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.

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?

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.

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?

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.

“Jesus called them together and said, ‘You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave—just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.’”
(Matthew 20:25-28, TNIV)

How many of us feel uneasy when we are told that men, rather than women, are called to be “servant leaders?” Perhaps we are confused by this notion—that men alone are to be “servant-leaders”—because it contains an important truth though it carries that truth only part of the way. What do I mean?

Scripture speaks of the Christian life, for both males and females, as one of service. Jesus said that unlike the Gentiles who exercised authority over others, among his followers those who wanted to be first must become like slaves, just as Christ came not to be served, but to serve. There is no mention of gender in this important passage in Matthew 20:25-28, nor is there any mention of authority.

Similarly, Paul also said that he became a slave to everyone for the sake of the gospel (1 Corinthians 9:19). Paul became a slave not because he was male but because he was being renewed in the image of Christ. The gospel calls that all Christians take up their cross and follow Jesus, not because of their gender, but because of their desire to be followers of Jesus.

Celebrating the servant-leadership of all God’s people!

Mimi Haddad, President of CBE

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The resignation of the Team leader placed the Board of Elders (which includes a woman) in an unforeseen dilemma because the female Pastor strongly feels the call of God to step up into the vacated position of Team leader. The ministry Team had discussed and prayed over this possible outcome and could readily affirm this could well be  what God has in mind for the church’s future. What needed to happen next was that the Board of Elders should be convinced of this possibility too and make a recommendation to the church membership in order to ratify such a decision.

Interestingly, initially, two members of the Elder Board could not see, from the Scriptures, that a woman could/should be placed in the position of Team leader. The sticking point for them was the issue of headship. One of the men felt really exercised, after a restless night, to have another, Spirit prompted look at Galatians 3:28 in the early hours of the morning. As a consequence he felt God was encouraging him to concede that gender should not be a reason for any person to be disqualified from holding a senior leadership responsibility within the church. When the Elders conferred again he shared his experience and declared his modified position.

Meanwhile, the other dissenting Elder felt, after much prayer and an expression of willingness to change his view if God so instructed him, to hold firm because he remained unconvinced even after reviewing the various arguments. He then offered to resign rather than be in disagreement with the other Elders. While this was admirable it was unacceptable because, up to this point, everything had been accomplished at Elder Board level by total unanimity. So he agreed to stay on and support the recommendation that the rest of the Board were wanting to put before the church membership.

It needs to be said in all of this that the female Pastor had exceeded all expectations in terms of ministry giftedness and performance and no one doubted her ability, under God, to lead the ministry Team and the Church into the future. As mentioned earlier, the sticking point for this one Elder, was the matter of headship even though, in every other way he conceded that she was, without doubt,  gifted and capable. It’s as if his heart said one thing and his head another.

For him the contentious passage is 1 Corinthians 11:3 where it states categorically, as expressed in the NLT (New Living Translation), “… A man is responsible to Christ, a woman is responsible to her husband, and Christ is responsible to God.” No amount of persuasive argument could help this Elder to see that this verse could be interpreted any differently than what it literally appears to say. For the present time he cannot get around his personal conviction that for some reason God has invested in men the responsibility to lead.

Which leads to the question for you our bloggers. In what ways have you been convinced from Scripture, or has God shown you, that male “headship”, or leadership, both in the Church and the home, is not what He had in mind at all?

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.

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.