Egalitarian: relating to or believing in the principle that all people are equal and deserve equal rights and opportunities.
As a point of contrast, I will also define complementarian because it is often considered the opposing position to egalitarian.
Complementarian: a theological view that men and women have different but complementary roles and responsibilities in marriage, family life, religious leadership, and elsewhere, and that this is God's plan.
This article is written with these definitions in play.
I did not meet Jesus Christ until I was 18 years old. Before that, I had heard of Him, mainly because my dad spoke His name a LOT. I knew Jesus had something to do with church, but mostly I thought His name must mean something important because of the way my dad threw it around when he was drunk and angry. He seemed to think it would get a response from those around him, but I could not for the life of me figure out what that response was supposed to be. However, it did strike fear in me.
When I was 18, a friend invited me to his church and I heard the gospel for the very first time. At first, during the sermon, I was amazed at the non-violent way the pastor spoke Jesus' name. Then, as I listened to what he was saying about how Jesus died for our sins, was buried, then rose from the dead, I was completely mesmerized by this information. I doubted at first, but Truth is like a steam roller around doubt and mine were crushed by the end of the sermon. That day, I became a Christian. That day, I also entered a very confusing world.
All my life, the men around me were out of control. My dad, my uncles (his brothers), one of my granddads (his father), etc., they were all drinkers and abusers. It was their way of life. It was volatile, unpredictable, and led to instability, fear and uncertainty at every turn of my life. The women, on the other hand, were strong, taught us kids a better way to live and abhorred the violence. As a child, I looked only to the women on my mom's side of the family for guidance, authority and everything else because those women were sober, strong, sensible and reasonable. It never occurred to me to look to my dad or any of the other men in my life for anything. The women in my family defined civility, strength and a way of life I desired. The men showed me how not to live, irresponsibility, anger and how to destroy relationships.
The women in my life were the leaders.
I began to grow in my Christian walk and got to know this Jesus whose name my dad had shouted so often in his drunken fits. I read the gospels. My pastor taught me to look things up for myself and not take anyone's - not even his - word for what the Bible says. He encouraged me to make my own observations. In my observations, I was struck with Jesus' frequent and gentle interactions with women. The men in my life did not treat women this way.
A few years later, when I went to Bible college, I heard the strangest talk. I heard people talking about how only men could teach other men and women weren't "allowed" to teach men, only children and other women. I was very confused by this information and wondered aloud who made those rules. I was quickly hushed and told it was "God's plan" and was offered no further explanation. I wondered, "Whose God made such a plan?" This "plan" did not fit what I had learned about God through my studies.
I was confused, but life goes on and it wasn't a huge issue in my life, just a nagging confusion. It never really presented a problem in my marriage. My husband knew I was strongly opinionated and had a mind of my own when he married me. He never treated me as though I was in any way subordinate. We approached all decisions together with equal say in absolutely everything. He was my pastor, had women leading in our churches and the idea that a woman had less of a voice never really came up. His own mother did the preaching and teaching, with no outcry or complaint from her mission board, when his father died on the mission field. He'd seen women in strong leadership positions in the church from a young age.
But I recognized some inconsistencies in churches. One church only allowed a man to be a treasurer, but that man was not qualified so his wife was the one actually doing the work. When he became the pastor of that church, David changed that and made the wife the treasurer because she was doing the work of the treasurer. The unqualified man was relieved because he recognized his lack of qualifications and was constantly frustrated with the process. He questioned David about a woman being a treasurer in a church and he answered that if she's qualified, it's fine. Gender wasn't a consideration at all. In the back of my mind, I wondered why that man would even question a woman being a treasurer. To me, if she can do the work and is willing, she should do it. I didn't "get" the gender questions at all.
Even in small cases like that, I didn't realize the extent to which male dominance was acted out within some churches until decades later when my husband was out of full-time ministry. God closed some doors and opened others and for about 12 years, we' were in secular work. This has presented the need for us to find a church to attend and serve in. This began my journey to a full, official, egalitarian theological position, a position I really already held but didn't articulate in that way. To be sure, I had no idea there were two official schools of thought about women and the church. I didn't realize there was a great divide between what I now know as egalitarian and complimentarian theology. I didn't even realize these terms existed until I started this in-depth journey.
