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PATRIARCHY
CHALLENGED: ONE MAN'S STORY
By Jeff Gissing
Anna and I met when
we were students at Beeson Divinity School. From almost our
first meeting I was drawn to her sharp mind, her sensitivity,
her sense of humor, and, I might add, her striking beauty. Both
of us were, at that time, considering careers in the academy.
Anna had served two churches, one mainline and one evangelical,
as a lay youth minister before seminary. She had altered her
vocational path, however, largely owing to the influence of the
conservative Presbyterian denomination of which we were a part.
She now had set her sights on a doctorate and the academy—a
place she rightly identified as more congenial to women. We were
both evangelical, both soft patriarchs, and both interested in
the life of the mind. It was a match made in heaven.
As our relationship
grew I was able to relate to Anna more deeply and to see just
how difficult it is to be a woman in contemporary
evangelicalism, much less a woman gifted and called to ministry.
And as our life together unfolded I learned how one church
required that she not teach youth over the age of 12 lest she be
guilty of having authority over a man. I learned how in that
same church, although she was on ministry staff, she was treated
like a secretary—required to perform tasks that other ministers
were not required to do. Mild interest began to shift toward
concern.
The painfully ironic
thing was that although evangelical by conviction, Anna had been
freer to minister effectively in churches with radically
different theological convictions. I realized that if it is
difficult to be a woman in ministry, it is almost
impossible to be an evangelical woman in ministry.
What had previously
been simply a point of debate was now incarnated in a specific
situation dealing with a person I had grown to love. The facts
of the case seemed to stand in stark contrast to the ways in
which the evangelical church was acting. Here was a Phi Beta
Kappa graduate of a top-ranked university with a vital
relationship with Christ, a passion for ministry, an incredibly
winsome personality and, most importantly, a very real calling
to ministry. And yet her vocational options were limited to the
academy or children’s ministry. Concern shifted to frustration.
When we were married
a year later things got worse—the limitations more severe. It
was clearly expressed that as a married woman, Anna was now
expected to put my career first. In premarital counseling we
were told that Anna’s desire to minister or pursue a doctorate
would fade once we were married and started a family.
Frustration shifted to anger.
I landed my first
ministry position and joined the staff of InterVarsity Christian
Fellowship. It was a job that we both wanted and to which we
both felt called. Given that working for InterVarsity required
raising support, we were not sure that we could raise enough for
two salaries. Yet after two years, Anna and I decided that she
should join the InterVarsity staff in her own right.
We prayed and
discussed this move for long months. We came to believe that
this was God’s will for us: the calling to work as a staff
couple—equal partners recognized equally by our ministry and
equally on the campus. Until then, Anna had been working
multiple part-time jobs, none of which was
even mildly fulfilling.
It struck us as particularly unjust that I should be afforded
the chance to be paid to minister full-time, while Anna
ministered in the margins of her life. Anger shifted to outrage
and the desire to advocate for change.
Why the change from
initial mild interest to now outrage and advocacy? It is quite
simply this: I have come to realize that this is an issue of
justice and of peace (shalom). It is an issue that, wrongly
decided, hurts the entire church. It is quite frankly an issue
that I believe large swaths of evangelicals have decided
wrongly. For these reasons I moved from acceptance to hearty
advocacy of the equality of women in ministry.
God’s Justice and
Shalom
The witness of the
Bible seems clear: God is intimately concerned with justice and
longs for shalom not only in the world, but also in the
church—the new society of God designed to incarnate the
attributes of God. It is a matter of justice simply because more
is at stake than titles, roles, and credentials. The issue is
the freedom of all Christians to express their gifts and talents
in the church.
The birth of the
Christian community in Acts 2 expresses this clearly. Peter,
along with other apostolic leaders, addresses the assembled
believers, quoting the prophet Joel: “In the last days, God
says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and
daughters will prophesy…Even on my servants, both men and women,
I will pour out my Spirit…” (Acts 2:17-18). This is a depiction
of radical equality. Distinctions of gender, ethnicity, and
socio-economic class are to fade away. These distinctions are to
be replaced by unity as a single body empowered for ministry by
the Holy Spirit (Eph. 2:11-2:22). It is important to note that
Peter’s sermon in Acts 2 is the inaugural proclamation of the
church and therefore is foundational in interpreting other
passages in the New Testament that deal with gender (Bilezikian
1985, 123).
As with Israel,
however, the history of the church betrays our inability to live
into the words of Joel and of Peter. Psalm 82, for instance,
expresses the Divine charge against Israel, “How long will you
defend the unjust and show partiality to the wicked? Defend the
weak and the fatherless; uphold the cause of the poor and the
oppressed” (Psalm 82:2-3).
