Hi everyone, here is the second of a two-part series on advice for egalitarians and complementarians when attending a church that does not share their view of women and ministry.
I am an elder (lead elder for 8 years and being ordained as a pastor next month) in an egalitarian church. We’ve lots of experience with complementarians joining or considering joining our church so I can tell you from experience how this usually works out.
Because egalitarian is the minority position still, we have a detailed position paper on how we got to this position and we give it to all prospective members in our introduction class. And we tell them - “this is our position as a church that we arrived at after much prayer and study. We are very unlikely to reconsider or change our position. If you are convicted otherwise, and want a church that shares your convictions, we can refer you to several great local churches that do. If God is calling you here, just understand that you’ll see women leading and teaching and will need to be ok being around that. You won’t be able to be involved in certain ministries if you feel you absolutely can’t work under a woman’s leadership - ie you won’t be excused from working under a woman and given a man to work under instead.
This up front approach serves us well. Those with strong convictions usually move on to a like minded church.
Those who don’t consider this an essential position stay and are generally very gracious as community members and ministers. Some do further study and change their minds. Some maintain their core convictions but find ways to still be lovingly and graciously part of the community.
As a woman, I’ve had lots of conversations with complementarians, several of whom did end up leaving. But I would characterize the conversations as genuinely gracious and respectful, even if sometimes frustrating. If people choose to stay, it’s because they clearly understand our position, clearly feel God has placed them in our community, and uniformly interact with love and respect.
Would you be willing to share the document your church uses? Our church is currently having this conversation and looking for well thought documents to help us in our conversation. Would really appreciate if you can.
As a complementarian woman with a dear family friend who is a lay minister: I believe that what a woman does or believes in this matter is ultimately between her conscience, her husband, and her church elders. Sometimes (oftentimes), people seem to be more free with their opinion with a woman than a man. I don’t wish to add to that burden. My experience with our family friend is that she and her husband did not come to their position out of pride or bad faith readings of Scripture.
Once every couple of months or so I read one of your articles because I'm told by egalitarian friends that you're a balanced voice in the space. I've not once found that to be the case.
Please can I encourage you not to start an article ostensibly aimed at complementarians with the following:
"So imagine if you are by conviction, complementarian on gender issues in church, and you are attending a church that is by practice and conviction egalitarian. What should you do?
Well, I’m sure many complementarians will tell you to flee that place because in their eyes it is basically a Satanic feminist fertility cult that sacrifices cute puppies to a uterus-shaped altar of evil."
This makes it clear that this article wasn't for, but about us, then goes on to put words in our mouths that the vast, vast majority of us would never say. Most of us genuinely want to interact with these kinds of articles in good faith, but placing imaginary insults against your camp followed by a return volley is never going to achieve that. This article would have so much more strength if you simply removed the comments that most complementarians won't get past. Why? Because we would never say something like this, we love our egalitarian friends and family even though we disagree. My uncle is theologically as about as far from you as you are from me and then some, do you suppose that I would ever say such things about him? Of course not! I love him, I respect him, I pray for him, I cherish the times we spend together.
I wholeheartedly want to—most of us want to!—have gracious conversations across the aisle, please can I encourage you to do the same, even if only to lead on your fifth point by example.
With that said—and here's the rub—I don't think I disagree with *any of your other points*, hence why I would love if it this article had been written with an open hand rather than a closed fist. I think you've identified some great ways for those of us who find ourselves in egalitarian churches to orient ourselves, how brilliant would it be if this article, with some editing, would help those who feel stuck and disoriented right now!
I hope you'll consider trimming some of the edges off of this so it would be of genuine help.
While Mike's language in his introduction is hyperbole, I, like Christy, know many comps who talk like that.
Mike took a lot of heat from egalitarians on Part 1, and he'll take more from this one. Personally, I find it both brilliant and very unsatisfying that he gives the same advice to both groups. On the one hand, we need some unity in the world, desperately right now (especially in the US). But I can't possibly attend a comp church ever again. It is stifling to me. I'm not allowed to use my (God-given!) gifts there. And that's spiritual abuse. So, sorry the hyperbole offends you. Your whole theology offends me.
