The CBE Scroll

From the very beginning of our ministry life together my wife (Liz) and I have had an egalitarian approach to both marriage and ministry. Way back then we were unaware of the extensive body of literature available that supports such a stance and so it was more of a preferred and personal way of doing things. Even though I am more naturally an expository preacher, I recall having great difficulty preaching with any conviction the apparent ‘male headship’ referred to in Ephesians 5:23, or offering an alternative, so I usually avoided going there. When our children were small Liz was more restricted to the home which left me to attend to church leadership matters but we always talked about issues at home and I valued immensely her wise and experienced input. We tried to teach and model a marriage based on mutuality but many of our new converts, even though previously unchurched, somehow picked up on this issue of male headship and were quite strident in their application of it. Lacking the tools to counter  these developments we never tackled this issue head on. I can remember quite clearly one of the deacon’s wives stating to us after a home group meeting, (her husband had just returned from a men’s convention) “What do you think of my husband’s new theology?,” referring to him now being the ‘head’ and ‘priest’ of the family. At the time we both responded rather meekly. Something we lived to regret.

As the church grew and we, of necessity, had multiple leaders it was difficult to find people who were on exactly the same page. After one of the Elder’s meetings I did as I usually do, ran things by my wife when I got home. There wasn’t anything secretive but somehow it got back to an elder who was quite opposed to women in leadership, and he brought the matter up at the next meeting. He insisted that Elder’s meetings were private affairs and that our decisions were not up for discussion, even at home. Up to that time we were encouraging the leaders and wives to meet together socially so that the wives could feel included in their husband’s role within the life of the church. Anyway, here was one of those moments when I was momentarily persuaded to do things differently. I would not discuss church matters with my wife at all. Church business would be just that, business! Business that had nothing to do with my wife. I found myself behaving most unnaturally and very much against the way that we previously related. It was incredibly uncomfortable and hurtful for both of us. The experience lasted a week, but sadly I was ‘momentarily persuaded.’ I need to add here that we (LIz and I) are both gifted to lead so denying my wife  an awareness of what was going on in a ministry that we both shared (at that time unofficially) was potentially disastrous for us as a couple.

Eventually that elder moved on and we were able to encourage the church to embrace both Liz and I as being involved in ministry together.

Another time when I was ‘momentarily persuaded’ was immediately during and after a combined church camp where the speaker addressed the issue of family life. He spoke very convincingly of the husband’s role as an initiator and the wife as a responder. Using illustrations from his perception of the creation order and, what I consider now to be rather crude expressions of sexual function, he insisted that this is how order within marriage should be established and maintained. It was many, many years ago but I came away from that camp thinking that perhaps I should put this concept of marriage and family into practice. Suffice to say that that experiment barely lasted the week, but I was, ‘momentarily persuaded,’ mostly because we didn’t have the tools to refute such strong, passionately presented and persistent arguments.

Thankfully now, through the ministry and materials of CBE, we are much more aware and equipped to stand up for what we know to be true and have been able to bring others on the journey. Perhaps others of you out there have had similar experiences in your own journey and have at times, like me, been momentarily persuaded to go with the flow of a convincing counter argument.

I wasn’t trying to make a statement on gender or gender roles in the church.  Wasn’t, wasn’t wasn’t.  I just misheard the worship leader’s instructions.

In the middle of corporate worship recently, a tune came along in which one group led and another followed.  You know, one of those echo deals.  About halfway through the song I realized I was belting it out with the “wrong” group.  Apparently men were supposed to lead, women follow.  Oops.

My tuneful gusto drew more than a few dark looks.  The experience got me thinking: What does the “men lead out, women echo” tune paradigm tell us about gender roles in worship?  Should gender roles exist in worship?

While we’re on the subject, what is worship, anyway?  Responses vary.  Yea verily, it would take an entire book to adequately parse that subject.  Briefly, the English word “worship” comes from two Old English words: weorth, which means “worth,” and scipe or ship, which means something like shape or “quality.”   Thus, “worth-ship” is the quality of having worth or of being worthy to declare or attribute worth.  Synonyms include adoration, love, reverence, veneration, respect and adulation.  It can include kneeling, bowing down, a willingness to obey and serve. In biblical terms, worship means honoring and acknowledging God for who He is.  (For more, see What is Worship? A Survey of Scripture.)