The psalm clearly
indicates God’s heart for justice. And in 1 Peter it is clear
that women fall within the class of those people who have been,
and are, afflicted by injustice: “Husbands, in the same way be
considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with
respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of
the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your
prayers” (1 Pet. 3:7, emphasis added). John Stackhouse notes:
“…[I]n a patriarchal society Peter is telling the simple truth:
Economically, politically, educationally—when it comes to social
power—women are weaker than men” (Stackhouse 2005, 62). This
“weakness” is not, however, something “universal or essential to
them” (Id.). Rather, it is a result of the fall of humanity—the
systemic disenfranchisement of women since Eden, both in the
world and the Christian community. Despite the progress that has
been made, we still live with the echoes of a deeply-rooted
patriarchy that affects women in the church today. Since the
church is comprised of sinner-saints it should not be surprising
that God’s cause of gender equality may also be offensive to
other Christians—members of the same body (Sumner 2003, 32).
Church Leadership
Needs Women’s Voices
One of the most
compelling arguments against gender roles in the life and
ministry of the church is simply the experience of seeing
God-called women exercise their God-given gifts for the sake of
the Gospel and the church. This is an argument from experience,
and it compliments the good theology on this subject.
The deepest
questions of theology and practice are not answered exclusively
by exegesis. We, of course, desire to place the Scriptures in
the highest authority and center our beliefs and practices upon
them. But there are limitations. John Stackhouse is right when
he states that the task of Christian theology is to, “formulate
an interpretation that does the best job, relative to the other
options, of explaining most of the most important data and as
much of the remainder as possible” (Stackhouse, 75). In other
words, we don’t have to have a watertight position, just one
that is stronger than the alternatives.
My wife once heard
an elder and seminary trustee state that women ought not to be
elders because it would take too long to take care of
business—there would be too much talking and emotion. Such a
statement is, of course, absurd and illustrates just how far we
have to go in this journey of gender reconciliation.
Men and women are
not identical—no one claims this. For a variety of reasons, some
innate and some conditioned, women and men tend to be different.
This is a positive diversity, however, a diversity that is
desperately needed in the leadership of the body of Christ.
Having observed
multiple leadership meetings in churches with all-male leaders,
I am not convinced that there is anything about men that makes
them more efficient or effective leaders. I have found, to the
contrary, that the presence of women in ministry leadership has
actually helped the leadership of the church to reflect more
fully the realities of Revelation 7:9—the grand and glorious
diversity of God’s Kingdom. And the truth is that more than a
single perspective is needed if leaders are to take seriously
their biblical calling to wisely shepherd the congregation in
their care. Shepherding the whole flock of God means more than a
male pastor or lay leader taking a husband to lunch and
imagining that by doing so he has succeeded in ministering to
the whole family. And while such a suggestion seems ridiculous
on its face, I have heard it propounded by more than one
pastoral leader. The result? A church weakened by a vacuum where
serious pastoral ministry and spiritual direction should have
existed for women and men, wives and husbands. This vacuum has
largely come about because men in leadership have been unable or
unwilling to enter into the experience of our sisters. Because
of this inability and unwillingness, leadership in the church
must be inclusive of both men and women.
The Call to
Action
When men like me
come to understand that the issue of gender equality in ministry
is one of justice and that justice stands near to the heart of
God, we are forced to make a decision. When we realize that the
exclusion of women from leadership has weakened the church’s
ministry, we are forced to make a choice. The church is God’s
new society, yes. But more than that, it is God’s family. And as
such, all Christian women are our sisters and Christian men, our
brothers. Ultimately it is the solidarity of the church as the
body of Christ that causes me to act, not to simply condone
women expressing their pastoral gifts, but to challenge the
church to employ women’s gifts in every sphere of ministry.
Scripture warns us
that we are not to uncritically adopt the prevalent views of
culture (Bilezikian, 207). I might add that this warning extends
to uncritically adopting the prevalent views of our evangelical
sub-culture. Instead we attempt to critically examine our
beliefs and traditions in the light of the Scriptures. Can you
imagine the positive change when evangelical belief and piety is
coupled with a scriptural view of the
equality of men and women?
I can imagine a new
vigor in the life of the evangelical church. Women freed to
minister according to gifts and callings rather than according
to roles. Men freed to grow in understanding and appreciation of
their wives and Christian sisters rather than trapped by
received beliefs left unexamined. The entire redemptive trend of
the Bible challenges patriarchy and points to equality. Until
recently, it was doubtful that society at large would accept
this revelation. So through ages God accommodated the teaching
of Scripture to the culture in which it was expressed, yet
always foreshadowing a day in which the words of Joel would ring
true: “…your sons and your daughters will prophesy” (Joel
2:28-29). It is to be hoped that we are entering those days in
the evangelical church—days of restoration, reconciliation, and
a renewed desire to be the new society of God in the world. Anna
and I are attempting to live into this reality as we journey
together through life as equal partners in marriage and
ministry.
Works Cited
Bilezikian,
Gilbert. Beyond Sex Roles: What the Bible Says About a Woman's
Place in Church and Family. 2nd Ed. Grand Rapids: Baker,
1985, 2001.
Stackhouse, Jr.,
John G. Finally Feminist: A Pragmatic Christian Understanding
of Gender. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2005.
Sumner, Sarah.
Men and Women in the Church: Building Consensus on Christian
Leadership. Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2003.
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