Maybe Next Year, Part 2

 

Hierarchicalism has unintended consequences. Husbands, fathers, boyfriends, brothers who may be prone to violence may use the stance to “encourage” the women in their lives to be properly submissive. 

Even if it were successfully demonstrated that hierarchicalism is the Biblical model for family relationships, nothing in the Bible allows for violence toward wives and daughters. Not when Paul says, “the husband must give his wife the same sort of love that Christ gave to the Church, when he sacrificed himself for her” (Eph. 5:25 Phillips).

For centuries English common law allowed husbands to beat their wives, as long as the stick used was no thicker than a man’s thumb. Puritans in seventeenth century New England may have passed the first laws to make wife-beating illegal. By no means did they espouse egalitarianism, but they did recognize such violence had no place in their community. 

In a climate when family violence seems rife, those who insist hierarchicalism is the Biblical vision for marriages must take extra steps to make sure husbands and wives should know physical and psychological violence cannot be tolerated. No pastor must ever tell a bruised wife that staying in the path of her husband’s fists is God’s will for her. No church must ever allow an abusive husband to remain in a position of authority and influence; if his wife may not be a deacon merely because of her gender, his behavior should certainly preclude his having the title. With that, I will move on.  

There is yet another hurdle those committed to hierarchicalism must face. By its very tenets, the doctrine limits the freedom of more than half of those within Christ’s church. I say “more than half” deliberately: since at least the seventeenth century more women than men have been active participants in the church. Limiting their freedom is a significant privilege to presume. It demands certainty. 

Yet, curiously, J. I. Packer, in an article in Christianity Today, admits there are questions about the crucial passage I Timothy 2:13-14 but urges churches to give Paul “the benefit of the doubt” and refuse to ordain women (11 February 1991). When I first read those words, I wondered why giving Paul that benefit of the doubt meant assuming the apostle intended to support a viewpoint which coincidentally was the viewpoint Packer held. How can we presume to limit the freedom of our spiritual sisters when we are not convinced beyond “doubt” Paul sanctioned our doing so?

Unlike Packer, not a few of those who believe Paul was proposing gender hierarchy within the church would never admit there are questions about the passage. Objections to their viewpoint simply won’t be allowed. I once heard a local radio host in Columbus, Ohio, answer a listener’s question about women preaching. He said, “Anyone who allows women to preach has to explain away Paul’s words in First Timothy.” That’s it; that was his answer. The man who had spent years as a pastor could not imagine that anyone who disagreed with him might actually be offering a reasonable alternative understanding of Paul’s words, not simply explaining them away or dismissing them. 

It will be impossible to persuade such a man that there might be another way to read the texts he has so long assumed supported his viewpoint. So, I will abandon that endeavor.

Instead, I will ask you to pursue the answers to a few questions.

Have you ever considered what our churches are losing by preventing women from making full use of their talents as leaders, teachers, preachers?

Why would Paul praise women as co-workers, allow them to prophesy, and describe them as church leaders in other places, yet seemingly limit their roles in a couple passages in his letters to Timothy and Titus?

If they were allowed to teach and preach, could women give us greater insights into marriage, family life, and domestic violence than male teachers and preachers?

What can we do to make sure our daughters and sons hear about the many female heroes in church history? (Why should our children know about John Smith but not Anne Hutchinson?)

Could the church’s youthful critics—who see Christianity as sexist—be exposing a family secret, one that demands we reevaluate our glib repetition of old formulas?

If we had more women leaders, would our churches and denominations have been so inclined to support men who demean women and trivialize assault?  

Is it possible Paul’s words that seem to limit the freedom of women did not lay down eternal principles; but, rather, were addressing specific situations?

That’s a start. Maybe answering these questions won’t persuade you to take an egalitarian stance, but maybe you will come away with a better understanding of those who already stand there. If you are an egalitarian, maybe this exercise will strengthen your case.

During this Women’s History Month, it seems appropriate to challenge some of ways women are being treated, ways that should be history. Maybe someday.

