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Gender Roles

“Biblical Womanhood” – reflecting on Rachel’s visit to Mars Hill

12/03/2012
Bible, Biblical Womanhood, Gender Roles, Grand Rapids Events, Hermeneutics, Rachel Held Evans
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Yesterday Melinda and I made the drive down to Mars Hill to see our friend Rachel Held Evans. She was there to speak about Ruth and her Biblical Womanhood project [the podcast should be up soon here], and we had made plans to join her after the service for lunch.

The meal was quite good, and the conversation was excellent, but this morning I wanted to offer a couple reflections on her sermon.

Too often our conversations about “Biblical Womanhood” devolve into complementarians and egalitarians lining up their favorite verses in some sort of exegetical chess match.

What I appreciate about Rachel’s project is that she is questioning that entire approach.

Not because there are not relevant passages of Scripture, or because the Bible isn’t authoritative, but because the my-verses-beat-your-verses model makes a number of assumptions about what kind of book the Bible is, and tends to brush aside both historical and contemporary context.

For example, Rachel pointed out (rightly I think) that the current emphasis on complementarianism within many traditions is largely a response to the second-wave feminism of the 1960’s, 70’s, and 80’s. What that has often meant is that, intentionally or not, the image of womanhood that people are attempting to reclaim ends up looking quite a bit more like the early 1900’s than gender identity in the Ancient Near East.

Now inevitably the pushback from complementarians is that they are not striving for a return to the 50’s, but attempting to be faithful to the Bible. Most of the time, I think that’s true. I have no doubt that a desire for biblical faithfulness is an important motivation for those who advocate more traditional views of gender.

But the reality is more complicated than that, and in the end complementarians have a grid for picking and choosing which verses they take seriously, and which they sweep under the rug, just as much as any egalitarian. Even the most determined complementarians are not advocating that women should be forced to marry their rapist, be sold to pay off their family’s debts, cover their heads during prayer, or stay silent in the church; and yet those all appear in the text.

The problem, Rachel insists, is that we have been taught to approach the Bible like it is a blueprint for womanhood, or marriage, or finances, or how to choose the right college.

We assume that if we just figure out the puzzle then suddenly all the verses in the Bible that address womanhood will align into one unified vision. They don’t – because God didn’t give us a blueprint, and something like womanhood is far too varied and complex for a blueprint anyway – but both sides often work under that paradigm and are then left in the awkward position of pretending that the other side “picks and chooses” while they do not.

I have to agree with Rachel that the more interesting conversation is not “how can we avoid picking and choosing?” but “why do we pick and choose the way we do?” In other words the debate behind the debate is about interpretation, about hermeneutics.

We’ve been having that conversation for quite some time here, sparked by books like Wright’s Scripture and the Authority of God and Smith’s The Bible Made Impossible. But I think a sermon like this drives home why the conversation matters – because it plays out in the daily-life issues like gender, and because it sits behind debates that often seem intractable within the rules of Biblicism.

My brothers, I’m tired.

16/11/2011
Gender Roles, Guest Post, Justice
25 Comments

Today’s post is by blogger extrodinare Nish Weiseth. Nish blogs at The Outdoor Wife, and is the founder of A Deeper Story, which she was kind enough to invite me to join. Today she shares her heart about the plight of women in the Church and around the world.

______________________

My dear brothers,

There are a few things I want to get off my chest. Things that have been slowly building for a while now… I’ve waited, thought, and prayed for the right time to finally open up & talk with you. I’m much better at writing than I am at speaking, so this seems to be the best avenue.

I come to you with open hands & a humble heart. I hope you’ll receive me the same way, as your sister.

My brothers, I’m tired.

I’m tired of being pushed aside and pushed down. I’m tired of hearing the lie that my contributions and opinions aren’t strong enough or deeply rooted in Scripture enough, simply because I’m a woman. I’m tired of those lies coming from you. I study Scripture just like you. I read the commentaries and I read primary documents and I pray and seek counsel, just like you. I’m quite capable of theological discussion. Just because I come to a different conclusion, doesn’t mean I’m “theologically unsound” or “unbiblical.” Please stop calling me that.

My brothers, I’m tired.

