through a series of events I ended up going to hear Loren Cunningham (founder of Youth With A Mission—YWAM) speak. I am a YWAM-er from the early ‘80s. Many things tried to keep me from attending that meeting—my friend backed out, my husband didn’t want to come with me, there was a winter blizzard and the drive was quite a long one in a snowstorm. I went anyway and I bought a package deal of his books, hoping I would find something for my thirsty soul. Little did I know that one of the books in the package deal, Why Not Women would change my life.

“Why do you still homeschool?” is quite a loaded question and one that I am asked often. I am not sure that my egalitarian views really change the reasons that we began to home school in the first place. I am still an advocate of educating at home because I believe that it is a viable option. I think there are benefits and drawbacks to both homeschooling and public (or private) education. I certainly do not believe it’s the only way or that it is God’s best way for the Christian family. It is one way that we can choose and each family should be able to decide for themselves. I think that there is a unique quality that the kids gain from being at home but too much sheltering is not healthy either. Children must learn to relate to many different kinds of people and situations and our children certainly do. They play with neighborhood kids from diverse backgrounds. They work in stores and restaurants. Our extended family has very different views than our immediate family and the kids have been exposed to many ideas. In regards to egalitarian thinking, I am trying to teach the kids a balanced view of roles—where both sexes can do anything and should be willing to serve others. We have three boys and two girls. I have stressed more then ever that my boys get good at household chores so that they will be able to serve in their home. They are good helpers and very knowledgeable about house work.

I still believe in homeschooling, although I do not fit in with most in the community. I have discontinued much of my contact with the other women because it is too difficult. Several used to go to our church but they recently left because our elders changed the constitution to allow for women to be able to take elder positions. For me, those relationships had been very stressful over the last few years. I felt like I couldn’t, and didn’t want to, measure up to their expectations of what kind of a woman I should be.

Our church has become a safe place for me and I love the changes and growth the community has made. I would say we are an emerging church and that concept thrills me as much as the equality issue does. I love that the sides of the box have been blown off. My journey is so much more than I ever dreamed and I believe that equality must happen in our worldview for us to be able to take the next step in what God is doing worldwide in us—the Church.

My husband and I don’t see eye-to-eye on all of these changes in thinking. In the beginning he was more open to the equality issue but lately it has been difficult. He has some friends that are very traditional in their thinking and they do influence him on the issue. Change isn’t easy for any of us. Nevertheless, I have decided that I will not stop learning and I will seek God about what He wants to do with me. I want to be available to God’s leading and I know that He will work out the details.

As for homeschooling—we continue to do what we have done for years. I just helped my 14-year-old son with a paper that he had to write on the “Famous Five”—a group of women who fought for women to be considered part of the word “persons” in our constitution. They also were leaders of the suffrage movement in Canada. I was thrilled to see that my son was learning about women leaders and their place in our history. He follows the required curriculum for our province and does his studies online as do all our children. What an incredible opportunity for me as a mother.

Almost a year ago now I noticed that some of the comments about home educators on the CBE Blog were negative (for lack of a better word). Most people in the homeschool community are traditional and patriarchal and I was embarrassed to be lumped together with them. I do believe that egalitarian views and homeschooling can co-exist. However it is not the norm. If you know people that are homeschooling please do not write them off as people who will never be open to thinking differently. Many highly educated women have given up their careers to be stay-at-home moms and homeschool moms because they believe in serving their family in this specific way. This does not mean they have sold themselves short or that they do not believe in careers for women—it is just the choice they have made. While some home educators are definitely closed to the idea of equality and freedom from subordination, you never know—God can get our attention in unexpected ways.

Things have evolved in our journey in this issue—for me I continue to learn and love all that I am finding out about biblical equality.

The following article is a guest post submitted by Anita Bell, ordained pastor in the PCUSA Church. Rev. Bell offers the following reflections on her denomination in hopes that her critique would continue to call believers to solid scholarship surrounding the empowerment of women and men in ministry and encourage her denomination to clear and cohesive action as they strive to live out their statement of faith.

