Hi everyone, here is the first 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.
Each of these is on-point and pastorally important. Thank you for each one. The tone is helpful. I have also added (in conversations) to your list "Don't expect that your church is going to become egalitarian." It might, but the chances are not good. If changing the church is the goal, think of changing churches. There is something new about complementarianism that deserves pushback, and complementarianism as a theological shaping has an impact that can be pervasive; in the hands of some it can be authoritarian and diminishing of women. In the USA comp is at times symbolic of one's stance in the broader culture war. A kind of "here I stand (because I have the authority to make the stand)."
This is excellent, and also reinforces why I could never be a member of a complementarian church. That became clear to me when I was considering becoming a member of a PCA church, and witnessed an ordination for my first time. This was in Feb 2018, during the early months of the #ChurchToo movement. Only men laying hands on a man. It struck me, somehow for the first time, that comps do not truly believe that the Holy Spirit works fully through women, that men are not to be held accountable to women or by women in any way--and I was essentially being taught this liturgically, DURING WORSHIP. Ever since then, my conscience forbids me from giving money towards a church or org that propagates teachings that are not only harmful towards women, but are, in my view, anti-Gospel. Jesus didn't just die so that we can believe in Him and wind up in heaven, but to make us into a brand new creation. The consequences of sin after the Fall (Genesis 3:16) should never be our template for the Christian community (marriage & the church). Jesus died for this!!
All Baskin-Robbins flavors of complementarianism boil down to this: restrict women in some way, and you're in the club.
Yes, we egalitarians ought to be charitable to other Christians who disagree with you (and all of God's image bearers).
I regret the ten years I spent in a comp church. Though there were reasons we went there and some good people, it basically erased me as a person with gifts and ideas to contribute. Now that we’re at a church that allows me to fully use my gifts, I see what I was missing. Most importantly, I set a terrible example for my two daughters, then in high school and college, that I was at least implicitly OK with this worldview. It was ten years of my life that I can’t get back, and in hindsight, we compromised our core beliefs about personhood and the body of Christ and shouldn’t have done it.
You asked for views of egalitarian women attending comp churches, so here goes- I recently formally resigned membership and left my local church which I helped plant and served in for 13 years. It was one of the member churches of the Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches (FIEC) Australia. I wrote a personal essay explaining my reasons with links to the history and values of the FIEC and links to better teaching on women in ministry. I circulated the essay to other members of the church and staff and FIEC when I left as well as posting it to an online group. I will send the essay to anyone who asks. I decided it was a serious theological disagreement I had with the church and denomination about their silencing and treatment of women and I should not remain silent about it. I had spent 13 years discussing the issues in private with the church pastors and council and latterly with the FIEC executive. In the end I thought it was best to reveal to church members and others involved with FIEC churches the derogatory and harmful ideology behind the FIEC values and give people access to alternative readings of scripture to help them assess this doctrine and practice for themselves. I had one success early on in challenging a re-drafted constitution of the church which would have set up a male-only elder board; church members objected to that idea, the church now has a mixed sex council rather than male elders. However I could not get any movement on allowing women preachers, even occasional female guest speakers. Additionally women mentioned in the Bible were ignored, downplayed or misrepresented in sermons. The governance of the FIEC is male-only, only male senior pastors can vote at FIEC general meetings, only male senior pastors represent the member churches, they elect each other to the Executive and develop and vote on policies. It’s a completely male dominated organisation and women have no say in decision-making or leadership.
The FIEC and my church pastors believe in the whole “equal but different”, “gender roles” malarky. Leadership, teaching, governance and fellowship are restricted to men only while women are submitters to and supporters of male authority. I concluded that the doctrine and practice of the authority and headship of men over women seeks to limit the gifting of the Holy Spirit, damages women, the gospel, and the global and local church. For women, it is not a secondary issue they can ignore, it affects their lives, their ability to carry out God’s call to them, their sense of God’s love for them and their belonging to His church. Emphasis on the headship doctrine is a risk factor for spiritual and other abuse within churches and families. I could no longer support this doctrine through membership, voluntary labour or financial contributions. To continue to be a member of the church and by default, supporting the FIEC, I would be complicit in the marginalisation of women from the Australian church and the centreing of men as the only leaders, teachers and representatives of the church.
“For women, it is not a secondary issue they can ignore, it affects their lives, their ability to carry out God’s call to them, their sense of God’s love for them and their belonging to His church.” So true. I also left my church after 10+ years and they (one elder) said you shouldn’t leave over a secondary issue. So dismissive.
Yes KM, happy to send it to you but not sure how? This is a public forum so I can't ask for your email address on here. Maybe Mike would let me post an extra gmail address I own here and you and others can request the essay through that?
