Is Evangelical Feminism the New Path to Liberalism? Some Disturbing Warning Signs¹

Wayne Grudem

I am concerned that evangelical feminism (or "egalitarianism") is becoming the new path by which evangelicals are being drawn into theological liberalism. (By "theological liberalism" I mean a system of thinking that denies the complete truthfulness of the Bible as the Word of God and denies the unique and absolute authority of the Bible in our lives.) In the study that follows, I attempt to show (1) that liberal Protestant denominations were the pioneers of evangelical feminism; (2) that evangelical feminists today have adopted many of the arguments earlier used by theological liberals to advocate the ordination of women and to reject male headship in marriage; (3) that many prominent evangelical feminist writers today advocate positions that deny or undermine the authority of Scripture, and many other egalitarian leaders promote their books; (4) that recent trends now suggest that egalitarianism is heading toward a denial of anything uniquely masculine, an endorsement of God as Mother, and ultimately an endorsement of the moral legitimacy of homosexuality. Therefore I will attempt to show that, while egalitarian leaders claim to be subject to Scripture in their thinking, what is increasingly evident in their actual scholarship and practice is a rejection of the effective authority of Scripture in our lives.

A. The Historical Connection Between Liberalism and an Egalitarian View of Women in the Church

When we look at what happened in the last half of the twentieth century, quite a clear connection can be seen between theological liberalism and the endorsement of women's ordination. In an important sociological study published by Harvard University Press, Mark Chaves traces the history of women's ordination in various denominations in the United States.² From Chaves' study, we can observe a pattern among the mainstream Protestant denominations whose leadership is dominated by theological liberals (that is, by those who reject the idea that the entire Bible is the written Word of God, and is therefore truthful in all it affirms).³ Chaves notes the dates when ordination of women was approved in each of these denominations:

	Methodist Church	1956
	Presbyterian Church (USA)	1956 (north), 1964 (south)
	American Lutheran Church	1970
	Lutheran Church in America⁴	1970
	Episcopal Church	1976⁵

Chaves notes an interesting example with the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). In 1964 the SBC approved women's ordination (that is, a local congregation ordained a woman and this was not overturned by the denomination itself). But in 1964 the denominational leadership and the control of the seminaries were in the hands of "moderates" (the SBC term for those who did not affirm biblical inerrancy). However, in 1984, after conservatives recaptured control of the SBC, the denomination passed a resolution "that we encourage the service of women in all aspects of church life and work other than pastoral functions and leadership roles entailing ordination."⁶ This means that when the conservatives who held to biblical inerrancy recaptured the denomination, the denomination revoked its previous willingness to ordain women.⁷

Chaves lists some other denominations that are not completely dominated by theological liberalism, but that are broadly tolerant of liberalism and have seminary professors and denominational officials who have moved significantly in a liberal direction. (These categorizations of denominational doctrinal positions are not made by Chaves, who simply lists the denominations and the dates, but they are my own assessment.) Consider the following denominations:

	Mennonite Church	1973
	Evangelical Covenant Church	1976
	Reformed Church in America	1979

Another example that occurred after Chaves finished his book was the Christian Reformed Church, which in 1995 approved the ordination of women.⁸ Chaves does note, however, that the Christian Reformed Church "shifted its official position away from inerrancy only in 1972."⁹

Are there any types of denominations that are resistant to the ordination of women? Chaves indicates the following results of his study:

Two groups of denominations are particularly resistant to women's ordination: denominations practicing sacramental ritual and denominations endorsing biblical inerrancy. . . . Biblically inerrant denominations are . . . resistant to formal gender equality.¹⁰

By "denominations practicing sacramental ritual" Chaves refers especially to Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Episcopalian denominations, who think of the priest as standing in the place of Christ at the Lord's Supper. Chaves thinks that explains why the Episcopal Church was rather slow in endorsing women's ordination in comparison to other denominations. But he notes that for "biblically inerrant denominations" the argument that the Bible prohibits the ordination of women is by far the most persuasive argument.¹¹

I think that Chaves's observation that "denominations endorsing biblical inerrancy" are "particularly resistant to women's ordination" can be reinforced if we consider three influential evangelical denominations in the U. S.: the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (LCMS), the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), and the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). All three have the following characteristics in common:

(1) they have fought major battles with liberalism recently enough that such conflicts are still part of the personal memories of current leaders

(2) these leaders recognize that the liberal groups from which they are separate now aggressively promote women's ordination (the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Presbyterian Church-U.S.A., and the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship)

(3) these leaders and their denominations are strongly opposed to women's ordination

In the Southern Baptist Convention, conservatives who held to inerrancy regained control of the denomination over a ten or fifteen year period beginning in 1979.¹² The SBC in 2000 added a formal provision to its doctrinal statement that "The office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture" (Article VI of The Baptist Faith and Message).

The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod in 1974 dismissed the president of Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, a measure that soon led to the angry resignation of forty-five of the fifty faculty members of the seminary, thereby removing most of the influence of theological liberalism that denied the complete truthfulness of Scripture.¹³

Yet another example is the Presbyterian Church in America, which was formed when conservatives left the more liberal Southern Presbyterian Church in 1973.¹⁴

In each of these three denominations, people who currently hold positions of leadership remember their struggles with theological liberalism, and they remember that an egalitarian advocacy of women's ordination goes hand in hand with theological liberalism.

Another example of the connection between tendencies toward liberalism and the ordination of women is Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California. Though Fuller started as a conservative evangelical seminary, it removed the doctrine of biblical inerrancy from its statement of faith in 1971, and today there is significant influence from theological liberalism among its faculty. In addition, full-fledged advocacy of the ordination of women reigns on campus, and I doubt that Fuller would hire anyone holding another position to teach at Fuller (or if someone were hired, I doubt that he would be allowed to express his opposition to women's ordination publicly).

As long ago as 1987, the egalitarian viewpoint was so firmly entrenched at Fuller that even a responsible academic statement of a complementarian view was effectively silenced by a barrage of protests. In May 1987,I received the following letter from a New Testament professor who had been invited to teach a course at Fuller on the Pastoral Epistles:

What reminded me to write this letter was the class on the Pastorals that I am teaching at Fuller. . . . Boy did I get in trouble. One lady walked out, incredibly irate. The Women's Concerns Committee sent a letter to all my students, claiming that I should never have been allowed to teach this and that they would try to censor any further teaching along traditional lines of interpretation. So much for academic freedom and inquiry. I wrote to the dean and will be interested to see how the actual administration will react. I find it incredibly interesting, and inconsistent, that they allow the teaching of universalism . . . but our view of the women's passage must be banned.¹⁵

Two months later I received a follow-up letter:

For two and a half weeks I was slandered up and down campus. I was the major subject on the declaration board, etc. It was a real mess. . . . The vast majority of the letters were from students who were not in the class. . . . 2½ weeks after the fact . . . Dean Meye finally called and we had dinner together. . . . He asked if I would be willing to retell the class what my actual intention was, and without groveling or backtracking, say that to whatever extent I was responsible for the misunderstanding, I apologize. . . . So I agreed and it went very well. . . . The next day Meye was deluged with letters and visits from my students who were very upset at the committee and his handling of the situation. . . . Meye never apologized, said that he or the school had behaved improperly, or that anything was mishandled except that I was allowed to teach what I thought. He accused me of such dastardly deeds as presenting my personal views with more force than the other views. . . . People need to be aware of what will happen at their schools if this situation is not dealt with properly.¹⁶

Endorsement of the ordination of women is not the final step in the process, however. If we look at the denominations that approved women's ordination from 1956-1976, we find that several of them, such as the United Methodist Church and the United Presbyterian Church (now called the United Presbyterian Church-USA), have large contingents pressing for (a) the endorsement of homosexual conduct as morally valid and (b) the approval of homosexual ordination. In fact, the Episcopal Church on August 5, 2003, approved the appointment of an openly homosexual bishop.

In more liberal denominations such as these, a predictable sequence has been seen (though only the Episcopal Church has followed the sequence to point 7):

1. Abandoning biblical inerrancy

2. Endorsing the ordination of women

3. Abandoning the Bible's teaching on male headship in marriage

4. Excluding clergy who are opposed to women's ordination

5. Approving homosexual conduct as morally valid in some cases

6. Approving homosexual ordination

7. Ordaining homosexuals to high leadership positions in the denomination¹⁷

I am not arguing that all egalitarians are liberals. Some denominations have approved women's ordination for other reasons, such as a long historical tradition and a strong emphasis on gifting by the Holy Spirit as the primary requirement for ministry (as in the Assemblies of God), or because of the dominant influence of an egalitarian leader and a high priority on relating effectively to the culture (as in the Willow Creek Association). But it is unquestionable that theological liberalism leads to the endorsement of women's ordination. While not all egalitarians are liberals, all liberals are egalitarians. There is no theologically liberal denomination or seminary in the United States today that opposes women's ordination. Liberalism and the approval of women's ordination go hand in hand.

B. Current Egalitarian Views that Deny the Authority of Scripture

In their writings, a surprising number of egalitarians have published statements that either deny the complete truthfulness of Scripture or else deny the full authority of Scripture as the Word of God for us today. I have listed these in the following fifteen categories. Then in the following section, I list several other egalitarian claims that undermine the effective authority of Scripture in a different way, by making people think it says something other than what it really says.

1. Denying the authority or truthfulness of Genesis 1-3

With respect to egalitarian writings that deny the authority of Genesis 1-3, one example is Rebecca Groothuis's claim that the Hebrew language of the Old Testament reflects a wrongful patriarchy. Groothuis says,

We should note that the ancient Hebrew language was an expression of patriarchal culture. We cannot conclude, simply because the Bible was written under divine inspiration, that the languages in which the Bible was written were themselves created under divine inspiration. These languages were as male centered as the cultures they reflected and by which they were created. The fact that certain words in a language can be used to refer either to a male human or to humans in general reflects cultural concepts of gender; it says nothing about God's view of gender.¹⁸

Groothuis uses this statement to answer Raymond C. Ortlund's claim that male headship is hinted at when God calls the human race by the Hebrew equivalent of our word man, rather than by a Hebrew word that means woman or a word that would mean person.¹⁹ Groothuis uses this argument about language reflecting patriarchal culture in order to deny the meaning of some of the words of Scripture. She talks about "the languages in which the Bible was written" as if the debate were about words that occur outside of Scripture. But she glosses over the fact that the story of God's naming the human race man (Gen 1:26-27; 5:2) is found in the Hebrew language in the text of the Bible. To say that these words of the Bible have a patriarchal meaning that God did not intend, and in fact to say that these words of the Bible tell us "nothing about God's view of gender," is simply to deny the authority of this part of Scripture. This approach is not a legitimate evangelical option.

Another example of denying the authority of Genesis 1-3 is William Webb's claim that Genesis 1-3 are not historically accurate. In a recent book that has had widespread influence, Webb argues that the elements of male leadership that are in Genesis 2 do not reflect the actual historical situation in the Garden of Eden, but were inserted there as a literary device for possibly three reasons: (1) to anticipate the fall, (2) to allow for better understanding by readers in the society and culture of Moses' time, or (3) to anticipate the agrarian society that would come into effect after the fall.²⁰

Webb agrees that "the practice of primogeniture in which the first born is granted prominence within the ‘creative order' of a family unit"²¹ is found in the narrative in Genesis 2. He sees this as support for male headship within the text of Genesis 2. He also thinks this is how it is understood by Paul when he says, "For Adam was formed first, then Eve" (1 Tim 2:13). But Webb sees this primogeniture theme in Genesis 2 as a "cultural component" in that text.

But how could there be changing cultural influence in the pre-fall Garden of Eden? Webb answers this question in three ways. First, he says these indications of male headship may be a literary device that anticipates the fall and God's subsequent curse, rather than accurately recording what was in fact true in the garden:

A . . . question is how cultural features could possibly be found in the garden before the influence of culture. Several explanations exist. First, the whispers of patriarchy in the garden may have been placed there in order to anticipate the curse.²²

Webb then claims that the literary construction of Genesis 2-3 includes at least one other example of "literary foreshadowing of the curse" in the pejorative description of the serpent as "more crafty than any of the wild animals" (Gen. 3:1). Webb then asks, "If the garden is completely pristine, how could certain creatures in the just-created animal kingdom reflect craftiness? Obviously, this Edenic material embraces an artistic foreshadowing of events to come."²³

Webb's analysis here assumes that there was no sin or evil in Genesis 3:1 in actual fact, but that by a literary device the author described the serpent as "crafty" (and therefore deceitful and therefore sinful), thus anticipating what he would be later, after the fall. In the same way, he thinks the elements of male headship in Genesis 2 were not there in the garden in actual fact, but were inserted as "an artistic foreshadowing of events to come."

Webb says further that "patriarchy" in Genesis 2 may have been inserted because it was a reflection of social categories familiar to readers at the time when Moses wrote Genesis, and that would have kept readers in Moses' time from being confused about the main point of the story (namely, that God made everything).

