Women's Role in Church and Family

The right to ordain women does not mean they must be ordained.

In north america, and to a lesser extent in Western Europe, two new issues have arisen to trouble the church: (1) the role of women in church leadership, and (2) the role of women in the home. Evangelicals are deeply troubled and divided over questions posed by the modern women’s liberation movement. The appeal for justice for women strikes a responsive chord in our hearts. We believe in full justice for all and in the full equality of every person before God.

We acknowledge that women have been discriminated against; they have not always stood equal before the law; they have suffered physical abuse. They also have been injured in more subtle ways by egotistic males. A double standard in sexual ethics and in marital fidelity still prevails. Few men are aware of how easy it is to read the morning paper while their wives are busy at arduous household chores. Wrong patterns of male dominance flow from selfishness and sin.

Yet along with the influence of the women’s liberation movement and the general desire to promote complete social and economic equality of men and women, our families have suffered, some of our children have been deprived, and family life in general has deteriorated. These matters are not unrelated.

In addition, we acknowledge the Bible as our final authority in these concerns. What it says on these topics is supremely important; it speaks forthrightly about men and women in both church and home. We have the uneasy feeling that some Christians who interpret the Scriptures to support various objectives of women’s liberation are really being molded by a modern cultural (and American) trend that warps their understanding of the text. They are so pressured by the surrounding culture that they are unable to see clearly and apply honestly what Scripture really teaches. Their thinking has not been shaped by the pure Word of God, but perhaps by the fear of being old-fashioned, or of not being “with it,” or of bringing the gospel into disrepute in our excessively egalitarian society.

To us the Bible is clear regarding the role of women in the church. The apostle Paul explicitly instructs us that in Christ there is no difference between male and female (Gal. 3:28). Addressing a special problem relating to women participating in church meetings at Corinth, he rules that if a woman dresses decorously, she may then both pray and prophesy (1 Cor. 11). In context, these ministries of women cannot possibly be restricted to children, or to women only, or even to private gatherings in the home. Paul’s instructions are for the assembly of the church in Corinth. Accordingly, in the church at Ephesus, Priscilla is as free as her husband to instruct Apollos in the faith (Acts 18:26).

It is true that Paul also instructs women to be silent in the church (1 Cor. 14). But we must not try to draw the full doctrine of women in the church from a single passage. In the past, heresies have arisen because someone planted himself on a single verse, drew what he considered to be the logical implication of that verse, and ignored the larger body of Scripture. We must be guided by the whole teaching of Scripture (not by Scripture as a whole, but by the whole as the integrated sum of all its parts). 1 Corinthians 14 must be understood in light of 1 Corinthians 11. When Paul addressed the issue of tongues speaking, he spoke directly to the problem of the moment. In the specific matter of speaking in tongues, untaught women were breaking the peace by causing disturbances and disrupting the worship. He warned them to keep quiet and to ask their questions of their husbands at home. Women may speak, pray, and preach in the church; but where this creates a problem, either by their abuse of the privilege or for any other reason (such as custom), they are not to disturb the peace of the church.

Similarly, according to 1 Timothy 2:11 and 12, the apostle is concerned about immature, ill-taught Christians who, by unskilled and sometimes false teaching, were making the church a helpless prey to heresy. In that specific context he insists that women must not teach (men or anyone else). Both there and in 1 Corinthians 14, if we were to universalize these prohibitions, we would extend the passages beyond the scope the apostle intended. It would conflict with other Scriptures, Paul’s own clear statement in Corinthians, and his general teaching.

Of course, the right to ordain women does not mean that women must be ordained for every church ministry. Just as we deem it unwise to assign women to front-line trenches in time of war, so we may choose not to commission women to a similar role as chaplains. In some cultures women might prove ineffective for certain tasks. But where a woman can be effective in Christ’s service, she must not be barred because of her sex.

Further, we do not believe that a church body should be required to ordain women. Denominations that raise to a test of orthodoxy the requirement that women be ordained are going beyond the Word of God and are wrong.