I'm sorry to hear about your experiences and the pain you've suffered, I would never want anyone to be in any kind of abusive situation, least of all in the church. I know all too well how horrendous that can be.
I pray that God would use and grow you where you're planted.
I do know LOTS of complementarians who would say that and that’s why I literally laughed out loud at that line. I am neither complementarian nor egalitarian, but I am in a very (I’d like to think “soft”) complementarian church. I’ve had discussions with many people in my church who really struggle to believe egalitarians have “good theology” at all. So, while I agree with you that if one of them read this they would most likely bristle at that line and not go any further, I disagree that complementarians would never say anything like this. I have heard many say very similar things.
I'm sure you're right and I'm so sorry to hear that, but your point does illustrate mine; this opening was intended to point and laugh at complementarians, which isn't a great place to start. The truth is that there are bad egal-churches and -christians and bad comp-churches and -christians out there but we should do our best not to judge a whole camp solely by anecdotal evidence like this. I've met some amazing Christians who disagree with me on this issue completely, I work for a christian charity here in the UK that is split about 50/50 either way and I love working with our whole team, not just those I agree with.
Additionally, if it were the case that every christian that holds to a traditional view of the leadership are like this, the answer surely can't be to be just as—if not more—judgemental and ungracious in return!
And @Christy Freeman I agree it's funny because people *do* talk like this... which is precisely why @michaelfbird included it it!
However, being funny or sarcastic, isn't always the most helpful.
I submit that, especially considering Mike's audience, this kind of language will cause more division and lead egalitarians to think less of complementarians.
Which leads me to ask, along with you @Adsum, is the helpful advice included in Mike's list something that people with complementarian views can receive? Based on the tone in the introduction: probably not.
Mike calls for complementarians in egalitarian churches to:
- receive and do ministry to the glory of God, with a sincere heart, and as an encouragement to everyone.
- call out people who mock or bully you for your sincere convictions
- meditate on Romans 14:19 -- “So, then, let’s find and follow the way of peace, and discover how to build each other up”
I think Mike is wise enough to see why he can and should change the introduction to this article if he wants complementarians to actually read this, share the article, grow in empathy and unity, and benefit from the very positive and very helpful advice that he's shared.
"lead egalitarians to think less of complementarians"..... not possible. I already have a very low view of comps because I perceive-- and (this is important) have experienced-- that theology to be abusive. I was silenced, marginalized and devalued for the first 40 plus years of my life, simply because I lack the dangly bits. I realize you really believe based on your study that God wants that. But it hurts people, and I don't think any theology that hurts people is from God. So Mike's sarcasm here won't hurt my view of comps. (And by the way, I gave Mike a hard time about part 1 too.)
I'm not complementarian. I am really sorry that this is your experience. That is horrible, un-Christlike, and most deeply and obviously sinful. I hope and pray that you have been able to know God's love in spite of such abuse. I also submit that much of what makes up traditional complementarian views are in fact anti-biblical, that is, not aligned with the witness of scripture.
I think both camps have things wrong. I find it deeply ironic that the first egalitarians used the name complementarian, to highlight the fact that men and women are both created in God's image, saw marriages and men and women relations as complementary and equal and not hierarchical; therefore, complementarian seemed like a good name. It was wise of complementarians to hijack this name, because the names "hierarchicalism" or "patriarchalism" just don't advertise very well -- which is what complementarian view are.
I hope you’re right on that last note, I really do, I think it would be a huge help, which brings me to your question; the answer is absolutely.
Clearly, not all complementarians would receive this well just as not egalitarians would have received Bird’s first article well, but for those who would I think it would be a great help.
I have a friend over in California who worked as a missionary abroad for a time in an area with only Egalitarian churches who also disagreed on almost every other secondary and tertiary point of doctrinal difference. There are many in similar situations, especially here in the UK for whom their church leadership’s statement if faith differs from their own theological convictions, we need to know how to navigate this well.
Each of the points you have highlighted would be a great place to start and one I would hope to embrace should I find myself in this situation.
Thanks so much for your response and for engaging with me on this, I really appreciate it.
My experience is that women are degraded, talked down to, demeaned, etc in Comp churches. This is taught as the only way to obey scripture and if you do not, you are not a true Christian, etc. This is very difficult, in my opinion to stay without having significant internal conflicts. Personally, I will never set foot in another comp church again.