Second, Eden's quiet echoes of patriarchy may be a way of describing the past through present categories. The creation story may be using the social categories that Moses' audience would have been familiar with. God sometimes permits such accommodation in order not to confuse the main point he wants to communicate with factors that are secondary to that overall theme.²⁴

Finally, Webb gives a third reason:

Third . . . the patriarchy of the garden may reflect God's anticipation of the social context into which Adam and Eve were about to venture. An agrarian lifestyle . . . would naturally produce some kind of hierarchy between men and women. . . . The presentation of the male-female relationship in patriarchal forms may simply be a way of anticipating this first (and major) life setting into which humankind would enter.²⁵

Even in his analysis of the statement that the serpent was "crafty," Webb understands Gen 3:1 to affirm something that he thinks was not true at that time, and thus Webb denies the truthfulness of a section of historical narrative in Scripture.

There is really no great difficulty in affirming that Gen 3:1 is stating historical fact, and taking it at face value. Webb fails even to consider the most likely explanation: that there was sin in the angelic world sometime after the completion of the initial creation (Gen 1:31) but prior to Gen 3:1.²⁶ Because of this rebellion in the angelic world (see 2 Pet 2:4; Jude 6), Satan himself was already evil and was somehow speaking through the serpent.²⁷ So Webb's claim that the crafty serpent in Gen 3:1 must be "artistic foreshadowing of events to come" is not persuasive. It is better to take Gen 3:1 as historically accurate and affirm that the serpent was in fact "crafty" and therefore deceptive and sinful.

Webb also denies the historical accuracy of Genesis 2 in all three of his explanations of why the narrative indicates male leadership (what he calls "patriarchy" and "primogeniture"). In reason (1), Webb claims that "the whispers of patriarchy in the garden may have been placed there in order to anticipate the curse."²⁸ Webb is saying that patriarchy did not exist in the garden in actual fact, but the author placed hints of it in the story as a way of anticipating the situation that would come about after there was sin in the world. This then is also an explicit denial of the historical accuracy of the Genesis 2 account.

In reason (2), Webb says that Moses, in the time he wrote, used "present categories" such as patriarchy to describe the past, and this was simply an "accommodation" by God "in order not to confuse the main point." That is, patriarchy did not actually exist in the garden of Eden, but Moses inserted it there in Genesis 2 so as not to confuse his audience at a later time. Thus, Moses inserted false information into Genesis 2.

The same is true of Webb's reason (3). Webb believes that primogeniture (Adam being created before Eve) occurs in Genesis 2, not because it reflected the actual situation in the garden of Eden, but because Adam and Eve after they sinned would enter into a situation where Adam had leadership over his wife. This again is an explicit denial of the historical accuracy of the headship of Adam and his prior creation in Genesis 2. It was simply "a practical and gracious anticipation of the agrarian setting into which Adam and Eve were headed"²⁹

It is important to realize how much Webb denies as historical fact in the Genesis narrative. He is not just denying that there was a "crafty" serpent who spoke to Eve (Gen 3:1). He also denies the entire theme of primogeniture found in Genesis 2. That is, he denies the entire narrative structure that shows the man as created before the woman, for this is the basis for the primogeniture theme he sees Paul referring to in 1 Tim 2:13, "For Adam was formed first, then Eve."

How much of Genesis 2 does that involve? How much inaccurate material has to be inserted into Genesis 2 either as a literary device foreshadowing the fall (reason 1), or as an accommodation to the situation familiar to readers at the time of Moses (reason 2), or as an anticipation of an agrarian society that would be established after the fall (reason 3)? It is no small amount.

God placing the man in the garden (Gen 2:8)
God putting the man in the garden "to work it and keep it" (2:15)
God commanding the man that he may eat of every tree of the garden but not of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (2:16-17),
God saying, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him" (2:18),
God bringing the beasts of the field and the birds of the heavens to the man to see what he would call them (2:19),
the man giving names to every living creature (2:20),
there not being found a helper fit for man (2:20),
God causing a deep sleep to fall upon the man and taking one of his ribs and forming it into a woman (2:21-22)

This entire sequence, summarized by Paul in the statement "For Adam was formed first, then Eve," is merely a literary device that did not actually happen, according to Webb. And all of this then enables Webb to say that Paul's appeal to the creation of Adam prior to Eve is not proof of a transcultural ethical standard. But if a theological argument has to deny significant portions of Scripture for its support, it should surely be rejected by evangelicals who are subject to the authority of the entire Bible as the Word of God.

2. Saying that New Testament teachings are "seed ideas" showing that superior teaching would come later

With respect to egalitarian writings on the New Testament, a rejection of the final authority of Scripture for our lives today is found in William Webb's claim that Gal 3:28 is a "seed idea" that would later lead to an ethic superior to that of the New Testament. This argument is found in the second of Webb's eighteen proposed criteria for determining cultural relativity. He says, "A component of a text may be cultural if ‘seed ideas' are present within the rest of Scripture to suggest and encourage further movement on a particular subject."³⁰

Webb's conception of a "seed idea" is based on his claim that some New Testament commands are inconsistent with that seed idea, and those commands show only that "the biblical author pushed society as far as it could go at that time without creating more damage than good."³¹ Webb claims that the "seed idea" is simply a pointer showing that there should be "further movement" toward a "more fully realized ethic" that is "more just, more equitable and more loving . . . a better ethic than the one expressed in the isolated words of the text."³² Webb thinks Gal 3:28 is just such a "seed idea," that carries "social implications for the equality of women" today.³³

We should not think it necessary to "move beyond" the ethic of the New Testament. It is not necessary to do this to argue for the abolition of slavery, for the New Testament never condones or approves of slavery as an institution, and never says it was created by God (as marriage was). The New Testament itself provides statements that would eventually lead to the abolition of slavery based on the New Testament ethic itself, not based on some "higher ethic" that would later be discovered. (See section 6 below for a discussion of the anti-slavery teachings of the Bible itself, teachings that were widely and effectively used by abolitionists in the 19^th century.)

Similarly, Webb is incorrect to see Gal 3:28 as a "seed idea" pointing to some future, "higher ethic." Rather, this verse is fully consistent with other things the apostle Paul and other New Testament authors wrote about the relationships between men and women. If we take the entire New Testament as the very words of God for us in the new covenant today, then any claim that Gal 3:28 should overrule other texts such as Ephesians 5 and 1 Timothy 2 is a claim that Paul the apostle contradicts himself, and therefore that the Word of God contradicts itself.

Webb also claims that the New Testament commands regarding male headship are only a "preliminary movement" to partially correct the culture at that time, but that the New Testament ethic regarding male headship still needed further improvement beyond what was taught in the New Testament. He argues that the commands about wives submitting to their husbands in Eph 5:22-33 are not part of the "final ethic" that we should follow today, but are simply an indication of "where Scripture is moving on the issue of patriarchal power."³⁴

Webb's argument at this point is not persuasive because it depends on his assumption that the ethical standards of the New Testament are not God's ultimate ethical standards for us, but are simply one step along the way toward a kind of "ultimate ethic" that we should adopt today.³⁵ Webb does not consider the moral commands of the New Testament to represent a perfect or final moral system for Christians. They are rather a pointer that "provides the direction toward the divine destination, but its literal, isolated words are not always the destination itself. Sometimes God's instructions are simply designed to get his flock moving."³⁶

But we should not find this position acceptable, because it essentially nullifies the moral authority of the New Testament for Christians today, not only with respect to Ephesians 5, but (in principle) with respect to all the moral commands of the New Testament. Webb may in fact view some New Testament commands as representing an ultimate ethic, but even then we should obey them not because they are taught in the New Testament, but because Webb's system has filtered them through his eighteen criteria and then has found that what the New Testament teaches is also the moral standard that is found in his "ultimate ethic."

3. Saying that some verses that are in every manuscript are not really part of the Bible

A different kind of problem is found in Gordon Fee's claim that 1 Cor 14:34-35 should not be considered part of the Bible and that these verses are "certainly not binding for Christians."³⁷ In his commentary on 1 Corinthians, Fee argues that Paul did not write 1 Corinthians 14:34-35, but these verses were the addition of a later scribe.³⁸ He says,

The case against these verses is so strong, and finding a viable solution to their meaning so difficult, that it seems best to view them as an interpolation. . . . One must assume that the words were first written as a gloss in the margin by someone who, probably in light of 1 Tim. 2:9-15, felt the need to qualify Paul's instructions even further.³⁹

Fee's main reasons are that some later Greek manuscripts move these verses so that they follow verse 40, and, he says, the verses cannot be reconciled with 1 Cor 11:5 where Paul allows women to prophesy in the church. But Fee's arguments have been strongly rejected.⁴⁰ While some who read Fee may see this as merely a text-critical decision based on Fee's careful analysis of many different ancient manuscripts, two factors lead me to think of it rather as a different method of rejecting the authority of these verses for the church today. (I am not speaking of Fee's intention, which I do not know, but of the actual process he followed and the result he reached.)

First, out of the thousands of ancient New Testament manuscripts that exist today, not one has ever omitted these verses (the Western manuscripts that move the verses to follow verse 40 are unreliable elsewhere in any case). This makes this passage significantly different from the other two examples Fee mentions where something not original has crept into the text tradition (John 5:3b-4 and 1 John 5:7).⁴¹ In those cases the oldest and best manuscripts lack the added material, but in 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 no manuscript lacks this material. So Fee's procedure is different from every other text-critical decision made by editors of the Greek New Testament throughout history: he thinks we should exclude a passage from the New Testament that is included in every manuscript we have! In fact, this is not a highly doubtful text, but one that is given a "B" rating in the United Bible Societies' fourth edition of the Greek New Testament,⁴² indicating that it is "almost certain."⁴³

Second, the most decisive factor for Fee's conclusion is not the evidence from ancient manuscripts but rather that he thinks that these verses, which say that "the women should keep silent in the churches" (1 Cor 14:34), are impossible to reconcile with 1 Corinthians 11. This makes me think this is ultimately not a text-critical question but an objection he has to the content of these verses. He says, "these verses stand in obvious contradiction to 11:2-16, where it is assumed without reproof that women pray and prophesy in the assembly."⁴⁴But virtually all other interpreters in the history of the church have seen various ways to reconcile 14:34-35 and 11:5, so Fee wrongly sees them as impossible to reconcile, and that is his primary argument against their authenticity. At this point Fee's procedure is different from that of all evangelical interpreters of Scripture. There are many passages in the Bible that on first reading seem difficult to reconcile with other passages in the Bible (think, for example, of the teaching of Paul and James on justification by faith, or the astounding claim that Jesus is God and the Father is God, when combined with the teaching that there is only one God). Historically interpreters with a high respect for the authority and consistency of Scripture have not decided that one set of verses stands "in obvious contradiction" to the other set and then thrown the difficult verses out of the Bible. Think of what would happen if we followed Fee's procedure in the Gospels, where we find some manuscript evidence of scribal attempts to "fix" the difficulty in almost every parallel passage that has details that are difficult to harmonize, just as Fee finds some manuscript evidence of scribal attempts to move 1 Cor 14:34-35 to another context. Rather, interpreters have returned to the difficult texts with the assumption that they have misunderstood something, and they have sought for interpretations that are fair to both texts and are not contradictory.⁴⁵

Does Fee's solution to 1 Cor 14:34-35 then constitute evidence of a liberal tendency to reject the authority of the Bible? Readers will have to come to their own conclusions. It should trouble evangelicals that Fee and others say these verses that are missing from no ancient manuscript are not part of the Bible and therefore "certainly not binding for Christians." It seems to me that Fee's recommendation that we should remove some hard verses from the Bible rather than seeking to understand them in a way that does not contradict other verses establishes a dangerous precedent. When the verses that he throws out of the Bible are missing from no manuscript, and also happen to be the very verses that show Paul's insistence on male governance of the church meetings "in all the churches of the saints," then it seems to me to be another example of a pattern in many egalitarian writings, a pattern of using sophisticated scholarly procedures in order to evade the requirement of submitting to the authority of the Word of God.

4. Saying that Paul was wrong

A liberal tendency to reject the authority of Scripture is also seen in the writings of both Paul King Jewett and David Thompson. In 1975 Jewett, a professor at Fuller Seminary, published Man as Male and Female,⁴⁶ which was (as far as I know) the first scholarly defense of an egalitarian viewpoint by an evangelical in modern times. In it he claims that Paul was wrong in his teaching in 1 Timothy 2:

The apostle Paul was the heir of this contrast between the old and the new. . . . He was both a Jew and a Christian. . . . And his thinking about women . . . reflects both his Jewish and his Christian experience . . . . So far as he thought in terms of his Jewish background, he thought of the woman as subordinate to the man for whose sake she was created (1 Cor. 11:9). But so far as he thought in terms of the new insight he had gained through the revelation of God in Christ, he thought of the woman as equal to the man in all things. . . . Because these two perspectives-the Jewish and the Christian-are incompatible, there is no satisfying way to harmonize the Pauline argument. . . .

