There Is No Middle Ground for Women in the Church

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When it was time for recess in grade school, I usually made a beeline for the seesaws. I loved flying up and then dropping suddenly to hit the ground with a thud.

But I loved even more the challenge of keeping the seesaw suspended in mid-air with a playmate who weighed the same as I did. For some reason the gravitational stalemate gave me a sense of satisfaction.

Perhaps my fascination with playground physics was useful in helping me accept theological tensions such as the sovereignty of God and the free will of humans. I try to hold two seemingly contradictory views together in balance.

But it doesn't work for me as an evangelical woman with a passion for ministry in a church community.

There was a time I tried to keep both a hierarchical view of authority in the church and a freedom for women to use their Spirit-given gifts as they felt called by God.

I had started the journey of wrestling through the issues of a woman's place in the life of the church. But then I got caught in the middle where I was undecided how far I would go along the spectrum of beliefs about women.

I was certainly moving away from complementarian theology (women can only be teachers and leaders of other women; husbands lead, wives submit) which took shape during Bible college and was reinforced in my church. Years later I progressed to believing women could teach men and preach behind the pulpit.

But it was hard to cut the cord to nearly 30 years of believing the absolutist doctrine of ordained male leadership. Surely women could be truly valued and free under the authority of male elders. Godly male elders. Really really kind gentle male elders. And if they had a family, elders who loved their wives and daughters and therefore understood other women enough to pay attention to their voices in the community. (Hmmm...I could never figure out why single male elders were allowed despite the plain reading of 1 Timothy 3:2.)

I was trying to find a middle ground, that sweet spot on the seesaw that kept my complementarian theology balanced with my egalitarian heart. I even found a church that was trying to do the same thing with their "soft" complementarian position.* They really believed that it was possible for complementarians and egalitarians to worship and serve together in one community. I really wanted it to be possible too.

But after six years of disappointments, I quit straddling the fulcrum between egalitarianism and complementarianism. I lifted my foot off the one side and planted both feet fully on the side of full freedom for women and what I believed to be the real vision of the Kingdom. I couldn't run fast enough down the plank to search for a fully egalitarian church, one with women elders, which I found.

I love seesaws, but on the issue of women, the metaphor doesn't work. I cannot be an egalitarian and worship in a complementarian church anymore. And as moderate as a "soft" complementarian church may be, it is still a hierarchy with power vested in men alone.

Eventually my seesaw had to tip to one side or the other. I made the choice of which side with full integrity as I searched through Scripture and with discernment in how the Spirit had been moving in my life all along.

The middle spot is unsustainable on this issue. Gravity will win and one side will crash.

It will crash because theology and Bible interpretation has been and will continue to be a place of disagreement. In other words humans will always pick and choose what they want to believe and practice. Churches that try the middle spot will find that it is a place where theology is suspended or ignored or compromised. But it doesn't work for the long term because theology cannot be kept private when the practices of the church are public. A church cannot avoid practicing their doctrine of women. So complementarians walk out of services when a woman preaches and egalitarians grieve where women are absent or silenced.

It will crash because we are sinful. In other words humans are limited and fallible and will always struggle with loving well. So there is no such thing as truly benevolent male elders. Sin has distorted perceptions of women as well as perceptions of men. The only way to overcome sin's impact on gender relations is to distribute the power equally and create a leadership space where every voice has authority and choice to submit to one another. Without women in the room, hidden misogyny or damaging attitudes may not be exposed. As long as men hold absolute authority there is always the possibility for blind spots and an inability to hear women accurately. And maybe even the possibility of abuse. How can a church address justice issues in the world if it's not willing to address justice issues in its own house?

It will crash because we can't rid ourselves of our cultural influences and agree upon one lens through which we view and interpret the world or Scripture. In other words humans will always have their biases. But many biases have changed through the course of history. Much of God's will in heaven and the movement of the Spirit on earth is a mystery but if we pay attention to what He has been doing through time, we can glimpse the path we should take culturally. If God created male and female to rule together at the beginning and if there is no gendered hierarchy in the new heavens and new earth, then the middle time of the church should be an increasing transformation into what God intended and will bring about in the end.

The transformation may be slow, but it's unstoppable. And it's better understood in hindsight.

Luther's Reformation tells us that the church got it wrong at one point. When it comes to women, they have it wrong again. But I believe there's another reformation in the air. It may be hard to find evangelical, egalitarian churches now but I sense a tipping point ahead.

The seesaw has a slight tilt to one side. 