No doubt we cannot base our theology on experience, but my conclusion was not reached through my experience; my re-evaluation of the traditional position held by evangelical churches was triggered by my experiences in the churches we've been to since leaving full-time ministry. Every experience was cradled in what were called "Biblical principles" that were nothing more than rules for women that men made up. There was nothing "Biblical" about them. This led me to study God's Word specifically about this topic: women in the church.
First, let me say that we were not out of full-time ministry for any disqualifying reason. God has led us to this place for now to give our family a chance to heal from the deep hurt our last full-time ministry caused. As of now, we are back in full time ministry as David pastors a church nearby.
When we moved to MD, we moved to help a church in the area transition to a multi-ethnic ministry. The first Sunday, I knew we would not be staying. The pastor, a college friend, had some very strange ways of interpreting Scripture. He was clearly hung up strongly on women and nearly every sermon addressed women in some way. He went so far as to teach that the entire book of Philippians centers around the two women, Euodia and Syntyche, mentioned in chapter 4. Other bizarre interpretations and his direct way of treating me came to light quickly and we knew we couldn't stay. Bizarre behaviors toward women almost always indicate a sexual interest or problem, so I knew going there was not a safe option for me. My husband didn't see it as quickly as I did. I ended up leaving the church before he did as he had commitments that kept him there a few weeks longer.
My second experience came a little while later at a different church. We left the first one, of course, and settled into a new church and found opportunities to serve. But, one night when waiting while my kids were at an activity, their night janitor walked in on me in the ladies room totally without knocking and without announcing his presence. I was shocked, embarrassed and humiliated. He, in turn, stood his ground and would not leave. I had to walk within inches of him to get out and it was unnerving to say the least. The church leadership all took his "side" and told me it didn't sound like something he'd do. I could no longer be in such a church, so we left. I was heavily criticized by people who were not there when it happened and told that "no one really knows what happened." I said that I knew what happened but no one would listen. That church had already had a sexual abuse case involving a minor, but was remarkably unwilling to deal with this. We had to move on. That janitor is still there, still has unfettered access to the ladies room and still wanders the halls unsupervised. He is not a member of the church.
Church shopping is not easy. Not one other church we visited preached the Word of God. They all preached human ideas, Secular Humanism, and have strict policies against women. When we finally found another church, things were okay for a while. The preaching was shallow, rarely exegetical, but not heretical. My husband took a paid position as music director and we settled in. The pastor told David he needed a teen class teacher because there were many new teens in the church and he wanted to start a class for them. When David told me of this need, I got excited after a couple days and realized God was leading me to teach the class.
I contacted the pastor......he said he wanted to meet with me, but three weeks went by and we didn't meet, so I finally emailed him and told him that if a face-to-face meeting wouldn't work, perhaps we could talk on the phone. So, we did....and he said, "I don't want you teaching the Bible in my church. I want you to teach a curriculum I choose and I want it taught verbatim." I told him I could not teach it verbatim if it had any errors....that I would defer to the Bible and use the Bible as my main text. He would have none of it. His words, "The curriculum I chose has no errors. Do you think every single curriculum has errors?" I told him they all had the potential for errors since they are man-made and he said, "I don't want you teaching the Bible in my church. You either teach the curriculum verbatim or you don't teach in my church." This was too much of a compromise for me; the Bible has to be the final Word or any teaching is empty. We left shortly after this happened.
All this time, ever since the bad experience in the first church, I had been in deep study in God's Word. I had to find out if the pastor in the first church had any Scriptural foundation for treating me the way he did. I found he did not. I also found that God's Word didn't support what was considered traditional teaching about women in churches and marriage. I had to keep digging, I was flabbergasted at first by my findings. What I had seen taught about women in these churches simply wasn't in the Bible. I asked myself why these pastors would teach what's not in the Bible.
I wondered aloud on social media at some teachings. I was met with many private messages....women telling me I had better not question my "place" or "role" if I was going to receive God's blessing. They said I would not have God's blessing if I went beyond the boundaries they felt He set for me. When I asked what boundaries, they had no answer. One of them publicly called me "bitter" and "liberal," with no apology. This added much to my ongoing confusion and frustration, especially since God's blessings were so incredibly evident in my life.