If you or anyone wants a copy of my essay on why I left my church and the FIEC, you can email me and I'll send it in a reply email to you as a pdf. icgequality@gmail.com
Great advice! I’m newly egalitarian and go to a very complementarian church. I became a member there long before my views changed and love the people very much. Being gracious and intelligently advocating for the egal viewpoint I think will be crucial in not getting so frustrated. Thank you!
Angie, thank you, I'm glad to help. That said, Aimee Byrd makes a good point, my advice might play out better for a man than a woman in some complm. circles. Oh, and I'd love to hear/read your story into egalitarianism!
Yes! I saw Aimee’s post and I’m taking that into consideration for sure! I started questioning complementarian views when I saw how many faithful Christian’s held to the egalitarian viewpoint. I had been taught that egalitarians didn’t take scripture seriously, but in the online interactions between comp. and eagals. I saw that definitely was not the case. It held no merit and the accusation honestly felt lazy. I began reading more widely- mainly you, Marg Mowczko, and Beth Allison Barr. I’ve felt more and more convinced of the egal arguments and much more at peace in my faith. So thank you for having good faith arguments with complementarians! It is very helpful!
I was in an SBC church for many years and I received my undergraduate in Christian Ministry from an Southern Baptist school. I left the SBC because I’m a woman who desires to do ministry. I am still in a complementarian church--ACNA. (Our diocese allows local churches to decide re: ordination of women to the priesthood.) The hang ups re: women that I experienced in the SBC, don’t exist in my church. The congregation itself is a mixture of egalitarians and complementarians. I have a lot freedom to minister. I feel empowered, supported, valued by leadership for the first time. But, I think I found a unicorn. (Or maybe the ACNA itself is a unicorn? I don’t know.) Because while I appreciate your advice, I believe there are far more toxic complementarian churches than not. The culture wars have reduced us to “all issues are first order issues” (an actual quote from one of my former professors).
Gail, I've met many ex-SBC women in your position, many have reached out to me and asked me questions and requested advice. I find it quite hard because these are weighty matters and I don't exactly want to be responsible for seismic shifts in people's life, career, ministry, or church affiliation. Glad to hear you've landed in a good place.
Gail, I'm so glad you've found a home. I'm not in an ACNA, but several of my friends (many of whom are floating in a gray area between Comp and Egal) have been pushed out of their more conservative patriarchal churches and found new homes in ACNA precisely for the reasons you've outlined.
Just wanted you to know that yeah, ACNA does seem to be a unicorn, but thankfully, more and more people are finding this unicorn. In my experience it's very challenging to find theologically orthodox churches with egalitarian expression.
Most of my life has been spent in complementarian churches, some have been accepting of a diversity of views on women in ministry and some have been judgemental. My approach has been to focus on Jesus and try to be humble and respectful while taking up ministry opportunities as they are offered.
At my church, under the current leadership, I am allowed to lead church services and run Bible study groups. Under a previous minister I used to preach a couple of times a year. And I have co-preached a few times with my current minister. He is very warm and accepting of my "divergent" views however in other Christian contexts and in previous churches I attended I have been perceived as not taking the Bible seriously or not placing myself under its authority. I have also been instructed by another in my church that women need to be respectful of men with differing views about women in ministry and should refrain in order to protect the consciences of such men. I have heard the "weaker brother" argument (Romans 14) multiple times. I have also been chastised by others at church for not preaching more often!
I really love my church and church family and it's the place where each of my three children have been nurtured in their faith. But I'm also thinking of making a move. I'm partway through theological study and am considering ordination but I'm not sure how that will sit with the current leadership. It's tricky juggling what I think God is leading me to when those I worship among and under consider it to be ungodly and unfaithful.
Hi Sarah, as you can tell, your story is a very familiar one, I think many women resonate with this kind of struggle between belonging and being tolerated, loving the people, but feeling shackled or limited by men with their specious reasonings. We'll have to chat some time!
I find it interesting that complementarian circles would normally say that women are the weaker sex, emotional, more prone to deception etc, and that weakness is a reason why they're not qualified to lead or preach. Yet when they come across a weakness in men (the conscience argument from Rom 14) they say it's a reason for keeping power in the hands of the men. When women are weak it disqualifies them from leadership, but when men are weak it disqualifies women from leadership.
I stayed through spiritual abuse, ostracization, etc., because the last thing Jesus told me was to go to a Women's retreat, He would be there. I prayed for years for him to let me leave. He finally said, "Go". Then a year or so later he told me to "Check their website". I did and found the Sr Pastor and Exec Pastor was on Admin Leave and in the process of either being fired or resigned for being unfit for ministry. My "sin"? God chose me to do more in my life than the male pastors and God told me to talk about it. They forbid me to talk about it, stole my testimony, preached on it, used my testimony for examples in classes, etc. Of course they removed that God did this in a woman's life so it fit their culture. I didn't even understand Comp/Patriarchy at the time so I had no clue what was going on. I just knew something was really wrong. I thought people would love to hear what God did and want to praise Him for it. Boy was I wrong.