Of course, if a candidate for the ministry believed women are inferior beings or that their religious experience is necessarily less than a man’s, that would present a different problem. But no teachings like these are at issue. While agreeing to the full personal and spiritual equality of men and women, some evangelicals believe Scripture teaches that women should not be ordained to the teaching ministry. We respect their position. They are not arguing for selfish gain or on the basis of male pride. At considerable personal cost, they are holding to their view solely because they are convinced it is the teaching of Scripture. And they have most of the Christian church across the centuries on their side. We believe they fail to see exactly the total thrust of Scripture in this matter, but for a denomination to refuse to ordain evangelicals on such grounds is spiritual arrogance.

The role of women in the home is more difficult to determine, because of the interlacing of Scripture and cultural patterns both ancient and modern. We agree that the Greek word sometimes translated head ordinarily means source and not leader (see p. 20). Therefore, we must not infer from the English word “head” in 1 Corinthians 11:3 that the husband is the ruler of his household. On the other hand, the principle of representative headship pervades the whole of Scripture so thoroughly, and is applied so frequently to the husband in the family, that we are compelled to reaffirm the traditional biblical view of the husband as the head of the house. As F. F. Bruce notes: Scripture does draw a parallel between Christ as Lord of the church and the role of the husband in the family. Obviously this comparison suggests no identity of role between Christ and the husband, but only an analogy. We must apply it with great caution; we must learn the exact meaning for the husband from what Scripture itself tells us. It is wrong for a husband to dominate his wife; he is not her boss; she is not his servant (though we are servants of Christ).

Scripture defines the husband’s role in other terms: he is to love his wife, to care for her, to see that she is provided for. He is to rule his own household, though clearly this must be a rule of equals (unlike Christ’s rule over us). In modern application his role is better understood as that of the executive chairman of the family. We cannot assume that the husband is always superior in administrative skills, or in intelligence (often he is not). But we do insist that Christians follow a prearranged order that delivers a family from internal rivalry and jockeying for position, and instead makes for peace and order within the family circle. For this to happen, the wife’s obedience and respect for her husband are also essential.

The scriptural analogy between Christ and the husband is not only complex, but its application to people in diverse cultures is even more difficult. Where love is lacking, the husband’s headship can descend to tyranny. But where true love abounds, the wife is dignified and God’s order is both a protection and a blessing to husband and wife, and to their children. They become models of the Christian’s oneness with, and submission to, Jesus Christ as Lord.

It has been 56 years since a 25-year-old biology teacher named John T. Scopes lost his right to teach the theory of evolution in a Dayton, Tennessee, public school. But although fundamentalist Christians won the day, they lost the war. It was inevitable, because the country is too deeply committed to the principle of academic freedom for one group to be able to banish an unwelcome idea.

In the creation-evolution debate, the shoe is now on the other foot. In state after state, science teachers have begun teaching the scientific aspects of creationism alongside evolution. Last year, at least 11 state legislatures were dealing with legislation designed to guarantee, or at least to permit, the practice to continue. Scientists who maintain faith in evolution—and that is the vast majority of them—are contemptuous. They are not willing to face creationism on its merits, but want to stop the arguments for it from reaching public school students.

Some of their statements are strikingly unscientific: “It is a dangerous view,” said Wayne A. Moyer, executive director of the National Association of Biology Teachers. “There is not one shred of evidence to indicate any scientific basis for the creationist view. They have the big truth and are trying to give it to everyone else. It is the big lie.”

How can creationism be dangerous? If it is presented as science in the classroom alongside evolution, and there is no evidence for it, it will fall of its own weight. And serious creationists wish to do nothing more than that: to present it alongside evolution in a two-model approach.

W. Scott Morrow is an associate professor of chemistry at Wofford College in Spartanburg, South Carolina. His expertise is biogenesis, that is, the origin of life. He identifies himself as an evolutionist and a non-Christian. In a letter to the state biology teacher’s association, he wrote: “The balanced treatment for scientific creationism and evolution is a reasonable alternative to the current state of affairs for one powerful reason: students would have available a realistic set of options to explore, discuss, evaluate, and if they so choose, from which to select a personal answer to the problem of the origin of life.” Would that such a clear understanding of scientific principles and of responsible academic freedom be heard from some of the more prominent dwelling places in the scientific community.

The fundamentalist Christians of the last generation found they could not obliterate a disagreeable idea simply by having it banned from academic discussion. The evolutionists of today should learn from that experience.

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