Feminism In The Church

Before I launch into what might prove to be a controversial topic, let me tell you that I’m taking part in the Christian Carnival once again. The host this week is All Things New. You’ll find a list of article titles and links in subjects varying from apologetics to devotionals.

The one I submitted this week is Groaning. If you’re not up for a controversial post today, perhaps you’d rather read “Jesus should not be first in your life” or “Gracious Sovereignty” or any of the other fifteen articles available for your edification.

For those of you sticking around, here goes.

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Times, they are a-changin’, you may have noticed. This is true in any number of fields, but not less so in the Church. For example you have those of the emerging church persuasion who accuse the Church of being out of touch and irrelevant (sorry, that was from the era when I was a young adult) stagnant and dull. What we need, they say, is to abandon the traditional church in favor of ongoing conversations. We need to re-image Christ, to look at him in light of who we are.

This kind of thinking may explain why our cultural proclivities seem to be creeping into churches — even my Bible-believing evangelical body. We are not immune. No one is. And for that reason, it is important for us to continually examine Scripture to see if these things are so.

The “things” I’m referring to today is feminism in the Church.

Of necessity we need to define terms. When I use “feminism” I have in mind the belief that women are equal to men in all respects, if not superior. Hence there should be no distinction in role or function between men and women.

One blogger wrote “we overwhelmingly are affected by the outside world’s view of women and their role in the church and society rather than that of Jesus or the Bible.” (Interestingly, the majority of this article gives a justification for taking the teaching of Scripture about women and their role in the church and placing it in a cultural context.)

It is this place that we give to the thinking of our culture that disturbs me most. Seemingly we are playing the “keep up with the Joneses” game, and the Joneses are those that make up the mainstream of our culture.

I believe this is the kind of false teaching that the New Testament writers warned against. Paul said to the Colossians that he was laying down doctrine about Christ “so that no one will delude you with persuasive arguments,” and that they were to “See to it that no one takes you captive with philosophy and empty deception, according to the traditions of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ.”

Today we seem all too happy to give in to the persuasive arguments of those who discount Scripture. We seem happy to be captivated by the traditions of men.

I found a fairly clear look at the “BIBLICAL role of women in Christianity” that coincides to a large extent with what I understand the Bible to say. My aim here is not to analyze each point and each Scripture.

Rather, I believe, as another blogger said beautifully in “Christianity v. feminism,” that “Christianity allows women to be women. Allows them their femininity. Allows them their freedom.”

But the culture has said, No, Christianity has taught men to oppress women and keep women from doing and being all they can be.

I don’t doubt that down through time there were religious leaders who taught error in regard to women’s roles. However, that’s true about error in a lot of areas, such as indulgences and renting pew space.

We ought not look at tradition, as Paul said in Colossians, whether that tradition comes from religious or irreligious people. We need to align our beliefs with the sure Word of God.

The Bible is not murky about women and our role. We are equal with men in ministry (see Philippians 4:3b “…these women who have shared my struggle in the cause of the gospel, together with Clement also and the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the book of life”), equal in salvation (see Galatians 3:28 “there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus”), and unique in our role (see 1 Cor. 14:34a “The women are to keep silent in the churches”). Not less than but different from men.

Athletes understand this perhaps better than anyone else. In football there are “glamor” positions — quarterback, running backs, and receivers. But without linemen, the guys who literally do the heavy lifting, those in the glamor roles go nowhere. The quarterback gets sacked, the running backs get thrown for a loss, and the receivers never see the ball.

The point is, women are biologically different from men and as Scripture reminds us, we came into the creation process after Man. In God’s perfect plan, He therefore assigned men to the “glamor” positions in the Church. Not all men, of course.

Some men are to be pastors and elders, and other men are to be parking lot attendants. Are the latter to be filled with envy because they don’t have the glamor positions? Clearly not.

Why, then, should we assume that it’s OK for women to covet the glamor positions? And covet is exactly what it is.

Our culture has told us we should have something Scripture says is not meant for us. Ooooohh, sounds so Garden of Eden-ish, doesn’t it?