One man referred me to the Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, a false manifesto drawn up by men in an effort to keep "their women" under control. I have read much of their manifesto. The theological and anti-biblical problems I found therein are massive. It's very clear that this was/is nothing more than what cults create to keep their women under control. Almost every cult has started and thrived by keeping women under control with distorted Scripture and applications never intended by God. The Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood is no exception. This teaching does not belong in any evangelical church. The teaching in their manifesto is cult-ish and dangerously false.
What troubles me most about the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood is how evangelical churches embrace it without question. I know these people; I have known some of them for decades. I wonder if they've even read it because I believe if I asked them about some of these points separately from the document, they would vehemently deny that they hold those positions and would consider it heresy. Yet, as a whole, they embrace this document and all the teachings it holds. They refer others to it.
In my discussions with pastors throughout my deep study, I found the vast majority of them to be defensive, dismissive and very dogmatic against most everything I've said about women. One man said, "You have to submit!" Another said, "Wives should focus on submission." Almost all said, "You have to stay in your place or God won't bless," in a threatening tone. They are wrong. Imagine a wife focusing on submission when her Bible tells her to look to Jesus.
I wondered about all the defensiveness and quick jumps to frustration and sometimes anger. But, my childhood experience of men always being on the verge quickly reminded me that men are not always valid leaders, despite their claims to be God-appointed leaders. I do remember thinking, however, that I thought men who claimed to be Christians ought to be different than the violent, angry men of my childhood. I have not found this to be true. I have found Christian men to be among the most angry, abusive people I've known.
Women in leadership was confirmed through a study of Scripture where I found women leading in places modern men were saying they were not "allowed by God" to lead. I wondered, if God did "not allow" them to lead, why did He, Himself appoint them as leaders?
I saw Deborah, Huldah, Miriam, Abigail, and a host of other women not only leading but winning battles, building cities, and ruling kingdoms. Not only that, but the New Testament was filled with women leading in their churches....Junia was an apostle....Phoebe was a deacon.....Anna was a teacher in the Synagogue. I have to wonder why modern evangelical men have such a distinct disdain for women in leadership when there is no justifiable reason for that disdain. The church has gone so far away from God's intent that they have made it seem unnatural and wrong for any woman to lead in any capacity. Could this be a tool of Satan to hush up half the Christians, therefore slowing the spreading of the Gospel?
Some churches only limit women in church.....others do not believe women should lead anywhere in the world at any time! One pastor indicated my husband was out of God's will because his boss at work was a woman.
The last place sexism should take place is in the church. I'm amazed that men make all the "rules" for women based on a few random verses whose contexts don't fit the narrative being portrayed. Men make the rules and they call themselves "godly" while making them, then the women are put on notice about the rules and told they are "godly" if they follow those rules and "ungodly" and even "out of God's will" if they do not abide by these man-made rules.
This needs to stop. This is the stuff of cults.
In learning how cults operate and some of their rules and practices, many of them strongly resemble what we've seen in regular, independent Baptist and Bible churches. These churches practice exactly what many cults practice, including keeping sexual abuse of children and women private and "dealing with it internally," as though it's not even illegal to do so. They all have strict rules about women and never is a woman in any leadership capacity. In most Baptist and Bible churches, women aren't even "allowed" to gather the offering or usher people to seats. Women aren't reading the Scriptures or leading in prayer, but remain in their seats, silent, restricted to teaching only children and perhaps other women but only with strict male supervision.
In a discussion of this topic with one of my sons, I mentioned all these churches having rules for women and some even having entire policies about women. He asked if these churches also had policies about and for men.
The answer is no.
There are few policies for or about men. The policies are made by men, but rarely for men. Think about that for a minute. Let that sink in. Men make rules for women but do not make rules for themselves, and certainly women don't make rules for men. It is no wonder sexual abuse is rampant in churches. Perhaps women should be making rules for men.
The Bible makes it very clear that there is no across-the-board requirement for women to be in a constant place of subordinate submission. Modern Christianity has redefined the church to be an exclusive patriarchal society where women are oppressed and controlled by men at every turn, banned from many available ministry opportunities simply because of their gender, and hushed when they try to speak out.