Some of my friends are thinking about leaving our PCUSA fellowship for EPC pastures. They plan to go as a whole- men and women, lay and ordained. They offer to circle the wagon in this new denominational home, through non-geographic presbyteries, to protect and uphold their women called to ordained leadership. Yet, it is not hard to imagine the established EPC gazing over those protective shoulders with a less-than-approving glare. Imagine women being ghettoized, unable to move to new churches and ministries, because the larger denomination does not offer them welcome. The prospects for women in this move, even with the initial protection of the non-geographic presbyteries, are less than encouraging.

Yet, lest we become too judgmental of our brothers and sister in the EPC and those who would join them, we must take a moment of honest self-reflection in our PCUSA fellowship. Ordained women, especially those called to the ministry of Word and Sacrament, know full inclusion in the ministry life of the PCUSA in name only. After 50 years, women still face the “glass ceiling” across the theological spectrum of the church. “Our church is not quite ready for a woman pastor…” “Perhaps as an associate, but as the senior pastor…?” “If the senior pastor is a woman, how will our men relate…?”… And so it goes… One glance at the larger pulpits of our denomination proves the point.

Margaret Bendroth, in her article for the Presbyterian Historical Society detailing the historical roots of women’s ordination in the PCUSA, offers a clear observation of the stagnant evolution of women’s ministry in the Presbyterian Church. Bendroth cites studies done in the 1980’s and 1990’s that find an “over-representation of women in small, part-time, often poorly-paid positions, and their virtual absence from large and influential pulpits.” My experience often mirrors these studies- from search committees whose interest in my candidacy focuses primarily on their need to interview a woman, to pastors with less experience than I, who ask me to consider serving as their associate. Recently, a group of clergy in my district of the Philadelphia Presbytery met for lunch. At this particular clergy gathering none of the sisters in ministry were in attendance. The conversation meandered around to the question of why women were not in our larger pulpits. The conclusion of this gathering of well-meaning brothers was that women just did not really want those pulpits.

I could go on about the “good old boy” network, and the unintentional, and at times intentional, patronizing of my sisters in ministry. Personally, I would prefer to encounter opposition to women in ministry from conservative Christians who stand against my calling as an ordained woman based on their understanding of Scripture, rather than come face to face with the nebulous opposition of my PCUSA brothers and sisters who say in veiled or direct manner, “Our church is just not ready for a woman yet.” This response begs the question: Why are our churches still not ready, after 50 years, for women in ordained leadership throughout the church?

This lukewarm embrace of women in ministry by the PCUSA and the “local option” approach of the EPC both find their roots in the original decision made by our denominations’ predecessor to ordain women to the ministry of Word and Sacrament 50 years ago. Here again Bendroth offers us helpful observations about the decision made by the Presbyterian Church concerning women’s ordination. Bendroth notes that the Presbyterian Church was motivated to consider women’s ordination by the secular question, “Why should Christian ministry be the only profession barred to women on the grounds of their sex?” Moved by concerns of human rights and “fairness”, our debate centered more on the social correctness of opening the door to women in ordained ministry than on the Biblical witness of the essential nature of women’s ministry within the body of Christ. Bendroth writes, “Empowering women was a way to make good institutions better- more democratic, more inclusive, and more faithful to American ideals.” It made sense. It was the right thing to do. Yet, such well-intentioned social correctness has not transformed the heart and mind of the church to embrace fully the leadership of the sisters in our midst. Rebecca Prichard in her article on Reformed women in ministry observes, women’s ministry “has been permitted but not promoted, tolerated but not preferred.” Perhaps our inability to transform the heart of the church concerning women in leadership stems from our decision-making process based on social convention and not Biblical calling. Using Jesus’ imagery, we have built our understanding of women on the shifting sands of political correctness, rather than the bedrock of Scripture.

