YWAM Leadership Embraces Egalitarianism

In 1955 God gave 20 year-old Loren Cunningham a vision of waves of young people cascading onto the shores of the nations with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.[1] By 1960, that vision had begun to crystallize into a missions organization dedicated to harnessing the zeal of young people for worldwide missions. Today, over 40 years later, Mr. Cunningham is one of the most well-known figures in international missionary circles. The organization that he founded-Youth With A Mission (YWAM)-has gone on to become one of the world's largest full-time missions organizations.

Much has changed within YWAM over the past forty years. Far from being solely a missionary organization, YWAM now runs dozens of training schools through its University of the Nations in Hawaii, owns four Mercy Ships that provide free medical care worldwide, takes tens of thousands of people on short-term outreaches every year, and has approximately 10,000 full-time staff dedicated to presenting the Gospel of Jesus Christ worldwide-some of whom are in the world's most unreached nations. Indeed, YWAM has garnered a reputation for being a "wild-eyed, radical group" that people love.[2] YWAM has played a very important role in mobilizing Christians-and especially youth-worldwide to fulfill the Great Commission.

Much of YWAM's success has been due, no doubt, to her generally orthodox doctrine. Her foundational values are biblical, and her emphases are largely God-centered, which provides sufficient room for Christians from many denominations to participate in her programs.[3] However, those traditional values were challenged in 2000, when Cunningham wrote the book with another YWAMer, David Hamilton, entitled Why Not Women?[4] As the title implies, Why Not Women? is an egalitarian apologetic. Because it is published by YWAM Publishing and written by YWAM's founder, Why Not Women? will unfortunately be perceived as standard YWAM doctrine.

Points of Agreement

There are some commendable portions to Why Not Women? In particular, I would praise the authors' concern with the horrible abuses suffered by women at the hands of men. It is not difficult to find examples, both contemporary and ancient, of male abuse of women. The ones cited in the book are of the worst kind. Surely, the reasoning goes, God's children are worth more than this, and His kingdom operates on a different value system.

In addition, their desire to see women released into all that God has called them to is encouraging. Far be it from anyone to stand contrary to God. As Christians, we must seek for everyone, regardless of age, race, or gender, to fulfill God's highest purposes for their life. That some men have twisted the Bible to fulfill their own proud desires is true, and that error must be stopped.

The debate lies in how best to achieve a righteous understanding of male and female roles. Whereas the complementarian might argue for a renewed passion in finding and implementing God's created roles as first revealed biblically in the Garden account, Why Not Women? seeks to eliminate any gender distinctions, claiming that Jesus came to abolish such hierarchical notions.

Why Not Women? is divided into two sections: a philosophical/emotional appeal by Cunningham, and a scriptural exegesis of key passages by Hamilton. In the first section, Cunningham makes much of examples of abuse and repression of women by men. He presents egalitarianism as the force of enlightenment, and anything short of such liberated thinking as repressive and Spirit-quenching. The implications are clear: men can either be egalitarians or abusers-there is no middle ground.

Philosophical Impositions

Even a cursory reading of Cunningham's sections show that some of his judgments appear misguided at best. First, he writes,"What is God's absolute principle that should guide all of our thinking concerning men and women? It is equality. Absolute equality" (42). Again, he says,"This is the principle that should rule in the body of Christ and ultimately in every society and every nation: the absolute equality of male and female" (43). The very ambiguity of Cunningham's statements makes it difficult to assess his meanings. In what sense is he referring to "absolute equality"? If the equality sought is of value, worth or dignity, I concur wholeheartedly. However, if he is referring to the egalitarian idea that equality of worth is impossible without equality of function, I disagree, because the Bible teaches that our value is not found in anything we do; rather, it is found in our identity in Christ (Galatians 2:20; 3:28; 6:14; Philippians 3:8-11).

Secondly, Cunningham posits that the Trinity offers no support to the complementarian understanding of submission and value. To wit: "What is modeled for us in the Godhead between God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit? Equality. There is no hierarchy in the Trinity, only absolute equality" (43). That Jesus walked in functional submission to the will of his Father, while maintaining essential equality is apparently not allowed. I will address this issue more fully later in the article.

Thirdly, Cunningham offers the unsupported and undefined assertion that, "Those who oppose women in ministry often see their own work wither" (46). What exactly does it mean to "oppose women in ministry"? And what proof does he have for his assertion? None is offered. Would the complementarian who supports women in ministry and leadership, yet reserves certain roles for men, be defined as "opposing women in ministry?" Presumably so.

