Issues Facing Missions Today: 23 Women’s
Ordination: Contextual Considerations
or
‘Why
Anglicans Should Probably Oppose Women’s Ordination at This Time and Why Pentecostals
Should Continue to Support it: An Enquiry into the Engagement of Scripture for
Christian Practice’
Introduction:
I intend to consider some contextual issues in the
debate over women in ministry—specifically a teaching ministry. I will touch on some exegetical issues, but
this is not the place to examine all of them.
I will address some hermeneutical issues, but only some. What concerns me more directly in this essay
is how context—our context and the
context in Ephesus and in Corinth in the first century—speaks to
the issue of women in teaching ministries both then and now. Our context today is diverse and calls for
diverse approaches to a situation such as this.
The sensitivity to culture and context that missionaries hone to be
successful in their calling can be a helpful hermeneutical tool for reading and
interpreting Scripture. Indeed, as I
will discuss, my own involvement in different contexts in various Christian traditions
leads me to accept different views on the issue of women in teaching.
The primary texts to consider exegetically in a
larger discussion of this matter all come from Paul: 1 Cor. 11.2-16; 14.33b-36;
1 Tim. 2.9-15; Eph. 5.21-33; and Col. 3.18-19.
None of them speak directly to the issue of ordination. In fact, ordination itself means different
things to different churches today, and we need to be careful in assuming that
a contemporary practice of ordination is practiced in a way that it was in the
first century churches. Moreover, some of
the passages speaking to the issue of the role and status of women in the
Church are more relevant to the relationship between husbands and wives (such
as the Ephesians and Colossian passages).
Yet out of all this there are some matters to consider in discussing the
question of whether women should be ordained to a teaching ministry.
That is how the question is typically asked: ‘Should
women be ordained?’ As we look at
contextual issues, we may find that an absolute answer to this may be
impossible. In what follows, I would
like to consider contextual issues in these Pauline letters and then turn to
contextual issues in our own contexts.
To make this more interesting, I propose the cheeky proposition that
Anglicans should, in most contexts, probably oppose women’s ordination at this
time while Pentecostals should surely continue to support it. Others in other traditions will read this
with their own traditions in mind and some—I have the Presbyterian Church in
America in mind—should probably now begin to move to ordaining women for
teaching ministry. Those considerations
belong in the respective traditions—it is not for me to say. What I do believe, however, is that context
does make a difference in this much debated issue.
Paul’s
Contextual Arguments
In 1 Timothy 2.12-14, Paul clearly excludes women
in Ephesus from teaching. The paragraph
says,
8 I desire,
then, that in every place the men should pray, lifting up holy hands without
anger or argument; 9 also
that the women should dress themselves modestly and decently in suitable
clothing, not with their hair braided, or with gold, pearls, or expensive
clothes, 10 but with good
works, as is proper for women who profess reverence for God. 11 Let a woman learn in silence
with full submission. 12 I
permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to keep
silent. 13 For Adam was
formed first, then Eve; 14
and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a
transgressor. 15 Yet she will
be saved through childbearing, provided they continue in faith and love and
holiness, with modesty (1 Tim. 2.8-15, NRSV).
Paul supports his argument with a narrative
reading from Gen. 1-3 and addresses a very specific although somewhat elusive
problem in the church. Just how
contingent is such an argument?
Sandwiched between a word about women not wearing
braided hair, gold, pearls, and expensive clothes (v. 9) and a word about a woman being saved through childbirth
(v. 15) in 1 Tim. 2.9-15 is what Paul says about women being quiet, not
teaching, and not wielding authority over a man. One would be hard-pressed to find a person
who insists that braided hair is always wrong or that women are saved through
childbirth today, and so the matter of a contextual reading of the matters
press upon the interpreter. However,
Paul’s words appear to involve a transcultural authority when he bases what he
says about a woman not wielding authority over a man on the fact that Adam was
created first and then Eve. On the other
hand, when Paul says a woman should not teach because Eve, not Adam, was
deceived, he seems to be presenting a relative argument that pertains to actual
false teaching in the Ephesian church.