Christians are called to worship God: “You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light” (1 Peter 2:9).  Worship shouldn’t be another item to mindlessly mark off a Sunday morning ‘To Do’ list.  It is an immense joy, a privilege beyond words.  Worship should infuse every aspect of my being and daily life.  Declaring that God is worthy and loving Him with my whole being – heart, soul, mind, and strength (Mark 12:30) – is part of who I am as a Christian.  So why were some trying to shut up my worship because I inadvertently upset their gender apple cart?

I later wondered, why aren’t women asked to “lead out” in an “echo” song?  (Maybe they are elsewhere; I’ve just never seen it in the context in question.)  Is it because they’re not loud enough?  Enthusiastic enough?  Spiritually immature?  Lacking in gifting or calling?  Does Scripture indicate that only men are worship vanguards, or that leading worship is a testosterone-only zone?  Does God prefer tenors or baritones to sopranos or altos?  Are female worship expressions secondary or subservient, dependent upon male initiative?  Is there something inherently amiss with placing gender above worship from the heart, and doesn’t doing so miss the point?

“Mom, where are the women?” my twelve-year old son asked as he scanned the program for a 9/11 “10 Year Anniversary Remembrance Service” sponsored by the local ministers’ fellowship.

Josiah saw it immediately.  I was a little slower.  I looked over the program which included a welcome, invocation, pledge of allegiance, six patriotic songs, nine prayers, a video clip and three mini-sermons by area pastors.  The 90-minute service included seventeen separate elements and twenty different speakers or presenters.  Nineteen were male.  The one exception was the Benediction.   Even the Chilean Evangelist who prayed for the “peoples of the nations of the world” was male.

As fine an idea as a 9/11 remembrance service was, and as stirring as the tributes and music may have been, it felt… incomplete.   The “estrogen-free zone” nature of the event left me feeling as if something valuable and precious had been muted.  Overlooked. Lost. Conspicuous by their absence, that “something” was women.

I wondered why the ministers’ fellowship and event organizers couldn’t find at least one mother, wife, daughter, sister, grandmother, or niece to pray, lead a song, share a personal anecdote or vignette, preach, or tell a story – or if anyone even tried?  I wondered about the female first responders, firefighters, and military personnel who were left unrepresented at this “remembrance” event, and when they might be honored for their sacrifice and courage?  Also when the strength, resolve and resilience of the brave mothers, widows, girl friends and daughters who were left behind to continue their lives without loved ones will be acknowledged?

As Josiah and I wended our way back to the car after the service, I wondered how much more compelling the event may have been if gender representation was at least a little closer to parity, and how sad it was that the community missed out on something worthy, unique and significant: a woman’s perspective of 9/11.

“Where are the women?” indeed.

Lean and lanky, the thirty-something teacher probed the congregation with a practiced eye as he wound down his presentation.  Ezekiel “Zeke” (pseudonym) teaches at a secondary school in another country.  Backed up by a carefully constructed PowerPoint presentation, Ezekiel shared his passion for sensitively pouring truth and grace into the lives of his students, particularly the girls.  His blue eyes blazed as he asked if a woman in the Community Christian Church (not its real name) congregation would be willing to come forward and pray for the women of his host country.

No one moved.

Thinking his request was muddled or unheard, Zeke repeated it.  He was met with crossed arms, averted eyes, and the creaks of bodies shifting uneasily in the pews.  Silence wrapped the Northwest church like a pea-soup fog.

“Sorry brother,” Elder Darrell strode to the platform and stood next to Ezekiel behind the podium.  Smiling, he clapped Zeke on the shoulder and explained, “We don’t allow that sort of thing here.”

“What thing?”

“The Bible is clear when it tells us that women are not to usurp authority over men,” explained Elder Darrell.  The members of Community Christian believe that includes pulpit ministry, any form of church leadership, and public prayer, particularly prayer that takes place under its roof.  “Corporate” prayer meetings are divided along gender lines: women and girls pray in one room, men and boys in another.

