The CBE Scroll

In years gone by, no publisher would print a book written by a woman and so women writers had to use pseudonyms to get their work recognised. Even today, there is the persistent thought that women are mostly suitable for writing about things which pertain to the home and children.

One of the great things about participating in this blog is that we often don’t know if the writer is female or male so hopefully the person can get their point across without being judged or assumptions made.

Women writers have stories to tell – their own or others. Some speak from personal pain while some speak for those who have no voice. For the person who writes from their own experience it can be helpful for them to put it all on paper but perhaps even more so for the readers who will be able to identify with what the writer is relating.

Stories of oppression and abuse need to be told so that those who live in freedom and security can be aware of the plight of others and from a position of privilege reach out to help. The Bible is full of instructions for us to speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, to deliver people from those who oppress and see justice carried out. Writing is such a powerful way to inform without the possible immediate distraction of the human person with weakness and imperfection.

Even though there are many women who write excellent books and papers on theological topics, it is the stories which take the attention of the average reader. Among the hundreds of books we have had on our shelves, it is always the stories of people’s lives which are most in demand and so many of them are accounts of remarkable women. Women have within their grasp the power of the printed page and even those who would not condone a woman preaching in a Sunday service quite happily learn from women writers who can teach through this medium. The stumbling block of authority is removed as a person gets involved in the story and hearts are changed as biblical principles are communicated through the accounts of lives very much like our own.

Women writers are very likely a huge untapped resource for the Christian church which needs to be researched and most of all financed to minister truth and grace to hungry hearts. 

When most of us egalitarians have a friend with questions about women in ministry, we offer them one of a few classic books.  We give them Gilbert Bilizekian’s Beyond Sex Roles or one of the multi-views books published by InterVarsity Press or Zondervan or perhaps (if we’re really creative!) refer them to an article on the CBE website.  We now, however, have at least one entirely different option: Scot McKnight’s new book The Blue Parakeet: Rethinking How You Read the Bible.

The remarkable thing about Scot’s book is that it’s not really about women in ministry or anything else relating to gender–it is, as the title, suggests, about how to read the Bible.  The first section of the book is about reading the Bible as a larger narrative (similar to how N. T. Wright suggests we read it in books of his like The Last Word), the middle sections are about ways to interpret the Bible, and the final section applies these principles to the issue of women in ministry.  The genius of the book is twofold:

(1) Those that have no interest in gender issues may end up thinking about them because they wanted to read this book about interpreting Scripture.

(2) Those that are interested in gender issues can read this book and focus a lot less on the back-and-forth between egalitarians and complementarians (which has its place) to, instead, consider this much broader and–in many ways–more important issue of how to read the Bible.  Once their way of reading the Bible is different, it’s unlikely they can return to their same old views of gender nearly as easily.

Admittedly, there were aspects of the book I wasn’t completely enthused by, and you may wish to read a more complete review of the book on Amazon or Christianity Today before giving it to a friend.  However, solely considering its merit as a resource with the potential to improve the status of women in Western evangelical churches, I am quite impressed.

What I most admire about the book is its ability to see the big picture.  While many of us are so passionate about gender issues that we could spend all day discussing the related Bible passages, Scot realizes the interpretation of these passages is not his top priority.  Seeing the many academics that debate women’s roles, I think we often forget the place most lay people are in: it’s not just that they don’t know the Greek and Hebrew to solve this gender mystery themselves.  Rather, if we are to ever move forward on this, or many other issues in the church, we’re going to have to study–and dialog about–how to read the Bible to begin with.   After all, few of our churches really teach us to handle this seemingly basic task.

Scot’s book may not please everyone in the sophistication of his argument for women’s equality, nor the depth of its coverage of this larger question about Scripture, but I think we could learn a lot from his humble willingness to let the specific issues of women in ministry take a backseat while we work tirelessly to improve general interpretive skills.  Each emphasis has its place in our writing and teaching, of course, but The Blue Parakeet fills a gap few seem to have noticed.  While it’s crucial to continue our study of the specific issue of women in ministry, let’s not forget the foundational questions we must help people answer in order for them to mature in their faith.  We may be surprised just how well more specific issues like gender equality can be connected to these larger questions and how much more open people are to new ideas when approached from that broader and potentially less threatening angle.

I have just been browsing a website which promotes roles for women and men as God’s ordained will for all time. It showed again the enormous power of words to create impressions and convince people of a point of view. History shows that many strong people convinced others that what they promoted was the ‘truth’ and consistently it has been done by ridiculing those who have a different way of looking at the same facts.

I am not writing this merely to criticise those who made the statements I will reproduce below, but mostly as a reminder to those of us who believe in true biblical equality that how we say things is vitally important. We do not want to have a reputation for gaining ground or new adherants by misrepresenting those who have another opinion. We want to recognise that those who believe in gender roles have varying degrees of that doctrine and hopefully, many are in the process of examining history and biblical scholarship for themselves.

The article I read was about Deborah from the book of Judges and was quite long, covering many aspects of her life. Three statements stood out which I believe should be refuted and they are in italics. They all use Deborah to portray how the author believed Deborah would have acted had she been an egalitarian.

“Egalitarian women want to replace men in these roles”

Biblical egalitarian women do not want to replace men but desire to work alongside them in the spirit of unity and deference to one another while recognising that Christian service is not about leadership but servanthood and working together for the cause of the gospel.

“Her goal would have been to take Barak’s job”

This is suggesting that if Deborah had been an egalitarian she would have had unworthy motives and not been listening to what God had to say to her in this instance.

“She would have filled her hymn with her own achievements”

Would it have then been acceptable for a male judge to write a song about his own achievements instead of honouring God who is ultimately the one who raises up and puts down all leaders and gives victory to his people? I’m not at all sure that God would have been happy with such a song being written by a man or a women on this occasion.

Rather than being inspired to retaliate for such misrepresentations of our biblical beliefs, let us resolve to honour God by writing of his great deeds and wonderful redemption where we all have been given freedom and equal standing as much-loved children.