The CBE Scroll

I was shocked. I remembered the old Bryan*, the Bryan that put on the brakes during a discussion of Large Group speakers at our Coordinating Team planning retreat. “Why is it suddenly illegal to bring in white men?” he asked, frustrated. As Multi-Ethnicity Team Leader on our exec, I was pushing hard for more female and ethnic minority speakers during our weekly InterVarsity chapter meetings. Some of the other C-Team members were fairly supportive; Bryan was making it an uphill battle.

How did that same Bryan end up sitting next to me on a flight home to North Carolina, rattling on excitedly about speaker Brenda Salter-McNeill and other highlights of Urbana 06? I had noticed how carefully InterVarsity had crafted its triennial missions conference, putting women in the pulpit and using the gender-accurate TNIV, among other things. Nevertheless, I hadn’t imagined its potential effect on Bryan’s support for women in ministry. But he could not deny the voice of the Holy Spirit through these female speakers—who was he to silence God?

As I prepare to graduate, I realize the stark contrast between InterVarsity and much of the evangelical world—my female friends and I will no longer find widespread acceptance as leaders. However, regardless of our personal beliefs, when women are suddenly barred from such roles, we might actually miss them. Women like me have had invaluable experience leading in mission on campus, and men like Bryan have served alongside women, being blessed by their leadership.

Across a fairly wide spectrum of parachurch organizations, opportunities abound for the reconsideration of limiting views of women. Women lead in many mainstream evangelical ministries, large and small, and God’s work through them is not unnoticed. Christianity Today features articles by authors like Lauren Winner, and Joan Mussa and Julie Regnier serve as Senior Vice Presidents for World Vision. Women even teach future pastors at Fuller, Gordon-Conwell, and Trinity, three of the largest non-denominational evangelical seminaries. A female student leader from Campus Crusade organized UNC’s 24/7 Prayer week this year, and countless other local ministries depend on the time, vision, skills, and prayers of women who love Jesus. While varying in their official positions on women in ministry, each of these more missionally driven organizations senses a practical need for women’s participation.

Yes, it may seem contradictory at first: despite affirming women in their specific ministries, many parachurch organizations like InterVarsity remain silent about female deacons, elders, and pastors/priests in the local church. (Some organizations would say they oppose it, in fact!) I myself used to feel abandoned by this silence, but now I celebrate it. While I question the validity of this sharp church/parachurch distinction and would appreciate InterVarsity’s eventual allegiance to CBE’s egalitarian cause, I have begun to rejoice in the quietly strategic—even inadvertent—role of other parachurch organizations in advancing gender reconciliation and justice.

Especially among university students and other young adults, the parachurch, with its focused yet flexible structures, is often uniquely suited to interact with diverse constituencies otherwise lacking exposure to women in ministry. Indeed, perhaps one of the most significant things we can do to support gender equality is to remain invested in the parachurch organizations that are already informally, sometimes accidentally, changing minds and hearts about women. Regardless of what is or isn’t said about the issue, the mere presence of women in leadership transforms lives. By donating to humanitarian organizations, encouraging college-bound high schoolers to join a campus ministry, volunteering at a local level, or simply connecting others to a female author who has mentored us from a distance, we may be doing more than we realize to advance women’s ministry. Of course, I look forward to finding clearer allies to CBE’s mission. But I’m excited to see the Lord is already at work, sometimes in the places I least expect.

February 20 was the release date of Susan McLeod-Harrison’s first book Saving Women from the Church: How Jesus Mends a Divide (Barclay Press, 2008). Upfront I have to say I’m not sure I can review this book objectively. Susan’s story is very close to my own. Reading this book, I wished it had been published about eight years earlier. That is when I was going through my own struggle on whether or not to remain in the Church. And I do mean Church with a big C. I wasn’t thinking of only leaving my denomination, I was thinking of leaving the Church period. I was in seminary and on the ordination track. I did not see a place for myself in Christian ministry. I was single; I was evangelical; and I was called to preach and pastor. I was also asked in various churches if I was going to seminary to be a pastor’s wife. I had come to the point where I wanted to leave. I wanted to walk away. I just did not see a future for myself in the Church.

Saving Women from the Church addresses several of the myths that woman hear in church. Some of the chapter titles are: “If you’ve felt alienated and judged in the church,” “If you believe women are inferior to men,” “If as a single woman, your gifts have been rejected or overlooked,” and “If you’ve been encouraged to deify motherhood.” In the Introduction, she starts with my favorite starting point on women in the church: creation. Both men and women are created in the image of God, and therefore, image God with their gifts and talents God has given them. In each chapter she starts with a fictional account of a woman who is experiencing and living one of the myths. She follows it with an imaginative portrayal of how Jesus treated women in a similar position in the New Testament. She follows the biblical story by explaining what Jesus was doing and with questions for discussion. Each chapter ends with a meditation meant for healing. Saving Women does a great job of translating theology into practical, everyday examples in language normal people use. The history and sociological work she does for each passage, explaining the culture of the people at the time, is also well done.

I think this book would make an excellent woman’s study or small group study. It addresses most of the myths women in the evangelical church have grown up with and still deal with. It would be a great conversation starter, and it is a valuable addition to other books on this subject. The language and tone of the book make it much more accessible and understandable to the typical lay person than most books in this genre. In the conclusion, Susan recommends women in abusive churches leave and gives a list of churches that are egalitarian and open to women in ministry. Saving Women does a good job of acknowledging and describing the myths, and encourages women to get out of these environments. The Recommended Reading at the end of the book also has books that would help in this regard.

