Role of Women in the Church, Readings #1
The
role of women in the church has risen to our local attention relative
to our worship ministry. But within theological (not political)
Evangelicalism, it has taken on increased fervent discussion in recent
years. For example, just last summer (2023) Rick Warren’s Saddleback
Church has been disfellowshiped by the Southern Baptist Convention for
giving the title of ‘pastor’ to the senior pastor’s wife.
The
main focus for this set of readings is on the basic definitions and
outline of the two main positions discussed today. These articles are
fairly brief and easy to read or listen to.
The
two major approaches to the role of women in the church in American
conversation are 1) egalitarian and 2) complementarian. As a matter of
basic definitions, see this article by Sandra Glahn from a blog site
populated mostly by women who have advanced degrees from Dallas
Theological Seminary. The website hosts discussions by the translators
of the New English Translation, mostly DTS professors or graduates.
Glahn is a professor at DTS and has just authored a book on the goddess Artemis, Nobody’s Mother, Artemis of the Ephesians in Antiquity and the New Testament. We’ll get to this work in later months.
Glahn
also has a helpful chart showing the spectrum of choices related to the
role of women in the church that can be held by people who hold to the
inerrancy of the Scriptures. Though most of the positions are explained
in the context of Ephesians 5 (which often links the role of women in a
marriage to the to the role of women in the church), the spectrum does
include church roles.
For
another basic discussion of the issue, give a listen to this edition of
The Table Podcast, hosted by DTS professor Darrell Bock. (Note that one
of the women participants holds the title of “pastor.”)
The following two posts are from Dave Williams,
an urban church planter in England, both an engineer (manufacturing)
and a seminary graduate there. He offers a basic matrix of the kinds of
positions complementarians and egalitarians each take within their own
overall stance. They give you a sense of the spectrum of practical
options within each camp.
Michael Bird (Bourgeois Babes, Bossy Wives, and Bobby Haircuts (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Reflective, 2014) pp. 16-18) has a table that lays out the 2 major positions (egalitairian vs. complementarian, each with a 'hard' and 'soft' version) that simplifies the differences with boundary markers between them. Compare it to Glahn's "Eight Views" above.
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Tim Patrick, Principle of Bible College of South Australia and ordained
Anglican priest, has a couple of quick articles at The Gospel Coalition
that can help unearth some of the unexamined biases of each side of the
discussion. You’ll be able to see these biases show up in future
discussions.
Finally, here’s an article by Michael Svigel, Chair and Professor of Theological Studies at DTS, that considers the office of deaconess in the early church (spoiler alert: yes, their most likely were).
See also an article by Thomas Schreiner, professor of New Testament interpretation and associate dean for Scripture and interpretation at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and co-editor of Women in the Church (2016), a complimentarian examination of I Timothy 2:9-15.
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