Hope for the "New" Normal

 I am sitting at the kitchen table as I look through the window at the brilliant sunshine. The grass is turning green, some trees are blossoming. It’s hard to believe that just over a month ago I would have been sitting here shivering because we had no electricity, looking through the window at snow and ice, and hoping none of our pipes had frozen. More than eighty people died during that freak-weather induced blackout; certainly, too many to allow media darlings to mock Texas. We’d seen bad weather in Ohio, but not like this. In Ohio we were prepared (on both the community and personal level). Ohio’s Franklin County has a fleet of snowplows; here our county has none. When we had no electricity in Ohio, we could slip away to any mall that was open or to the library to warm-up and recharge electronics; here the roads were covered with ice and many places like the malls and libraries were also dark. (Of course, the pandemic would have kept us home.) 

As bad as it was it could have been worse. We were able to drive the car a little way out of the garage to charge cell phones.  We could drink the water, though not all of our neighbors could (some had no water at all). We had food. We had a stock of tuna and peanut butter. Had the blackout lasted much longer we might have tried mixing them, but it never came to that. Our son and friends in Ohio checked on us. Neighbors here checked on one another. Our power went out on Monday morning, it came back Thursday noon. Others were still without power two weeks later. 

On Friday, my EMT neighbor and I shoveled snow off the driveway. On Saturday, our son, daughter-in-law, and Grandson showed up to help shovel snow off the deck and elsewhere. In recent days we’ve turned off the furnace, taken pleasant walks, planted flowers to replace those killed by the cold, and even cut the grass. It gives me hope that whatever “normal” may mean after the pandemic won’t be too unfamiliar.

A Christian theologian, I believe God cares for us and uses “agents” to help mediate his grace. Maybe those agents include a wife who suggested we buy a dozen cans of tuna just a couple weeks before the storm. Maybe God is responsible for the whim that prompted me to say we should get some peanut butter, though I can go weeks without eating it. Maybe those agents include the folks who called, texted, or just showed up.

Oh yes, Krissy our dog has apparently forgiven us for making her cold. Though, I’m not sure our neighbor’s cats have forgiven them.

Maybe Next Year

 One Sunday, while a first-year seminary student, I preached at a small rural church. After the service, one of the saints, thanked me for my “talk.”  If someone could confuse my sermon for a talk, I suppose someone could confuse Beth Moore’s talks for sermons. 

Beth Moore recently announced she was leaving the Southern Baptist Convention. The popular Bible teacher and author explained her departure by pointing to the continuing support given to Donald Trump by certain key figures in the denomination. Such support, she believes, evidences an indifference to women’s concerns. 

In recent years, Moore has been criticized, not only for opposing Trump (and supposedly supporting Hillary Clinton), but also for allegedly preaching. Moore does not call herself a preacher, but her critics apparently believe she has crossed the line from teaching to preaching. Almost certainly, that dear lady from the rural church could explain to me why I was merely giving “a talk” while Moore is preaching. But I digress.

What finally prompted Moore to break with the Convention was its response to the sexual abuse of women by pastors and other leaders. Although, the Convention has issued statements condemning such abuse, Moore and others feel the response lacks the commitment to do the difficult work of removing offenders from places of influence, large and small. 

It is hard to deny this charge. Paige Patterson was removed from the presidency of Southwestern Seminary for failing to act on accusations made by a female student against a fellow student, whom she said raped her at gunpoint. Moreover, Patterson allegedly attempted to coerce the student to keep silent and portrayed her as a willing participant in the sexual activity. Yet, even after the trustees dismissed Patterson, they wanted to give him the title of president emeritus and appoint him (and his wife) as “theologians in residence,” a status that would provide a nice residence on the campus. The revelation that Patterson apparently had a treated another female student the same way while he was president of another school, prompted the trustees to terminate him with no plans to appoint him to any other position. 

In response, over two-dozen wealthy Southern Baptists, all donors to the seminary, insisted Patterson be kept as part of the school’s leadership team. Using a tactic familiar to every Baptist pastor who ever dealt with furious members united in a coterie, they threatened to end their support of the seminary. 