We can learn from both of his arguments, the transcultural and the
culturally relative.
False Teaching
To appreciate the contextual and culturally
relative arguments in 1 Tim. 2.11-14 in particular, we need to understand that false
teachers have taught in Ephesus that women should not marry (1 Tim. 4.3, ‘They forbid marriage and demand
abstinence from foods…’). This
helps us understand why Paul draws attention to the fact that a woman, Eve, was
saved through childbirth in 1 Tim. 2.15.[1] In the context of the Ephesian church, some
young widows have vowed not to marry and become dependent on church funds. Subsequently, however, they have found
themselves attracted to men and wanted to marry (1 Tim. 5.11-12, ‘But refuse
to put younger widows on the list; for when their sensual desires alienate them
from Christ, they want to marry, 12
and so they incur condemnation for having violated their first pledge’). In the culture, unmarried women outside their
father’s household enjoyed an unusual freedom that must also have been very
difficult economically and culturally.
This explains why these young, single widows were turning to church
funds for support. Vows to celibacy also
ran counter to many younger widow’s sexual nature, and their unmarried state could
lead them into a sexual temptation that Paul says is a turning away to Satan (1
Tim. 5.14-15, ‘So I would
have younger widows marry, bear children, and manage their households, so as to
give the adversary no occasion to revile us.
15 For some have already turned away to follow Satan’). Furthermore, the young widows gave their time
to idleness, gadding about from house to house, gossiping and being busybodies
(1 Tim. 5.13, ‘Besides
that, they learn to be idle, gadding about from house to house; and they are
not merely idle, but also gossips and busybodies, saying what they should not say’).
Thus, Paul counters this bad teaching against
marriage and this bad practice among young widows in Ephesus by saying that the
younger widows should not pledge celibacy but should get married, have
children, and manage their households lest their freedom be their downfall. He sees a practical matter of marital status
related to the very serious matter of spiritual life. Paul’s advice regarding women is a concern
about women breaking their vows, destroying Christian community, and
endangering their souls through sinful practices. Certain sinful characters, says Paul in his second letter to Timothy, work
their way ‘into households and captivate silly women, overwhelmed
by their sins and swayed by all kinds of desires, who are always being
instructed and can never arrive at a knowledge of the truth’ (2 Tim. 3.6-7). One further contextual issue should be noted
here as well: all these matters are taking place in a general cultural context
in which the education of women was frowned upon and simply rarely offered in
the 1st century.
Gender Status
In 1 Timothy, there is also a concern on Paul’s part that
women remain in their God-given status, a status embedded in creation itself
and not susceptible to cultural contexts, even if the expression of this can be
cultural. Women should not wield
authority[2]
over men, for Adam was created first.
Here, Paul is concerned about a reversal of what God intended in
creation, a confusion of gender status. 1
Cor. 11.2-16 is a similar text in what it says about avoiding confusion over
genders. It is a difficult text to
interpret in many ways, but Paul is clearly arguing against a confusion of the
male and female roles that is expressed in his culture’s view on hair length
and covering. Moreover, in the household
codes of Colossians and Ephesians, Paul also sees the man as the authoritative
head over the woman—not the ‘source’ of the woman, as some have valiantly but unsuccessfully
attempted to argue since the 1980s.[3] Paul’s arguments against homosexuality in
Rom. 1.24-28 also involve a challenge of his culture’s confusion of
gender. In Paul’s cultural context,
gender confusion could be expressed in women wielding authority over men in a
teaching role. Yet gender confusion and
women teaching men can be separated in other cultures, as we are well aware
today.
Our Western
Cultural, ‘Liberation’ Reading of Scripture
Perhaps the most prominent cultural lens through
which many read Scripture in the West is that of liberation. One presentation of this modernist, totalizing
metanarrative of liberation is that there is a liberation principle in
Scripture that can be used to undermine certain practices in the Scripture
itself as well as in history and society today.