*The "soft complementarian" position is articulated by Craig Blomberg in his essay found in the revised edition of Two Views on Women in Ministry. The doctrine and its practice is established by loosening up on some biblical passages while holding fast to others. Women are free to use their Spirit-based gifts in teaching and preaching but they are excluded from positions that hold the highest level of authority in the church whether it's an elder board or a senior pastor position.

Why Patriarchy Keeps Women From Growing Up

My Daddy and Me

There have been many moments in my life when I thought or spoke these words out loud: I don't wanna grow up! I've said that even in my fifties.

It's human nature to want periodically to shed responsibilities and lean into others to tell us what to do, make our decisions or take care of us. When I'm really old and this becomes a possible reality, I wonder if I'll feel irritated or relieved.

Sometimes I want to return to being a little girl with her Daddy by her side, oblivious to the adult world.

But then I remember my Daddy. He worked hard as a parent to ensure I would fulfill my own adult responsibilities well. He did all he could to help me grow into a strong, self sufficient woman (maybe sooner than most kids if you want to read that story).

This meant he gave me increasing freedom to make my own decisions. This meant he kept loosening the boundaries around me and encouraging me to explore new territories on my own. This meant he understood his job as a parent was to nurture my inner strength so that I would step into the world without any sense of entitlement or inferiority.

My daddy wanted children badly but he didn't want children forever. He was committed to raising me to be a fully functioning adult, confident of my abilities to maneuver through life and confident of my standing as an equal member of the human race.

No one I know would suggest remaining in parent mode well past the normal formative years. No one would think this is healthy for anyone, whether the child, the family or the community at large.

But this is essentially what patriarchy does to women in the church.

When women are denied equal authority, equal responsibility and equal voice, they are being treated like children and are denied adulthood in its fullest sense.

When leaders have important conversations and make significant decisions without full representation from over half the church, then women haven't really grown up.

When women are barred from sitting at the table of leadership, they are being barred from the table of adults.

When men restrict a woman's sphere of influence or define the Spirit's calling in her life, they presume to be her "fathers" when she should have only one, her Heavenly Father. Never once have I heard a father dedicate his daughter to future male church leaders to spiritually guide her through life.

Patriarchy perpetuates a church culture in which girls never leave the watchful eye of a father and never really become adult women with full freedom and equal value or voice under Christ's reign.

Patriarchy is a problem for women. And it's a problem for the church because in reality without the full adulthood of women and full partnership with men, the church is crippled and adolescent. 

Voices are increasing in number as they expose problems with male-dominated church leadership. As a woman, I offer my voice, small as it may be, but determined:

I refuse to remain a child in the church or be treated like one. I am an adult!

A Man. A Woman. Just Friends?

That's the title of an article by William Deresiewicz in which he suggests opening the closet wider to allow platonic friendships between men and women. No sex necessary. Of course Harry insisted that was impossible in the movie "When Harry Met Sally."

Not that platonic friendships don't exist today. It's just that friendships that don't end up in bed are not part of popular culture according to Dereseiwicz. After briefly tracing the history of platonic friendships, he makes this observation of our current culture:

We have trouble, in our culture, with any love that isn’t based on sex or blood. We understand romantic relationships, and we understand family, and that’s about all we seem to understand. 

We have trouble with mentorship, the asymmetric love of master and apprentice, professor and student, guide and guided; we have trouble with comradeship, the bond that comes from shared, intense work; and we have trouble with friendship, at least of the intimate kind. When we imagine those relationships, we seem to have to sexualize them.

I am fascinated by the fact that this conversation is taking place inside and outside the church. Both secular and sacred space is being made for friendships between men and women that don't have to turn sexual.

In his book Sacred Unions, Sacred Passions: Engaging the Mystery of Friendship Between Men and Women, Dan Brennan asks these questions:

What would our marriages, our friendships, our churches and our communities look like if men and women were not afraid of connecting with each other in deep ways? What if men and women could really know each other without sex getting in the way? What if we didn't have to be so afraid of our own and other's bodies that we cannot trust ourselves with them?

He believes that people can enter fully into these friendships as embodied sexual beings without becoming romantic. He goes on to suggest that deep spiritual friendships between sexes may actually decrease the number of divorces.

In an interview conducted by Kathy Escobar, Brennan states that "you cannot have reconciliation between sexes without cultivating and nurturing friendships between the sexes." This statement is important to understand especially when women are invited to the table of leadership. Equality is not necessarily achieved by making space at the table or adopting a doctrinal view of women that allows them more freedom.