I’m tired of the comments that so easily roll off your tongue. I’m frustrated at the jokes you make at our expense. The comments aren’t kind to the heart and the jokes aren’t funny. Could you stop? It’s hurtful. It’s damaging. Us women, we’re hard enough on ourselves, we don’t need it from you, too.

My brothers, I’m tired.

I’m tired of constantly feeling like I need to stand up for myself and my sisters because of our gender. If we call out something, or someone, that we don’t agree with (after much prayer and study), don’t brush us off and just call us “bitter.” We’re not bitter. We’re justified. And, sometimes, we’re even RIGHT. My sisters and I, we are intellectuals, theologians, caregivers, wives, mothers, daughters, revolutionaries & image-bearers. We can bring forth life & sustain it. My brothers, we are capable of a great many things. Please don’t write us off so quickly.

My brothers, I’m tired.

I’m tired of the same old arguments. Can a woman lead in church, or no? Can she preach, or not? Can she be an elder, or not? Can she work, or should she stay home? Is it okay to “let herself go?” So often, you boldly shout your opinions from the rooftops on any one of these subjects, and can I tell you? Those conversations mean NOTHING to a vast majority of women around the world.

Carolyn Custis James, in her book “Half the Church” wrote the following:

Our cloistered discussions about God’s purposes for women and the resulting infighting that ensues among us leave women elsewhere in the world scratching their heads. Blinded by the insulation of prosperity, we are at risk of transmitting a message as irrelevant and unworkable as Marie Antoinette’s solution for the starving masses: “Let them eat cake!” – a message that when sanctioned as “biblical” is cruelly beyond the reach of those with less.

Where is your loud voice for these women? Why don’t you ever direct your discussions of gender to the undeniable injustices that are happening to women around the world, every minute of every day?

Why are you not angry about women being sold into prostitution & slavery? The women forced to give up their children? The women dying of hunger & disease? The women who are being sought out and killed because they want an education? The women who are stoned and burned to protect a family’s “honor?”

I don’t mean to get all “what-would-Jesus-do” on you, but really… what would He do? What would HE speak out against first? My brothers, I humbly submit that sometimes, your arguments are strongly misplaced.

My brothers, I’m tired.

I’m tired of standing so alone. So few of you stand with us on issues of women’s rights around the world, on equality, on poverty. My brothers, we need your voices. We need to be united on the issues that affect the least of these. We need to be united on the issues that affect women’s access to education. We need to be united on the issues of violence against women around the globe.

My brothers, we need to be united. Period. 

The more you marginalize us in small ways, the bigger the chasm grows between us. Our effectiveness (and yours) decreases exponentially. To tackle the problems that are closest to the heart of Christ, we need each other. We can’t do this on our own, on opposing sides.

This is my plea.

This is my invitation.

Stop drawing lines in the sand. Instead, lets meet in the middle and do great things together. 

My brothers, I’m ready to change the world.

But, I need you. And, you need me.

Shall we find a new way, together?

Yours,

Nish 

______________________

Nish Weiseth is the blogger behind The Outdoor Wife, founder and editor of A Deeper Story, and a World Vision blogger & poverty advocate. She loves wine, cooking and old school hip-hop. She hates Broadway show tunes. She and her husband live in Salt Lake City with their two-year-old son.

Writing for “that chick blog” – on Gender and the Gospel

10/10/2011
Gender Roles, Gospel, Theology
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Today I’m posting over at Deeper Story about the Gospel and gender roles.

“Over the past few years the neo-Reformed movement has caused quite a bit of controversy because many of its leading figures have elevated complementarianism to being almost a part of the Gospel.

Penal substitutionary atonement, double imputation, TULIP, and traditional gender roles somehow end up being mashed together into a message we hear week after week from Driscoll, Piper, and the rest.

Though their critics have suggested that they are elevating a secondary doctrine (complementarianism) to the level of a Gospel distinctive, I think Driscoll and company might be on to something here.

Well, sort of…

What I think they are right about is this: the Gospel has everything to do with how we should talk about gender roles.”

Check out the rest here!

Bachmann, Liberty U, and Women in Ministry

30/09/2011
Church & Culture, Gender Roles, Hermeneutics, Theology
16 Comments

I typically avoid talking politics here.