Honest question: Are there complementarians out there who would go to an egalitarian church?
By the time someone applies the label of complementarian to oneself it seems more likely that such a person would end up in a “theobro” church before they would wander into a place where a woman may regularly be in the pulpit.
Or are you imaging a situation perhaps where a complementarian would end up in a church that has a man in the pulpit but would consider hiring a woman for pulpit ministry?
Not trying to throw stones or insinuate something. I’m just trying to imagine the situation your article is speaking into.
Hey. I have developed complementarian views but go to an egalitarian charismatic church. Many people have come from circles where women couldn't say a word, even though that's a clear misinterpretation of 1 Corinthians 14 where women can prophesy, even if they are prohibited from preaching. Just as with any theological position there are gradations but it's often represented by it's extremes. I've sat under many eloquent and gifted women preachers and teachers but as I said in my comment to @William V Everson, if we were consistent rejecting Paul's teaching on this is a very slippery slope.
I am a complementarian who attends an egalitarian church and agree wholeheartedly that complementarian-like views have been used as a vehicle for abuse.
However my theological views are not based on their potential use for abuse (I'm sure some people have found ways to abuse egalitarian perspectives).
My view on this issue hinges on Paul's argument from creation in 1 Timothy 2 and 1 Corinthians 14:34-40 which fully acknowledges a woman's freedom to contribute to the church service but without the authority and oversight of a male elder.
I sit under very gifted women preachers all the time, but I fear a rejection of Paul's teaching here as culturally relative, puts us in jeopardy of rejecting wholesale a lot of his ethical teaching, for instance on sexuality, on the same grounds.
But for me, also having grown up in an egalitarian church, this is a secondary issue. I'd love my church to change it's position on, but without denying women the opportunity to participate in the life of the church as God has laid out for us. Building up the faith of other women, having a voice which male leaders take into consideration in their decisions and discipling children and young people.
I am an elder (lead elder for 8 years and being ordained as a pastor next month) in an egalitarian church. We’ve lots of experience with complementarians joining or considering joining our church so I can tell you from experience how this usually works out.
Because egalitarian is the minority position still, we have a detailed position paper on how we got to this position and we give it to all prospective members in our introduction class. And we tell them - “this is our position as a church that we arrived at after much prayer and study. We are very unlikely to reconsider or change our position. If you are convicted otherwise, and want a church that shares your convictions, we can refer you to several great local churches that do. If God is calling you here, just understand that you’ll see women leading and teaching and will need to be ok being around that. You won’t be able to be involved in certain ministries if you feel you absolutely can’t work under a woman’s leadership - ie you won’t be excused from working under a woman and given a man to work under instead.
This up front approach serves us well. Those with strong convictions usually move on to a like minded church.
Those who don’t consider this an essential position stay and are generally very gracious as community members and ministers. Some do further study and change their minds. Some maintain their core convictions but find ways to still be lovingly and graciously part of the community.
As a woman, I’ve had lots of conversations with complementarians, several of whom did end up leaving. But I would characterize the conversations as genuinely gracious and respectful, even if sometimes frustrating. If people choose to stay, it’s because they clearly understand our position, clearly feel God has placed them in our community, and uniformly interact with love and respect.
Hi Michelle,
Would you be willing to share the document your church uses? Our church is currently having this conversation and looking for well thought documents to help us in our conversation. Would really appreciate if you can.
Thanks!
Sure. Here’s a link.
https://www.damascus.com/_files/ugd/460ef3_41a7fd7ef8ac4872bf861db35255d7f1.pdf
Thanks!
This is a good way to handle it.
As a complementarian woman with a dear family friend who is a lay minister: I believe that what a woman does or believes in this matter is ultimately between her conscience, her husband, and her church elders. Sometimes (oftentimes), people seem to be more free with their opinion with a woman than a man. I don’t wish to add to that burden. My experience with our family friend is that she and her husband did not come to their position out of pride or bad faith readings of Scripture.
Once every couple of months or so I read one of your articles because I'm told by egalitarian friends that you're a balanced voice in the space. I've not once found that to be the case.