In an angry letter to the trustees, they wrote, “Dr. and Mrs. Patterson continue to have our absolute and unwavering support. They are both esteemed scholars and were stately ambassadors for the Seminary. Your treatment of them is a travesty that must not go unaddressed.” (Julie Zaumer, “Angry donors threaten to withhold money from seminary that fired Paige Patterson,” The Washington Post, 4 July 2018. Emphasis added.) Only a nationwide protest kept trustees from acting on the demands. Reportedly, Patterson was later hired as an adjunct professor at another seminary. His job: teaching ethics.

From my standpoint, it is easy to understand why Moore and many other women were angry.

Now, I am not writing about sexual abuse. Rather, I am addressing the matter of unintended consequences. But before I do so, I need to briefly define a couple terms. First, hierarchicalism. This notion says God intends men to play the role of leader in any relationship with women. Those who hold this position insist it does not demean women, nor does it suggest women are less intelligent or somehow inferior to men. It simply insists this is God’s plan. A simple analogy comes from the US Constitution. A naturalized citizen has the same rights and status as a native-born citizen. However, according to the Constitution, the naturalized citizen may not serve as President of the United States. (Hence the unfounded “Birther conspiracy.”) In the same way, despite not being in anyway inferior, women are barred from leading churches. In contrast, egalitarianism is the notion that men and women are equal in every way. If there are innate differences in the genders, they do not diminish the value of either. Significantly, egalitarians believe women may have any role in the church, including deacon, elder, or pastor. A third important term is “complementarian,” which will be clarified later.

Fairness demands I admit the hierarchical position has supporters among women. Dorothy Patterson has a Doctor of Ministry degree from Luther Rice Seminary and a Doctor of Theology degree from the University of South Africa, so she is sometimes called “Dr. Patterson.” Dr. Dorothy Patterson, who has been described as "one of today's leading scholars on the topic of biblical womanhood” (The Christian Post, 12 May 2013), helped prepare the 2000 Baptist Faith and Message which raised hierarchicalism to confessional status for Southern Baptists. She is an editor of The Women’s Study Bible, which promotes the hierarchical interpretation. Her popularity reminds me that a surprising number of women are content with this viewpoint, believing it provides God-given protection from the challenges men face in church leadership. Not every woman agrees.

Many women believe hierarchicalism leads to attitudes that foster abuse. Beth Moore does not believe this, but writers like Ruth A. Tucker (Black and White Bible, Black and Blue Wife) and Kristin Kobes DuMez (Jesus and John Wayne) apparently do. If their assessment is correct, I hope it is an unintended consequence. In truth, any man who wishes to physically, emotionally, or sexually abuse his wife needs no theological justification. However, that man’s pastor may find hierarchicalism a hinderance to counselling the abused wife or correcting the abusive husband (if you’re the “head” how can you tolerate defiance). In the same way, the pastor might, for example, find it difficult to tell the woman to defy her husband and leave.

This may be why some who embrace hierarchicalism prefer the term “complementarian” for their perspective. It is a promising term but a little confusing. Many egalitarians would insist that they, too, are complementarians, believing that whatever—spiritual, emotional, or intellectual—it is that makes a woman a woman and whatever—spiritual, emotional, or intellectual—it is that makes a man a man lie behind the words of the Creation story: “So God created man in his own image, . . . male and female he created them.” (Genesis 1:27 NIV) Each half of humanity stands alone while completing the other half.

I know men and women with hierarchical convictions; they would be incensed at the suggestion they endorse spousal abuse. I’ve seen no reason to doubt their commitment to the safety of women. Even so, this does not mean the position cannot be misinterpreted or distorted.  I’ve concluded those who do not listen very carefully (or humbly) to the explanation of the hierarchical position will almost inevitably suspect (or insist) there is something lacking in the female, spiritually, emotionally, or mentally. This deficiency precludes their serving as leaders in the church.  While more sophisticated hierarchicalists might speak of “the order of creation,” that suspicion of innate female inferiority will persist among many who hear them. Convinced of this, they may find a license to treat women with disdain.

Those who believe the hierarchical view is thought in scripture have the responsibility to insist the view allow no room for bullying or abuse in any form. Honesty demands the admission they have often failed.

During this Women’s History Month, it seems appropriate to challenge some of ways women are being treated, ways that should be history. Maybe someday