Thus, it is argued, the liberation principle should be used against the
patriarchalism of the Bible, against the practice of slavery, against any
inequality for women, against Jesus’ overly strong words on a subject such as divorce
and remarriage, against Western colonialism and subjugation of other cultures, against
restrictions on women choosing whether or not to have abortions, and now on the
issue of homosexuality. By using a
single lens, this perspective is characteristic of modernity instead of
postmodernity, and by using this perspective for viewing so much of life and
ethics, it is a totalizing metanarrative, as Francois Lyotard pointed out in
his description of modernity versus postmodernity.[4]
The connection between these various issues is
forced, however. The modernist, liberationist principle for reading Scripture
is not necessary to oppose an issue such as slavery. The view that Scripture supports slavery is
simply impossible to hold when one understands that the Old Testament was
correcting certain practices of slavery and, especially when one understands
how the early Church was responding to the practice of slavery that included
about 1/3 of persons in the Roman Empire.
Paul’s approach in the letter of Philemon was not to forbid the practice
but completely undermine its abuses.
Other passages, such as 1 Cor. 7.21-22, 1 Tim. 1.10, and Rev. 18.13 also
undermine the practice itself. Moreover,
the view in the modern West that Scripture supports slavery is an instance of a
culture economically dependent on slavery reading what people wanted to find in
the Scriptures—an affirmation of its exploitative and abusive practices. In this case, texts mentioning the practice
of slavery were taken normatively over against texts that undermined that very
viewpoint because of the contemporary culture. The use of Scripture in the
cultural context of America in the 19th century to affirm slavery
and the use of Scripture to affirm homosexuality in the 21st century
are one and the same. Both involve a
particular culture forcing its perspective on the Biblical text. While liberation interpreters might imagine
that the overarching hermeneutic is one of liberation, in fact the issue is
simply the contemporary culture’s imposition of its perspective on the ancient
text (whether reading its values into the text or reading against the text). Hermeneutically, those arguing today in
favour of homosexuality are doing what pro-slavery advocates did in the 19th
century: arguing for their cultural values over against the Biblical text.
My
Contextual Lenses
I should explain my own inclinations in this
matter of women in ministry that can affect and have affected my reading of
Scripture. First, I grew up within the
Pentecostal tradition. My family history
almost runs back to the very beginning of Pentecostalism in America. Pentecostalism grew out of the 19th
century Holiness Movement in America, and both expressions of Christianity
accepted women in ministry positions. My
grandmother and mother were missionaries in South Africa, and both would preach
and teach as part of their calling in ministry.
They would do so in their own roles as ministers of the Gospel, not
because there was a man present or because they only spoke to other women or
any other such limitation that we have seen proposed during the 20th
century to distinguish women’s ministry of teaching from men’s. Thus my own upbringing inclines me to affirm
women in any and every ministry, including teaching.
Second, I am also a missionary and have had the
privilege to look at issues from a variety of cultures and Christian
traditions. My experience of cultures tells me that the role and status of women
in society is a highly contextual and socially important matter—not to be
overrun by some ethic of ‘rights’.
Growing up as a missionary kid in South Africa, there were times when we,
members of the missionary family, were permitted to eat with the man of the
house at the table when invited for a meal, but the women who served us had to
eat in the kitchen with the children. This
was terribly awkward even as a boy, given my European (as South African whites
would call themselves) culture. I am
very aware that social contexts are wildly different from one another, and a
‘human rights’ or ‘feminist’ ideology appears to me to be painfully modernist
in its totalizing agenda and to be blissfully ignorant of legitimate,
postmodern incredulity towards metanarratives, whether liberation or some
a-contextual, redemptive principle.[5]
Why
Pentecostals Should Continue to Support Women in Ministry
The Holiness Movement and Pentecostal movement in
the American Church supported women in ministry roles over against the culture. The
conviction was that these women had mighty gifts from God to do what they were
called to do. They did not minister
because they were equal to men; they
ministered because the Holy Spirit had empowered them to fulfill a calling in
ministry that they were compelled to fulfill.
The issue of equality or liberation simply did not feature in the
discussion.