The lack of empathy and compassion in evangelical leaders is striking and is one thing that made me take a step back to look at this issue in more depth. Even as I've shared some of my honest findings on social media, I've been met with public decries lined with mean-spirited rebuttals that are out of context and laced with personal attacks and outright disrespect. I'm reminded then that evangelical men do not think they have to respect me as a woman.....they behave as though they are the only ones who are allowed to be respected and they'll be the first to demand that respect.
Yes, wives are told to respect their husbands in Scripture, but respect is not an exclusive behavior. Each of us as Christians should respect the other. If the only respect ever given is wives toward husbands, what a sad world it would be. This is not God's intention. It's not good to put God in our human box, put a lid on it and label it Godly.
My study summary is simply: Jesus appointed women to lead. Jesus did not limit women's involvement with or access to himself or his ministries. He not only welcomed them against his male disciples' advice and desires, he did not hesitate to give them ministries of importance and credit for their work on his behalf. He defied his male disciples, at times silencing them with his approval of women and their service to him. Strong, female leaders are not a threat to male leadership. Men who think women are a threat are not qualified to be leaders.
Very few of today's male evangelicals resemble Jesus. They relegate women to the back seat and prevent women from using their God-given gifts and practicing sound doctrine like Priscilla did when she corrected and taught Apollos. I can't think of one evangelical pastor I know who would endorse or encourage this in any woman. They tell women, instead, that they can only teach women and children. Of the dozens of pastors I know personally, I can't think of one who would say, "I commend to you our sister, Phoebe, who is a deacon at the church in Cenchrea, that you receive her in the Lord.....and that you assist her....." So, the men of the church of Rome were to assist a female deacon sent by Paul....and he wasn't talking about helping her carry her luggage.
The modern church has twisted God's Word to fit a patriarchal agenda and it's leading to abuse around every corner. The vast majority of evangelical churches has a history of abuse in some form or another - and most also have current abuse going on. Evangelical leaders deny this fact, but the ones who are being abused talk to me and they tell a very different story.
Para-church organizations within the evangelical world are the same. If there are any women on their boards, they are very few and are dominantly outnumbered by men. ABWE (Association of Baptists for World Evangelism) finally put women on their board of directors after their star doctor's pedophilia was exposed by his many victims. ABWE did not handle the abuse correctly and STILL has not handled it properly, yet they continue as an organization with the blessing of many, many churches. Their board consists of 20 people - only three are women. Even after Donn Ketcham was caught and exposed, they retain an imbalance of leadership. Even though the Pii Report, which disclosed the full investigation, said, "Sexual abuse flourishes in environments with unequal power relationships" - they only have three women in leadership. It's shameful.
The GARBC (General Association of Regular Baptist Churches) has a council of 18 and no women in leadership. Zero. There is zero female representation within the leadership of the GARBC. I fear abuse will continue unchecked within GARBC churches and it's already rampant.
The SBC (Southern Baptist Convention) has six executive committee officers and only one is a woman. Every title except hers has the word "chair" or "chairman" in it. Her title is "secretary." They have 86 executive committee members, 11 of which are women. There is clearly an imbalance of representation and I fear abuse will continue unabated within the SBC, as it has for decades.
I am an egalitarian. I reject the complementarian teachings that support the oppression of women by assigning roles then treating those roles as doctrine. I refuse to mix roles with doctrine as though they are intertwined and assigned by God. I subscribe wholeheartedly to Galatians 3:28, which states, "There is neither Greek nor Jew, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." While some believe this is talking about salvation only, it has far reaching ramifications. See 1 Corinthians 12;13-27 for more on that. We are joint heirs with Jesus in every way.
My position is not popular among my evangelical peers. I respect their differing views, however, I cannot base my position on their opinions; I must adhere to the Word of God. It takes a lot of time for people to change a theological position, especially one they've learned from the cradle and never studied out for themselves. Those of us who embrace the egalitarian position know this and try to approach complimentarian thinking with compassion and patience, even while being met with anger, raised voices, name-calling and dogmatic, threatening statements. The threatening tones and statements are a real mystery to me since none of these people have any authority in my life whatsoever. They can hold no threat over me, yet they continually try.
We should all question what we've learned from the cradle - and beyond. Question everything and everyone. Take no one's word for anything the Bible says; look it up for yourself. You might find yourself changing a theological position or two.
