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Women in Ministry

Not allowing women to teach: Shaky theological ground

Update March 25, 2008:

Woman’s suit against seminary dismissed (Yahoo News)

Wade Burleson’s blog (a friend of Klouda) links:

 An Email from Dr. Klouda Revealing Her Feelings

 A Woman Indulging in the Exposition of Scripture

 The Practical Implications of the Klouda Ruling

 The Motion for Summary Judgment Is Granted

Original Post January 29, 2007:

Below I have placed links to a few articles in newspapers about my colleague at Taylor University, Sheri Klouda, leaving Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (Southern Baptist).  Sheri was let go because she was a woman.

Professor Says Seminary Dismissed Her Over Gender (NY Times)

Wade Burleson, a pastor in Oklahoma, uncovered and publicized the story, not Sheri.  See his blog here.  It is high drama.
In leadership, when you make a mistake the very best approach is to quickly apologize, be clear, and try to make it right.  I learned this from reporter Bob Woodward who said that this was the enduring lesson of Watergate.  It is one thing to make a mistake, it is another thing to cover it up.  Basically, Southwestern should say they are sorry for giving Sheri a tenure-track position and then changing their mind.  But they continue to hedge and therefore this continues to drag on.  They have a meeting in April with the board of trustees and they may decide to do something then!
But this situation is really rooted in bad theology.  It is hard to present a united front on institutional issues when you are on shaky ground theologically.  The complementarian (or hierarchical or traditional) position on women in ministry is filled with contradiction because it is based on widely-varying, almost-arbitrary application of 1 verse: 1 Timothy 2:12.
I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. (1 Timothy 2:12 ESV)
If women can’t teach men, what can’t they teach?  Hebrew?  Church history?  Sunday school?  And at what age do men become men?  Can a woman teach 12 year olds? 18 year olds? 21 year olds?  When does it become unbiblical?  Some have said when boys start getting hair under their arms.  At that point, no more women Bible teachers.  Should we do armpit checks starting at age 11?
Others say it is ok for a woman to teach if her husband is on stage with her so that he is teaching “under his authority.”  Others say it is ok as long as he is in the front row.
My favorite example is that of complementarian and well-known New Testament scholar Wayne Grudem entitled “But what should women do in the church?” (PDF document)  It is hard to figure out how to apply 1 verse (1 Timothy 2:12) to everything women do in the church today but he sure tries.  His attempt at application reveals to me how absurd the position is.
The egalitarian position more fully I think represents the scope and trajectory of Scripture – that Christian women are filled with the Spirit and thus given gifts to serve the kingdom of God.
That one verse (1 Timothy 2:12) which everything depends upon in the egalitarian perspective can actually be explained by reading the rest of 1 and 2 Timothy.  There was false teaching going on in Ephesus that had to be stopped (1 Timothy 1:3-7) and probably had connection to younger widows (1 Timothy 5:13; 2 Timothy 3:6).  Yes, complementarians say, but this doctrine is rooted in creation (1 Timothy 2:13) and is therefore permanent for all time.  No, in 2 Corinthians 11:3 Paul used a reference to Eve to speak about temptation in general.  Women are not more easily duped always and for all time.  Paul is speaking about a certain situation (Ephesus) in the first century.  The surrounding context of 1 Timothy 2 makes that clear.  (1 Timothy 2:9  “I also want women to dress modestly . . . not with braided hair or gold or pearls or expensive clothes”).  The point of 1 Timothy 2:12 is that loose talk and false teaching (such as saying the resurrection has already occurred (2 Timothy 2:16-18)) need to be dealt with seriously.  But this does not mean women who have an outstanding education and have no evidence of heresy should not be allowed to teach men.
There are many many verses in the New Testament where women are encouraged to teach, lead, minister, and exercise their gifts.  I don’t have time to list them all.
For the authoritative description of the egalitarian position on women in ministry see the book Discovering Biblical Equality: Complementarity Without Hierarchy  and out of fairness I also always say: “Feel free as well to check out the Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood’s rebuttal to it here (PDF).”  Bible-believing Christians take different points of view on this subject.
Scot McKnight has had a bunch of entries on Women in Ministry at his blog here.  Scot is an outstanding NT scholar and an egalitarian.  See also Christians for Biblical Equality blog  for a steady diet of egalitarian perspective.
I have tried to give just a tiny bit of my take on the subject and some other links to have you read further.  I really don’t want to argue and debate here on the blog.  All of my writing on the blog about “Women in Ministry” is here including extensive bibliographies of the complementarian and egalitarian position.  If you do want to argue, you will find more argument partners at the links above at Scott McKnight’s blog or at CBE blog.
Again, I will say it again.  Bible-believing Christians differ on this issue.  Complementarians are trying to be faithful to Scripture in their position which I respect.  This is a complex issue and the various relevant passages need to be studied in detail (1 Cor 11, 14, Eph 5) in order to come to a full position on the issue.  I have looked at this issue for 10 years so please forgive my simplification above as it represents just a fraction of the thorough reflection I have done on this issue over the years.
February 5, 2007 Update:
Sheri spoke at Taylor University Chapel on January 22, 2007 and you can listen to it here.  She did an exegetical presentation on Psalm 103 and didn’t mention the situation with Southwestern as far as I heard.  (I listened to the first 3/4 of it from home while giving Ryan a bath).