Scripture teaches us that the question of women in ministry is not an issue of equal opportunity and justice, but rather one concerning the wholeness of the body. Paul writes to the Ephesians, “From Christ the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work”(4:16). The potential for the body to be healthy and vital relies on the ability of each individual member of the body to do their part. Thus, when we minimize the ordained leadership of our women, we weaken the whole of the body. (The same argument could be made about how our marginalization of our racial ethnic brothers and sisters weakens the whole of the church, but that discussion is for another paper.) Our church documents say that we welcome the ministry of women, but we have yet to recognize the essential nature of their participation in all areas and levels of ministry. The church needs the voice, the talents, the perspective of women in order to live into the whole ministry to which God has called the church. When Jesus commissioned Mary to be the first evangelist to carry the good news of the resurrection, he taught us that women are needed in the church to do more that just to fill the positions that men are unwilling to take. To reach a world in darkness, we need men and women of faith, lifted up into positions of leadership and influence by the church, to lead the faithful in declaring the good news given first to Mary.

One of the roadblocks that often hampers the church in welcoming women into such positions of leadership is our secular understanding of ministry as a “career”. We expect our ministry candidates to have a resume that demonstrates the development of such a career, from lesser positions of responsibilities to greater ones. We value the traditional climb up the ladder. Yet, women often do not follow such traditional paths. My nearly 24 years of ministry experience is peppered with such non-traditional career experiences as raising four children, volunteering as the Girl Scout Cookie mom, and sharing in carpools that would stretch from Philadelphia to San Francisco. My teaching and preaching comes out of the heart of these experiences. My pastoral sensitivity has been honed in the halls of schools and on the sidelines of sporting events. My official church resume has been crafted around these responsibilities, so that I could honor my calling as a wife and mother, as well as my calling to ministry. Thus, when a search committee considers my PIF, I do not look like a “traditional” candidate. But, I do look like the Biblical model of ministry- those raised up out of the main stream of life into positions of leadership with the people of God. From a fishing boat to a pulpit, from the paths of a lost woman to the calling as the first evangelist, from a shepherd’s field to a king’s throne, repeatedly God has raised up leaders not with credentials, but with calling.

The time has come for the church to begin to “think into” a Scriptural understanding of women, called and gifted to lead the people of God. Women are called by God as prophetess (Anna) and leader (Deborah), as teacher (Priscilla) and evangelist (Mary), as pastor (Lydia) and worship leader (Miriam). Each of these women strengthened the body with their leadership. Our biblical history would be much different and much poorer without them, just as our body is poorer and less vital today for the limitations we place on the gifted women in our midst. The time has come to lift up women in leadership in our church as we have never done before. The time has come for our search committees to consider the Scriptural calling of women, not as an issue of opportunity for women, but as an essential for the wholeness of the church. Our search committees need before them examples of women already in positions of leadership and influence, to stir their imaginations to the possibilities. The time has come for our larger churches to offer leadership to the whole of the body, by lifting up women into visible areas of leadership and teaching. The time has come for that “good old boy” network to work diligently to lift up “good old sisters” as viable candidates for our larger pulpits. The time has come for the church to yearn for Anna, Mary and Deborah, for Miriam, Lydia and Pricilla to be at the heart of leadership in the church. Imagine the church, growing and building itself up in love, as each one is welcomed to do the part they are gifted to do in Christ.

Rev. Anita Miller Bell
Minister at Large/Philadelphia Presbytery

Other cultures have a lot to teach us all, but what we often learn is that “they” are “us.” In Ireland, Trocáire, the official overseas development agency of the Catholic Church, runs an annual Lenten ad campaign, which asks for more than just alms: it asks for contributions for movements that seek justice. To get the word out, they use public TV information spots, poster campaigns and public information brochures. Previous campaigns sought to bring attention to apartheid in South Africa, the liberation of child soldiers, and the plight of slave laborers around the world, all of which were supported by the Irish government (the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland [BCI]) and the church.

But this year’s campaign was just too much, and the BCI decreed that it must be removed from its commercial airwaves because it was too “political.” Hmm.

The campaign advertisement this year, according to the National Catholic Reporter, “features an unending grid of diapered babies, black and white, all infants, all charming and bright-eyed and lively. Finally the voice-over says, ‘ These children will have less education, live in more poverty, contract more disease, suffer more violence, face more disadvantage than if they had malaria or HIV. They will never even be given a chance. Why? Because they’re female.’ ”

Gender equality is too political. Apartheid, child soldiers and slave laborers are not. Why? Could it be just too close to home?