Equality is experienced when space is opened in the heart and the other is invited. Misunderstanding and barriers will persist if that space is assumed to be sexual rather than sacred.

When Brennan was asked what surprised him most about his cross-gender friendships, he offered two: His friendships with women challenged him to change his views about women in ministry and they helped deepen his love for and friendship with his wife.

In March 2011 Brennan launched "the sacred friendship project," a place to share stories of cross-gender friendships. Coming up at the end of this month in Chicago will be conference, a "sacred friendship gathering" for those who want to explore and encourage a deeper communion between men and women.

So what do you think about this conversation? Agree or disagree?

Barriers, Boundaries and Beachheads

I sat in the classroom next to my husband still yawning from the 7 a.m. start time yet motivated to be at church because the topic was important to me – mentoring.

It turned out to be one of the strangest classroom experiences I’ve ever had.

From the beginning the women, outnumbered three to one, were invisible. The conversations were directed toward the men and the illustrations were about men. Though the content was really good and gender-neutral, when the teacher laid out the strategy for establishing mentoring relationships, he only addressed the men. When I heard the strategy, I groaned. I knew it would not work. Women had been exploring mentoring programs for decades and his basic idea had been tried before. And failed.

After class I approached the teacher and shared the history of mentoring within women’s ministries along with my past efforts to implement programs in previous churches. I asked him to reconsider their plan based on women’s experiences. There was no further discussion or any invitation to help shape what they hoped to initiate among men in the church. I did not understand why any discussion and planning taking place did not include both male and female leaders at the same table. It seemed to me that sharing decades of women’s experiences would save the men a lot of unnecessary failure or frustration.

Ever since then I have been critical of gendered discussions and ministries that create unnecessary and unhealthy barriers to the Blessed Alliance.

Recently a woman from United Kingdom commented in response to my post “My Vision for Gender Reconciliation.” She is alarmed at the growing influence of the American conservative evangelicals and their impact on church life in the UK. In particular she is concerned with the growing trend to separate the women from the men at leadership conferences or plan women only and men only retreats.

In fact what she perceives is that male leaders are encouraging the exclusion and seclusion of women from conversations as if the issues of women are different from the men. However when she goes to the women-only workshops, the topics apply to both genders and the separation seems to not be necessary. In fact she is alarmed at the growing exclusion of women from the general leadership of the church.

As I consider gender reconciliation I believe the practice of dividing men and women in the church is overdone and exacerbates the misunderstanding and mistrust between them.

Men’s and women’s ministries and separate retreats or conferences have been a part of the American church landscape for many years. However in more recent years I am hearing a rumbling in the church, a questioning of practices that are not relevant to the younger generation and a suspicion of underlying attitudes and belief systems that have supported these practices. It’s time to do some critical thinking and re-evaluation.

We need to evaluate practices in American evangelical churches and refrain from exporting damaging practices to other cultures. I’d like to suggest three questions as we consider how to promote the Blessed Alliance, a life-giving, transformative partnership between men and women in the Kingdom.

1. What are the barriers that need to be removed?
2. What boundaries are appropriate to keep?
3. What beachheads need to be established to move forward with the Blessed Alliance?

Barriers

Walls dominate the American evangelical church landscape. The task of dismantling them will not be easy.

First on my list are those barriers that separate women from the men and result in the inefficient use of resources, limit the expression of diverse gifts and perpetuate misunderstanding and stereotypes. Gender diversity offers a wider range of perspectives, wisdom, and creativity. It also promotes a deeper sense of unity because women and men are partnering to do the work of the Kingdom.

I know that removing barriers actually makes things a bit messy and requires more work. There’s certainly more potential for conflicts. But I see conflicts as opportunities to love and understand others more deeply, to experience more gospel-centered relationships and to grow in grace and compassion.

There’s certainly the danger of inappropriate sexual attraction. But I believe it’s possible to have cross-gender friendships without sexualizing them. Lusts, like any other sin, can be controlled and overcome through the Spirit’s transformative work. Barriers won’t protect us from sinning anyway. If anything they intensify the sins. It’s easier to indulge in pornography behind the barriers than to actually face a man or woman in community where non-sexual friendships can be encouraged under the watchful eyes of godly shepherds who also can spot the “lustful eyes” (Matthew 5:28).

In her recent blog post titled “alongside” Kathy Escobar wrote this: 

There is so much we can’t learn when we’re always segregated, relegated only to be above or below one another, or full of fear. I wish more men and women would bravely dive into the deep end of learning how to live alongside each other as leaders, brothers & sisters, and friends.