~Tricia
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Complementarian: a theological view that men and women have different but complementary roles and responsibilities in marriage, family life, religious leadership, and elsewhere, and that this is God's plan.
This article is written with these definitions in play.
I did not meet Jesus Christ until I was 18 years old. Before that, I had heard of Him, mainly because my dad spoke His name a LOT. I knew Jesus had something to do with church, but mostly I thought His name must mean something important because of the way my dad threw it around when he was drunk and angry. He seemed to think it would get a response from those around him, but I could not for the life of me figure out what that response was supposed to be. However, it did strike fear in me.
When I was 18, a friend invited me to his church and I heard the gospel for the very first time. At first, during the sermon, I was amazed at the non-violent way the pastor spoke Jesus' name. Then, as I listened to what he was saying about how Jesus died for our sins, was buried, then rose from the dead, I was completely mesmerized by this information. I doubted at first, but Truth is like a steam roller around doubt and mine were crushed by the end of the sermon. That day, I became a Christian. That day, I also entered a very confusing world.
All my life, the men around me were out of control. My dad, my uncles (his brothers), one of my granddads (his father), etc., they were all drinkers and abusers. It was their way of life. It was volatile, unpredictable, and led to instability, fear and uncertainty at every turn of my life. The women, on the other hand, were strong, taught us kids a better way to live and abhorred the violence. As a child, I looked only to the women on my mom's side of the family for guidance, authority and everything else because those women were sober, strong, sensible and reasonable. It never occurred to me to look to my dad or any of the other men in my life for anything. The women in my family defined civility, strength and a way of life I desired. The men showed me how not to live, irresponsibility, anger and how to destroy relationships.
The women in my life were the leaders.
I began to grow in my Christian walk and got to know this Jesus whose name my dad had shouted so often in his drunken fits. I read the gospels. My pastor taught me to look things up for myself and not take anyone's - not even his - word for what the Bible says. He encouraged me to make my own observations. In my observations, I was struck with Jesus' frequent and gentle interactions with women. The men in my life did not treat women this way.
A few years later, when I went to Bible college, I heard the strangest talk. I heard people talking about how only men could teach other men and women weren't "allowed" to teach men, only children and other women. I was very confused by this information and wondered aloud who made those rules. I was quickly hushed and told it was "God's plan" and was offered no further explanation. I wondered, "Whose God made such a plan?" This "plan" did not fit what I had learned about God through my studies.
I was confused, but life goes on and it wasn't a huge issue in my life, just a nagging confusion. It never really presented a problem in my marriage. My husband knew I was strongly opinionated and had a mind of my own when he married me. He never treated me as though I was in any way subordinate. We approached all decisions together with equal say in absolutely everything. He was my pastor, had women leading in our churches and the idea that a woman had less of a voice never really came up. His own mother did the preaching and teaching, with no outcry or complaint from her mission board, when his father died on the mission field. He'd seen women in strong leadership positions in the church from a young age.
But I recognized some inconsistencies in churches. One church only allowed a man to be a treasurer, but that man was not qualified so his wife was the one actually doing the work. When he became the pastor of that church, David changed that and made the wife the treasurer because she was doing the work of the treasurer. The unqualified man was relieved because he recognized his lack of qualifications and was constantly frustrated with the process. He questioned David about a woman being a treasurer in a church and he answered that if she's qualified, it's fine. Gender wasn't a consideration at all. In the back of my mind, I wondered why that man would even question a woman being a treasurer. To me, if she can do the work and is willing, she should do it. I didn't "get" the gender questions at all.
Even in small cases like that, I didn't realize the extent to which male dominance was acted out within some churches until decades later when my husband was out of full-time ministry. God closed some doors and opened others and for about 12 years, we' were in secular work. This has presented the need for us to find a church to attend and serve in. This began my journey to a full, official, egalitarian theological position, a position I really already held but didn't articulate in that way. To be sure, I had no idea there were two official schools of thought about women and the church. I didn't realize there was a great divide between what I now know as egalitarian and complimentarian theology. I didn't even realize these terms existed until I started this in-depth journey.