Paul. . . is assuming the traditional rabbinic understanding [of Gen. 2:18-23]. . . . Is this rabbinic understanding of Genesis 2:18f correct? We do not think that it is . . . .

The difficulty is that Paul, who was an inspired apostle, appears to teach such female subordination in certain passages. . . . To resolve this difficulty, one must recognize the human as well as the divine quality of Scripture.⁴⁷

Although few have followed Jewett in his claim that Paul made a mistake in what he wrote, Thomas Schreiner points out that a similar position was advocated by Clarence Boomsma as well.⁴⁸

Jewett's position allows the church today to disobey 1 Tim 2:11-15, saying it was a mistake. But Christians who take the entire Bible as the Word of God, and authoritative for us today, do not have that option. This view refuses to take 1 Timothy 2 as God's truthful, divinely authoritative commands for Christians throughout the church age. This is not a legitimate position for an evangelical who believes that the entire Bible is "breathed out by God" (2 Tim 3:16) and is, thus, the very Word of God.

A different kind of claim that the Apostle Paul was wrong is found in the argument of David L. Thompson that Paul misinterprets Genesis 2, and that we can come to a better understanding of Genesis 2 than Paul did. According to Thompson, there may be unusual times when we can carefully and cautiously differ with a New Testament author's interpretation of an Old Testament text. And one of those times is when we read Paul's interpretation of Genesis 2 in 1 Timothy 2.⁴⁹

Thompson says that 1 Tim 2:11-15 is hard to interpret. It poses "particularly complex problems hermeneutically," and, anyway, we might be able to reexamine Genesis 2 and disagree with Paul's interpretation of it: "We should take caution in immediately assuming that Paul's reading of Genesis 2 must, without further inquiry, be ours.⁵⁰ Then he says that we should read the Genesis 2 account ourselves and understand it "on its own terms," and that our understanding of it can then be the "arbiter" of Paul's understanding: "It is entirely possible that at this point the creation account, understood on its own terms, must be the arbiter of the more specifically confined reading given by Paul.⁵¹

Thompson's procedure effectively denies the authority of Scripture for us today. Of course Paul's use of Genesis 2 is a problem for egalitarians because Genesis 2 shows male headship in marriage before there was any sin in the world. Therefore it shows male headship as part of the way God created us as men and women. And then (to make things worse for the egalitarian position!), Paul quotes from Genesis 2 to establish male headship in the church (1 Tim 2:11-14). This means that Paul sees male headship in the church as rooted in the way God created men and women from the beginning.

But Thompson has provided egalitarians with a new way to evade the force of that argument: With much caution, with careful study, with prayer, he says we should study Genesis 2 as twentieth-century interpreters. We should understand Genesis 2 "on its own terms." And when we understand the passage well enough, our understanding might (at times) enable us to reject Paul's interpretation. We can use Genesis 2 as the "arbiter" (or judge) of Paul's interpretation.

Note what has happened here. We are interpreting Genesis 2. And though Thompson may claim that Genesis 2 is the judge of Paul's interpretation, the actual result (in the article) is that Thompson's interpretation of Genesis 2 becomes the judge by which Paul's interpretation is pushed aside. Thompson's argument means that our interpretation can correct Paul's interpretation of Genesis 2-and, by implication, Paul's interpretation of other Old Testament passages as well.

If the Bible is the word of God, then these interpretations are not just Paul's interpretations; they are also God's interpretations of his own Word. There might be times when I cannot understand an interpretation of the Old Testament by a New Testament author, but that does not give me the right to disagree with his interpretation. If I believe the Bible to be the very words of God, then I must believe that neither Paul nor any other Scriptural author made mistakes in his interpretation of the Old Testament, or gave us interpretations of the Old Testament that we can reject in favor of better ones of our own.

5. Locating ultimate authority not in Scripture but at the end of a "trajectory" along which the New Testament was progressing, thus rejecting sola Scriptura

Liberal tendencies in egalitarian procedures for interpreting the Bible include the claims of R. T. France and David Thompson that our authority is the point toward which the New Testament authors were progressing in a trajectory, not what the New Testament actually taught. R. T. France, in his book Women in the Church's Ministry: A Test Case for Biblical Interpretation, takes this position. He argues that the Old Testament and Judaism in the time of Jesus were male-dominated and biased against women, but that Jesus began to overturn this system, and that the New Testament churches continued the process. We can now follow this "trajectory" to a point of full inclusion of women in all ministries. France explains,

The gospels do not, perhaps, record a total reversal of Jewish prejudice against women and of their total exclusion from roles of leadership. But they do contain the seeds from which such a reversal was bound to grow. Effective revolutions are seldom completed in a year or two. In this, as in other matters, the disciples were slow learners. But the fuse, long as it might prove to be, had been ignited.⁵²

France later comments on "there is no longer male and female" in Gal 3:28,

Paul here expresses the end-point of the historical trajectory which we have been tracing . . . from the male-dominated society of the Old Testament and of later Judaism, through the revolutionary implications and yet still limited actual outworking of Jesus' attitude to women, and on to the increasing prominence of women in the apostolic church and in its active ministry. At all points within the period of biblical history the working out of the fundamental equality expressed in Galatians 3:28 remained constrained by the realities of the time, and yet there was the basis, indeed the imperative, for the dismantling of the sexual discrimination which has prevailed since the fall. How far along that trajectory it is appropriate and possible for the church to move at any subsequent stage in history must remain a matter for debate, as it is today.⁵³

And he says that he has found his "basic position" regarding women in ministry

not in these few texts [1 Cor 14:34-36 and 1 Tim 2:11-15] but in a trajectory of thought and practice developing through Scripture, and arguably pointing beyond itself to the fuller outworking of God's ultimate purpose in Christ in ways which the first-century situation did not yet allow.⁵⁴

A similar position is argued by David Thompson in his 1996 article in Christian Scholar's Review:⁵⁵

Sensing the direction of the canonical dialogue and prayerfully struggling with it, God's people conclude that they will most faithfully honor his Word by accepting the target already anticipated in Scripture and toward which the Scriptural trajectory was heading rather than the last entry in the Biblical conversation. . . . The canonical conversation at this point closed without final resolution. But the trajectory was clearly set toward egalitarian relationships.⁵⁶

Both France and Thompson admit that the New Testament authors did not teach the full inclusion of women in all forms of church leadership. As France says, the first-century situation "did not yet allow" this "fuller outworking of God's ultimate purpose," which they say should be our standard today.

But this means that the teachings of the New Testament are no longer our final authority. Our authority now becomes our own ideas of the direction the New Testament was heading but never quite reached. In order to guard against making our authority something other than the Bible, major confessions of faith have insisted that the words of God in Scripture are our authority, not some position arrived at after the Bible was finished. This is the Reformation doctrine of sola Scriptura, or "the Bible alone," as our ultimate authority for doctrine and life. The Westminster Confession of Faith says:

The whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man's salvation, faith and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture: unto which nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revelations of the Spirit, or traditions of men.⁵⁷

More recently, the widely-acknowledged Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy said,

We affirm that God's revelation in the Holy Scriptures was progressive. We deny that later revelation, which may fulfill earlier revelation, ever corrects or contradicts it. We further deny that any normative revelation has been given since the completion of the New Testament writings.⁵⁸

This trajectory position would have the later standard (the supposed "goal" to which the New Testament was headed) contradict earlier revelation (which limited certain roles in the church to men). The doctrinal statement of the Evangelical Theological Society says:

The Bible alone, and the Bible in its entirety, is the Word of God written, and is therefore inerrant in the autographs.⁵⁹

But this trajectory argument places authority ultimately in something beyond the New Testament writings.

France argues that we already see change from the Old Testament to the New Testament, and within the New Testament we see the apostles gradually growing in their understanding of the way Gentiles can be fully included in the church (as in the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15).⁶⁰ So why should we not allow change beyond what is in the New Testament?

This view fails to recognize the uniqueness of the New Testament. Yes, the New Testament explicitly tells us that we are no longer under the regulations of the Old Covenant (Heb 8:6-13), so we have clear warrant for saying the sacrificial laws and dietary laws are no longer binding on us. And we do see the apostles in a process of coming to understand the inclusion of the Gentiles in the church (Acts 15; Gal 2:1-14; 3:28). But that process was completed within the New Testament, and the commands given to Christians in the New Testament say nothing about excluding Gentiles from the church. We do not have to progress on a "trajectory" beyond the New Testament to discover that.

Christians living in the time of Paul's epistles were living under the New Covenant. And we Christians living today are also living under the New Covenant. This is "the New Covenant in my blood" (1 Cor 11:25), which Jesus established and which we affirm every time we take the Lord's Supper. That means we are living in the same period in God's plan for "the history of redemption" as the first-century Christians. And that is why we can read and apply the New Testament directly to ourselves today. To attempt to go beyond the New Testament documents and derive our authority from "where the New Testament was heading" is to reject the very documents God gave us to govern our life under the New Covenant until Christ returns.

I agree that the church later formulated doctrines, such as the Trinity, that are not spelled out explicitly in the New Testament. But that is far different from what France and Thompson advocate, because Trinitarian doctrine was always based on the actual teachings of the New Testament, and its defenders always took the New Testament writings as their final authority. By contrast, France and Thompson do not take the New Testament statements as their final authority, but "go beyond" the New Testament to a "target" that contradicts or nullifies the restrictions on women's ministry given by Paul. No Trinitarian doctrine was ever built by saying we need a view that contradicts and denies what Paul wrote.

France and Thompson think the trajectory was heading toward egalitarianism. But this argument could be used in just the other way. Someone could take France's view of Gal 3:28 and argue that the trajectory looks like this:

FROM PAUL'S EARLY WRITINGS	TO PAUL'S LAST, MORE MATURE WRITINGS	TO THE FINAL TARGET FOR THIS TRAJECTORY	APPLICATION TODAY
Gal 3:28: women in all positions of leadership	1 Tim 2-3, Titus 1: only men can teach or be elders	Women cannot participate in any ministry in the church	All ministry of all kinds must be done by men

This is a ridiculous conclusion, but if we accept the "trajectory" principle of France and Thompson, it would be hard to say it was wrong.

Or we could take a "trajectory" argument on divorce:

FROM JESUS' TEACHINGS	TO PAUL'S TEACHINGS	TO THE FINAL TARGET FOR THIS TRAJECTORY	APPLICATION TODAY
Only one ground for divorce: adultery (Matt 19:6)	Two grounds for divorce: adultery or desertion (1 Cor 7:14)	Divorce for any hardship	God approves divorce for any hardship in marriage

We may think these trajectories are foolish, but they use the same process as France and Thompson in moving from earlier to later biblical writings. And these trajectories all have one thing in common: we no longer have to obey what the New Testament teaches. We can devise our own ideas about the direction things were heading at the end of the New Testament. This method has no controls on it. It is subjective, and the final authority is not the Bible but anyone's guess as to where the trajectory was heading.

One of the distinctive differences between historic, orthodox Protestants and the Roman Catholic Church has been that Protestants base doctrine on "Scripture alone" (in Latin, sola Scriptura), while Catholics base doctrine on Scripture plus the authoritative teaching of the church through history. This "trajectory" argument of France and Thompson is disturbingly similar to Roman Catholicism in this regard, because they place final authority not in the New Testament writings but in their ideas of where that teaching was leading. Yet a Roman Catholic could argue that more reliable than their speculation on where the teaching was leading are the historical facts of where the teaching did lead. So the trajectory (which actually was fulfilled in church history) would look like this:

FROM JESUS' TEACHINGS	TO PAUL'S TEACHINGS	TO THE FINAL TARGET FOR THIS TRAJECTORY	APPLICATION TODAY
No local church officers or governing structure mentioned	Increased authority given to elders and deacons	World-wide authority given to the Pope, cardinals, and bishops	We should submit to the authority of the Pope and the Roman Catholic Church

The Reformation principle sola Scriptura was formulated to guard against the kind of procedure France and Thompson advocate, because the Reformers knew that once our authority becomes "Scripture plus some later developments" rather than "Scripture alone," the unique governing authority of Scripture in our lives is lost. On several grounds, then, this trajectory argument must be rejected as inconsistent with the view that "all Scripture is breathed out by God" (2 Tim 3:16), and

Every word of God proves true. . . .

Do not add to his words,

lest he rebuke you and you be found a liar

(Prov. 30:5-6).