Please can I encourage you not to start an article ostensibly aimed at complementarians with the following:
"So imagine if you are by conviction, complementarian on gender issues in church, and you are attending a church that is by practice and conviction egalitarian. What should you do?
Well, I’m sure many complementarians will tell you to flee that place because in their eyes it is basically a Satanic feminist fertility cult that sacrifices cute puppies to a uterus-shaped altar of evil."
This makes it clear that this article wasn't for, but about us, then goes on to put words in our mouths that the vast, vast majority of us would never say. Most of us genuinely want to interact with these kinds of articles in good faith, but placing imaginary insults against your camp followed by a return volley is never going to achieve that. This article would have so much more strength if you simply removed the comments that most complementarians won't get past. Why? Because we would never say something like this, we love our egalitarian friends and family even though we disagree. My uncle is theologically as about as far from you as you are from me and then some, do you suppose that I would ever say such things about him? Of course not! I love him, I respect him, I pray for him, I cherish the times we spend together.
I wholeheartedly want to—most of us want to!—have gracious conversations across the aisle, please can I encourage you to do the same, even if only to lead on your fifth point by example.
With that said—and here's the rub—I don't think I disagree with *any of your other points*, hence why I would love if it this article had been written with an open hand rather than a closed fist. I think you've identified some great ways for those of us who find ourselves in egalitarian churches to orient ourselves, how brilliant would it be if this article, with some editing, would help those who feel stuck and disoriented right now!
I hope you'll consider trimming some of the edges off of this so it would be of genuine help.
Grace and Peace,
Adsum Try Ravenhill
While Mike's language in his introduction is hyperbole, I, like Christy, know many comps who talk like that.
Mike took a lot of heat from egalitarians on Part 1, and he'll take more from this one. Personally, I find it both brilliant and very unsatisfying that he gives the same advice to both groups. On the one hand, we need some unity in the world, desperately right now (especially in the US). But I can't possibly attend a comp church ever again. It is stifling to me. I'm not allowed to use my (God-given!) gifts there. And that's spiritual abuse. So, sorry the hyperbole offends you. Your whole theology offends me.
Morning Jenny-Isabella,
I'm sorry to hear about your experiences and the pain you've suffered, I would never want anyone to be in any kind of abusive situation, least of all in the church. I know all too well how horrendous that can be.
I pray that God would use and grow you where you're planted.
Bless you sister
I do know LOTS of complementarians who would say that and that’s why I literally laughed out loud at that line. I am neither complementarian nor egalitarian, but I am in a very (I’d like to think “soft”) complementarian church. I’ve had discussions with many people in my church who really struggle to believe egalitarians have “good theology” at all. So, while I agree with you that if one of them read this they would most likely bristle at that line and not go any further, I disagree that complementarians would never say anything like this. I have heard many say very similar things.
I'm sure you're right and I'm so sorry to hear that, but your point does illustrate mine; this opening was intended to point and laugh at complementarians, which isn't a great place to start. The truth is that there are bad egal-churches and -christians and bad comp-churches and -christians out there but we should do our best not to judge a whole camp solely by anecdotal evidence like this. I've met some amazing Christians who disagree with me on this issue completely, I work for a christian charity here in the UK that is split about 50/50 either way and I love working with our whole team, not just those I agree with.
Additionally, if it were the case that every christian that holds to a traditional view of the leadership are like this, the answer surely can't be to be just as—if not more—judgemental and ungracious in return!
@Adsum, I'm with you on the language use here --
And @Christy Freeman I agree it's funny because people *do* talk like this... which is precisely why @michaelfbird included it it!
However, being funny or sarcastic, isn't always the most helpful.
I submit that, especially considering Mike's audience, this kind of language will cause more division and lead egalitarians to think less of complementarians.
Which leads me to ask, along with you @Adsum, is the helpful advice included in Mike's list something that people with complementarian views can receive? Based on the tone in the introduction: probably not.
Mike calls for complementarians in egalitarian churches to:
- receive and do ministry to the glory of God, with a sincere heart, and as an encouragement to everyone.
- call out people who mock or bully you for your sincere convictions
- meditate on Romans 14:19 -- “So, then, let’s find and follow the way of peace, and discover how to build each other up”
I think Mike is wise enough to see why he can and should change the introduction to this article if he wants complementarians to actually read this, share the article, grow in empathy and unity, and benefit from the very positive and very helpful advice that he's shared.