9 replies on “Not allowing women to teach: Shaky theological ground”

And if what I’m reading is correct, it doesn’t matter whether you are complementarian or egalitarian. The SBC is mishandling the Sheri Klouda case either way.

Further, it might be helpful to point out that there are many (maybe most?) complementarians out there who would have no problem with a woman teaching a seminary class. For example, one of the best Hebrew teachers at Dallas Theological Seminary (a school with an official complementarian stance) is a woman.

Andy: Good post.

I’m a transplanted Hoosier living in Alabama for 30+ years. We moved here from Muncie, so Taylor is familiar to me. In fact, in about 1970, we went on a Bike Hike with Wandering Wheels, from Southport Pres in Indy.

Please give my best regards to Dr. Klouda, and make sure she continues to experience Hoosier hospitality.

I just want to comment on the relection on women in ministry. I am sad to see the view that Andy has adopted. It surely is an easier view to embrace to be accepted in our culture. The matrix of the view Andy expressed – Webb and others – leads to an undermining of scripture that will lead, in the generation that follows his view, to an undermining of biblical authority and an embrace that the homosexual lifestyle is OK. See Grudem’s book, Evangelical Feminism: A New Path to Liberalism. That book shows how egalitarians do not even answer many of the complimentarian arguments. For example, there is no way that Jesus submits to the church in the same way that the church submits to Jesus.

Grudem is part of the CBMW and I have acknowledged in the post the disagreement they have with the egalitarian position. Grudem and Bob Harrington can try to predict that egalitarians will go down the liberal path but there is very little evidence that evangelical egalitarians who have a high view of Scripture will go down this path. There have been Christians for many years who have had women involved in ministry and who have not permitted the ordination of practicing homosexuals. William Webb, Gordon Fee, Craig Keener, Richard Hays, Scot McKnight, CBE, and any other egalitarian evangelical scholar you can care to name has explicitly made clear the difference between the issue of women in ministry and the issue of those involved in homosexual behavior. Even most complementarians acknowledge these are very different issues. Essentially Bob is concerned that egalitarians are going soft on Scripture whereas I would argue that the egalitarian position is more faithful to Scripture(period). The complementarians are faithful to one verse (as they see it 1 Tim 2:12) whereas egalitarians are faithful to the whole counsel of God.

On the difference between homosexuality and gender, see William Webb’s article “Gender Equality and Homosexuality” in Discovering Biblical Equality (the book I have recommended above). See also Richard Hay’s chapter on Homosexuality in Moral Vision of the New Testament, which is outstanding.

