[continuing on from my previous post here]
As secular feminism grew in society, it started to also infiltrate the Church. Soon, feminist voices begin to sound from within the churches themselves, as calls for equality between men and women in the Church were made. Traditionally, women are not allowed to be ordained as pastors, neither are they allowed to be elders or deacons either. This exclusion of women from the leadership of the churches lead to accusations of discimination in the churches against women, with R.A. Schmidt writing in a 1971 article in Christianity Today (Astray) that women possessed "second-class citizenship in the Kingdom of God". (Kassian, p. 26-27)
With regards to this push for egalitarianism, there are a few things we would like to consider: whether the charge of inequality is valid, what the Bible says about the role of pastors, elders and deacons within the church, and addressing the proof-texts of the 'biblical feminists'. Definitely, arguments of liberal religious feminist and secular feminists would be thrown out, since we have already established the principle of Sola Scriptura, and therefore anything not found in Scripture is not Christian at all.
With regards to the charge of inequality, if by inequality they refer to inherent worth and dignity, then we affirm that orthodox Christianity is on their side, as the 'biblical feminists' have aptly taken Scriptures such as Gal. 3:28, the example of Mary learning at the feet of Jesus etc. to prove their case. In fact, the entire doctrine of sin and salvation; that ALL have sinned and that the only way to God is through repentance and belief in our Lord Jesus Christ who died for all His sheep, BOTH male and female, holds forth the truth of equality between men and women. To the extent that the churches have treated women with less respect, worth and dignity than men, the churches and men in general need to repent of such discrimination against women. If, however, by inquality they are referring with respect to the role of men and women play in their walk and service before God, then I would deny that Scripture supports their view. Most 'biblical feminists', I would suspect, do not distinguish between the two, or they may see no difference between the two forms of inequalities, to their own loss, I would add.
Before looking at what the Bible says about the role of men and women in their walk and service before God, let us look at the whole idea of service unto God.
First of all, of course, we must first recognize that service unto God must be done in a way glorifying to Him, and thus in obedience. If by doing something, you are disobeying God's command, then you are not serving God but your own carnal desires. Therefore, regardless of how pure your motive and how well your service is rendered unto the Lord, the Lord will not accept it unless it is done in obedience. Truly, to obey is better than to sacrifice (1 Sam. 15:22ff). In this case, if women are invovled in ministry such as being pastors while God has explicitly denied them to taking on such an office, then they are in rebellion against God and no ministry they do will be acceptable to Him even though they may 'do all the right things' out of a motive of wanting to honor God. Since that is the case, the core issue is whether God has permitted women to fill such offices, which we shall cover later.
Secondly, the whole idea of discimination against women in the Church by only having male clergy while women can only be part of the laity carries with it the assumption that somehow the clergy group is of a higher class and status than the laity. This semblance of inequality in the service status between men and women could be easily solved by destroying the clergy/laity status divide, and reemphasizing the doctrine of the priesthood of believers (1 Peter 2:9). It seems that the Christians churches at that time had an unbiblical view of office bearers in the church (By office bearers, I am referring to those who are ordained to function in an authoritative serving capacity in the church), and feminism had identified the problem correctly but gave a wrong solution. As Kassian puts it:
The examination of the Church by Christian feminists revealed gross inequalities in the role of male and female. Serious consideration needed to be given to the problem. Willaim Douglas perceptively pointed out two possible courses of action in dealing with the dilemna. First the Church could ... go back to its roots, reestablish the priesthood of all believers and dissolve the vast distinction between the clergy and laity, opening up ministry to all. Or alternatively, the Church could retain its current structure and simply open up the avenues of ordained ministry to women as well as men. Changing the way Church bureaucracies were structured, and changing ingrained perceptions regarding the pattern and function of Church leadership, would have been a formidible task. Furthermore, most believers did not associate the problem of women's involvement in the Church with a deeper problem of incorrect structure and function. The latter course of dealing with women's role inequality was thus chosen. (p. 27)
As such, we can see the tragedy unfolds within the churches, as instead of reemphasizing the priesthood of believers and dissolving the clergy/laity divide which exists in many denominational structures e.g. Anglicanism, Methodism (and other churches as long as there is a ruling party which sets the office bearers as being superior status above normal believers), they retain the unbiblical structure and allow women to join their exclusive 'club', thus giving us women pastors, women elders etc. Before looking into the Word of God to see what does the Bible say about the marks of office bearers (pastors, elders, deacons etc.) with regards to this issue, let is be said here that a biblical emphasis on the doctrine of the priesthood of believers would allow women to participate in ministry and serve the Lord, instead of being passive pew-warmers like most of the laity.
With this settled, let us look at the marks of office bearers in the Church of our Lord Jesus Christ which is prescribed to us in the Bible, especially with regards to this issue.
The apostle Paul, in these two passages from the pastoral epistles, 1 Tim. 3:1-13; Titus 1:5-9, sets forth the qualifications of office bearers in the church. With regards to the egalitarian position, perhaps the most important things that can be derived from the text is that these office bearers are required to be husbands of one wife (1 Tim. 3:2; 12; Titus 1:6), and to be able to teach and rebuke others (1 Tim. 3:2; 9; Titus 1:9). For the former qualification, definitely women don't have wives so it stands to reason that no women is allowed in Scripture to be an office bearer. Now, it has often been said that the reason why this is so is because of the culture of the 1st century world, and thus this verse is only saying that office bearers are to have one spouse. To this, we answer that the truths in the Bible transcend time and is not limited by and mouldable by cultural standards of any age. Furthermore, the entire cultural argument is nonsense! In the Greek culture, and Roman culture, women often could hold high positions in society, and cults the Greek and Roman gods and goddesses do have priestess and prophetess in their services, so therefore, to say that the culture demands an adaptation of the church of that time is plainly ridiculous. In fact, any adaptation to the pagan culture would more likely favor the inclusion of women and their placement in prominent positions of authority rather than the biblical position set forth by Paul.
To the argument that Paul was a misogynist, one has only to look at the actions of Paul as stated in Acts and other places in Scripture to see how wrong this false accusation is. In Acts 16:14, in the city of Philippi, Paul's earliest convert was a woman by the name of Lydia and she in that sense was the first member of the church in Philippi there, together with her household. In Acts 18, Priscilla was a co-worker together with her husband Aquila and Paul in spreading the Gospel. In Phil. 4:2-3, Paul states that the women Euodia & Syntyche were contending at his side for the sake of the Gospel, and he pleaded with them to agree with each other in the Lord. From all of these examples, it can be said that Paul treated women well, and thus the charge of being a misogynist does not stick.
Another thing which Paul states in those passages from the pastoral epistles is the necessity that office bearers must be able to teach and to hold fast apostolic doctrine. To these, another passage from the pastoral epistle is added to show forth the fact that women are not allowed to be office bearers, 1 Tim. 2:11-14.
Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor.
We will discuss this pasage further when we analyze the biblical argument of the 'biblical feminists' later. At the moment, suffice it is to say that since women are not allowed 'to teach or exercise authority over a man', and office bearers are to teach (with the exception of deacons) and definitely to exercise authority in the Church, therefore women are not allowed to be office bearers.
With this established, let us analyze the arguments from bible passages put forward by 'biblical feminists'.
[to be continued]
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