Overall I am very pleased that this book is on the market. It starts with the premise that women are made in the image of God and called to build God’s kingdom. Then it deals chapter-by-chapter with the destructive myths that have prevailed in evangelical culture to keep women as second-class citizens and powerless in the pews. It is an excellent resource to begin busting these myths and helping women find their God-given ability to be equal partners in building God’s kingdom with their brothers.

I grew up in patriarchal churches. I got used to hearing Scripture readings and having to internally translate “man” to “humanity” or “people;” to seeing women behind the piano but not the pulpit or conducting the children’s choir but not the adult musicians; to being allowed to ask public questions in my high school Sunday school class but then denied the same opportunity later when I became an adult. So when, a few years ago, all my searching and questioning finally produced a permanent shift to egalitarianism, the smallest acts of justice in the church were great sources of encouragement to me.

At the time I was a member of a patriarchal but relatively supportive congregation, and when “liberal” forces within the congregation led to invitations to serve on the vision team, to usher, or to give a public testimony, these opportunities seemed vastly liberating compared to what I had previously known. My husband and I didn’t want to change churches over one issue - especially if our willing service could be an example of winsome egalitarianism - so we stuck around. But the completion of graduate school and the beginning of a nationwide job search recently opened the door for us to explore other denominations and particular congregations that would share our egalitarian commitment. We’re still in the job search process and haven’t settled permanently, but we’re currently attending a small Episcopal church that we appreciate for its lovely and historic liturgy, warm people, and obvious dedication to the outworking of the gospel through social justice.

The reason for this rather rambling biography is to help you understand the significance of what happened last Sunday. Longtime Episcopalians probably think nothing of it, being used to women represented as equals. But when, during the celebration of the Eucharist, the rector addressed his prayer to “God of our ancestors: God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; God of Sarah, Rebekah, and Ruth,” I was stunned. Never in my life had I heard our spiritual fathers and mothers held up together with equal significance at a public ceremony. There was no elaboration, no qualification of the statement as hinging on a “correct” understanding of manhood and womanhood derived elsewhere; just a prayer that acknowledged men and women recorded in the Bible as being among those God spoke through and to in millennia past.

Kneeling there in my pew, the congregation continuing to pray aloud around me, I repeated that phrase over and over, startled to find my eyes filling with tears. I am generally the last person to “get emotional” during worship. But I was overwhelmed with gratitude for a God who never discriminates, who loves his daughters as he loves his sons, who loves me as he loves his other children, and loves me so much that he would speak to me in such simple but profoundly moving and comforting words. That morning I received the bread and wine with a suddenly-deeper gratitude for the transforming grace of Christ.

On the one hand, this is a sad story about just how oppressive our wrong-headed attitudes are when all it takes is a simple acknowledgment of God’s work in both men and women to open the floodgates of the heart. And yet, on the other, it is a testimony to the amazing power of truth offered without hesitation and with humility, the solidarity of the people of God standing together on equal footing before the cross of Christ. I would have missed the sweetness of that moment of communion had I not experienced the previous oppression, and therefore I am grateful to God for both.

And so I am prompted to ask this question: have any of you, who like me converted to egalitarianism from a patriarchal background, ever had such an “a-ha!” moment - a time when the full significance of your equality before God hit you unexpectedly? I’d love to hear where you were and just what it was that took you by surprise. I’m certain your story will be an encouragement to others - so do tell!

Barb from Langley, BC, who has been conducting research among Christians who have recovered from experiences of emotional and spiritual distress under authoritarian and controlling church leaders has made one last call for those who still might like to participate in her survey.

The original post, with contact information, may be found here.

The results of her survey will provide her with a critical piece of research and will help her on her way to the completion of her dissertation, and so if you can help in any way, please do!

‘You should learn how to play the piano or something… since you’ll be a minister’s wife someday.’

An older gentleman said this to me as we were walking along toward the Sunday school class where my husband Sam and I were to share about our missionary experiences. When we were single, Sam and I had both individually heard God’s call and confirmation to be long-term missionaries, and both of us had taken steps of faith on short-term trips to answer that call. And, though they had invited my husband to be the speaker that morning, as equal partners in all things Sam of course wanted me to share my story as well. Sadly, the assumption was that Sam was the minister and I was the minister’s wife!

The gentleman’s comment left me dumbfounded and speechless. I wanted to laugh because it was so absurd and cry because I knew he wasn’t joking. It was assumed that because I was a married female, I was no longer a missionary (I was a missionary’s wife), and furthermore, there was no way I would be the minister - but the minister’s wife.

But God is not gender-biased. He gives spiritual gifts according to his sovereign prerogative. To me, he gave the gifts of teaching and shepherding. To Sam, he gave the gifts of service and music. So… in our family, if anybody was to be the piano player, it would be Sam (who plays the guitar wonderfully while I can’t keep a beat or carry a tune for the life of me), and if anybody were to be a minister’s spouse, it would be him. But a ‘minister’s husband’ - whoever’s heard of that? As we move forward in proclaiming the message of biblical equality, may a woman’s call to ministry be as readily accepted as a man’s.

I was completely speechless in this situation, but what should I have said? Please share if you have had any similar experiences and how you responded - or suggestions of what kind of response would be best in stereotyping situations like this.