Church and Gender Discrimination November 28, 2007
Posted by Matt in church, gender, Rachel.Tags: church, god, questions, Rachel, spiritual gifts
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A few days ago, Rachel – my inquisitive 5 year old daughter – asked me an innocent question that she had been pondering over for some time and I have struggled with in times past.
“Daddy,” she asked, “Why are only boys preachers?”
I agonize to myself at times over how to answer questions like this from my girls – mainly because my own personal views tend to not fall in line with the status quo in our church. I thought about it for a few moments, running through various scenarios in my mind, before I replied to her with my sincere belief in the knowledge that my answer would most likely be contradictory to what she will hear in the Church of Christ.
“Honey,” I said, “Some people think that God only wants that, but they are wrong. They are very wrong.”
Her question really made me think, though. What have we done to our young ladies? We teach about spiritual gifts and how God has endowed each of us with them, but then we stifle our women at every opportunity – telling them that they have no place in the spiritual edification of men.
This stems from our mode of Biblical intrepration which, in many churches, remains steeped in modernity – where everything (or at least everything that fits a certain agenda) is black or white or right or wrong, and it is time to move forward. We must not continue to only shuttle our women to teach children below the arbitrary age of accountability. We must not tell them that their spiritual gifts are only to be used if no men are within earshot. We must pull back the Pharisaical hand of oppression that we have put upon our ladies and let them know that they are important to God – that they do have a place and a purpose in His kingdom.
This is one of the main reasons why I refuse to have my daughters participate in our church’s Lads to Leaders program. I actually wrote to the head of the program in Alabama in order to inquire whether or not it was true that, if Rachel participated, I would not be allowed to watch her read a Bible verse out loud at the annual convention. I quickly received an answer dripping with condescension from the organization explaining to me in no uncertain terms that this was the case and it would never change. So, needless to say, my daughters will never be a part of this if I have anything to say about it.
I could ramble on and on about this and perhaps I will later, but for now I have to get back to work. I realize that this is mainly a rant with little substance, so maybe I will try to clarify a bit later.
Great, great post. It is a priority of mine that my daughter and wife be in a church that will utilize their gifts. The problem is, I am a minister in Churches of Christ. This limits the churches I could minister at, yet by the grace of God I am currently in a church where it is possible. Unfortunately, beyond this congregation, there are only a handful of places where this is true. I pray to God this may change soon…but I’m not that optimistic; at least not this week.
One of the greatest gifts that our denomination (United Methodist) is to fully include women in the ministry. Some of the best ministers in our conference are women. It’s encouraging to see God calling so many women into the ministry. There are still some local congregations that refuse to accept a woman as their pastor, but in general, most are seeing women as equal to men. Thanks be to God!
I hate to weigh in on this, but is a difference of role really equal to a difference in worth or value? Can we not lift up women and help them to use their gifts without rejecting a clear and fairly consistant pattern of male spiritual authority in the Bible? I don’t think that women like Beth Moore are being stiffled or oppressed just because her ministry and preaching is directed at other women rather than at men. I agree that often times passages about submission or women “keeping silent” in the church are taken too far or misinterpretted, but I feel like you may be tossing the baby out with the bathwater here. I’m not saying that I favor a black and white, no exceptions policy regarding exactly what the women’s role in the church should be, but you’ve got to do something with the biblical text’s message about men and women.
Incidentally, I think that Travis’s picture is really ironic given the topic of this post. Was that intentional?
That’s really great, Travis. We are members of an incredibly diverse CoC on the south side of Memphis that tends to be on the progressive side of CoC-thought, but this issue is still a stick in the craw. I want my daughters to be independent, free-thinkers who will speak their minds and stand up for themselves.
I’m jealous (in a positive way), Mark. Maybe someday our churches will become more like that and, if not, maybe I’ll become a Methodist…
Sounds great Matt…we can always use more United Methodists.