This was timely and spot on for me today. As a member of a 'soft-complementarian' church, I often feel conflicted but feel that God has called me and my family to serve in this place for now. I have had opportunity, along with a close friend, to sit with our senior minister and raise our views and concerns. We both felt heard, if not fully understood, but it is a good start. I feel that, while change might take much longer that we might like, if we all 'abandon ship' so to speak, we will have no opportunities to challenge views. We stick with it for the sake of the Kingdom, by the grace of God. Obviously, if the environment is toxic it is far better, as you suggest, to flee!
Thanks for this, Scot. As I continue to wrestle with egalitarianism I find myself struggling with the passages that seem to root themselves in the creation, pre-fall account that seems to be Paul’s ground for saying no to women pastors over a church. Can you help me see where I may be off on this? Thanks again
Darien, I’m not Scot, but I hope you don’t mind me taking a stab at an answer for you as it is something I’ve also struggled with. Something that helped me sort this out is to consider whether the original creation account actually speaks to the question of women's roles in the church. Some argue that Paul’s references to "creation order" are supporting evidence (ie, 1 Tim 2 and 1 Cor 11) for female subordination to men universally and therefore disallows women from being in roles providing spiritual oversight over any man. (I was once in a church that actually told a woman that she could no longer teach the jr high sunday school class because the lone boy in the class had been baptized. It mattered not that that boy was her son.)
Read through the Genesis text and see if there is any explicit mention of male headship or even any significance placed on creation order. Consider the opposite too--whether Eve's creation as the final act could also be argued for primacy. Personally, I don't see it (in either direction) there because hierarchy and power struggle do not get introduced in the text until after the fall. Also, contextually Adam and Eve are a couple so if there is any overtone of hierarchy it's limited to a marriage relationship, not universal application. Even God, as the Creator, interacts with them not quite on peer level, but he deigns to walk with them in the garden. Hierarchy simply isn’t a thing, certainly not a main thing, we’re supposed to get out of the text.
With regard to Paul's appeals to creation order, it must first be acknowledged that these are two of the most obscure passages in the New Testament. They are one-sided conversations in distinct cultural contexts. As such we should handle these texts with care and be cautious with sweeping, definitive modern applications.
The Greek versions of these texts give me enough reason to pause on making any conclusions about prohibitions on women's roles in the church. In 1 Cor 11 for example, the Greek word for woman is the same as wife and when it appears in close conjunction with "aner" (man), an honest reader must allow for the possibility that an equally valid translation of the passage in English would render man and woman as husband and wife. Because the only other NT texts that even hint of gender hierarchy are specifically dealing with marriage relationships, perhaps we should let those inform our translation of 1 Cor 11? (Also, consider 1 Cor 14:34-35 as likely speaking to husbands and wives. We often translate it as women in v. 34 but then use “husbands” instead of “man” in v. 35. The correlating word to husbands isn’t women, it’s wives.) If so, arguments for male headship in 1 Cor 11 would only be applicable within marriage and have no bearing on what women in general could or could not do in church (except then maybe pastor’s wives??).
That really only leaves 1 Tim 2, which in this very rough and ready answer I don't have space to get into the interpretive mess of v. 12-15. Paul’s appeal almost feels like an off-handed rhetorical device to support his prohibition here (which again, is worded in such a way that it could be argued as a local prohibition or a temporary one given his choice of verb tense (best translated in English as, “I am not at this time allowing. . .”. Suffice it to say, there are good Bible scholars on both sides of the gender debate who agree these are problematic verses. I'm sure Mike and Scot could give compelling interpretations of what Paul's reasoning here is plausibly about.
Lastly, why don't we allow Paul's actions to interpret what he says? The way he speaks about his named sisters in Christ (especially in Romans 16) as co-laborers with him, and his sending of Phoebe as his emissary (and all that likely entailed, such has reading and fielding questions about the letter in the public assembly) should carry as much sway in our take aways as his explicit instructions written to specific people.
In sum, while they may be some merit to male headship within the marriage context (this is also arguably under scrutiny as whether this is a cultural cue or a timeless mandate), the using universal male headship as a basis for arguing against women holding positions of leadership (specific being pastors) are weak. There are stronger complementarian arguments, IMO.
I hope that is at least a little bit helpful in your studies as you continue to chew on this issue. As a woman, thank you for at least looking into the matter as that conveys not only respect for God’s word, but also for women as fellow image-bearers and co-heirs in the Church.