"lead egalitarians to think less of complementarians"..... not possible. I already have a very low view of comps because I perceive-- and (this is important) have experienced-- that theology to be abusive. I was silenced, marginalized and devalued for the first 40 plus years of my life, simply because I lack the dangly bits. I realize you really believe based on your study that God wants that. But it hurts people, and I don't think any theology that hurts people is from God. So Mike's sarcasm here won't hurt my view of comps. (And by the way, I gave Mike a hard time about part 1 too.)
Hi Jenny-Isabella,
I'm not complementarian. I am really sorry that this is your experience. That is horrible, un-Christlike, and most deeply and obviously sinful. I hope and pray that you have been able to know God's love in spite of such abuse. I also submit that much of what makes up traditional complementarian views are in fact anti-biblical, that is, not aligned with the witness of scripture.
I think both camps have things wrong. I find it deeply ironic that the first egalitarians used the name complementarian, to highlight the fact that men and women are both created in God's image, saw marriages and men and women relations as complementary and equal and not hierarchical; therefore, complementarian seemed like a good name. It was wise of complementarians to hijack this name, because the names "hierarchicalism" or "patriarchalism" just don't advertise very well -- which is what complementarian view are.
I hope you’re right on that last note, I really do, I think it would be a huge help, which brings me to your question; the answer is absolutely.
Clearly, not all complementarians would receive this well just as not egalitarians would have received Bird’s first article well, but for those who would I think it would be a great help.
I have a friend over in California who worked as a missionary abroad for a time in an area with only Egalitarian churches who also disagreed on almost every other secondary and tertiary point of doctrinal difference. There are many in similar situations, especially here in the UK for whom their church leadership’s statement if faith differs from their own theological convictions, we need to know how to navigate this well.
Each of the points you have highlighted would be a great place to start and one I would hope to embrace should I find myself in this situation.
Thanks so much for your response and for engaging with me on this, I really appreciate it.
*not all
My experience is that women are degraded, talked down to, demeaned, etc in Comp churches. This is taught as the only way to obey scripture and if you do not, you are not a true Christian, etc. This is very difficult, in my opinion to stay without having significant internal conflicts. Personally, I will never set foot in another comp church again.
This is my experience too.
Honest question: Are there complementarians out there who would go to an egalitarian church?
By the time someone applies the label of complementarian to oneself it seems more likely that such a person would end up in a “theobro” church before they would wander into a place where a woman may regularly be in the pulpit.
Or are you imaging a situation perhaps where a complementarian would end up in a church that has a man in the pulpit but would consider hiring a woman for pulpit ministry?
Not trying to throw stones or insinuate something. I’m just trying to imagine the situation your article is speaking into.
Hey. I have developed complementarian views but go to an egalitarian charismatic church. Many people have come from circles where women couldn't say a word, even though that's a clear misinterpretation of 1 Corinthians 14 where women can prophesy, even if they are prohibited from preaching. Just as with any theological position there are gradations but it's often represented by it's extremes. I've sat under many eloquent and gifted women preachers and teachers but as I said in my comment to @William V Everson, if we were consistent rejecting Paul's teaching on this is a very slippery slope.
I Ore, thanks for your comment.
I am a complementarian who attends an egalitarian church and agree wholeheartedly that complementarian-like views have been used as a vehicle for abuse.
However my theological views are not based on their potential use for abuse (I'm sure some people have found ways to abuse egalitarian perspectives).
My view on this issue hinges on Paul's argument from creation in 1 Timothy 2 and 1 Corinthians 14:34-40 which fully acknowledges a woman's freedom to contribute to the church service but without the authority and oversight of a male elder.
I sit under very gifted women preachers all the time, but I fear a rejection of Paul's teaching here as culturally relative, puts us in jeopardy of rejecting wholesale a lot of his ethical teaching, for instance on sexuality, on the same grounds.
But for me, also having grown up in an egalitarian church, this is a secondary issue. I'd love my church to change it's position on, but without denying women the opportunity to participate in the life of the church as God has laid out for us. Building up the faith of other women, having a voice which male leaders take into consideration in their decisions and discipling children and young people.