WOMEN IN CHURCH LEADERSHIP

If you want to get a group of Christian women — or men, for that matter — talking, then just bring up the question of whether or not women should be allowed in church leadership. The opinions on this matter are as diverse as the people who hold them, but the importance of their consequences never waver. Whether it is Mark Kotze, a staunch Baptist challenging the male-leadership only status quo; or Melissa Ndlovu, a young Charismatic declaring that women have no place in leadership, this debate remains heated and controversial. It can also be downright confusing for Christians and non-Christians alike.

There are at least two sides to every debate. Jeannette Stratford, a Baptist for ten years says, “The Biblical example is men in leadership – but as in marriage, women give input and guidance.” David Cartwright, who has led a small group for a number of years and is the son of a Pentecostal preacher believes that “Generally, men should administer and women should prophecy.” On the other hand, Sthembile Mhlongo believes that “Having a woman in church leadership is a good thing as it introduces a balance in opinions and experiences.” Mark agrees, “It doesn’t matter if you are a man or a woman. If God has a plan for you, then that is his vision…and we must adhere to his will.”

Mimi Hollister Gardner, a minister in the United Church of Christ, one of the first churches to ordain women says, “It took me a long time to imagine myself preaching. I am of the generation that was raised to marry a minister, not be one, as a woman. This was before the women’s movement began to change our consciousness. We were very culture bound that women were meant to be wife and mother only, if possible. The professions open to women were things like nursing, teaching, and secretarial (not ‘administrative assistants’ even though that is a better description of what secretaries did). These options were only to help you get to the point of marrying and being a home-maker. It took some very courageous women to break out of the mold and begin to think about and write about the loss to our society and to humanity in general that such restraints were created.”

Generally speaking, Baptists, Catholics, the New Frontiers Family of Churches, New Covenant Churches and a host of others, believe that while women may be capable of leading a church, God did not give them the authority to do so. While the majority of Anglicans, Episcopalians, Methodists, Presbyterians, and many nondenominational churches believe the opposite—that women not only can lead a Church, but they are in fact called by God to do it.

“The majority of the mainline denominations now ordain women,” Gardner explains. The Episcopal Church has a number of women Bishops, as does the United Methodist Church. The Episcopalians have a woman as the head of the church in the U.S.”

Julie Olson, an ordained pastor for five years, and in many leadership roles for over 22 years, says she has been part of a church movement that verbally supports women in leadership but in word only. “In practice there are no women in positions of decision-making power, no women in prominent roles ‘up front’ as pastor at leadership conferences and even with hundreds of churches in the movement, only a handful of pastors are women.”

Even so, Olson says, “Having spent many years in this movement, the personal struggle of knowing I am gifted and called to leadership has afforded me the opportunity to gain endurance and patience. To try and be an example and to really make sure God’s position is supportive. I was fortunate that all the pastors I have served with over the years have supported my leadership calling and encouraged me without gender preference. Without the sustaining love and backing of my parents and friends I would not have had the courage and forbearance to keep at it.”

In any Christian debate the best place to go to find answers is the Bible. Find the relevant passages, put them in context, associate the Biblical truths with cultural truths and then apply what you’ve learned. Sounds pretty simple, right? Well, both sides of this particular debate claim to have done this and both believe that the Bible provides justification for their beliefs.

The first time a woman is mentioned in the Bible is in Genesis 1:27: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” (NIV) The scriptures say that God created man and woman in his image. At this point, there is no difference in roles. God created them differently (one from the dust of the earth and one out of the other) but God places the same value on both his feminine and masculine creation.

Then sin enters the picture in Genesis 3 and God has to punish the people he created. God does not give them a blanket punishment but disciplines the man and the woman separately and differently. Since God did not deal with them in the same way—nor did they sin in the same way—we can conclude that some gender distinctions are legitimate in the eyes of God. Some might argue that gender distinctions are the result of God’s punishment and are not inherent in creation itself.

Since God sometimes draws distinctions between man and woman, it’s important to look at whether those distinctions affect a woman’s ability to lead. Perhaps the easiest way to do this is to take a whirlwind tour of some of the women God chose to lead his people in the Old and New Testaments. We begin with Miriam (Exodus 15:20-21), then Deborah (Judges 4:4-5), Huldah (2 Kings 22:14-20), Esther (the Book of Esther), Martha (John 11:27), Junias (Romans 16:7), Lydia (Acts 16:12-15), Priscilla (Acts 17:26) and Phoebe (Romans 16:1), to name a few. If you take the time to delve into these verses you will discover that some of these women led well and others didn’t. While some, like Miriam, were rebellious, other great female leaders like Deborah and Esther exercised humble leadership that affected the course of a nation.

Since God sometimes draws distinctions between man and woman, it’s important to look at whether those distinctions affect a woman’s ability to lead. Perhaps the easiest way to do this is to take a whirlwind tour of some of the women God chose to lead His people in the Old and New Testaments.

“With so many amazing heroes to look up to and gain wisdom from both in the Scriptures and throughout history, I am blessed and thankful to have been able to lead and fulfill the things that God has called me to,” Olson says. “One of my favorite leaders in the Bible is Deborah, the prophetess. She held the highest position of authority in her country, that of Judge. The people of the country of Israel in that time were enslaved by another country. Judges 2:16 says, ‘Nevertheless, the Lord raised up judges who delivered them [the Israelites] out of the hand of those who plundered them.’ (NKJV) When Deborah became Judge she orchestrated a brilliant and successful plan to liberate her people.”

“Another lesser known leader was Huldah, a prophetess, briefly described in 2 Kings 22 and 2 Chronicles 34. She was sought out by her king and his leaders for her wisdom and ability to hear God and make known God’s will (no small responsibility). These are only a few of the women who have inspired me over the years and whose stories I am so thankful for. They give me strength, hope, and an echo that ripples through the ages whispering to me in times of doubt and uncertainty that I can make it,” Olson reminds herself.