Aimee Byrd's point that your advice is more helpful for men in complementarian churches is spot on. I think I would add that if you're a woman, keep a careful eye on how your gifts and calling are treated by your church. Over time it becomes really burdensome to have them overlooked, denied, or worse, treated like they're controversial or sinful. Growing up in a complementarian church and doing my theological training with a mainly complementarian student body, I longed to have my vocation treated with the same uncomplicated enthusiasm that the men received. Instead, my desire to serve God was treated like a problem, like something controversial and shameful that brought disruption to the community. There's a deep grief you experience when you present your deepest desires to serve and worship God to your church, and your church tells you that worship is sinful. And then the shame of being in complementarian spaces and knowing 'if these people knew I'd preached sermons before they'd judge me as being unfaithful to God'. When I joined an egalitarian church it was like a huge weight had lifted - even though I wasn't preaching, I knew I could follow wherever God led me and be supported in it. The weight of being in a church that suppresses your gifts or calling is heavy; don't underestimate the burden it places on your soul.
Thank you for addressing this, Mike. I don't think I've ever heard anyone talk about this before. I have only ever attended complementarian churches. As I've studied and had some phenomenal seminary professors who collectively represented the entire spectrum of the gender debate (except perhaps the most prohibitive perspective that demands silence of women in church), I've more or less fallen into the flexitarian-but-leans-egalitarian camp. I think God’s end goal for his image bearers looks egalitarian, but in the here and now, Paul's admonitions to not put up barriers to people accepting the Gospel should guide our application of divisive, difficult texts. Since we’re enculturated beings culture will always impact our theological process. Where you live will have some say over how your congregation manifests this issue. I live in an egalitarian culture so churches that do not reflect this are setting up an unnecessary barrier to the gospel.
That said, my local congregation (which recently joined Converge which appears to include both comp and egal congregations in its membership) is de facto complementarian. We've been here 8 years. The reasons my husband (who is more adamantly egalitarian than I am) and I have stayed is for the reasons you outlined above: calling, and gracious acceptance of our differences by leadership and ourselves. We felt God calling us to this body, specifically to support the pastor and his wife. We’ve had open conversations with our pastor but never pushed him. He says we’ve challenged him in a good way and he’s definitely shifted to a very expansive comp position—but that’s all the Holy Spirit, not us.
Our church includes women serving in pastoral roles without the title (our pastor is struggling over that one). Our pastor brought me on the sermon planning team--something I’d never been able to do at our old churches. I’ve also been allowed to teach co-ed classes—it was never an issue, and no one complained that I know of. We don’t have elders (in the process of setting that up). I’m not holding my breath that women will be included—at least not in the first round. But our pastor has included women on the elder transition committee—its composition is about half women. I think the reason this works for me is that our pastor and his leadership team (men) believe strongly in empowering the women in the church to utilize their gifts to bless the church, including teaching and shepherding. In the end, for me it’s more about the expression of gifts, not the titles per se.
Because I am able to teach and use the other gifts God has given me I don't feel constrained. I know this is an unusual situation though. For most of my life I’ve felt like I’ve had to check myself, not fully be myself for fear of trampling men’s egos or being called a Jezebel. It is soul-withering. If I had a call to becoming a pulpit preacher or an elder, I think I’d feel a lot squirmier in my current church than I do. I read Aimee Byrd’s response and she is 100 percent correct. Like another woman already shared in the comments, I think I’ve found a unicorn.
Going through this now. A big problem for us egals who speak up in comp-dominated churches is that just by “speaking out” you are criticized for not being “peaceable”. You are then taken aside and told, “We all have different views, but we need to get along”, or “even when we disagree, we need to submit to those in authority.” It takes courage to confront the patriarchy, but this fact is not acknowledged because even when you’re respectfully bold, you’re seen as stirring the pot. PEACE. I have the inner peace of someone who is acting on what God has put on my heart, in the best way I know how. I have peace knowing that I’m only responsible for my part, and not the changing of hearts, which is God’s part. That’s a lot of peace for a “troublemaker.”
Jenny-Isabella, Aimee is right, that I'm writing from a man's perspective and will have male experiences of a complementarian church. This might well play out differently for an egalitarian woman in a complementarian church. So I take that on board.
Right, but women are the ones who pay the price of comp theology. The things you listed in your post are things a person with privilege can do. Unless she is only gifted in ways that are comp approved, a woman doesn't have the luxury of not trying to change a church's theology. A woman with my gifts will shrivel up in a comp church. (Ask me how I know.)
very good advice but it is more like the other side needs to hear it. they are the ones that judge, call names, cast aspersions on one's salvation, accuse them of being disobedient or rebellious to God's word. -
and --as long as the pat/comp church does not send an abused wife back into a dangerous marriage with advice to obey more submit more, etc claiming she will be blessed the more she suffers for christ
notice it is the egals offering help and resources to women abused under patriarchy/comp teachings.
Each of these is on-point and pastorally important. Thank you for each one. The tone is helpful. I have also added (in conversations) to your list "Don't expect that your church is going to become egalitarian." It might, but the chances are not good. If changing the church is the goal, think of changing churches. There is something new about complementarianism that deserves pushback, and complementarianism as a theological shaping has an impact that can be pervasive; in the hands of some it can be authoritarian and diminishing of women. In the USA comp is at times symbolic of one's stance in the broader culture war. A kind of "here I stand (because I have the authority to make the stand)."