But Cunningham does not stop with philosophy and accusation. He also delves into the Scriptures and offers up other common egalitarian understandings, including:

• Leadership: "Before the Fall, 50 percent of the leadership was female" (54).
• Teaching: "If I Timothy 2:12 is a statement of absolute truth for all time for all people everywhere, we must apply it to every area of life. No woman should ever teach any man. Period" (59).
• "If we can find one instance in the Bible where God uses a woman to teach, blessing the results, then the premise-that God does not want women to teach-is incorrect" (60).
• "If God really did prohibit women from teaching, then men must not read verses that came through women, such as these words from Mary [the magnificat], for then they will be taught by those women!" (60).

It would seem that Cunningham cannot bring himself to bypass his philosophical presuppositions when seeking to understand the Bible, so he is forced to impose the philosophy of egalitarianism upon the Scriptures. He is even so bold as to suggest what would be appropriate or inappropriate for God: "Would God gift a woman to lead and then tell her never to do so? If so, He would be unrighteous and unjust" (52). Compare that attitude with Paul's as expressed in Romans 9:20-21, "On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, ‘Why did you make me like this," will it? Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use, and another for common use?"

Another comparison is perhaps more striking. On page 23 he agrees with David Johnson of the Christian Missionary Alliance who states that, "the elimination of women from ministry is actually a sinful accommodation to a culture that isn't all that different from the male-dominated Jewish culture Jesus came to blow up." But then on page 55, he opines that "Perhaps [Jesus] did not choose a woman to be among the twelve because of the many rock-hard cultural beliefs He was already coming up against." So Jesus evidently was not only a wimp, according to the force of Cunningham's earlier argument, he was also guilty of sinful accommodation to culture!

A.W. Tozer cautioned against such impositions:

Let a man question the inspiration of the Scriptures and a curious, even monstrous, inversion takes place: thereafter he judges the Word instead of letting the Word judge him; he determines what the Word should teach instead of permitting it to determine what he should believe; he edits, amends, strikes out, adds at his pleasure; but always he sits above the Word and makes it amenable to him instead of kneeling before God and becoming amenable to the Word.[5]

Troubled Theology

After Cunningham's chapters, Hamilton attempts to place a Biblical footing under their egalitarian claims. Again, one encounters predictable egalitarian assertions, such as:

• The Trinity: "As there is no hierarchy in the Trinity, no inferior or superior in the unity of the Trinity, so there cannot be any between a husband and his wife" (115).
• Headship: Kephale doesn't mean authority over, it means source (162-165).
• Mutual submission: "Yes, they were to submit to their husbands in the same way that their husbands were to submit to their wives and all were to submit to one another in the Body of Christ" (133).

The concept of mutuality in the Trinity has been addressed previously by Stephen D. Kovach, Peter R. Schemm, and Bruce A. Ware who have noted that the eternal, functional subordination of Jesus to His Father has been (and continues to be!) an undeniably established principle of church belief throughout her entire history.[6] In fact, relations within the Trinity form a strong argument for the complementarian assertion that differences in roles do not necessarily imply differences in worth or dignity.

Kephale as source is, of course, a key component of the egalitarian argument, and as such has already been addressed many times over.[7] As for the concept of mutual submission as expressed in Ephesians 5:21, "and be subject to one another in the fear of Christ," Wayne Grudem has already ably denied that claim in "The Myth of ‘Mutual Submission.'"[8] He clearly shows how the best understanding of Ephesians 5:21 is that the submission desired is of "some to others," not of "everyone to everyone."[9]

The meaning of hypotassó, which always indicates one-directional submission to an authority, prevents the sense ‘everyone to everyone' in this verse. And the following context (wives to husbands, children to parents, servants to masters) shows this understanding to be true. Therefore, it is not ‘mutual submission,' but submission to appropriate authorities, which Paul is commanding in Ephesians 5:21. The idea of ‘mutual submission' in this passage is just a myth-widely believed, perhaps, but still a myth.[10]

There are other issues addressed in Why Not Women? as well. For instance, Cunningham states that gender roles are akin to slavery in the sense of growing revelation. That is, just as it took time for Christians to recognize and outlaw slavery as unbiblical, so also it has taken time for us to recognize the heretical nature of traditional gender roles. However, Grudem has also critiqued the argument that just as slavery was regulated in the OT and the NT, and later outlawed, so might the regulations of male and female roles be abolished in light of our now superior understanding. His response:

The abolition of slavery was a development of the implications of Old Testament and New Testament teachings, somewhat like the development of the doctrine of the Trinity or the Chalcedonian doctrine of the divine and human natures of Christ. These developments used the material that was already there in Scripture, but they never nullified any teaching of the Old or New Testaments when properly understood in its context. (The Old Testament regulates slavery and gives principles that led to its dissolution, but the New Testament never commands its preservation as an institution.)[11]

One final ominous note is sounded near the end of the book, where Hamilton writes, "We did not deal with marriage or family in depth in this book. That will deserve fuller treatment in an upcoming work. However, we do believe marriage is to be a partnership of equals, as God designed in the Garden" (236). Though I might agree with his definition of marriage as a partnership of equals, I fear that the equality in view here is egalitarian, and so more concerned with man's standards rather than God's. The implications of the egalitarian marriage philosophy will only contribute to the general chaos and confusion already so prevalent in our society today.