No doubt we cannot base our theology on experience, but my conclusion was not reached through my experience; my re-evaluation of the traditional position held by evangelical churches was triggered by my experiences in the churches we've been to since leaving full-time ministry. Every experience was cradled in what were called "Biblical principles" that were nothing more than rules for women that men made up. There was nothing "Biblical" about them. This led me to study God's Word specifically about this topic: women in the church.
First, let me say that we were not out of full-time ministry for any disqualifying reason. God has led us to this place for now to give our family a chance to heal from the deep hurt our last full-time ministry caused. As of now, we are back in full time ministry as David pastors a church nearby.
When we moved to MD, we moved to help a church in the area transition to a multi-ethnic ministry. The first Sunday, I knew we would not be staying. The pastor, a college friend, had some very strange ways of interpreting Scripture. He was clearly hung up strongly on women and nearly every sermon addressed women in some way. He went so far as to teach that the entire book of Philippians centers around the two women, Euodia and Syntyche, mentioned in chapter 4. Other bizarre interpretations and his direct way of treating me came to light quickly and we knew we couldn't stay. Bizarre behaviors toward women almost always indicate a sexual interest or problem, so I knew going there was not a safe option for me. My husband didn't see it as quickly as I did. I ended up leaving the church before he did as he had commitments that kept him there a few weeks longer.
My second experience came a little while later at a different church. We left the first one, of course, and settled into a new church and found opportunities to serve. But, one night when waiting while my kids were at an activity, their night janitor walked in on me in the ladies room totally without knocking and without announcing his presence. I was shocked, embarrassed and humiliated. He, in turn, stood his ground and would not leave. I had to walk within inches of him to get out and it was unnerving to say the least. The church leadership all took his "side" and told me it didn't sound like something he'd do. I could no longer be in such a church, so we left. I was heavily criticized by people who were not there when it happened and told that "no one really knows what happened." I said that I knew what happened but no one would listen. That church had already had a sexual abuse case involving a minor, but was remarkably unwilling to deal with this. We had to move on. That janitor is still there, still has unfettered access to the ladies room and still wanders the halls unsupervised. He is not a member of the church.
Church shopping is not easy. Not one other church we visited preached the Word of God. They all preached human ideas, Secular Humanism, and have strict policies against women. When we finally found another church, things were okay for a while. The preaching was shallow, rarely exegetical, but not heretical. My husband took a paid position as music director and we settled in. The pastor told David he needed a teen class teacher because there were many new teens in the church and he wanted to start a class for them. When David told me of this need, I got excited after a couple days and realized God was leading me to teach the class.
I contacted the pastor......he said he wanted to meet with me, but three weeks went by and we didn't meet, so I finally emailed him and told him that if a face-to-face meeting wouldn't work, perhaps we could talk on the phone. So, we did....and he said, "I don't want you teaching the Bible in my church. I want you to teach a curriculum I choose and I want it taught verbatim." I told him I could not teach it verbatim if it had any errors....that I would defer to the Bible and use the Bible as my main text. He would have none of it. His words, "The curriculum I chose has no errors. Do you think every single curriculum has errors?" I told him they all had the potential for errors since they are man-made and he said, "I don't want you teaching the Bible in my church. You either teach the curriculum verbatim or you don't teach in my church." This was too much of a compromise for me; the Bible has to be the final Word or any teaching is empty. We left shortly after this happened.
All this time, ever since the bad experience in the first church, I had been in deep study in God's Word. I had to find out if the pastor in the first church had any Scriptural foundation for treating me the way he did. I found he did not. I also found that God's Word didn't support what was considered traditional teaching about women in churches and marriage. I had to keep digging, I was flabbergasted at first by my findings. What I had seen taught about women in these churches simply wasn't in the Bible. I asked myself why these pastors would teach what's not in the Bible.
I wondered aloud on social media at some teachings. I was met with many private messages....women telling me I had better not question my "place" or "role" if I was going to receive God's blessing. They said I would not have God's blessing if I went beyond the boundaries they felt He set for me. When I asked what boundaries, they had no answer. One of them publicly called me "bitter" and "liberal," with no apology. This added much to my ongoing confusion and frustration, especially since God's blessings were so incredibly evident in my life.