Aimée Byrd’s response to this post is bang on.
This is excellent, and also reinforces why I could never be a member of a complementarian church. That became clear to me when I was considering becoming a member of a PCA church, and witnessed an ordination for my first time. This was in Feb 2018, during the early months of the #ChurchToo movement. Only men laying hands on a man. It struck me, somehow for the first time, that comps do not truly believe that the Holy Spirit works fully through women, that men are not to be held accountable to women or by women in any way--and I was essentially being taught this liturgically, DURING WORSHIP. Ever since then, my conscience forbids me from giving money towards a church or org that propagates teachings that are not only harmful towards women, but are, in my view, anti-Gospel. Jesus didn't just die so that we can believe in Him and wind up in heaven, but to make us into a brand new creation. The consequences of sin after the Fall (Genesis 3:16) should never be our template for the Christian community (marriage & the church). Jesus died for this!!
All Baskin-Robbins flavors of complementarianism boil down to this: restrict women in some way, and you're in the club.
Yes, we egalitarians ought to be charitable to other Christians who disagree with you (and all of God's image bearers).
But no. Not my club. Not my Jesus. Not my Gospel.
Elizabeth, yes, I've written on the incoherence of tribal complementarianism. As long as you prohibit women from doing something, you're okay. https://michaelfbird.substack.com/p/is-tribal-complementarianism-coherent
Ditto. Which means a limited number of churches to choose from.
I regret the ten years I spent in a comp church. Though there were reasons we went there and some good people, it basically erased me as a person with gifts and ideas to contribute. Now that we’re at a church that allows me to fully use my gifts, I see what I was missing. Most importantly, I set a terrible example for my two daughters, then in high school and college, that I was at least implicitly OK with this worldview. It was ten years of my life that I can’t get back, and in hindsight, we compromised our core beliefs about personhood and the body of Christ and shouldn’t have done it.
You asked for views of egalitarian women attending comp churches, so here goes- I recently formally resigned membership and left my local church which I helped plant and served in for 13 years. It was one of the member churches of the Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches (FIEC) Australia. I wrote a personal essay explaining my reasons with links to the history and values of the FIEC and links to better teaching on women in ministry. I circulated the essay to other members of the church and staff and FIEC when I left as well as posting it to an online group. I will send the essay to anyone who asks. I decided it was a serious theological disagreement I had with the church and denomination about their silencing and treatment of women and I should not remain silent about it. I had spent 13 years discussing the issues in private with the church pastors and council and latterly with the FIEC executive. In the end I thought it was best to reveal to church members and others involved with FIEC churches the derogatory and harmful ideology behind the FIEC values and give people access to alternative readings of scripture to help them assess this doctrine and practice for themselves. I had one success early on in challenging a re-drafted constitution of the church which would have set up a male-only elder board; church members objected to that idea, the church now has a mixed sex council rather than male elders. However I could not get any movement on allowing women preachers, even occasional female guest speakers. Additionally women mentioned in the Bible were ignored, downplayed or misrepresented in sermons. The governance of the FIEC is male-only, only male senior pastors can vote at FIEC general meetings, only male senior pastors represent the member churches, they elect each other to the Executive and develop and vote on policies. It’s a completely male dominated organisation and women have no say in decision-making or leadership.
The FIEC and my church pastors believe in the whole “equal but different”, “gender roles” malarky. Leadership, teaching, governance and fellowship are restricted to men only while women are submitters to and supporters of male authority. I concluded that the doctrine and practice of the authority and headship of men over women seeks to limit the gifting of the Holy Spirit, damages women, the gospel, and the global and local church. For women, it is not a secondary issue they can ignore, it affects their lives, their ability to carry out God’s call to them, their sense of God’s love for them and their belonging to His church. Emphasis on the headship doctrine is a risk factor for spiritual and other abuse within churches and families. I could no longer support this doctrine through membership, voluntary labour or financial contributions. To continue to be a member of the church and by default, supporting the FIEC, I would be complicit in the marginalisation of women from the Australian church and the centreing of men as the only leaders, teachers and representatives of the church.
“For women, it is not a secondary issue they can ignore, it affects their lives, their ability to carry out God’s call to them, their sense of God’s love for them and their belonging to His church.” So true. I also left my church after 10+ years and they (one elder) said you shouldn’t leave over a secondary issue. So dismissive.
Could I please get hold of your essay?
Yes KM, happy to send it to you but not sure how? This is a public forum so I can't ask for your email address on here. Maybe Mike would let me post an extra gmail address I own here and you and others can request the essay through that?
If you or anyone wants a copy of my essay on why I left my church and the FIEC, you can email me and I'll send it in a reply email to you as a pdf. icgequality@gmail.com
Linda, may I have a draft of the full essay? Thanks
Great advice! I’m newly egalitarian and go to a very complementarian church. I became a member there long before my views changed and love the people very much. Being gracious and intelligently advocating for the egal viewpoint I think will be crucial in not getting so frustrated. Thank you!