6. Adopting William Webb's "Redemptive-Movement" Approach to Interpreting Scripture

A variation of the "trajectory hermeneutic" discussed in the previous section, one that contains a similar rejection of the authority of the New Testament writings for our lives today, is found in the redemptive-movement hermeneutic of William Webb. Webb says that the New Testament teachings on male headship in marriage and male leadership in the church were simply points along the path toward a superior ethic to that of the New Testament, an "ultimate ethic" toward which the New Testament was heading. Webb's book, Slaves, Women and Homosexuals: Exploring the Hermeneutics of Cultural Analysis, proposes a system that he calls a "redemptive-movement hermeneutic." Through his use of this system, Webb argues that the New Testament texts about male headship in marriage and male church leadership are culturally relative.

In contrast to many egalitarians who argue that the New Testament does not teach that wives should be subject to their husbands or that only men should be elders, Webb takes a different approach: he believes that the New Testament does teach these things for the culture in which the New Testament was written, but he claims that in today's culture the treatment of women is an area in which "a better ethic than the one expressed in the isolated words of the text is possible."⁶¹

Webb admits that the Old and New Testaments improved the treatment of women when compared with their surrounding cultures, but he says,

If one adopts a redemptive-movement hermeneutic, the softening of patriarchy (which Scripture itself initiates) can be taken a considerable distance further. Carrying the redemptive movement within Scripture to a more improved expression for gender relationships . . . [today] ends in either ultra-soft patriarchy or complementary egalitarianism.⁶²

Later in the book, Webb defines "ultra-soft patriarchy" as a position in which there are no unique leadership roles for men in marriage or in the church, but men are given "a certain level of symbolic honor."⁶³ He defines "complementary egalitarianism" as a system in which there is full interdependence and "mutual submission" within marriage, and the only differences in roles are "based upon biological differences between men and women," so that Webb would favor "a greater participation of women in the early stages of child rearing."⁶⁴ Thus, Webb's "ultra-soft patriarchy" differs from his "complementary egalitarianism" only in the slight bit of "symbolic honor" that ultra-soft patriarchy would still give to men.

Because of its detail, novelty, and the complexity of its approach, this book deserves to be taken seriously by complementarians. It is the most sophisticated version of a "trajectory hermeneutic" that has ever been published. However, because of concerns that are detailed below, I do not think the book succeeds in showing that male headship in the home and the church are culturally relative. Nor do I believe that the book provides a system for analyzing cultural relativity that is ultimately helpful for Christians to use today.⁶⁵

At first glance, it may not seem as though Webb "nullifies" the moral authority of the entire New Testament, because he agrees, for example, that homosexual conduct is morally wrong, and that the New Testament condemnations of homosexual conduct are transcultural.⁶⁶ He also affirms that the New Testament admonitions for children to be subject to their parents are transcultural.⁶⁷

The important point to realize is the basis on which Webb affirms that these commands are transcultural. Most evangelicals read a text such as, "Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right" (Eph 6:1), and conclude that children today are to obey their parents because the New Testament was written for Christians in the new covenant age (the time between Christ's death and his return). Most evangelicals reason similarly about the New Testament texts concerning homosexual conduct (see, for example, Rom 1:26-27; 1 Cor 6:9), and conclude that these are morally binding on us today, because we are part of the new covenant age and these texts were written to new covenant Christians.

But for Webb, the process is entirely different, and the basis of authority is different. The commands concerning children and homosexuals are binding on us today not because we are part of the new covenant age, for which the New Testament was written (I could not find such a consideration anywhere in Webb's book), but rather because these commands have passed through the filtering system of Webb's eighteen criteria and have survived. Actually, the command for children to obey their parents has not entirely survived his filtering process, because Webb believes the command means that adult children should continue to be obedient to their parents throughout their adult lives, but this aspect of the command was culturally relative and need not be followed by us today.⁶⁸

In this way, I believe it is fair to say that Webb's system invalidates the moral authority of the entire New Testament, at least in the sense that we today should be obedient to the moral commands that were written to new covenant Christians. Instead, only those commands are binding that have passed through his eighteen-part filter.

According to Webb's system, then, Christians can no longer go to the New Testament, read the moral commands in one of Paul's epistles, and obey them. That would be to use a "static hermeneutic" that just reads the "isolated words of the text" and fails to understand "the spirit-movement component of meaning which significantly transforms the application of texts for subsequent generations."⁶⁹ Rather, we must realize that the New Testament teachings simply represent one stage in a trajectory of movement toward an ultimate ethic.

So how can Christians discover this "ultimate ethic"? Webb takes the rest of the book to explain eighteen fairly complex criteria (to which he gives names such as "preliminary movement," "seed ideas," "breakouts," and "competing options") by which Christians must evaluate the commands of the Bible and thereby discover the more just, more equitable ethical system the Bible was heading toward. Once that ultimate ethic has been discovered, it becomes the moral standard we should follow and obey.

What this means in actual practice, then, is that the moral authority of the New Testament is completely nullified, at least in principle. There may be some New Testament commands that Webb concludes actually do represent an ultimate ethic, but even then we should obey them not because they are taught in the New Testament, but because Webb's system has found that they meet the criteria of his "ultimate ethic."

The implications of this for Christian morality are extremely serious. It means that our ultimate authority is no longer the Bible but Webb's system. Of course, he claims that the "redemptive spirit" that drives his hermeneutic is derived from the biblical text, but by his own admission this "redemptive spirit" is not the same as the teachings of the Bible. It is derived from Webb's analysis of the interaction between the ancient culture and the biblical text.

Someone may object at this point, "Doesn't everyone have to use some kind of cultural filter like this? Doesn't everyone have to test the New Testament commands to see if they are culturally relative or transcultural, before deciding whether to obey them?"

There is a significant difference in approach. Most evangelicals (including me) believe we are under the moral authority of the New Testament and are obligated to obey its commands when we are in the same situation as that addressed in the New Testament command (such as being a parent, a child, a person contemplating a divorce, a church selecting elders or deacons, a church preparing to celebrate the Lord's Supper, a husband, a wife, and so forth). When there is no exact modern equivalent to some aspect of a command (such as, "honor the emperor" in 1 Pet 2:17), we are still obligated to obey the command, but we do so by applying it to situations that are essentially similar. Therefore, "honor the emperor" is applied to honoring the president or the prime minister. In fact, in several such cases the immediate context contains pointers to broader applications (such as 1 Pet 2:13-14, which mentions being subject to "every human institution" including the "emperor" and "governors" as specific examples).

But with Webb the situation is entirely different. He does not consider the moral commands of the New Testament to represent a perfect or final moral system for Christians. They are rather a pointer that "provides the direction toward the divine destination, but its literal, isolated words are not always the destination itself. Sometimes God's instructions are simply designed to get his flock moving."⁷⁰

At the heart of Webb's system is what he calls a "redemptive-movement hermeneutic." He says that some may prefer calling his approach a "progressive" or "developmental" or "trajectory" hermeneutic, and he says that's fine. Webb explains his hermeneutic by what he calls "the X Y Z Principle." The letter Y indicates what the Bible says about a topic. Webb says, "The central position (Y) stands for where the isolated words of the Bible are in their development of a subject." The letter X represents "the perspective of the original culture," and the letter Z represents "an ultimate ethic," that is, God's final ideal that the Bible is moving toward.⁷¹

Therefore, what evangelicals have ordinarily understood to be the teaching of the Bible on particular subjects is in fact only a point along the way (indicated by letter Y) toward the development of a final or ultimate ethic (Z). Webb says,

The X Y Z Principle illustrates how numerous aspects of the biblical text were not written to establish a utopian society with complete justice and equity. They were written within a cultural framework with limited moves toward an ultimate ethic.⁷²

Therefore, Webb discovers a number of points where "our contemporary culture" has a better ethic than what is found in the Bible. Our culture has a better ethic today "where it happens to reflect a better social ethic-one closer to an ultimate ethic (Z) than to the ethic revealed in the isolated words of the biblical text."⁷³

Webb's approach to Scripture can also be seen in the way he deals with biblical texts regarding slavery. Most evangelical interpreters say that the Bible does not command or encourage or endorse slavery, but rather tells Christians who were slaves how they should conduct themselves, and also gives principles that would modify and ultimately lead to the abolition of slavery (1 Cor 7:21-22; Gal 3:28; Philemon 16, 21; and note the condemnation of "enslavers" at 1 Tim. 1:10, ESV, a verse that was previously overlooked in this regard because if was often translated "kidnappers"). However, Webb believes that the Bible actually endorses slavery, even though it is a kind of slavery with "better conditions and fewer abuses."⁷⁴

In claiming that the Bible endorses slavery, Webb shows no awareness of biblical anti-slavery arguments such as those of Theodore Weld in The Bible Against Slavery,⁷⁵ a book which was widely distributed and frequently reprinted by anti-slavery abolitionists in 19^th century America. Weld argued strongly against American slavery from Exodus 21:16, "He that stealeth a man and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death" (KJV) (13-15), as well as from the fact that men are in the image of God and therefore it is morally wrong to treat any human being as property (8-9, 15-17). He argued that ownership of another person breaks the eighth commandment, "Thou shalt not steal," as follows:

The eighth commandment forbids the taking of any part of that which belongs to another.

Slavery takes the whole. Does the same Bible which prohibits the taking of any thing from him, sanction the taking of every thing? Does it thunder wrath against the man who robs his neighbor of a cent, yet commission him to rob his neighbor of himself? Slaveholding is the highest possible violation of the eighth commandment" (10-11).

In the rest of the book Weld answered detailed objections about various verses used by slavery proponents. The whole basis of his book is that the moral standards taught in the Bible are right, and there is no hint that we have to move beyond the Bible's ethics to oppose slavery, as Webb would have us do.

By contrast to such anti-slavery crusaders who took the Bible's teachings as their ultimate authority, Webb claims that we need to move beyond the Bible to a higher ethic. Webb's redemptive-movement hermeneutic approaches the slavery question by saying that the original culture (X) approved of "slavery with many abuses." Second, the Bible (Y) endorses "slavery with better conditions and fewer abuses." However, Webb believes that on the issue of slavery "our culture is much closer to an ultimate ethic than it is to the unrealized ethic reflected in the isolated words of the Bible." Today, the ethic of our culture, which is superior to that of the Bible, has "slavery eliminated and working conditions often improved." Webb believes our culture is much closer to an "ultimate ethic" (Z) in which we will see "wages maximized for all."⁷⁶

At the end of the book, Webb recapitulates the results of his analysis regarding slavery:

Scripture does not present a "finalized ethic" in every area of human relationship. . . . to stop where the Bible stops (with its isolated words) ultimately fails to reapply the redemptive spirit of the text as it spoke to the original audience. It fails to see that further reformation is possible . . . . while Scripture had a positive influence in its time, we should take that redemptive spirit and move to an even better, more fully-realized ethic today.⁷⁷

Therefore, rather than saying that the New Testament does not endorse or command slavery, Webb believes that it does approve a system of slavery for the people at the time at which it was written. However, in its modifications and regulations of the institution of slavery, the Bible starts us along a trajectory which would lead to the ultimate abolition of slavery, though the New Testament never actually reaches that point.

When Webb claims that "A redemptive-movement hermeneutic has always been a major part of the historic church, apostolic and beyond,"⁷⁸ and therefore that all Christians believe in some kind of "redemptive-movement" hermeneutic, he fails to make one important distinction: Evangelicals have always held that the redemptive movement within Scripture ends with the New Testament! Webb carries it beyond the New Testament. To attempt to go beyond the New Testament documents and derive our authority from "where the New Testament was heading" is to reject the very documents God gave us to govern our life under the New Covenant until Christ returns. Webb's "trajectory hermeneutic" suffers from the same problems as the works of France and Thompson critiqued above.

Here is Webb's key explanation of how his system works to discover the "redemptive spirit" within a text:

The final and most important characteristic of a redemptive-movement hermeneutic is its focus on the spirit of a text. . . . The coinage "redemptive-movement hermeneutic" is derived from a concern that Christians apply the redemptive spirit within Scripture, not merely, or even primarily, its isolated words. Finding the underlying spirit of a text is a delicate matter. It is not as direct or explicit as reading the words on the page. In order to grasp the spirit of a text, the interpreter must listen for how the texts sounds within its various social contexts. Two life settings are crucial: the broader, foreign ancient Near Eastern and Greco-Roman (ANE/GR) social context and the immediate, domestic Israelite/church setting. One must ask, what change/improvement is the text making in the lives of people in the covenant community? And, how does the text influence the larger ANE/GR world? Through reflecting upon these social-setting questions the modern reader will begin to sense the redemptive spirit of the text. Also, a third setting permits one another way of discovering the redemptive spirit, namely, the canonical movement across various biblical epochs.⁷⁹

This paragraph is remarkable for the candor with which it reveals the subjective and indeterminate nature of Webb's ethical system. If the heart of the "most important characteristic" of his hermeneutic is discovered through "reflecting upon" the way the Bible interacts with ancient Near Eastern and Greco-Roman cultures, and through such reflection the interpreter will "begin to sense the redemptive spirit of the text," we have entered a realm so subjective that no two interpreters in the future will probably ever agree on where the "redemptive spirit of the text" that they are beginning to "sense" is leading, and what kind of "ultimate ethic" they should count as God's will for them. Ancient Near Eastern and Greek and Roman cultures were themselves diverse and complex, and different scholars will discover different trends and emphases in them. And then listening for "how the text sounds" within each culture is a process fraught with subjective judgments.