Men and Women in YWAM

What then are the appropriate roles for men and women in YWAM? As with any theological issue, it is in the arena of practical application that our beliefs and values are tested and tried. Fortunately, because of her diversity and international scope, YWAM is an excellent example of men and women serving together towards the accomplishing of the Father's will.

At the base where I serve, we typically receive more female students than male students at our training schools. While I am truly delighted at the quality and quantity of female students that attend, I find it troublesome that so few men are willing to come. Perhaps it is because of our societal (and even evangelical) confusion concerning what constitutes godly manhood that so many young men fear to boldy pursue God's callings (both indiviudally and functionally). Young men need godly, older men to model true, biblical manliness for them. The loss to our cause will be great if men surrender God's calling upon their lives. It is my great hope that YWAM would play an instrumental part in calling both women and men into all that God has for them, according to His wise intentions and design. To do any less would be unrighteous.

During my eight years on staff with YWAM, I have worked with women on outreaches to a number of countries. Each time, I was privileged to serve with them shoulder-to-shoulder, whether it was performing dramas in downtown Havana, or interceding in the streets of Marrakech. I strongly believe that God has gifted both men and women for roles in leadership and ministry, and that it is sinful to issue a blanket prohibition against women in those roles.

However, the Bible clearly speaks to the issue of male headship in the Church, and those principles apply equally to all Christians in all places at all times. As Darrell Cox has argued in his paper "Why Parachurch Leaders Must Meet The Same Biblical Qualifications As Church Leaders,":

scriptural leadership qualifications are not institutionally determined (locative), but are jurisdictionally based in the very fabric of the Kingdom of God. Put another way, any leader who undertakes the ministry of God's Word is a de facto representative of God's Kingdom and authority. As such, scriptural leadership qualifications outline the prerequisite and terminal objectives foundational to that delegated authority. Thus, just as the Kingdom gives rise to the local church and parachurch structures, so also the Kingdom provides the occasion for representative delegates who serve as heralds of the King.[12]

Christian leadership is not limited by geography or title. Therefore, biblical leadership qualifications should not be so limited.

Some argue that if complementarian functional distinctions are to be applied at all, they can only pertain to a formal church setting. However, Paul makes his most explicit statement of where the lines are to be drawn by appealing to functions and not to ecclesial offices, per se. In 1 Timothy 2:12, he forbids women to teach or to exercise authority over a man. While these are the two defining functions of an elder,[13] he does not explicitly say, "I don't allow a woman to be an elder," (though, of course, that is clearly implied). By focusing on the functions, not the office, we realize that these gender-specific, functional guidelines apply to any Christian setting where teaching and authoritative leadership is involved. Therefore, there must be an understanding of complementarity within YWAM, and every other Christian organization that recognizes the God-given nature of our gender roles, and delights in our complementarity.

Though there are gray areas, I believe that the following chart might help to bring some definition to appropriate roles within YWAM.

I will take the position of Outreach Leader as a useful example of how a biblical understanding of manhood and womanhood is applicable to an average situation. In YWAM, the Outreach Leader is generally responsible for a team of participants under their direction. That team may or may not be compromised of YWAMers. Some of the Outreach Leader's responsibilities would include: Logistics (location of outreach, housing, transportation, meals, finances and ministry prep), Spiritual Growth (leading team meetings, ensuring adequate time for personal devotions for the team, organizing ministry opportunities that would challenge the participants to seek God's direction and enablement) and Leadership of the Team (relating well with the participants, challenging the team in their relationship with God, communicating with the natives, seeking God's direction for the team). There are other responsibilities not included in this list, and not every Outreach Leader would have to fulfill all of the above roles for every outreach. However, the three areas of Logistics, Spiritual Growth, and Leadership of the Team give us an effective starting point for our discussion of this vital role within YWAM.

Given the complementarian understanding of mature masculinity as, "a sense of benevolent responsibility to lead, provide for and protect women in ways appropriate to a man's differing relationships," and mature femininity as, "a freeing disposition to affirm, receive and nurture strength and leadership from worthy men in ways appropriate to a woman's differing relationships,"[14] it would seem fitting that the position of Outreach Leader be generally reserved for men. The responsibilities involved in leading an outreach dovetail with the calling that God has bestowed upon men to be spiritual initiators.