Angie, thank you, I'm glad to help. That said, Aimee Byrd makes a good point, my advice might play out better for a man than a woman in some complm. circles. Oh, and I'd love to hear/read your story into egalitarianism!
Yes! I saw Aimee’s post and I’m taking that into consideration for sure! I started questioning complementarian views when I saw how many faithful Christian’s held to the egalitarian viewpoint. I had been taught that egalitarians didn’t take scripture seriously, but in the online interactions between comp. and eagals. I saw that definitely was not the case. It held no merit and the accusation honestly felt lazy. I began reading more widely- mainly you, Marg Mowczko, and Beth Allison Barr. I’ve felt more and more convinced of the egal arguments and much more at peace in my faith. So thank you for having good faith arguments with complementarians! It is very helpful!
I was in an SBC church for many years and I received my undergraduate in Christian Ministry from an Southern Baptist school. I left the SBC because I’m a woman who desires to do ministry. I am still in a complementarian church--ACNA. (Our diocese allows local churches to decide re: ordination of women to the priesthood.) The hang ups re: women that I experienced in the SBC, don’t exist in my church. The congregation itself is a mixture of egalitarians and complementarians. I have a lot freedom to minister. I feel empowered, supported, valued by leadership for the first time. But, I think I found a unicorn. (Or maybe the ACNA itself is a unicorn? I don’t know.) Because while I appreciate your advice, I believe there are far more toxic complementarian churches than not. The culture wars have reduced us to “all issues are first order issues” (an actual quote from one of my former professors).
Gail, I've met many ex-SBC women in your position, many have reached out to me and asked me questions and requested advice. I find it quite hard because these are weighty matters and I don't exactly want to be responsible for seismic shifts in people's life, career, ministry, or church affiliation. Glad to hear you've landed in a good place.
Gail, I'm so glad you've found a home. I'm not in an ACNA, but several of my friends (many of whom are floating in a gray area between Comp and Egal) have been pushed out of their more conservative patriarchal churches and found new homes in ACNA precisely for the reasons you've outlined.
Just wanted you to know that yeah, ACNA does seem to be a unicorn, but thankfully, more and more people are finding this unicorn. In my experience it's very challenging to find theologically orthodox churches with egalitarian expression.
Most of my life has been spent in complementarian churches, some have been accepting of a diversity of views on women in ministry and some have been judgemental. My approach has been to focus on Jesus and try to be humble and respectful while taking up ministry opportunities as they are offered.
At my church, under the current leadership, I am allowed to lead church services and run Bible study groups. Under a previous minister I used to preach a couple of times a year. And I have co-preached a few times with my current minister. He is very warm and accepting of my "divergent" views however in other Christian contexts and in previous churches I attended I have been perceived as not taking the Bible seriously or not placing myself under its authority. I have also been instructed by another in my church that women need to be respectful of men with differing views about women in ministry and should refrain in order to protect the consciences of such men. I have heard the "weaker brother" argument (Romans 14) multiple times. I have also been chastised by others at church for not preaching more often!
I really love my church and church family and it's the place where each of my three children have been nurtured in their faith. But I'm also thinking of making a move. I'm partway through theological study and am considering ordination but I'm not sure how that will sit with the current leadership. It's tricky juggling what I think God is leading me to when those I worship among and under consider it to be ungodly and unfaithful.
Hi Sarah, as you can tell, your story is a very familiar one, I think many women resonate with this kind of struggle between belonging and being tolerated, loving the people, but feeling shackled or limited by men with their specious reasonings. We'll have to chat some time!
I find it interesting that complementarian circles would normally say that women are the weaker sex, emotional, more prone to deception etc, and that weakness is a reason why they're not qualified to lead or preach. Yet when they come across a weakness in men (the conscience argument from Rom 14) they say it's a reason for keeping power in the hands of the men. When women are weak it disqualifies them from leadership, but when men are weak it disqualifies women from leadership.
I stayed through spiritual abuse, ostracization, etc., because the last thing Jesus told me was to go to a Women's retreat, He would be there. I prayed for years for him to let me leave. He finally said, "Go". Then a year or so later he told me to "Check their website". I did and found the Sr Pastor and Exec Pastor was on Admin Leave and in the process of either being fired or resigned for being unfit for ministry. My "sin"? God chose me to do more in my life than the male pastors and God told me to talk about it. They forbid me to talk about it, stole my testimony, preached on it, used my testimony for examples in classes, etc. Of course they removed that God did this in a woman's life so it fit their culture. I didn't even understand Comp/Patriarchy at the time so I had no clue what was going on. I just knew something was really wrong. I thought people would love to hear what God did and want to praise Him for it. Boy was I wrong.