One man referred me to the Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, a false manifesto drawn up by men in an effort to keep "their women" under control. I have read much of their manifesto. The theological and anti-biblical problems I found therein are massive. It's very clear that this was/is nothing more than what cults create to keep their women under control. Almost every cult has started and thrived by keeping women under control with distorted Scripture and applications never intended by God. The Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood is no exception. This teaching does not belong in any evangelical church. The teaching in their manifesto is cult-ish and dangerously false.
What troubles me most about the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood is how evangelical churches embrace it without question. I know these people; I have known some of them for decades. I wonder if they've even read it because I believe if I asked them about some of these points separately from the document, they would vehemently deny that they hold those positions and would consider it heresy. Yet, as a whole, they embrace this document and all the teachings it holds. They refer others to it.
In my discussions with pastors throughout my deep study, I found the vast majority of them to be defensive, dismissive and very dogmatic against most everything I've said about women. One man said, "You have to submit!" Another said, "Wives should focus on submission." Almost all said, "You have to stay in your place or God won't bless," in a threatening tone. They are wrong. Imagine a wife focusing on submission when her Bible tells her to look to Jesus.
I wondered about all the defensiveness and quick jumps to frustration and sometimes anger. But, my childhood experience of men always being on the verge quickly reminded me that men are not always valid leaders, despite their claims to be God-appointed leaders. I do remember thinking, however, that I thought men who claimed to be Christians ought to be different than the violent, angry men of my childhood. I have not found this to be true. I have found Christian men to be among the most angry, abusive people I've known.
Women in leadership was confirmed through a study of Scripture where I found women leading in places modern men were saying they were not "allowed by God" to lead. I wondered, if God did "not allow" them to lead, why did He, Himself appoint them as leaders?
I saw Deborah, Huldah, Miriam, Abigail, and a host of other women not only leading but winning battles, building cities, and ruling kingdoms. Not only that, but the New Testament was filled with women leading in their churches....Junia was an apostle....Phoebe was a deacon.....Anna was a teacher in the Synagogue. I have to wonder why modern evangelical men have such a distinct disdain for women in leadership when there is no justifiable reason for that disdain. The church has gone so far away from God's intent that they have made it seem unnatural and wrong for any woman to lead in any capacity. Could this be a tool of Satan to hush up half the Christians, therefore slowing the spreading of the Gospel?
Some churches only limit women in church.....others do not believe women should lead anywhere in the world at any time! One pastor indicated my husband was out of God's will because his boss at work was a woman.
The last place sexism should take place is in the church. I'm amazed that men make all the "rules" for women based on a few random verses whose contexts don't fit the narrative being portrayed. Men make the rules and they call themselves "godly" while making them, then the women are put on notice about the rules and told they are "godly" if they follow those rules and "ungodly" and even "out of God's will" if they do not abide by these man-made rules.
This needs to stop. This is the stuff of cults.
In learning how cults operate and some of their rules and practices, many of them strongly resemble what we've seen in regular, independent Baptist and Bible churches. These churches practice exactly what many cults practice, including keeping sexual abuse of children and women private and "dealing with it internally," as though it's not even illegal to do so. They all have strict rules about women and never is a woman in any leadership capacity. In most Baptist and Bible churches, women aren't even "allowed" to gather the offering or usher people to seats. Women aren't reading the Scriptures or leading in prayer, but remain in their seats, silent, restricted to teaching only children and perhaps other women but only with strict male supervision.
In a discussion of this topic with one of my sons, I mentioned all these churches having rules for women and some even having entire policies about women. He asked if these churches also had policies about and for men.
The answer is no.
There are few policies for or about men. The policies are made by men, but rarely for men. Think about that for a minute. Let that sink in. Men make rules for women but do not make rules for themselves, and certainly women don't make rules for men. It is no wonder sexual abuse is rampant in churches. Perhaps women should be making rules for men.
The Bible makes it very clear that there is no across-the-board requirement for women to be in a constant place of subordinate submission. Modern Christianity has redefined the church to be an exclusive patriarchal society where women are oppressed and controlled by men at every turn, banned from many available ministry opportunities simply because of their gender, and hushed when they try to speak out.