Zeke felt like a country fair snow cone on a sweltering August afternoon.  A porcupine silence ensued until “Brother Franklin” came forward and prayed for the women of Zeke’s host country.

“What did he pray?” I asked Zeke as he unrolled his story over lunch a few days later.

“Franklin prayed that God would teach the women of that country to submit to the men.”

I swallowed.  Hard.  ”Aside from the fact that ‘women submitting to men’ is a pseudo-biblical view,” I probed, “what else did Darrell say?”

Zeke sighed as he raked a sun-bronzed hand through his sandy hair.  “It’s like Community Christian’s view of ‘biblical womanhood’ is ‘clipped wings’ and ‘seen but not heard.’   I don’t get it,” Zeke dabbed a French fry into a pool of ketchup.  “That’s the kind of thing that goes on in my host county.”  He cited instances of female subservience, male dominance, and gender discrimination in education, work, worship, and the legal system.

“Didn’t the Lord Jesus come to set the captives free?  Is that just spiritual, or is it something more?” my young friend wondered between bites of his cheeseburger.  “How come some Christians refuse to see women as full partners in kingdom work, as equal joint-heirs in Jesus?”  Zeke sipped his lemonade while I listened.  “What’s with the top-down totem pole view of gender roles?  How is that different from the country where I work?”

“I don’t get it,” Zeke reiterated, shaking his head. “Why would an ‘evangelical, Bible-believing church’ treat women just like some of those who are outside Christendom?”

Why, indeed?

There are some philosophical words which can appear scary until we understand them – here’s a few…..

ONTOLOGY: The study of the fundamental nature of being, what makes something what it is. (Ontology is also a word used in Information Science in another way not related to our issues, in case any of you are in I.S.)

ESSENCE and ACCIDENT: Similar to Ontology, Essence means that some quality or attribute is necessary for something to be what it is. Accident does not mean “accidental” in this case, it means something that a thing is that is not necessary to the essence of what it is.

NECESSARY and SUFFICIENT: These terms mean pretty much what you’d expect. Is this attribute of something necessary to it being what it is?   Is it sufficient to make something what it is?

In my reading, I usually hear ontology used for all of the functions of the words above. There are two areas in the egalitarian/complementarian debate where these come up: The gender of God and how humans are made in the image of God.

Complementarians often argue that God is ontologically male. That is, maleness is an essence of God’s being. Maleness is necessary for God to be God. Christians believe humans are made in the image of God. If God’s essence is male, then only men are complete images of God. Complementarians use this to establish a hierarchy of men over women in the church and in marriage.

Egalitarians refute this, saying that the Genesis account clearly treats the creation of humanity in God’s image, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” Gen. 1:27 and “Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created.” Gen. 5:2  (KJV) So, while Jesus was born a human male, God is not in His essence, male In fact, it is only the body of Jesus that is male. The God side of the Son’s dual nature is not male at all. God is supra-gender. So, any human hierarchy based on God’s maleness has a fatal flaw in its logic. Both male and female words used to describe God in the Bible are images, not ontological statements.

God’s “maleness” being essential, according to complementarians, for God to be God, means that it becomes  necessary for God to be male. So, the question becomes whether a person’s gender makes them essentially different from humans who are of the other gender. Neither side argues that a person’s gender does not impact them. The question is how necessary that impact is to his/her being in the image of God. Complementarians argue it is necessary for an image of God to be male. This convinces them as to why God has only men in leadership positions: males have leadership built into them by reason of their being God’s exact, necessary image, and women do not. Complementarians apply this both in marriage and in the church. Egalitarians argue that God is God, and God is supragender, so it is neither necessary or sufficient to be male to be in the image of God. So, all of us being in essence human and humans are made in the image of God, we are all necessarily in the image of God and we can act and interact as equals.

Let me toss in one more term, this one a logic term: STRAWMAN. A strawman is an argument written in such a way that the writer can tear it down. I have tried to avoid building strawmen in my discussion above, but I want to encourage you to seek out original sources for both complementarian and egalitarian reasoning in these matters.

Any questions? Any comments?

P.S.: I’d like to make a note of thanks to my nephew, Harvey, who’s a Ph.D. in philosophy, for helping me with this blog.