Semigalitariansim: The Church's Undercover Enemy

[Mike Seaver is a pastor at CrossWay Community Church in Charlotte, North Carolina and posts regularly at Role Calling.]

Someone recently told me that they attended a Wednesday night church service at their conservative Southern Baptist church and were shocked to have a female take the pulpit, claim to be under the authority of her husband and her senior pastor and then begin to open up God's Word and give an expository sermon.

Semigalitarianism...no, I did not coin the phrase, but I think it is a helpful one. Basically, it is those people (both men and women) who say that a woman should not be allowed to preach in a church on her own authority, but if she claims to be under the authority of her senior pastor (who is a man) and under the authority of her husband (who is obviously a man) then it is okay for her to teach men in the church.

You may think that this is not a big deal or that it is not a regular practice in the church, but I think you are greatly deceived. Semigalitarianism (Semi-Egalitarianism) is taking place all over the United States in churches that claim to believe in the Inerrancy of Scripture, but they seem to make an assumption that they can declare who has authority in the church to teach. There is one major problem to this position. It is 1 Timothy 2:12-13 where the Apostle Paul says, "I do not permit a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first and then Eve." You see, this verse is in the Bible and to neglect this verse is to disobey the Bible and to disobey the Bible is to disobey the God of the Bible. The church is never given the right to say someone has authority to teach when the Bible says the exact opposite. It is the same as saying that a drunken adulterer is allowed to be an overseer in a church as long as they are "under the authority" of the other pastors in the church. The problem with this is that 1 Timothy 3 specifically says that an overseer cannot be a drunk and is to be the "husband of one wife."

If we start trying to reinterpret one passage of Scripture, what stops us from reinterpreting the rest of it? The problem with Semigalitarianism is not just that it has females teaching men in a Sunday School class or from the pulpit, it is that it is ignoring a clear biblical passage.

I know many women who are excellent teachers (my wife being one of them) and they are to use their gifts to teach other women (Titus 2) and to care for their children, but there is a distinct absence in the Bible of a man promoting something opposite from what Paul says in 1 Timothy 2:12-13.

So here are some questions we must ask...because I think a lot of my conservative friends have not even thought through this issue.

Can a woman be a senior pastor in a church?
Can a woman teach in a church?
Can a woman teach men in a church?
Can a woman teach in the church if she is under the authority of the senior pastor and her husband?

When we step outside of the feminist air that we breathe everyday and into an honest look at what God's Word says, I don't think the answer is really that hard.