*this is less of a post and more of a opinion poll.
Honestly, it's easy for me to be a pastor - I'm male.
Now, many people have extremely differing views of what females in leadership look like. Some have inevitably swung (not unlike a pendulum) to balance views that have come before them.
What do you think? What is your view of women in ministry?
I've heard many passionate, educated people argue on many sides of this, believing whole-heartedly that they have the definitively correct stance on the issue.
Please indulge me/ educate me and tell me what you think and why....
5 comments:
Okay. So I'm Lutheran, and my church has always had a female pastor. I have a friend who is Catholic and doesn't believe in having female priests/pastors or anything. So I kind of know both sides. However, people in general are supposed to TRY to be like Jesus. One of Jesus' major teachings was equality. He loved the lepers and the lame. The sick. Those who weren't considered high class. He never once said, "I would like you because you're better, or a man." That's not what he was about. Jesus didn't care about males or females- they were the same.
Well Anthemlicious...
I have struggled huge in this area over the last few years. I have friends who have been the major pendulum swingers, and I have really wondered sometimes myself.
In the O.T. women sometimes functioned as prophets but never priests. In the N.T. they sometimes functioned as prophets and deacons but never as elders.
In the new testament, all the disciples were men, yet there were women involved heavily in ministry in Jesus' life (Mary, Elizabeth, Anna, financial supporters of Jesus, women were 1st to witness the resurrection) not to mention all of Jesus' enemies were men.
Women in the new testament also were mentioned for giving up their homes for the 1st churches (Mary, Nympha, Lydia, Priscilla).
Women in NT are often called fellow workers (Phoebe, Euodia, Syntyche).
Women in the NT prophesied (preached?)....(Mary, Elizabeth, Anna, Philip's daughters, etc.)
Women in the NT taught in some contexts (younger women in Tit 2:2,3, son Timothy 1 Tim 4:14, 15, Priscilla with husband Acts 18:26)
You can't see these examples are say that women aren't called to ministry. It would be blindly ignoring the evidence...However...
-All 12 Apostles were men
-The 72 were apparently all men
-The 7 deacons (Acts 6) were men
-The travelling church planting teams were men
-Overseers, elders, deacons were all men.
Seeing these examples I really think that God calls both men and women to ministry. However, I do think that God has different responsibilities for men and women. I could be way off. Scripture talks about male leadership in the church and the home. THE BIGGEST PART OF LEADERSHIP IS SUBMISSION THOUGH.
I am not confident in my "stance" but at the same time I feel a strong call from God and His word to provide, protect and lead my family. The church I feel needs good men AND good women as leaders. I do think it is important to take an honest look at scripture and not throw chunks that make us feel uncomfortable away as "irrelevent" or "cultural".
Thoughts...?
Great book to read no matter where you land on this issue is Gifted to Lead by Nancy Beach. Chapter 7 is written for men in particular, so if you don't want to read the whole thing, read that chapter. I'm planning to read John Stackhouse's Finally Feminist: A Pragmatic Christian Understanding Of Gender It's supposed to be very good. I usually like his perspective as a Canadian scholar.
My own views have certainly morphed over the years - always something to learn. Bottom line for me is to show love and respect to those with opposing views to mine. It should never be an issue to divide us.
I am constantly surprised by how long this debate goes on for but that perhaps is only evidence that it is heavy and holds many layers that can support many opinions. I am of the opinion that it is implicit that as Christians we view women as entirely equal in every respect. Whether it be pastor, youth pastor, elder or spiritual leader.
Quite often there is a lack of understand of the culture that scripture was written in. The Jewish/Roman culture in itself with inherently sexist, and there can be no side stepping the lack of rights women had in that time. Let us say for example the Bible was written in the 1800’s in the USA when the slave trade was going on. The author’s writings would no doubt reflect his surrounding culture. So as scripture gets passed on to our generation would we read and say well all the disciples were white, all the pastors were white, all the elders were white, therefore we can assume that God does not want African Americans to have authority in the church. Of course this sounds ridiculous but we do the same thing. We forget the cultural backdrop of scripture and place these writings into our own culture.
Rather than doing that, we should question how Jesus broke from the cultural standard of his times and in turn what that meant for his early followers. For example: Jesus did talk to women without the supervision of other men, who were of different culture, and who had a terrible reputation (Woman at the well) These three things were so incredibly taboo in Jesus times, he broke down barriers that we don’t even understand in our society. He gave her a voice when society had stripped it. Let us not forget many Christians used the bible to argue the slave trade.
In addition we can look along the same lines as the early church enabled women to take on positions of authority that in Roman culture were not permitted. Women gained rights within the church that never were given to them before. In fact in a letter between a Roman general and the Caesar at the time, he explains that two slave (!) women who he killed were considered elders in the church.
I have found that arguments are often discredited by being labeled as reactionary which I would argue the other side of the debate also engages in reactionary rhetoric but simply pursuing different ends.
I probably shouldn’t take up too much space with my response but there is much more that can be said in this issue. I must close by saying scripture should constantly be our starting point, but a failure to grasp the cultural barrier that Jesus broke down and in turn were again broken by Paul, in his naming of women as deacons, is incredible. Our faith is beautiful and to argue that because genitals are different God speaks differently to men or women is not in line with the rest of scripture. It is a discredit to Jesus to argue that parts of his creation are not fit to take on spiritual leadership.
Finished Finally Feminist by John Stackhouse - EXCELLENT! Love his approach to this challenging issue.
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