My mother’s entire life as a missionary was based
on a vision that she had while in prayer as a child. In the vision, she saw herself teaching
children underneath a thorn tree in Africa.
Her calling was the basis for her ministry, not some view that she could
and should be able to do what men do. In
1 Timothy, Paul says that women should not teach because Eve was deceived by
the serpent (1 Tim. 2.12, 14). Yet he encourages older women to teach younger
women in Tit. 2.3-5. He clearly did not believe that women were, by nature,
open to deception and false teaching. In
my mother’s case, equality was not the basis for her ministry but a calling
from God and an empowering from the Holy Spirit. As long as the focus is on being gifted and
empowered by the Spirit and on opposing false teaching through Scripture,
Pentecostals should continue to ordain women to teaching ministry. That the culture today finds this more
acceptable is irrelevant.
Why
Anglicans Should Probably Not Appoint Women to Teaching Ministry at This Time
The case was entirely different for mainline
denominations, where the culture’s liberationist lens was used to reform culture
and, eventually, the Church. The
feminist movement in the US picked up great steam in the 1960s. Women had already won the right to vote. Birth control had already been invented. Women had already entered the work force in
cities and had independent incomes from men.
But the social revolution of the 1960s pressed these wins still further
and, with this, came increasing calls in mainline denominations to approve
women in all ministerial roles. That
trajectory came to affirm abortion as a right for women to exercise, and now it
is used to support homosexual marriage and the ordination of homosexuals.
Mainline, Protestant denominations had already
hitched their reading of Scripture to the cultural wagon, and yet they were at
the same time traditional expressions of Christianity that did not easily change
with the culture. However, once they capitulated
to the culture, jettisoning historical orthodoxy and Biblical authority, they
became much greater prey to the culture.
They were always a step or two behind culture, but they were nonetheless
tethered to it and were eventually pulled along by it. Pick an issue, any issue, and the mainline
denominations were following in step with the liberal elements of Western
culture. They became chameleons of
culture. Their views about Scripture
were shaped not through Biblical interpretation but by the culture, and they
either read with Scripture or against it, depending on whether their cultural
views could be affirmed or not affirmed by Scripture.
Thus, the argument that women should be ordained
to parish ministry and be allowed to become bishops comes across for many in
global Anglican circles as just another example along the way of how culture
determines what one will read in Scripture and what one will practice in the Church. Anglicans in America have divided between the
Episcopal Church, largely a liberal, oldline denomination that has blended into
Western culture and thus declined in membership by half over the past fifty
years, and the newer Anglican Church of North America that holds to historical
orthodoxy.
The discussion of women’s ordination in that
context is very different from Pentecostalism.
The discussion comes on the heels of a division centering on whether the
Church is shaped by Scripture or the culture.
Having just faced the gender confusion of the homosexual debate in the
Episcopal Church in America, it may be premature to press for women’s
ordination in the Anglican dialogue on the issue. If the Anglican Church of North America can
accept the Pentecostal view of ordination as the affirmation of spiritual gifts
and not the liberationist view of gender equality and sexual permissiveness,
the door may open for women’s ordination.
But it is probably too early for most international contexts to address
the issue after the wounding of the Anglican Church by so many Western theologians,
bishops, and priests. The danger for
orthodox Anglicans is that the orthodox movement of GAFCON will be split apart
by pressing the issue at this time of women’s ordination. As I understand it in Africa, the Nigerian
Anglicans are against women’s ordination, whereas Ugandan and Kenyan Anglicans
are in favour: and yet all are Evangelical.
In the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, a strong liberationist
interpretation (originating in the time of Apartheid) has dominated, such that
the discussion of women’s ordination is hopelessly entangled with any
liberation agenda, including, it now appears, with the push for the affirmation
of homosexual practice.
It seems to me that Paul would say, as he did in 1
Timothy to the Ephesian context and in 1 Corinthians to the Corinthian context,
that, as long as there is a heretical teaching about gender, a recent history
of rejecting Scripture in favour of culture, and the possibility of dividing a
large Christian communion, the better path is at this time is to forego women’s
ordination.