Those with a predisposition toward socialism will no doubt be delighted that Webb has begun to sense a redemptive spirit that will lead to "wages maximized for all."⁸⁰ But those more inclined to capitalism will no doubt begin to sense quite another redemptive spirit moving against the slavery and oppression of the ancient world, a redemptive spirit in which the dominant biblical themes of freedom and liberty and fair reward for one's labor lead to an "ultimate ethic" (Z) that encourages investment and a free enterprise system, one with maximization of profits for those worthy individuals who through their business activities best meet the material needs of mankind, and by the high quality of goods they produce for others best show that they love their neighbors as themselves.

No doubt Arminians will begin to sense the redemptive spirit of Arminianism moving against the fatalism of the ancient world in a much more Arminian direction than we find even in the New Testament. And Calvinists, through sober reflection upon the way the biblical text corrects the puny, weak gods in the Greek and Roman pantheon, will begin to sense the redemptive spirit of Calvinism moving through the New Testament toward an even higher emphasis on the sovereignty of God than we find in any current New Testament texts.

And on and on it will go. Baptists will begin to sense the redemptive spirit of believer's baptism as the New Testament corrects the all-inclusive nature of the religions of the ancient world, and paedobaptists will begin to sense the redemptive spirit of inclusion of infants in the covenant community, as the New Testament decisively corrects the neglect and abuse of children found in many ancient cultures. People seeking justification for their desire to obtain a divorce will begin to sense the redemptive spirit of more and more reasons for divorce, moving from the one reason that Jesus allowed (adultery-Matt 19:9), to the increasing freedom found in Paul (desertion by an unbeliever-1 Cor 7:15), to many more reasons for divorce as we move along a trajectory toward an "ultimate ethic" (Z) where everyone should be completely happy with his or her spouse.

Now Webb may object that these hypothetical "redemptive spirit" findings could not be derived from a responsible use of his eighteen criteria. However, I have lived in the academic world for over thirty years, and I have a great deal of confidence in the ability of scholars to take Webb's set of criteria and make a case for almost anything they want. Whether or not my examples are the result of a proper use of Webb's criteria, the point remains: the standard is no longer what the New Testament says, but rather the point toward which some biblical scholar thinks the Bible was moving. Webb's redemptive-movement hermeneutic nullifies in principle the moral authority of the entire New Testament.

Webb's denial of the moral authority of the New Testament means that his system is not a legitimate option for evangelicals whose final authority is the Bible itself, not some better system for which the New Testament was only one step along the way.

7. Claiming that everyone's position just depends on what verses people choose to prioritize

A different kind of problem is found when R. T. France, Stanley Grenz, and Sarah Sumner assert that our position on the roles of men and women simply depends on which verses we choose to emphasize, as if we were free to make such a decision to emphasize some verses and thereby have less obligation or no obligation to obey others. For example, R. T. France says,

We have seen that fundamental to this issue has been the question which among differing biblical texts or themes is considered to be basic. . . . Once we choose to begin at a given point, everything else will be viewed and interpreted in the light of that starting point. . . . There is no rule of thumb-that is precisely our problem. A judgment has to be made, and not all will make it in the same way. Probably we all have our ‘canon within the canon' (by which we mean those parts of Scripture with which we feel comfortable, and which say what we would like them to say) which we regard as ‘basic' But those instinctive preferences are normally derived from the tradition within which we have been brought up, rather than from an informed and principled choice made on the basis of the texts themselves.⁸¹

Stanley Grenz adopts a similar view in a section in his book titled "The Question of Hermeneutical Priority":

Yet one question remains: Which Pauline text(s) carry hermeneutical priority in our attempt to understand Paul's teaching about women in the church? Are we to look to the egalitarian principle the apostle set forth in Galatians 3:28 as the foundation for our understanding of the apostle's own position? Or do we begin with those passages which seem to place limitation on the service of women (1 Cor 11:3-16; 14:34-35; 1 Tim 2:11-15) and understand the Galatians text in the light of such restrictions?

Egalitarians often claim that Galatians 3:28 deserves hermeneutical priority. . . . At this point, egalitarians, and not complementarians, are on the right track. . . . The seemingly restrictive texts complementarians cite . . . cannot be universal rules but Paul's attempts to counter the abuses of specific situations.⁸²

Sarah Sumner says we have to decide "which verse(s) should take priority over the others," or "which verse stands in charge as the boss" (which she then calls the "boss verse").⁸³Elsewhere she claims that we disagree because "we bring so many assumptions to the text," and if we bring egalitarian assumptions we will find egalitarian teaching in the text, but if we bring complementarian assumptions, we will find complementarian teaching in the text.⁸⁴

But this is not the approach of complementarians, nor is it an approach toward Scripture that evangelicals should adopt. This approach essentially claims that various parts of the Bible teach different, self-contradictory positions, so people can just decide what position they want to find in Scripture and then go there and find it! In the end, rather than Scripture having authority over our lives, the result of this process is that we have authority over the Bible and we just go there to find what we want to find.

In contrast to this approach, nowhere in my writings (to take one example of a complementarian position) have I claimed that we must minimize or ignore so-called "egalitarian texts" on the basis of some kind of "hermeneutical priority" of other texts. I do not believe we should treat Scripture that way, because all of it is God's Word, and all of it is "profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness" (2 Tim 3:16). We must not minimize but treat these texts fairly and to remain subject to their authority, and this includes such "egalitarian texts" as Gal 3:28, and the passages about Deborah, Huldah, Phoebe, Priscilla, and Junia(s). Even if we studied all of these texts first and drew conclusions from them before we looked at any "complementarian texts" such as 1 Tim 2:12, these "egalitarian texts" would not lead us to affirm that women could have governing and teaching roles over New Testament churches. The texts would not lead us to affirm that because they do not teach that. They surely honor the valuable ministries of women and their equality in value and dignity, but they do not tell us that women could govern or teach a New Testament church.

But it is difficult to imagine that an egalitarian advocate could do the same with passages such as 1 Cor 14:33-36, 1 Tim 2:11-15, the passages about male elders, and the passages about the twelve male apostles. It would be difficult to believe that an egalitarian could begin with only those texts and reach the conclusion that all roles in the church are open to women as well as men, because these texts set a pattern that so clearly affirms just the opposite.

I am not saying that we all emphasize every verse of the Bible equally. There will always be passages that a pastor will emphasize more in his preaching and teaching (he will probably spend more time teaching from Romans or 1 Corinthians than from Leviticus, for example), but that is not because this pastor thinks that Romans is part of a "canon within the canon" or that it has more authority. It is rather because Leviticus was written to a situation we no longer find ourselves in, the situation of God's people in the old covenant who had to follow ceremonial rules and regulations. But the New Testament epistles are written to people in the same situation we are in today-members of the New Testament church who live after Jesus' resurrection and before his second coming. Preaching from Leviticus is worthwhile and also "profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness" (2 Tim 3:16), but its application to our situation is less direct and more difficult to understand, and it is not wrong to give it less emphasis in preaching than many of the New Testament books. This question of emphasis, however, is different from an egalitarian claim that implies we can decide to be subject to some parts of Scripture and not others.

I am troubled by the egalitarian claim that it all depends on what texts we choose as basic, because that suggests there are other texts we can decide do not apply to us today and do not have authority over us today. Once again, that position weakens the authority of Scripture in our lives.

The complementarian position does not "limit the application" of the so called "equality texts" in Scripture (such as Gal 3:28), but understands them to be limited by their own contexts and subject matter and wording. This is not wrongly understanding these texts, but is understanding them according to the principles by which we should understand all texts. And we understand these texts in a way that does not require them to nullify or contradict other texts about male leadership in the church.

The two positions are not the same in how they treat the texts they emphasize. Egalitarians wrongly limit the application of male leadership texts by saying they don't apply today to the very same kinds of situations they applied to when originally written (namely, conduct in the assembled church and the office of elder with governing authority over the church). But egalitarians wrongly expand the application of equality texts far beyond the kinds of situations they were originally written to address (as explained above, the "egalitarian texts" were not written to address situations of governing or teaching over the church).

By contrast, the complementarian position rightly applies the texts on male leadership to exactly the same kind of situations they applied to when originally written (governing and teaching God's people in the church). And the complementarian position rightly applies the "equality texts" to exactly the same kinds of situations they applied to when originally written (affirming all sorts of ministries for women except governing or teaching over the assembled church, and affirming the full dignity and value of women in God's sight and in the ministry of the church).

Thus, the two positions clearly differ in the way they interpret and apply biblical texts, not just in which texts they "choose as basic."

In fact, this egalitarian claim that first derives a principle of "equality" from Gal 3:28, and then uses that general principle to override the specific teaching of texts that talk about church leadership, looks dangerously similar to a procedure that has been used numerous times in the past to deny the authority of Scripture and allow all sorts of false doctrine into the church. For example, in the early part of the twentieth century, liberals routinely appealed to a vague general principle of the "love of God" (which surely can be found in many passages) in order to deny that God had any wrath against sin. And once they denied God's wrath, then it was easy to believe that all people everywhere would be saved (for God is a "God of love" and not of wrath). After that, it was also easy to believe that Jesus' death was not a substitutionary sacrifice for our sins-that is, he did not bear the wrath of God against our sins-but rather that his death was somehow an example for us. In this way a vague biblical principle ("God's love") was used to deny many specific passages of Scripture on the wrath of God and on Christ's death, and to deny a major doctrine such as substitutionary atonement.

This is similar to the egalitarian claim that the vague general principles of equality and fairness (as derived from Galatians 3:28) require that women have access to the same governing and teaching roles in the church that men do. In this way, vague general principles (equality, fairness) are also used to weaken or nullify specific verses of Scripture.

8. Silencing the Most Relevant Verses by Saying They Are "Disputed"

Another egalitarian method of effectively denying the authority of Scripture is one taken by egalitarian authors Cindy Jacobs, Sarah Sumner, and Rich Nathan, and also by the position paper of The Assemblies of God on "The Role of Women in Ministry." These egalitarians claim that it is not possible to figure out what the Bible teaches on this issue, so our decision must be made on the basis of observing what kinds of ministries are effective today. But this procedure effectively silences the ability of Scripture to speak to this controversy, so it is a different kind of rejection of the authority of Scripture. Cindy Jacobs writes,

As I've studied the so-called "difficult passages" about women, I have concluded that the differing interpretations are rather like that of teaching on end-time eschatology. Throughout the years I've heard excellent sermons on just about every position, all using Scripture, and all sounding as if they had merit!⁸⁵

A few pages later she affirms this principle regarding controversial passages of Scripture:

Controversial passages lacking consensus from godly people of different persuasions usually mean that the passages are not clear enough to resolve with certainty. Therefore we must be tolerant on [sic] different views on those passages.⁸⁶

A similar approach is taken by the Assemblies of God position paper on "The Role of Women in Ministry":

We all agree that Scripture must be our final authority in settling questions of faith and practice. But when born-again, Spirit-filled Christians, following proper hermeneutical principles, come to reasonable but differing interpretations, we do well not to become dogmatic in support of one position.⁸⁷

Sarah Sumner says,

We don't know how to translate 1 Timothy 2, much less interpret it correctly or apply it appropriately today. That's why this passage is so humbling; to some extent it has stumped us all, scholars and practitioners alike.⁸⁸

Rich Nathan writes,

It is not at all plain what Paul meant to communicate to his original readers, plus it is even less plain how Paul's words should be applied today . . . . My files include at least fifteen very different interpretations of 1 Timothy 2. . . . To summarize, there is no common agreement on what these individual words mean in 1 Timothy 2:9-15.⁸⁹

The heart of this approach is that sincere Christians like Cindy Jacobs, the leaders of the Assemblies of God, Sarah Sumner, and Rich Nathan are saying that they cannot reach a decision on the meaning of 1 Corinthians 14, 1 Timothy 2, and the passages that say elders are to be the husband of one wife.⁹⁰ It is important to recognize what this does in this debate. It effectively prevents these passages from speaking to this question. If someone says, "Don't talk to us about those passages because nobody can figure out what they mean anyway," then he has essentially said that those passages cannot play a role in his decision about this question. And that means that the passages that most directly speak to the question of women teaching and governing in the church are silenced and excluded from discussion on that very question.

In essence, this approach guarantees that a decision about women teaching and governing in the church will be made without reference to the passages in the Bible that speak most directly to the topic. It is hard to think of an approach more likely to lead to a wrong decision.