The lack of empathy and compassion in evangelical leaders is striking and is one thing that made me take a step back to look at this issue in more depth. Even as I've shared some of my honest findings on social media, I've been met with public decries lined with mean-spirited rebuttals that are out of context and laced with personal attacks and outright disrespect. I'm reminded then that evangelical men do not think they have to respect me as a woman.....they behave as though they are the only ones who are allowed to be respected and they'll be the first to demand that respect.
Yes, wives are told to respect their husbands in Scripture, but respect is not an exclusive behavior. Each of us as Christians should respect the other. If the only respect ever given is wives toward husbands, what a sad world it would be. This is not God's intention. It's not good to put God in our human box, put a lid on it and label it Godly.
My study summary is simply: Jesus appointed women to lead. Jesus did not limit women's involvement with or access to himself or his ministries. He not only welcomed them against his male disciples' advice and desires, he did not hesitate to give them ministries of importance and credit for their work on his behalf. He defied his male disciples, at times silencing them with his approval of women and their service to him. Strong, female leaders are not a threat to male leadership. Men who think women are a threat are not qualified to be leaders.
Very few of today's male evangelicals resemble Jesus. They relegate women to the back seat and prevent women from using their God-given gifts and practicing sound doctrine like Priscilla did when she corrected and taught Apollos. I can't think of one evangelical pastor I know who would endorse or encourage this in any woman. They tell women, instead, that they can only teach women and children. Of the dozens of pastors I know personally, I can't think of one who would say, "I commend to you our sister, Phoebe, who is a deacon at the church in Cenchrea, that you receive her in the Lord.....and that you assist her....." So, the men of the church of Rome were to assist a female deacon sent by Paul....and he wasn't talking about helping her carry her luggage.
The modern church has twisted God's Word to fit a patriarchal agenda and it's leading to abuse around every corner. The vast majority of evangelical churches has a history of abuse in some form or another - and most also have current abuse going on. Evangelical leaders deny this fact, but the ones who are being abused talk to me and they tell a very different story.
Para-church organizations within the evangelical world are the same. If there are any women on their boards, they are very few and are dominantly outnumbered by men. ABWE (Association of Baptists for World Evangelism) finally put women on their board of directors after their star doctor's pedophilia was exposed by his many victims. ABWE did not handle the abuse correctly and STILL has not handled it properly, yet they continue as an organization with the blessing of many, many churches. Their board consists of 20 people - only three are women. Even after Donn Ketcham was caught and exposed, they retain an imbalance of leadership. Even though the Pii Report, which disclosed the full investigation, said, "Sexual abuse flourishes in environments with unequal power relationships" - they only have three women in leadership. It's shameful.
The GARBC (General Association of Regular Baptist Churches) has a council of 18 and no women in leadership. Zero. There is zero female representation within the leadership of the GARBC. I fear abuse will continue unchecked within GARBC churches and it's already rampant.
The SBC (Southern Baptist Convention) has six executive committee officers and only one is a woman. Every title except hers has the word "chair" or "chairman" in it. Her title is "secretary." They have 86 executive committee members, 11 of which are women. There is clearly an imbalance of representation and I fear abuse will continue unabated within the SBC, as it has for decades.
I am an egalitarian. I reject the complementarian teachings that support the oppression of women by assigning roles then treating those roles as doctrine. I refuse to mix roles with doctrine as though they are intertwined and assigned by God. I subscribe wholeheartedly to Galatians 3:28, which states, "There is neither Greek nor Jew, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." While some believe this is talking about salvation only, it has far reaching ramifications. See 1 Corinthians 12;13-27 for more on that. We are joint heirs with Jesus in every way.
My position is not popular among my evangelical peers. I respect their differing views, however, I cannot base my position on their opinions; I must adhere to the Word of God. It takes a lot of time for people to change a theological position, especially one they've learned from the cradle and never studied out for themselves. Those of us who embrace the egalitarian position know this and try to approach complimentarian thinking with compassion and patience, even while being met with anger, raised voices, name-calling and dogmatic, threatening statements. The threatening tones and statements are a real mystery to me since none of these people have any authority in my life whatsoever. They can hold no threat over me, yet they continually try.
We should all question what we've learned from the cradle - and beyond. Question everything and everyone. Take no one's word for anything the Bible says; look it up for yourself. You might find yourself changing a theological position or two.
~Tricia
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