Conclusion
The antidotes to a cultural reading of Scripture that is contextually unaware involve,
first of all, good exegesis. We need to
do our homework and properly hear Scripture in its context. A second antidote to cultural interpretation
is to ask ourselves whether we are pressing an issue that our culture is also,
at the same time, pressing. Third, we
might ask whether an issue in our culture fits into a totalizing metanarrative
that cannot appreciate contextual issues and interpretation in Scripture, such
as liberation in Western culture. Fourth,
we should also be very wary of any use of general principles or values that are
too abstract to bring clarity to ethical issues. Such general values and principles—liberation,
love—can easily be twisted one way or the other to validate certain convictions
or practices. Liberation is far too
general a value, as is a redemptive trajectory or some other wobbly tool, to be
of any use to guide us in interpretation.
To the extent either is invoked, it must be in conjunction with other
compelling reasons that help focus interpretation better and help interpreters
see how a Biblical text applies to its original culture and to the present
situation. Fifth, as argued here, we
need to realize that there might be alternative practices within the Church around
the world even if we favour one over another: the same convictions may lead to
different expressions of them in different times and cultures. Even transculturally normative convictions
may find diverse expressions in various cultural contexts. For one culture or one tradition’s current
discussion, women teaching men might not at all be related in people’s minds to
a confusion of gender. For another, the
issue of women teaching men might be directly related to a confusion of gender
issues, if not also other theological errors and a denigration of Biblical authority.
This leads to one final point about context. If one church tradition entangled with
theological error and confusion over gender should probably not throw into the
debate the issue of women’s teaching at this time, and if another tradition’s
stand against cultural interpretation and affirmation of God’s calling and
gifting for ministry should lead it to continue to affirm women in teaching
roles in the Church, then it is possible that some Church traditions should
consider moving their practice to affirm women in teaching roles in the Church. That context would be where women’s
ordination to teaching ministries is understood in terms of calling and gifting
rather than as a right, where there is no gender confusion between males and
females, and where heretical teaching is not tolerated. In my understanding, this ought to lead some
Evangelical denominations that do not ordain women to consider doing so, lest
their practice be more an affirmation of a conservative culture than of
Biblical views on spiritual gifts and sound teaching in the Church.
[1]
Note that Paul uses the singular in the beginning of this verse and the plural,
‘they’, in the rest of the verse. In the
beginning of the verse, he still has Eve in view as he is arguing from the
Genesis narrative. From the text’s
perspective, she ‘will’ be saved through childbirth even though she was
deceived and became a transgressor. Paul
sees this as analogous to the situation that Timothy is facing in Ephesus,
since preaching against marriage and the failure to marry in the case of
younger widows is endangering the spiritual lives of women in the church. As he did in v. 10, Paul follows up his
contextual argument with a more general statement that is applicable to any
context in the second half of v. 15.
[2]
The Greek word appears only here in the New Testament and has been understood
simply as a synonym for kuriein, the
more common word for ‘to have authority over,’ or as a term suggesting abuse of
authority. I take it more in the latter
sense: it implies abuse of some sort—which is Paul’s point. Eve overstepped her status as well as taught
the deception of the serpent.
[3]
The discussion of the meaning of ‘kephalē’—‘head’—has
produced a mound of literature since the 1980s.
Without presenting my argument here, I would simply say that the meaning
of the Greek word clearly (I do not see this as disputable) could and did in
Paul’s usage entail authority. This was
already evident in the Septuagint and was how Greek speaking Christians in the Patristic
era understood the word.
[4]
Francois Lyotard, The Postmodern
Condition: A Report on Knowledge, trans. G. Bennington and B. Massumi
(Manchester University Press, 1984).
[5] The idea that a ‘redemptive principle’ should be seen
in Scripture that helps determine what is transcultural and what is culturally
relative was proposed by Robert J. Webb, Slaves,
Women and Homosexuals: Exploring the Hermeneutics of Cultural Analysis
(Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2001).
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