Webb argues that women are steadily being given more freedom and responsibility in the New Testament wheras we do not see this same movement with regard to those involved in homosexual behavior.

The other issue that Bob Harrington brings up has to do with Ephesians 5. Again, I will let the people in Discovering Biblical Equality do my heavy lifting. See I. Howard Marshall’s “Mutual Love and Submission in Marriage: Colossians 3:18-19 and Ephesians 5:21-33” and Kevin Giles’s “The Subordination of Christ and the Subordination of Women.”

Again, I will let people read those chapters as opposed to arguing about an issue in blog comments.

Hi Andy, I got to your blog today looking for information about women in ministry written by people with a deep love of both Jesus and the bible. A recent change of leadership has seen our church moving from being very supportive of women to……well, I’m not too sure where we’re going to end up but I suspect we’re going to find ourselves relegated from preaching/teaching to making juice and coffee……Anyway, thanks for all the links and information. By co-incidence, I’m a Vancouverite living in the UK. Used to know a good few people at Granville Chapel through Young Life. Cheers.

The Apostle Paul in his letters defeat this idea that another human being has the right to forbid another human being from speaking on the basis of gender … for one must speak forth in order to testify of Jesus. Is that not our witness?

To discriminate against women by saying she is somehow incomplete would defy Paul’s admonition that “IN CHRIST we are all complete lacking nothing.” Ephesians: “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:” II Timothy “And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.”

As a women, can I not apply this word to myself? Do I not have the mind of Christ? Have I not gained wisdom also?

Does Revelation speak the truth? Rev 19:10 “I am thy fellow servant, and of thy brethren that have the testimony of Jesus: worship God: for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.”

Joel 2:28 “And it shall come to pass afterward, [that] I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions:”

Acts 2:17 At Pentecost: “And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams:”

This is a very serious matter.

Paul defeats this idea when he speaks of the priesthood of every believer. IN Christ…the God-Head is represented. That is why we need “no man to teach us.” This is what makes Christianity different from every other religion.

The complimentary view is just plain nonsense and requires one to take a pair of scissors and just extract enormous amounts of passages that speak to the equality of men and women (Old and New) throughout the entire Bible. In this letter to Timothy, Paul was trying to suppress a few women who did not hold to the correct view of the resurrection. It is clear that it bugged him that these women (using their new freedom in Christ) would try to usurp male authority. Why is that? In that society, it was against the civil and religious law for women to usurp any male authority…they could be imprisoned, or divorced for doing so. Is it not logical that in that day, Paul would not allow that and attempt to get rid of this heresy? Women during this time, simply had no civil rights and no social rights but I am sure with the coming of Christ this new freedom to speak out was abused on occasion. Consider that marriages were arranged and male promiscuity was rampant. A women and her inheritance were always the property of her husband by law unless she was widowed.

Silence simply doesn’t work and neither can it be enforced. It is first of all impossible for any human being to remain totally in silence. Have you ever tried to remain silent when the Holy Spirit is moving within? To test this doctrine, I repressed my speech for three months it was a battle that failed because I could not totally suppress the Holy Spirit within me. I failed but the of test this doctrine proved that it was error. It was the most depressing experience of my religious life.

I no longer will be a part of any church fellowship who hold to such nonsense. This is one of the most divisive doctrines in the church today and it destroys unity. It is also destroying marriages and is often the root of all conflict in relationships…ie one acting as superior to the other resulting in control issues.

No gender is superior to the other.

Have no a lot of money to buy a building? Do not worry, just because it’s real to take the loans to resolve such problems. So take a term loan to buy everything you want.
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PING:
TITLE: Biblical Womanhood
URL: http://www.multiplestreamincome.info/biblical-womanhood/
IP: 216.127.78.15
BLOG NAME: Biblical Womanhood
DATE: 02/22/2007 12:51:45 PM
To celebrate I posted this post and then ran off to do my usual Monday morning weekly grocery

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