There is another serious problem with an approach that says we will not make decisions based on any "disputed" passages. If people really adopt this principle, they probably cannot rule out any major heresy in the church. In the fourth-century controversy over the deity of Christ, the Arians (who denied the full deity of Christ) were apparently godly people who disputed every major verse used by those who argued for the full deity of Christ. That meant that all the passages on the deity of Christ were "disputed verses," with godly, praying scholars on both sides of the question. In the debate over biblical inerrancy, "godly people" vigorously debate the key verses used to support inerrancy. The "Oneness Pentecostals" who deny the Trinity hotly dispute all the verses brought to support the Trinity.

I wonder how many who take this "avoid disputed passages" approach have ever tried to discuss justification by faith alone with a born-again Roman Catholic. Within the Roman Catholic church are "godly people" who make every verse on justification by faith alone a point of controversy. On this principle of "avoiding disputed passages," no Christian could ever come to any conclusion about whether to baptize infants because "godly people" differ on whether infants should be baptized, and every verse is in dispute! To take yet another matter, the matter of spiritual gifts, all the key passages about miraculous gifts are "disputed" by sincere Christians. Must we say about all those passages, "These are disputed passages and evangelical scholars will never reach agreement, therefore, we cannot use these passages to decide what we think about miraculous gifts today?"

Once we begin to use the "avoid disputed passages" approach, we lose the ability to use hundreds of verses in God's Word that he gave us to understand, to believe, and to obey. And when that happens, our churches will be "tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine" (Eph 4:14).

A better approach is to say that God has given us his Word so that it can be understood. Therefore we must pursue these "controversial texts" and follow the arguments on both sides, until we come to a satisfactory answer on what they mean. If a position is true to God's Word, it should not be based on "trust me" arguments from scholars who appeal to evidence that lay people cannot examine and evaluate, or who just quote the opinions of other authors to "prove" their points. Even when it involves arguments about Greek and Hebrew words, or ancient history, the evidence should be laid out in clear English, the examples of word usages should be given in English translation, and interested lay persons should be able to look at it and evaluate it for themselves, so that people can come to their own conclusions about what the Bible says.⁹¹

Much of the dispute on this question is not because the Scripture passages are difficult to understand. The "controversy" and "lack of consensus" over the key passages on women in ministry is in many cases caused by lack of information or by false statements being repeated again and again in egalitarian literature.

With regard to most of the crucial questions, the supporting evidence is not something that is restricted to the realm of specialist scholars with technical knowledge. Even in those cases where the argument depends on the meaning of a Greek or Hebrew word, the relevant evidence from ancient literature can usually be presented in a clear and forthright way (in English translation) so that interested lay people have an opportunity to make an informed decision.

Sadly, again and again I find that egalitarian interpretations are accepted not because people have actually seen the hard and fast evidence that proves these views to be valid, but rather because they have read the interpretation (not the actual evidence for it) in some evangelical writer whom they trust. What readers don't realize is that often these writers are depending on the statements of other writers, and those writers on yet other writers, or in a number of cases the egalitarian scholar is advocating an extremely doubtful theory about the evidence that no one has ever before held. But seldom is the actual evidence itself provided. In many cases, that is because it simply does not exist. In other cases, the egalitarian scholar who is trusted has promoted an unusual understanding of the ancient world or a novel interpretation held by no other expert in the field before or since, yet the lay person believes and trusts the egalitarian scholar while having no idea how strange that scholar's views actually are, or how widely what the egalitarian author claims wanders from the actual truth about the ancient world.⁹²

This consideration affects claims such as the idea that the Greek word for "head" could mean "source," the idea that Eph 5:21 teaches "mutual submission," the idea that there were women teaching false doctrine in Ephesus when Paul wrote 1 Timothy 2, the idea that the word translated "have authority over" in 1 Tim 2:12 can mean "commit murder" or "proclaim oneself the originator of a man," and so forth. For all of these points and more, there is no clear factual evidence from ancient literature (from word usage, similar grammatical constructions, etc.) to support the claims made. The necessary evidence does not exist and no egalitarian author has shown that it exists. Yet thousands of people are making decisions based on these claims because they think the relevant evidence really does exist. In many cases they are believing a myth.

To say that we should be tolerant of different views about the end times is understandable. Whether someone is an amillennialist or a premillennialist, or a pretribulational or posttribulational premillennialist, does not make very much difference in how he lives the Christian life. And since these views involve predictions of the future, they will continue to be impossible to resolve with certainty until the future arrives! It should not surprise us that God has left us with some aspects of mystery concerning the end times.

But the question of whether women should teach and govern churches is a different matter. Either we decide to have women pastors and elders or we do not. It is impossible to do both at the same time. Do we think this topic is something that God cares about? Do we think it is something that he counts as a matter of obedience to him? Or do we think that God does not really care what we do about this question?

The issue of roles of men and women in the church affects, to some degree, every Christian in the world, for it affects whom we choose as leaders in our churches, and it has a significant effect on what kinds of ministries the men and women in our churches carry out. When we say, "It is impossible to decide what the Bible teaches on this," we imply that God did not think this to be an important enough issue to give us clear guidance in his Word. We imply that God has left us instructions that are unclear or confusing on this issue. Do we really want to say this about God and his Word, on a topic that affects every church in the world every week of the year, for the entire church age until Christ returns?

I do not believe that this subject is unimportant to God. Nor do I believe that he has left instructions that are confusing or unclear. Yes, there is controversy about this matter today, but the controversy has come about because of other factors, not because God's Word is confusing or unclear.

Finally, there is one other difference between questions about the end times and questions about women's roles in the church. There have been controversies about the end times since the very early centuries of the church's history. But there have not been controversies about whether the roles of pastor and elder are reserved for men. Apart from a few sectarian movements, the entire Christian church from the first century until the 1850s agreed that only men could be pastors and elders, and the vast majority agreed that only men could do public Bible teaching of men and women. From the 1850s until the 1950s in the United States, women pastors were a tiny minority, but over 98 percent of evangelical churches (over 99 percent of the Christian church if Roman Catholic and Orthodox groups are included) had only men as pastors.⁹³Allowing women to be ordained began with some liberal Protestant denominations in the 1950s and spread to a number of evangelical groups under the influence of evangelical feminism in the 1970s and 1980s. Before the advent of evangelical feminist writings in the 1970s, today's "disputed passages" on women in ministry were not thought to be unclear. This matter is much different from disputes over the end times.

9. Saying that Women Can Teach "Under the Authority" of the Pastors or Elders

Another liberal tendency to reject the authority of Scripture in our lives is found in the claim that a woman may teach Scripture to men if she does so "under the authority of the pastor or elders." I say this is indicative of a liberal tendency because on no other area of conduct would we be willing to say that someone can do what the Bible says not to do as long as the pastor and elders give their approval.

This position is found frequently in evangelical churches. Many people who hold this position say they genuinely want to uphold male leadership in the church, and they are doing so when the woman teaches "under the authority of the elders," who are men (or of the pastor, who is a man).

This is not a commonly held view among egalitarian authors,⁹⁴ for they do not think only men should be elders, or that women need any approval from men to teach the Bible. But this view is often stated in phone calls or e-mails to The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood office, and I often hear it in personal conversations and discussions of church policies.

Is it really true that a woman is obeying the Bible if she preaches a sermon "under the authority of the pastor and elders"?

The question here is, what does the Bible say? It does not merely say, "Preserve some kind of male authority in the congregation." It does not say, "A woman may not teach men unless she is under the authority of the elders." Rather, it says, "I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man" (1 Tim 2:12).

Can a pastor or the elders of a church give a woman permission to disobey this statement of Scripture? Certainly not! Can a woman do what the Bible says not to do and excuse it by saying "I'm under the authority of the elders"? Would we say that the elders of a church could tell people "under their authority" that they have permission to disobey other passages of Scripture? What would we think of someone who said, "I'm going to rob a bank today because I need money and my pastor has given me permission, and I'm under his authority"? Or of a person who said, "I'm committing adultery because I'm unhappy in my marriage and my elders have given me permission, so I'm still under the authority of my elders"? Or of someone who said, "I'm committing perjury because I don't want to go to jail and my pastor has given me permission, and I'm under his authority"? We would dismiss those statements as ridiculous, but they highlight the general principle that no pastor or church elder or bishop or any other church officer has the authority to give people permission to disobey God's Word.

Someone may answer, "But we are respecting the Bible's general principle of male headship in the church." But Paul did not say, "Respect the general principle of male headship in your church." He said, "I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man" (1 Tim 2:12). We do not have the right to change what the Bible says and then obey some new "general principle of the Bible" we have made up.

Nor do we have the right to take a specific teaching of Scripture and abstract some general principle from it (such as a principle of "male headship") and then say that principle gives us the right to disobey the specific commands of Scripture that fall under that principle. We are not free to abstract general principles from the Bible however we wish, and then invent opinions about how those principles will apply in our situations. Such a procedure would allow people to evade any command of Scripture they were uncomfortable with. We would become a law unto ourselves, no longer subject to the authority of God's word.

We could try this same procedure with some other passages. Would we think it right to say that the Bible teaches that men should pray "without anger or quarreling, unless they quarrel under the authority of the elders?^" Or that women should adorn themselves "with modesty and self-control, unless the elders give them permission to dress immodestly?" Or would we say that those who are "rich in this present age" should "be generous and ready to share, unless the elders give them permission to be stingy and miserly?" (See 1 Tim 6:17-19). But if we would not add, "unless the elders give permission to do otherwise under their authority" to any of the other commands in Scripture, neither should we add that evasion to 1 Tim 2:12.

If a woman says, "I will teach the Bible to men only when I am under the authority of the elders," she has become no different from men who teach the Bible. No man in any church should teach the Bible publicly unless he also is under the authority of the elders (or pastor, or other church officers) in that church. The general principle is that anyone who does Bible teaching in a church should be subject to the established governing authority in that church, whether it is a board of elders, a board of deacons, a church governing council, or the church board. Both men and women alike are subject to that requirement. Therefore this "under the authority of the elders" position essentially says there is no difference between what men can do and what women can do in teaching the Bible to men.

Do we really think that is what Paul meant? Do we really think that Paul did not mean to say anything that applied only to women when he said, "I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man" (1 Tim 2:12)?

10. Evading New Testament Commands Regarding a Specific Activity by Saying, "We Are Not a Church"

And yet another liberal tendency is the claim that since an organization is not a church, it does not have to follow the New Testament commands regarding such activities as women teaching the Bible to men. The reason I say this is indicative of a liberal tendency to avoid the authority of Scripture is that, while we may agree that parachurch organizations are not required to do everything that the New Testament commands for churches, nevertheless, when a parachurch organization does those same things that the New Testament talks about for churches, it is required to follow the same rules that the New Testament lays down for churches. It is not as if we can set up a separate organization next door to a church and then say that the rules no longer apply to us.

This is another argument that is not usually made by egalitarian writers, because to make this argument someone has to assume that the New Testament restrictions on women in ministry do apply to a church situation. That is an assumption egalitarians are not willing to make.

But this argument is frequently made by people who claim to be complementarian and say they support male headship in the home and the church. Yet they say because they are part of a parachurch organization (such as a seminary, a mission board, or a campus ministry), the New Testament teachings on women not teaching or having authority over men do not apply to their organization. I have listed this argument here as an "egalitarian claim" because it often functions in practice to advance egalitarian goals and to encourage women to function in ways contrary to New Testament teachings. It is thus a kind of "closet egalitarian" argument.

To respond to this argument it is necessary to point out, first, that there is some truth in the argument, but it is not the whole truth. There is some truth regarding some kinds of New Testament commands, but it is not the whole truth regarding the commands relating to women's roles in ministry situations.

The truth in this argument is that parachurch organizations do not function in every way as churches do. Take, for example, some of the parachurch organizations I have been involved with. As far as I know, Phoenix Seminary, where I teach, has never

baptized anyone
ordained anyone to the ministry
conducted a wedding or a funeral for anyone
held morning Sunday school classes for children
held Sunday morning worship services

Nor does Christian Heritage Academy of Northbrook, Illinois, a Christian school that my children attended, do such things. Nor does Multnomah Publishers. Nor does the Evangelical Theological Society, a professional academic society of which I have been a member of for many years. As a general practice, I do not think these activities are carried out by Campus Crusade for Christ or Focus on the Family or Promise Keepers or The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. These are all "parachurch" organizations in that they serve special purposes alongside the work of the church, and there are some "church" activities they do not do. If asked why they do not do these things, they will probably answer, "Because we are not a church."

But that is not the whole story. In another sense, there is only one church, the worldwide Body of Christ, and these organizations are all part of it. They are just not part of any one local church or any one denomination.

In addition, these organizations seek to obey many commands that were first written to churches. They don't say, "First Corinthians was written to a church, and we are not a church, so we don't have to obey 1 Corinthians." All these organizations would probably think it important to follow the procedures of Matthew 18:15-17 in dealing with cases where one person sins against another. But these instructions assume they will be carried out by a church: "If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church" (Matt 18:17).