I might raise certain issues, like the death penalty, but I have no interest in endorsing either major party or any specific candidate. I think the proper term is aggressively nonpartisan, which essentially means neither party’s platform looks anything like the message of Jesus to me.

So, keep that in mind, because I’m going to discuss Michele Bachmann, but it’s not about the politics.

On Wednesday, Liberty University featured Bachmann as their convocation speaker.

That’s not the issue though, they can have whatever speaker they would like, and I’m sure Bachmann is the sort of speaker you would like if you like that sort of thing.

The issue is the hermenutical gymnastics Liberty has to engage in to feature a female candidate for this nation’s highest office, while at the same time being opposed to women holding the highest office in a local church.

It’s a perfect example of picking and choosing when our principles apply.

Now, as I’ve discussed before, we all end up picking and choosing when we read the Bible. Look down at your clothes, any of them made of more than one material? Then you pick and choose too.

And that’s fine, inevitable even. The important thing is that we realize why we pick and choose the way we do, that we are intentional about our method of interpretation, and that we attempt to be consistent and reasonable about it.

When your school offers a Women’s Ministries degree that trains women for career paths like “Women’s Ministry Director in the Local Church, Teen Girl Camp Counselor, Women’s Conference Coordinator, Teen Girl/ Women’s Conference Speaker” – in other words anything but teaching men – does it seem consistent to invite a female presidential candidate to speak at your school?

If women shouldn’t be pastors because they are too naïve (Eve was the one deceived by the serpent after all!), or because male headship is the natural order, or because they are somehow weaker or less capable, or simply because God ordained that they shouldn’t have authority over men, then why would it make any sense to have a female president?

And if you’re fine with a woman as president, or professor, or CEO, then what sort of hermeneutical gymnastics are necessary to say yes to all that and yet no to women as pastors?

If you want Bachmann for president that’s fine [well, not to me, but that has nothing to do with her gender], and if you don’t want to let women be pastors no one can make you, but I don’t see how you can have both and pretend it is consistent.

Driscoll, Women, and “Taking the Bible Seriously”

21/09/2011
Church & Culture, Gender Roles, Hermeneutics
20 Comments

Yesterday Mark Driscoll published a post entitled FAQ: Women and Ministry. While reading through it I came across this quote,

While those who oppose Paul’s clear teaching—that only qualified men should be elders-pastors—vary in the nuances of their arguments, at the heart of each is an insistence that male leadership in the governments of home and church are rooted in humanly defined culture and not in God-defined creation. Therefore, they will purport that this doctrine should change with culture rather than remaining constant. Again, the only problem with this position is the words of Paul in Scripture

Sigh.

Can we please stop playing this game?

You know, the “only I am taking the Bible seriously” game.

It’s getting old, and it really isn’t helping.

In fact, it shuts down constructive dialogue before it can even begin, and simply serves as a way to win points with your base.

There are many Christians who – for thoughtful, well researched reasons – understand the biblical message on gender roles very differently, and not because they think we should just bend with every breeze of the culture.

Instead, they believe that what was defined in creation was equality and shared leadership, which then fell apart after the fall.

You have every right to disagree, of course, but it isn’t a matter of “we believe the clear meaning of the Bible and they don’t.”

We are all engaged in the task of interpretation, we all pick and choose, not only egalitarians or hierarchicalists.

Case in point, Mark’s FAQ post includes a section where he explains why women should be trained in theology and allowed to take part in any church ministry, just not the role of lead pastor or elder. He calls this “soft complementarianism.”

But here is my question, why isn’t Mark taking the Scriptures seriously? Why would he bend to the breeze of culture and ignore Paul’s clear instruction that women shouldn’t be teaching at all, that they should in fact be silent?

Well, it should be apparent why, he is simply trying his best to faithfully interpret the text, and he realizes that there is more to the story than a single injunction that women shouldn’t speak.

And that’s good hermeneutical practice, it’s part of what it means to wrestle with the text.

Mark does it, and egalitarians do it, they just come to different conclusions. It’s how they come to those conclusions; the methods, the scholarship, the hermeneutical principles, that we need to put on the table and debate if we are going to get anywhere with each other.

So enough with the “only we take the Bible seriously” posturing, lets acknowledge that we all are engaged in an interpretive act and get on with it.

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