This was timely and spot on for me today. As a member of a 'soft-complementarian' church, I often feel conflicted but feel that God has called me and my family to serve in this place for now. I have had opportunity, along with a close friend, to sit with our senior minister and raise our views and concerns. We both felt heard, if not fully understood, but it is a good start. I feel that, while change might take much longer that we might like, if we all 'abandon ship' so to speak, we will have no opportunities to challenge views. We stick with it for the sake of the Kingdom, by the grace of God. Obviously, if the environment is toxic it is far better, as you suggest, to flee!
Thanks Lisa, that is wise and courageous choice of action and shows your commitment to the people you worship with.
Thanks for this, Scot. As I continue to wrestle with egalitarianism I find myself struggling with the passages that seem to root themselves in the creation, pre-fall account that seems to be Paul’s ground for saying no to women pastors over a church. Can you help me see where I may be off on this? Thanks again
Darien, I’m not Scot, but I hope you don’t mind me taking a stab at an answer for you as it is something I’ve also struggled with. Something that helped me sort this out is to consider whether the original creation account actually speaks to the question of women's roles in the church. Some argue that Paul’s references to "creation order" are supporting evidence (ie, 1 Tim 2 and 1 Cor 11) for female subordination to men universally and therefore disallows women from being in roles providing spiritual oversight over any man. (I was once in a church that actually told a woman that she could no longer teach the jr high sunday school class because the lone boy in the class had been baptized. It mattered not that that boy was her son.)
Read through the Genesis text and see if there is any explicit mention of male headship or even any significance placed on creation order. Consider the opposite too--whether Eve's creation as the final act could also be argued for primacy. Personally, I don't see it (in either direction) there because hierarchy and power struggle do not get introduced in the text until after the fall. Also, contextually Adam and Eve are a couple so if there is any overtone of hierarchy it's limited to a marriage relationship, not universal application. Even God, as the Creator, interacts with them not quite on peer level, but he deigns to walk with them in the garden. Hierarchy simply isn’t a thing, certainly not a main thing, we’re supposed to get out of the text.
With regard to Paul's appeals to creation order, it must first be acknowledged that these are two of the most obscure passages in the New Testament. They are one-sided conversations in distinct cultural contexts. As such we should handle these texts with care and be cautious with sweeping, definitive modern applications.
The Greek versions of these texts give me enough reason to pause on making any conclusions about prohibitions on women's roles in the church. In 1 Cor 11 for example, the Greek word for woman is the same as wife and when it appears in close conjunction with "aner" (man), an honest reader must allow for the possibility that an equally valid translation of the passage in English would render man and woman as husband and wife. Because the only other NT texts that even hint of gender hierarchy are specifically dealing with marriage relationships, perhaps we should let those inform our translation of 1 Cor 11? (Also, consider 1 Cor 14:34-35 as likely speaking to husbands and wives. We often translate it as women in v. 34 but then use “husbands” instead of “man” in v. 35. The correlating word to husbands isn’t women, it’s wives.) If so, arguments for male headship in 1 Cor 11 would only be applicable within marriage and have no bearing on what women in general could or could not do in church (except then maybe pastor’s wives??).
That really only leaves 1 Tim 2, which in this very rough and ready answer I don't have space to get into the interpretive mess of v. 12-15. Paul’s appeal almost feels like an off-handed rhetorical device to support his prohibition here (which again, is worded in such a way that it could be argued as a local prohibition or a temporary one given his choice of verb tense (best translated in English as, “I am not at this time allowing. . .”. Suffice it to say, there are good Bible scholars on both sides of the gender debate who agree these are problematic verses. I'm sure Mike and Scot could give compelling interpretations of what Paul's reasoning here is plausibly about.
Lastly, why don't we allow Paul's actions to interpret what he says? The way he speaks about his named sisters in Christ (especially in Romans 16) as co-laborers with him, and his sending of Phoebe as his emissary (and all that likely entailed, such has reading and fielding questions about the letter in the public assembly) should carry as much sway in our take aways as his explicit instructions written to specific people.
In sum, while they may be some merit to male headship within the marriage context (this is also arguably under scrutiny as whether this is a cultural cue or a timeless mandate), the using universal male headship as a basis for arguing against women holding positions of leadership (specific being pastors) are weak. There are stronger complementarian arguments, IMO.
I hope that is at least a little bit helpful in your studies as you continue to chew on this issue. As a woman, thank you for at least looking into the matter as that conveys not only respect for God’s word, but also for women as fellow image-bearers and co-heirs in the Church.
Abigail, thank you for this excellent response. There is much here to consider, which I will do! I want to get this right!
Sorry, I meant Michael.
So good. Thanks for this.