The same is true of mission boards If their missionaries baptize new converts they will think it important for the missionaries to obey the New Testament teachings on baptism (and not baptize people indiscriminately whether they profess faith or not, for example).⁹⁵ They do not say, "We are not a church, so we don't have to follow the New Testament teachings about baptism, which were written to a church."

All of the New Testament epistles were written to churches (or to individuals such as Timothy and Titus and Philemon who were involved in local churches). Therefore the argument that "we are not a church, so we don't need to follow the instructions written to churches," taken to its logical conclusion, would mean that parachurch organizations do not have to obey anything written in the entire New Testament! Surely that conclusion is wrong.

How then can we know when "we are not a church" is a valid reason and when it is not? I think the answer will be found as we look at a number of cases where the statement "we are not a church" is a good reason, and a number of other cases where it is not a good reason.

What follows is a list of some New Testament commands to churches (left column) and some examples of parachurch organizations that should not be expected to follow those commands (right column).

New Testament command	Parachurch organization that would not follow this command
Hebrews 10:25-"not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near."	The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, whose members "meet together" once a year. (But going to church once a year is hardly the frequency of attendance this verse has in mind.)
Hebrews 13:17-"Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account."	The Evangelical Theological Society, a professional academic society. (When I was president in 1999, I don't think any of the twenty-five hundred members obeyed me for the entire year, or even considered it an option! Nor did I think that I had pastoral responsibility for their spiritual condition, as this verse assumes leaders will have in local churches.)
1 Corinthians 14:26-"When you come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation."	My "Introduction to Theology" class at Phoenix Seminary, where I, not all the students, do the teaching when we "come together."
1 Timothy 3:2-"Therefore an overseer must be. . .the husband of one wife"	Bible Study Fellowship, an organization run entirely by women. (They do not require any of their leaders to be the "husband of one wife"!)

Titus 1:5-"This is why I left you in Crete, so that you might put what remained into order, and appoint elders in every town as I directed you"	Multnomah Publishers, a book publisher that has no intention of trying to appoint elders in every town in which they sell books, or even in every town in which they have employees.
Matthew 28:19-"Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit"	Focus on the Family, a worldwide ministry through radio and other media (they do not attempt to baptize anyone who listens to their programs or calls them for advice, but they expect local churches to do that).

The following chart contains another list of New Testament commands (left column) and some examples of ways parachurch organizations should not ignore or disobey these commands, but should obey them (right column).

New Testament command	Example of situation where a parachurch organization should obey this command
1 Corinthians 11:27-"Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup."	Whenever members of a parachurch organization celebrate the Lord's Supper. (For example, if the teachers and administrators of a Christian school celebrate the Lord's Supper at a retreat, they should not say, "We are not a church, so we don't have to follow this command, and people don't have to examine their lives before partaking.")
1 Corinthians 14:40-"But all things should be done decently and in order."	Whenever a group of Christians meets for worship, prayer, and study of the Bible. (For example, members of a Campus Crusade prayer meeting should not say, "All kinds of disorder and irreverent behavior are fine here, since we are not a church.")
1 Timothy 2:8-"I desire then that in every place the men should pray. . . without anger or quarreling"	Whenever men, or men and women, meet to pray in a group. (For example, a Promise Keepers prayer group should not say, "Anger and quarreling are OK here, since we are not a church").
1 Timothy 2:9-"likewise also that women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control"	Whenever a group of Christian men and women meet to pray (For example, members of an InterVarsity prayer meeting on a college campus should not say, "It's OK for women to dress immodestly here, and not to show self-control, since we are not a church.")
1 Thessalonians 5:20-21-"Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast what is good."	Whenever a group of Christians allows the gift of prophecy to function. (For example, a charismatic prayer group meeting at Regent University in Virginia Beach should not say, "We do not have to test prophecies, since we are not a church.")
1 Corinthians 14:27-28-"If any speak in a tongue, let there be only two or at most three, and each in turn, and let someone interpret. But if there is no one to interpret, let each of them keep silent in church and speak to himself and to God."	Whenever a group of Christians allows the gift of tongues to function. (For example, leaders of a charismatic worship service on some college campus should not say, "We are not a church, so it's OK if we have many messages in tongues with no interpretation.")
1 Timothy 3:2-3-"Therefore an overseer must be. . . sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable. . . not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money."	Whenever a parachurch organization chooses people for leadership positions. (For example, Campus Crusade for Christ should not say, "We can have staff members who are quarrelsome, violent, and occasionally get drunk, because we are not a church.")

2 Timothy 2:24-25-"And the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth"

Whenever a parachurch organization puts people in a teaching position. (For example, the leaders of Walk Thru the Bible should not say, "We can hire Bible teachers who are impatient and quarrelsome and harsh with people because we are not a church.")

In each of these cases, the members of a parachurch organization would be likely to use the very verses I quoted in the left column to correct any such abuses that might arise, even though all of those verses were written to a church, not to a parachurch organization.

What makes the difference then? How can we know when a New Testament command applies to a parachurch organization and when it does not? I think the solution is not a complex one, but is fairly straightforward.

The principle that allows us to distinguish between commands that parachurch organizations should obey and those they do not need to obey is a simple one. It is a general principle that Christians often use, sometimes even instinctively, in the application of Scripture to all of life. The principle is that we should obey the command when we are doing the same activity, or a very similar activity, as the command is talking about.

Therefore, Multnomah Publishers should not "appoint elders in every town" (Titus 1:5) where it sells books because it is not planting churches in a region, as Paul and Titus were. On the other hand, if a mission organization is planting churches in a region, it should make plans for how it could "appoint elders in every town" by raising up indigenous Christian leaders. Similarly, the Evangelical Theological Society might never celebrate the Lord's Supper at one of its meetings. But if it did decide to celebrate the Lord's Supper, then it should follow Paul's directions in 1 Corinthians 11.

The principle then is simple: Parachurch organizations should follow New Testament commands written to churches when those organizations are doing the same activities that the command is talking about.

How then does that conclusion apply to women's roles in parachurch ministries?

With all of the thousands of parachurch organizations in the world today, and the hundreds of thousands of activities carried out by those organizations, situations will vary widely. Before any decisions are made, leaders in each organization will need to ask for God's wisdom, according to James 1:5-8, in order to understand how their situations are similar to or different from the situations and activities found in the New Testament. Although in some cases it will be difficult at first to say how much the situation is similar and how much it is different, I believe in most cases the application of this principle will be quite clear.

Teaching the Bible to an assembled group of men and women is so much like the situation Paul had in mind when he said, "I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet" (1 Tim 2:12), that only men should do this. I believe that such a principle should apply not only to meetings in local churches, but also to Bible conferences, weekend retreats, and annual meetings held by parachurch organizations or denominations. For similar reasons, I do not think it appropriate for women to hold Bible teaching positions in Christian colleges and seminaries, because this responsibility is very similar to the Bible teaching role of elders in the New Testament, or even to the role of a mature, senior elder training younger elders.

The activities and responsibilities that a military chaplain carries out are not significantly different from the activities and responsibilities carried out by a pastor/elder in a local church. Therefore, just as ordination to the pastorate is restricted to men, so appointment to the military chaplaincy, to be consistent, should also be restricted to men.⁹⁶ However, if there are military chaplaincy roles that do not involve Bible teaching or governing authority over groups of Christian men, then such roles are appropriate for women as well as men.

A member of an elder board in a church has great responsibility for the lives, conduct, and spiritual well-being of members of the church. Christians are to "be subject" to the elders (1 Pet 5:5), and the author of Hebrews says, "Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account" (Heb 13:17).

But the member of a parachurch governing board has authority over an organization, and over certain activities that people carry out within that organization, not over the entire lives of the members. So, for example, I consider myself to be subject to the authority of my pastor and the elders at Scottsdale Bible Church (of which I am a member), but I don't think of my life as subject to the authority of the governing board of The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (of which I am also a member). And the members of the board of a Christian school have authority over the school and its activities, but they do not have elder-like authority over the lives of the parents who make up the association that owns that school.⁹⁷ In fact, if an employee of a parachurch organization is involved in conduct that brings reproach on the organization (for example, if a Christian school teacher were discovered in sexual immorality), the organization would dismiss the employee, but the elder board at the teacher's church, not the school board, would pursue church discipline for that teacher.

Therefore when Paul says, "I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man," the kind of authority he has in mind is sufficiently different from the kind of authority a governing board member generally has in parachurch organizations, and the argument, "We are not a church" is a helpful distinction in this situation.

To take a somewhat different example, the person serving as the academic dean in a theological seminary is supervising a number of men (the male faculty members) in their Bible teaching ministry. He does "exercise authority" over these men with respect to what they teach and their conduct as they teach and relate to students and to each other. His role is very much like that of a pastor or elder to these faculty members, and therefore it is appropriate for only men to have this role.⁹⁸

To take another example, the campus director of a parachurch ministry on a college campus (such as Campus Crusade or Inter Varsity) has a supervisory authority over the other staff members on that campus that is very similar to the role of a pastor or elder in a church, especially as the pastor or elder supervises other ministry activities in the church. Therefore it is not appropriate for a woman to have the role of campus director and "exercise authority" in such a direct way over the men in that ministry. That would be doing what Paul said not to do.

On the other hand, supervisory positions in other types of organizations may be different. Are these roles mostly like the role of a pastor or elder, overseeing and supervising people's whole lives as they minister to others? Or are they more like the role of a supervisor in a secular workplace, overseeing only specific kinds of on-the-job activities? It will require godly wisdom to decide in each situation.

The commands in the New Testament do not say that Christians should follow them "only in church settings." This is a crucial point. Some New Testament commands do not apply to parachurch organizations not because they are not churches, but because they are not performing the activity mentioned in those commands. The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood may never observe the Lord's Supper together, and therefore they will not have to follow the New Testament directions for the Lord's Supper. But if they ever do observe the Lord's Supper, then they will have to follow those commands. Whether CBMW is a church is not the crucial point. The crucial point is whether that organization is carrying out an activity for which the New Testament gives commands.

We must continue to insist strongly that the New Testament applies to all Christians in all societies and all cultures and all situations. Its commands are valid whenever Christians carry out the activities included in those commands. I cannot imagine the Apostle Paul writing to the Corinthians, "Follow these instructions if you are doing this as part of the church in Corinth, but if you are doing this as part of a Christian organization outside the church, then you do not have to obey my commands." The New Testament never speaks that way, or hints at any such way to "escape" from being accountable to obey it. This should make us reject any claims that allow us to ignore New Testament commands that speak to the same kind of situations we are in. Otherwise, the "we are not a church" argument will function as a "closet egalitarian" argument that will effectively nullify the authority of Scripture to govern this area of our lives.

11. Putting Church Tradition Above the Bible

A different kind of rejection of the Bible's ultimate authority is found in the view of Kevin Giles that theological differences cannot be settled by appealing to the Bible, so the historical tradition of the church must be the basis for our decisions. In his book The Trinity and Subordinationism,⁹⁹ Giles explicitly tells readers that he will not argue his case from Scripture:

In seeking to make a response to my fellow evangelicals who subordinate the Son to the Father, I do not appeal directly to particular scriptural passages to establish who is right or wrong. . . . I seek rather to prove that orthodoxy rejects this way of reading the Scriptures.¹⁰⁰

Giles has a reason for not appealing to Scripture: he does not think that citing verses from the Bible can resolve theological questions in general. He thinks that the Bible can be read in different ways, and even though "given texts cannot mean just anything," he says that "more than one interpretation is possible."¹⁰¹

Giles even admits that it is possible to find evidence for the eternal subordination of the Son in Scripture: "I concede immediately that the New Testament can be read to teach that the Son is eternally subordinated to the Father."¹⁰² But for him that is not decisive, because, as he tells us at the outset, "This book is predicated on the view that the Bible can often be read in more than one way, even on important matters."¹⁰³ Giles's fundamental approach should disturb evangelicals, for it means that appeals to Scripture can have no effect in his system. He can just reply, "Yes, the Bible can be read that way, but other readings are possible." And thus the voice of God's Word is effectively silenced in the church.

How then does Giles think we should find out which view is right? The answer is found in church history: "In relation to the doctrine of the Trinity my argument is that the tradition should prescribe the correct reading."¹⁰⁴ For Giles then the tradition of the church becomes the supreme authority, an approach similar to Roman Catholicism but contradictory to the Reformation doctrine of sola Scriptura ("Scripture alone"), and contrary to beliefs of evangelical Protestants.

