Less than a year ago, my view on women in ministry began to get disrupted. Desperate for answers, I went to a wise professor, expecting him to give me a simple yes or no answer on whether women should be pastors.[1]
He took a while to answer my question. He seemed to give a lot of extraneous information. That’s when I realized this question is more complicated than I originally thought. Such is theology!
He said, “We have to know what an elder is before we can answer whether a woman can be one.” And as it turns out, the office of elder is not spelled out as clearly as I’d like, and many disagree on whether to even call church leaders elders.
Whatever it is, he said, “it didn’t just drop out of the Bible.” His statement came as a bit of a shock. I knew he was grounded in his position (which he didn’t exactly tell me), but he also didn’t speak with absolute certainty like most leaders I knew. Oh—so this issue is actually up for debate? Complementarian or heterodox aren’t my only options?
Most leaders wouldn’t explicitly say that, but the level of surety with which some speak regarding secondary issues, especially women’s ordination, could lead anyone to believe this is a matter of salvation.
That’s why Tish Harrison Warren and Jonathan Warren’s thoughts on women’s ordination are valuable.[2] Both of them are Anglican priests. Tish says, “On either side you can only be about 80% certain on this issue.” They then spend an hour and a half explaining the exegetical, pastoral, and historical reasons for supporting women’s ordination. I won’t repeat it all here—it’s worth the time to listen yourself —but there are several important points worth sharing.
Tish says ordination is ad hoc, meaning it “arises out of the needs of the church community.” This is exactly what happens in Acts 6—there is a need and so the office of deacon is created. Pretty simple. To the Warren’s, ordination depends on context. Tish says,
I think there’s places in the world culturally, particularly places where women don’t get an education right now, where jumping to ordination of women would be scandalous and unhelpful to the gospel going forward. But I think there are other contexts where not having women leadership is scandalous and unhelpful for the gospel going forward.
Then they address the common argument that says those who believe women can be ordained must also believe there are no gender differences. (A peculiar charge since female leadership implies there’s something needed in the church that cannot be satisfied by solely male leadership, thus affirming gender differences…but I digress). This is the kind of slippery slope argument that jumps from women’s ordination to apostasy in a matter of seconds. A mentor asked Tish, “What if truth is on the slope?” She elaborates,
The point is not to get as far from things that are biblically wrong as possible because you’re scared of them, but it’s to seek truth. And if truth is “on the slope” then we need to be on the slope and not just afraid of that slope being slippery.
So here’s to complicated questions, 80% certain answers, and theological charity.
[1]Thanks Dr. Dryden!
[2]I know, I know, it’s from 2017.
The way you explained your point is very interesting. The idea of women leadership is not very new, but recently more and more people are talking about it, and trying to clarify whether women can or can’t be leaders/pastors.
In the Bible we see examples of women leadership (one of the judges “Debra”, Priscilla in the book of acts just to mention a couple). I would think that the passage about women not being the head of a church was meant for that particular context in a particular situation, for a particular reason.
Men and women are the same in value before God, and the roles each of them have are for one particular purpose (growth of the body), therefore, if they can or can’t be pastors, women are absolutely necessary in the church to be the way God wants it to be.
Hi Pablo, thanks for your comment! I am starting to think this issue is more dependent on the context as well. I think the most important part of this issue is valuing women as those made in the image of God and having space for women to exercise their gifts in the local church.
I definitely agree with that, women can do anything in a church that men can do (Many times a lot better than men). The big problem in today’s society is the fact that many women want to take over certain roles not because of the role itself, but as a way of competing against men trying to show women are better.
Yes, I wish everything was easy and clear, but I bet complications like this make seminary a bit more interesting.