Christ came to establish a profoundly redemptive community committed to walking together “with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing tolerance for one another in love, being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace (Ephesians 5:2-3).”

Why do we have barriers in America? These are the two main reasons I get from men in the church:

Men have no control over their sexual impulses when around women. So women can’t be in the same room with them. Or at least prop the door open.

Men have all control in hierarchical structures and authoritative roles of leadership in the church. So women are not needed at the table. Except to lay out the coffee and donuts or take notes.

I can’t quite figure out if men see themselves as weak or as strong. Either way the barriers go up and women are excluded.

Removing barriers means combining resources, pooling ideas and encouraging cross-gender communication. It means a commitment to cross-gender friendships within a community that will work hard against the cultural pressures to sexualize them. Removing barriers means recognizing the presence and work of the Spirit through all the voices of the community so that a woman can speak into the life of a man and a man can speak into the life of a woman with words of reconciliation, healing and affirmation.

Removing barriers will create a new culture within the church where unity and love is a visible and felt reality. The church becomes a witness to a world that wants to belong to such a reality.

Boundaries

I define healthy boundaries as agreed upon lines of demarcation that allow a subset of a community to experience a deeper level of relationship or healing.

Examples include:

•         A single mom’s group seeking encouragement and affirmation.
•         Women who have suffered abuse from men.
•         Men seeking freedom from sex addiction.

Each person’s journey is unique and is marked by seasons of life that can be wonderful or difficult, joyful or painful, healing or damaging. Small communities of identification and solidarity have their place within the larger community of faith but they must be created with care and understood within the larger framework of unity and love.

The boundaries of safety or solidarity must not turn into barriers that keep individuals from intersecting with other members of the community. The healing will be more complete if a woman who fled abuse can someday receive friendship and care from a godly, tender man. Men rally around the single mom and offer practical help around the house or spend time with her children who need spiritual fathers. Those who are gaining freedom from pornography find friendship with the opposite gender in ways that are meaningful and not objectifying.

Boundaries are not barriers. They are lines in the sand that can be erased by the surf when safety is no longer needed, when the seasons change or when healing has happened.

Beachheads

Definition: the beginning point of an assault to capture enemy territory; the initial position or foothold gained that opens the way for further advancement and development.

In American evangelical churches the debate is reigniting concerning women in leadership and ministry. But there has been a significant shift in this debate. Whereas in the past the battle lines were drawn between the conservative and liberal interpretations of the Bible, the current debate is found inside the conservative evangelical camp.

Well-known, respected evangelical scholars are advocating for gender equality in all spheres of the church. Patriarchal and hierarchical structures of leadership are not only seriously questioned but also abandoned in some churches. The number is slowly growing.

A beachhead has been established.

Women are gaining a foothold in seminaries and churches. But the transition to this new understanding of the Blessed Alliance is terribly painful and slow. For now large numbers of women are leaving evangelical churches that refuse to remove the barriers. However these women are having difficulty finding a community that welcomes their voices and their gifts, especially leadership, teaching and preaching. Furthermore Jim Henderson in his book, The Resignation of Eve, identifies other women who have not left physically but have left emotionally and are no longer volunteers or voices in the church.

Additionally the advancement of the Blessed Alliance is stirring up a resistance movement, a push back from conservative forces within evangelicalism. Like Mark Driscoll and John Piper.

As difficult as it is for evangelical women right now, I have hope. I am optimistic that the beachhead will persevere and women one day will be treated equally and will be free to enter the full spectrum of gifts and callings.

For those outside the American culture, like the woman who is watching the reverse happening – the establishment of a conservative beachhead among British evangelical churches – I would encourage your voices to rise in protest, asking for critical reflection on the nature of the changes taking place. Do not allow the leaders to build barriers, to exclude and seclude women. Pay attention to the conversations and call for dialogue that exposes wrong motives and wrong thinking. (From my understanding, British culture has a more healthy view of women. Look at the heroines in British TV or film – they don't have to be young, gorgeous or ninja fighters.)

Any movement toward greater division hurts the church and does not accomplish the reconciliation brought through Christ. The Apostle Paul understood that reconciliation with God meant reconciliation with each other. Not just Jew and Gentile. I believe Paul would have included men and women. Jesus certainly did.

For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. (Ephesians 2:14-16)

The results of destroying the barrier?

For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit (2:18). And…in him you are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit (2:22).

The Blessed Alliance is worth fighting for in order to gain the presence of God.