Aimee Byrd's point that your advice is more helpful for men in complementarian churches is spot on. I think I would add that if you're a woman, keep a careful eye on how your gifts and calling are treated by your church. Over time it becomes really burdensome to have them overlooked, denied, or worse, treated like they're controversial or sinful. Growing up in a complementarian church and doing my theological training with a mainly complementarian student body, I longed to have my vocation treated with the same uncomplicated enthusiasm that the men received. Instead, my desire to serve God was treated like a problem, like something controversial and shameful that brought disruption to the community. There's a deep grief you experience when you present your deepest desires to serve and worship God to your church, and your church tells you that worship is sinful. And then the shame of being in complementarian spaces and knowing 'if these people knew I'd preached sermons before they'd judge me as being unfaithful to God'. When I joined an egalitarian church it was like a huge weight had lifted - even though I wasn't preaching, I knew I could follow wherever God led me and be supported in it. The weight of being in a church that suppresses your gifts or calling is heavy; don't underestimate the burden it places on your soul.
Totally agree. I’m not even sure this advice is helpful for men, if it’s not helpful for women.
Thank you for addressing this, Mike. I don't think I've ever heard anyone talk about this before. I have only ever attended complementarian churches. As I've studied and had some phenomenal seminary professors who collectively represented the entire spectrum of the gender debate (except perhaps the most prohibitive perspective that demands silence of women in church), I've more or less fallen into the flexitarian-but-leans-egalitarian camp. I think God’s end goal for his image bearers looks egalitarian, but in the here and now, Paul's admonitions to not put up barriers to people accepting the Gospel should guide our application of divisive, difficult texts. Since we’re enculturated beings culture will always impact our theological process. Where you live will have some say over how your congregation manifests this issue. I live in an egalitarian culture so churches that do not reflect this are setting up an unnecessary barrier to the gospel.
That said, my local congregation (which recently joined Converge which appears to include both comp and egal congregations in its membership) is de facto complementarian. We've been here 8 years. The reasons my husband (who is more adamantly egalitarian than I am) and I have stayed is for the reasons you outlined above: calling, and gracious acceptance of our differences by leadership and ourselves. We felt God calling us to this body, specifically to support the pastor and his wife. We’ve had open conversations with our pastor but never pushed him. He says we’ve challenged him in a good way and he’s definitely shifted to a very expansive comp position—but that’s all the Holy Spirit, not us.
Our church includes women serving in pastoral roles without the title (our pastor is struggling over that one). Our pastor brought me on the sermon planning team--something I’d never been able to do at our old churches. I’ve also been allowed to teach co-ed classes—it was never an issue, and no one complained that I know of. We don’t have elders (in the process of setting that up). I’m not holding my breath that women will be included—at least not in the first round. But our pastor has included women on the elder transition committee—its composition is about half women. I think the reason this works for me is that our pastor and his leadership team (men) believe strongly in empowering the women in the church to utilize their gifts to bless the church, including teaching and shepherding. In the end, for me it’s more about the expression of gifts, not the titles per se.
Because I am able to teach and use the other gifts God has given me I don't feel constrained. I know this is an unusual situation though. For most of my life I’ve felt like I’ve had to check myself, not fully be myself for fear of trampling men’s egos or being called a Jezebel. It is soul-withering. If I had a call to becoming a pulpit preacher or an elder, I think I’d feel a lot squirmier in my current church than I do. I read Aimee Byrd’s response and she is 100 percent correct. Like another woman already shared in the comments, I think I’ve found a unicorn.
Going through this now. A big problem for us egals who speak up in comp-dominated churches is that just by “speaking out” you are criticized for not being “peaceable”. You are then taken aside and told, “We all have different views, but we need to get along”, or “even when we disagree, we need to submit to those in authority.” It takes courage to confront the patriarchy, but this fact is not acknowledged because even when you’re respectfully bold, you’re seen as stirring the pot. PEACE. I have the inner peace of someone who is acting on what God has put on my heart, in the best way I know how. I have peace knowing that I’m only responsible for my part, and not the changing of hearts, which is God’s part. That’s a lot of peace for a “troublemaker.”
I'll be curious to see how Aimee Byrd's reaction to this changes your perspective (if it does). She speaks for a lot of us.
Jenny-Isabella, Aimee is right, that I'm writing from a man's perspective and will have male experiences of a complementarian church. This might well play out differently for an egalitarian woman in a complementarian church. So I take that on board.
Right, but women are the ones who pay the price of comp theology. The things you listed in your post are things a person with privilege can do. Unless she is only gifted in ways that are comp approved, a woman doesn't have the luxury of not trying to change a church's theology. A woman with my gifts will shrivel up in a comp church. (Ask me how I know.)
very good advice but it is more like the other side needs to hear it. they are the ones that judge, call names, cast aspersions on one's salvation, accuse them of being disobedient or rebellious to God's word. -
and --as long as the pat/comp church does not send an abused wife back into a dangerous marriage with advice to obey more submit more, etc claiming she will be blessed the more she suffers for christ
notice it is the egals offering help and resources to women abused under patriarchy/comp teachings.