However, I would like to place several qualifiers upon the paragraph above. Having led a number of outreaches, I can well attest the vital role that some of my female co-leaders (including my wife) have played in the success of our outreaches. Their differing viewpoints and emphases have provided a much-needed balance to my own.

There are also situations where it may be appropriate for a woman to lead an outreach team. For example, if a group of women were to go to inner-city New Orleans to work with YWAM's crisis pregnancy ministry there, I believe that it might be righteous for that group to be led by a woman. My wife also took a music outreach to Estonia several years ago with another young man and an older, experienced woman. That woman led the outreach, both because of her greater experience (both in ministry and in music) and because of her knowledge of the country and her contacts with Christians there; yet her leadership was largely logistical. I believe that she walked out her role (especially in relation to the young man) in such a way that it did not contravene a godly understanding of gender roles. As the above examples illustrate, it is difficult to draw thick lines that separate certain positions from others.

That being said, I can imagine the objections of YWAMers (and non-YWAMers) to the descriptions above. "But I know many women who would make wonderful Base Directors (or outreach leaders, or teachers)." And again the issue is framed in terms of ability or equality ("It's just not fair..."). But as complementarians state again and again, value is not to be found in function. That God designed us differently is a compliment to his creativity, and provides a wonderful diversity that otherwise would be sorely lacking. As the old saying goes, "If you and I are exactly the same, one of us is unnecessary."

C.S. Lewis had a similar understanding on the issue of women as priests:

It is painful, being a man, to have to assert the privilege, or the burden, which Christianity lays upon my own sex. I am crushingly aware how inadequate most of us are, in our actual and historical individualities, to fill the place prepared for us. But it is an old saying in the army that you salute the uniform not the wearer. Only one wearing the masculine uniform can (provisionally, and till the Parousia) represent the Lord to the Church; for we are all, corporately and individually, feminine to Him. We men may often make very bad priests. That is because we are insufficiently masculine. It is no cure to call in those who are not masculine at all. A given man may make a very bad husband; you cannot mend matters by trying to reverse the roles. He may make a bad male partner in a dance. The cure for that is that men should more diligently attend dancing classes; not that the ballroom should henceforward ignore distinctions of sex and treat all dancers as neuter. That would, of course, be eminently, sensible, civilized, and enlightened, but, once more, ‘not near so much like a Ball.'[15]

Confronting the Issues

Given the divisive nature of the debate concerning men's and women's roles in nearly every denomination, it is with great concern that I look to YWAM's future.[16] Because the issue of gender roles strikes at the very heart of our identity, there are bound to be both different understandings and very strong feelings/convictions on both sides of the debate. One need only look to the Southern Baptists for a recent example of the turmoil that arises when a group is called back to godly gender understandings.

That said, it is my earnest prayer that YWAM will learn to practice biblical complementarianism. To that end, it would be very helpful for YWAMers (and others) to read both Why Not Women? and Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. The issues addressed are of the utmost importance, and it is high time that our organization examine this whole arena corporately, with great humility and reliance upon God.

History would suggest that the future success of YWAM (and any other group) is linked directly to our faithfulness to the Bible and its truth. Because of YWAM's broad denominational makeup, it will be difficult to arrive at a consensus. However, we must not surrender truth just because its arrival occasions difficulties. I believe that a thorough, humble consideration of the issues addressed in both of the above works will lead YWAM corporately and YWAMers individually to embrace complementarianism fully.

Conclusion

Why Not Women? concludes with impassioned appeals by both Cunningham and Hamilton. Cunningham in particular says that, "We do not want to blast a trumpet in the ear of the Body of Christ" (238). Yet how does his supposedly reformist attitude square with his declaration that,

No one can keep you from obeying God's call. Has a missionary organization denied you entrance, significant ministry, or leadership because of your gender? Join another. Or start your own. Are you a woman called to preach? If others deny you the right to preach in their pulpit, preach on the streets outside, as John Wesley and George Whitefield did. Or plant your own church. If you guard your heart and attitude, God will bless your ministry (238).

Why Not Women? is an unfortunate excursion into the realm of socio-political correctness. While their dismay with male abuses and their desire to see women fulfilled in ministry are commendable, Cunningham and Hamilton have gone too far in reading their philosophical presuppositions into Scripture. There are many men and women within YWAM (and without) who affirm both the privilege of men and women to minister, and the wisdom and goodness of God in designing the sexes with functional differences that do not imply essential inferiority or superiority. Let us hope that Why Not Women? is an aberration in the history of YWAM, and that the men and women who compromise its membership will continue to embrace both men and women in significant ministry roles while affirming biblical truth. Then we may all joyfully walk in the emancipation that godly gender roles bring.