Some of the controversies lie in 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 (NIV) where Paul wrote: “Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the Law says. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church.” An even more challenging text is 1 Timothy 2:8-12 (NIV): “I want men everywhere to lift up holy hands in prayer, without anger or disputing. I also want women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or expensive clothes, but with good deeds, appropriate for women who profess to worship God. A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent.”

Why did Paul tell women in the Corinthian and Ephesian churches to be quiet? Paul told two other groups of people to be quiet in the same passage. First in 1 Corinthians 14:28, he instructs people who speak in tongues to be quiet if there are no interpreters. Then in Verse 30, he picks on the prophets telling them to keep quiet when someone else hears from the Lord. If you take these often controversial verses into context, we might simply read them as instructions to the church on how to keep meetings orderly. It’s important to note that Paul doesn’t instruct these groups to never speak in tongues or to prophesy, he simply says that doing these things is not always appropriate in every setting.

But to address Paul’s command to women specifically, the verses can be interpreted in very different ways. “When Paul [in both 1 Corinthians and 1 Timothy] addressed the issue of women stepping up and doing the work that was assigned to the men at the time, they were addressing the fact that the men were sitting on their butts,” Pastor Derrick Engoy says. “The men weren’t being good stewards of the call God had on their lives. See, back then, women were uneducated and unequipped to do church work. It was just the culture of the day. I believe Paul wasn’t necessarily targeting women. They just so happen to be the ones stepping up. The overarching context, I believe Paul was telling the churches to watch out for anyone, men included, uneducated and unequipped to do church work.”

Others believe that this passage displays God’s assignment of different roles for men and women in the church. Returning to 1 Timothy 2: 13-15, Paul continues, “For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. But women will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety.” Paul does not mention anything about education or being equipped. Instead he refers to the creation and fall of Adam and Eve for his reasoning.

The passage can be seen less as what men can do and what women can’t do, but more of what God entrusted for men to do and what God entrusted for women to do. Rose Baquir, a Catholic, says, “When woman was created, man understood her to be like him but also different in that they complement each other and are able to join together as one body (Genesis 2: 22-24).” Men and women are looked at as counterparts—different in creation, looks and roles—but together are complementary to each other, stewarding different aspects of God’s world. For those who do not believe women should be church leaders, it is not a matter of lack of ability, skill or intelligence, but simply not part of a woman’s stewarding responsibilities. Women in church leadership would be a direct disregard of Paul’s instructions. This makes the argument of women in church leadership less about men versus women, being chauvinistic or discriminative, but more about an issue of biblical interpretation.

Perhaps the most important thing to take away from this discussion is that women and men are of equal value to God and the role they play is ultimately up to God to dictate and not society. Jesus Christ came and died to serve and save women as well as men.

It might be worthwhile to take a look at the other comments Paul made about women. For example, he gave women just as much control over conjugal rights as he gave men (1 Corinthians 7:3-5). He considered all believers equal in Christ (Galatians 3:26-28). He also gave certain commands specifically to males and other commands specifically to females (A few examples: Ephesians 6:4; Colossians 3:18-21; Titus 2:2-6). In 1 Corinthians 11, Paul encouraged all the Corinthians to seek the gift of prophesying, and he did not forbid women or men from using that gift if they had it. Olson additionally notes that Paul, who traveled all over the Middle East starting churches and writing most of the New Testament, was dependent on many leaders for his ministry, including Priscilla and her husband Aquila who took over the new church in the city of Ephesus (Acts 18; Romans 16:3).

Gardner points out, “Throughout church history, the strongest voices were male voices, reading scriptures that were translated always by men from a male perspective, and keeping women in their place as helpmates, not leaders. My own Old Testament professor at Union Seminary, Phyllis Tribble, did some wonderful studies of the Hebrew texts that suggest even the creation stories about human beings are sometimes mistranslated, as well as misused to keep women in their place.”

“Feminist scholars of the New Testament generally point out that Jesus had many women followers and in the earliest church there were women leaders who hosted the gatherings in homes,” adds Gardner. “The culture of Jesus’ time was also very sexist in what women were allowed to do, but Jesus was very counter-cultural – he reached out to a Samaritan woman (totally anathema, which means cursed in Aramaic, in his time); he interfered with the stoning of an adulterous woman (a practice that still goes on in some Middle Eastern countries), he chastised his disciples for rebuking Mary when she was anointing him, and it was women who came to the tomb and who first saw him alive after he was crucified. Yes, his twelve disciples were all men, but were so in the face of the cultural reality that existed during that time – a cultural reality, that for the most part, has changed since then.”

By the same token, there are those that believe because Jesus was very counter-cultural, He would have appointed women in His model of church leadership with the twelve apostles despite cultural reality. “There have been hundreds of women in church history that we consider holy followers of God because of their contribution to the church and the example as leaders within the church community,” says Baquir. “[But] the church is bound by our Lord’s example when He only commissioned men as apostles. If He intended for women to become priests, surely the holiest and greatest of all of Christ’s followers, his Mother Mary, would have been one. The separation of gender roles within the Church is not an issue of social inequality.”

Perhaps the most important thing to take away from this discussion is that women and men are of equal value to God and the role they play is ultimately up to God to dictate and not society. Jesus Christ came and died to serve and save women as well as men.

Engoy concludes, “Either way, men and women alike, in church leadership, still need to be in submission, both to God and the church council.” Just as God values women highly, the church should also value women highly whether that is through formal leadership roles or roles with less prominence, but are just as important for the community of Christ to function.