Finally, it should be noted that Giles's understanding of the historic view of the church on the Trinity is deeply flawed. He continually blurs the distinction between the heresy of subordinationism (the view that the Son had a lesser being than the Father) and the orthodox view that the Son had a subordinate role but was equal in his being (this he also calls subordinationism, making the book simply a contribution to confusion on this topic) (16-17, 60-69). He even equates modern complementarians with ancient Arians who denied the deity of the Son (66). An extensive and insightful review of Giles' book by Peter Schemm also points out several significant inaccuracies in Giles's reporting of the views of others, so his book should be read with caution.¹⁰⁵

12. Putting Experience Above the Bible

Another procedure egalitarians use to avoid obedience to the New Testament directions concerning men and women is to place such a strong emphasis on experience that the teachings of Scripture no longer are the highest authority. This occurs when egalitarians such as Cindy Jacobs say that God's blessing on the ministries of women pastors shows that what they are doing is right, and therefore objections based on what Scripture teaches are discarded. Jacobs argues,

Women in numerous different ministries teach both men and women and are producing godly, lasting fruit for the Kingdom. Would that be happening if their work wasn't sanctioned by God? Wouldn't their ministries simply be dead and lifeless if God weren't anointing them?¹⁰⁶

In personal conversation, people will sometimes say, "I heard Anne Graham Lotz preach and it changed my mind about women preaching." Or they will hear Beth Moore preach at a conference and think, "This is such good Bible teaching. How can it be wrong?" But is this reasoning true? Does the evident blessing of God on some women pastors prove that what they are doing is right?

It is not surprising to me that there is some measure of blessing when women act as pastors and teach the Word of God, whether in a local congregation, at a Bible conference, or before a television audience. This is because God's Word is powerful, and God brings blessing through his Word to those who hear it. But the fact that God blesses the preaching of his Word does not make it right for a woman to be the preacher.

God is a God of grace and there are many times when he blesses his people even when they disobey him.

One example where God brought blessing in spite of disobedience is the story of Samson in Judges 13-16. Even though Samson broke God's laws by taking a Philistine wife (Judges 14), sleeping with a prostitute at Gaza (Judges 16:1-3), and living with Delilah, a foreign woman he had not married (Judges 16:4-22), God still empowered him mightily to defeat the Philistines again and again. This does not mean that Samson's sin was right in God's sight, but only that God in his grace empowered Samson in spite of his disobedience. Eventually God's protection and power were withdrawn, "but he did not know that the Lord had left him" (Judges 16:20), and the Philistines captured and imprisoned him (v. 21).

If God waited until Christians were perfect before he brought blessing to their ministries, there would be no blessing on any ministry in this life! God's grace is given to us in spite of our failings. But that does not mean that it is right to disobey Scripture, or that God will always give such blessing.

If a woman goes on serving as an elder or pastor, I believe she is doing so outside the will of God, and she has no guarantee of God's protection on her life. By continuing to act in ways contrary to Scripture, she puts herself spiritually in a dangerous position. I expect that eventually even the measure of blessing God has allowed on her ministry will be withdrawn (though I cannot presume that this will be true in every case).

One example of this is the tragic story of Aimee Semple McPherson (1890-1944) at the end of her ministry. Ruth Tucker recounts the story as follows:

Aimee Semple McPherson, one of the most celebrated evangelists in the early decades of the twentieth century . . . was a crowd-pleaser who played up to her audiences with a dramatic flair, never seeming too concerned that her eccentricities might demean the cause of Christ. Nor was she particularly careful about her personal life: she left her first husband to go on the road as an itinerant evangelist, later remarried, and finally claimed to have been kidnapped-a story challenged by reporters, who insisted that she was hiding out with another man. . . . She cannot be excused for apparent moral lapses . . . but her ministry does demonstrate the power of God that often prevails despite sin and failure.¹⁰⁷

There is no doubt that God accomplished much good through Aimee Semple McPherson, including the founding of the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel and of her church, the 5,300-seat Angeles Temple in Los Angeles. C. M. Robeck says, "She was undoubtedly the most prominent woman leader Pentecostalism has produced to date."¹⁰⁸ She was perhaps the most prominent woman leader in the entire history of Christianity in America.

But there was much personal tragedy after she began preaching widely around 1915, including a divorce in 1921, the scandal of her disappearance while swimming off Venice Beach in 1926, followed by her subsequent discovery in Mexico a month later and allegations (never proven but widely believed) about an affair with a former employee, a nervous breakdown in 1930, another failed marriage in 1931, and death from "an apparently accidental overdose of a medical prescription" in 1944.¹⁰⁹

Arguments based on experience are seldom conclusive. Even today, in the strongly egalitarian popular culture of the United States, by far the largest and most successful ministries (by any measure), the ministries that seem to have been most blessed by God, have men as senior pastors. Even those few large evangelical churches that have women as part of their pastoral team (such as Willow Creek Community Church) have a man (such as Bill Hybels) as the senior pastor and men do most of the preaching. And evangelical churches with women pastors are few in comparison to the large number of churches that have only men as pastors and elders.

This fact should not be lightly dismissed. If it really were God's ideal for men and women to share equally in eldership and pastoral leadership roles, then at some point in the last two thousand years, and especially today, would we not expect to see a remarkable blessing of God on some churches that have an equal number of men and women as elders and that share the main Bible teaching responsibilities equally between men and women pastors? If this is God's ideal, then why have we never seen God's evident blessing on such a church even once throughout the millions of churches that have existed in the last two thousand years?

Liberal denominations that ordain women pastors have continually declined in membership and income. Historian Ruth Tucker summarizes this trend:

The role of women in the church in the twentieth century will perplex future historians. . . . Those historians who dig deeper will discover that the mainline churches that were offering women the greatest opportunities were simultaneously declining in membership and influence. Some of these churches, which once had stood firm on the historic orthodox faith, were becoming too sophisticated to take the Bible at face value. The gains that have been made, then, are mixed at best.¹¹⁰

Tucker's assessment can be supported by observing the membership trends in the large liberal denominations that have been the strongest proponents of women's ordination:¹¹¹


Denomination	1971	1980	1990	2000
American Baptist Church
	1,693,423	1,922,467	1,873,731	1,767,462
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
	5,500,687	5,273,662	5,226,798	5,113,418
Episcopal Church
	3,024,724	2,823,399	2,445,286	2,314,756
Presbyterian Church - USA
	4,649,440	4,012,825	3,553,335	3,141,566
United Methodist Church
	11,535,986	11,552,111	11,091,032	10,350,629

Not all the churches in those denominations have women pastors, of course. And not all of the individual congregations within those denominations have adopted a liberal view of the Bible. Therefore this information must be used with caution. Anecdotal evidence that people have told me over the years suggests that a detailed study of those denominations would show that within those denominations the congregations that have grown the most also have the most conservative views of the Bible and have resisted the trend to have women pastors, but I do not have actual data to prove this (and I am sure that people could point to individual exceptions).¹¹² In any case, the argument that churches must ordain women pastors in order to do effective evangelism and grow in modern society simply is not supported by the evidence.

When people say there is "much blessing" from the ministries of women pastors, I do not think they are able to see all the consequences. Once a woman pastor and women elders are installed in a church, several other consequences will follow:

(1) Many of the most conservative, faithful, Bible-believing members of the church will leave, convinced that the church is disobeying Scripture and that they cannot in good conscience support it any longer.¹¹³

(2) Some of those who stay will still believe that the Bible teaches that women should not be elders, but they will support the leadership of the church. Many of them will think that the leaders they respect are encouraging a practice of disobedience to Scripture, and this will tend to erode people's confidence in Scripture and other areas as well.

(3) Those who are persuaded that the Bible allows women as pastors will usually accept one or more of the methods of interpretation I discussed in previous chapters, methods that tend to erode and undermine the effective authority of Scripture in our lives. Therefore, they will be likely to adapt such methods in evading the force of other passages of Scripture in the future.

(4) A church with female elders or pastors will tend to become more and more "feminized"¹¹⁴ over time, with women holding most of the major leadership positions and men constituting a smaller and smaller percentage of the congregation.

(5) Male leadership in the home will also be eroded, for people will reason instinctively if not explicitly that if women can function as leaders in the family of God, the church, then why should women not be able to function as well as men in leadership roles in the home? This influence will not be sudden or immediate, but will increase over time.

All this is to say that the "evident blessing" that God gives when women preach the Bible is not the only result of such preaching. There are negative consequences as well.

What is right and wrong must be determined by the Bible, not by our experiences or our evaluation of the results of certain actions. Determining right and wrong by means of results is often known as "the end justifies the means." It is a dangerous approach to take in ethical decisions, because it so easily encourages disobedience to Scripture.

In 1966, Joseph Fletcher published Situation Ethics: The New Morality.¹¹⁵ He argued that people at times needed to break God's moral laws in the Bible in order to do the greatest good for the greatest number of people. But as these ideas worked their way through American society, the "new morality" of Fletcher's situation ethics brought about a tremendous erosion of moral standards and widespread disobedience to all of God's moral laws.

If I say that women should be pastors because it brings good results, even if the Bible says otherwise, then I have simply capitulated to situation ethics. What is right and wrong must be determined by the teachings of Scripture, not by looking at the results of actions that violate Scripture and then saying those actions are right.

J. I. Packer explains that one of the characteristics of theological liberalism is "an optimistic view of cultured humanity's power to perceive God by reflecting on its experience."¹¹⁶ Thus, experience rather than the Bible becomes the ultimate standard in theology. If we decide that women and men can have all the same roles in the church primarily because we have seen blessing on the work of women preachers and Bible teachers, such an egalitarian argument leads us toward theological liberalism.

I am not saying that experience or personal testimonies should be disregarded as we think about the teachings of the Bible. But experience and personal testimony can never prove something contrary to what the Bible teaches. If we begin to go in that direction, then we leave ourselves wide open to accepting such practices as praying to the saints based on some people's belief that those prayers have been answered, or accepting arguments and testimonies claiming that Christians should always be "healthy and wealthy," based on the experiences of some who teach this. Basing our doctrine on experience alone can lead us in any direction.

During the present controversy over women in leadership roles in the church, God has continued to allow a measure of blessing (for a time at least) on some churches that have women pastors and women elders, and on women who teach the Bible to congregations of men and women. This gives us an opportunity to decide whether we will follow his Word or allow ourselves to be led away from his Word by experiences that seem to bring blessing to people. Though not everyone will agree with me at this point, I believe this is a test of our faithfulness to God and to his Word in our generation. Eventually the consequences of each decision will become plain.

13. Putting a Subjective Sense of "Calling" Above the Bible

In a similar way, a liberal tendency to reject the authority of Scripture is seen whenever egalitarians claim that if a woman has a genuine call from God for a pastoral ministry, we have no right to oppose that call, and so the teachings of Scripture on this topic are nullified. This argument is often made by women who believe that God has called them to become pastors. Millicent Hunter, whom Charisma magazine identifies as "pastor of 3,000-member Baptist Worship Center in Philadelphia," says that the current generation of women ministers is emerging with more boldness. "They are coming out of the woodwork with an ‘I don't care what you think; this is what God called me to do' type of attitude."¹¹⁷

Sarah Sumner insists that God called her to be a theology professor:

I didn't ask God to grant me the grace to enter seminary and complete my doctoral work. That was his idea. He designed the plan; he's the one who saw me through.¹¹⁸

She encourages other women to follow God's calling no matter what others may say:

It is not Anne Graham Lotz's spiritual obligation to sit down with the leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention and convince them that God gave her as a preacher. . . . If God gave her as a preacher, then she is a preacher, even if someone claims that that's impossible. . . . You are who you are no matter what. . . . God decides your calling. God decides your spiritual giftedness. . . . If the Spirit of God has given you as a pastor, you are a pastor, even if you're not employed as one.¹¹⁹

The following statement from a personal letter is typical of many that come to the office of The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood:

What will they answer, when before the throne of God, as to exactly why they didn't permit one that the Lord Himself called to teach, even a woman? . . . Am I any less called by God to do according to His purpose in my life because I am a woman?

Is this argument persuasive? Does God actually call some women to preach and teach his Word to men and women alike? Does he call some women to be pastors and elders?

God never calls people to disobey his Word. Our decision on this matter must be based on the objective teaching of the Bible, not on some person's subjective experience, no matter how godly or sincere that person is. This egalitarian claim is another form of the question, "Will we take Scripture or experience as our ultimate guide?"

I agree that people may have subjective experiences of God's presence and blessing that are genuine and real. But it is easy to make a mistake in understanding the meaning of those experiences. If a woman finds God's blessing and anointing when she preaches, then does that mean God is calling her to be a pastor, or does it mean that he is calling her to teach the Bible to women, in accordance with his Word, and that he will give much blessing in that task? If we had only the subjective experience alone to go on, it would be impossible to be certain that we had reached the right answer, because we would have only our own human interpretations of the event, not an interpretation given in God's own words.

What a woman perceives as a call from God to a pastoral ministry may be a genuine call to some other full-time ministry that is approved by Scripture. Many ministries that include Bible teaching are open to women. It may be that a strong sense of calling from God is in fact a calling from God to these kinds of ministries.

14. Putting Contemporary Prophecies Above the Bible

Another tendency leading toward a theologically liberal rejection of the supreme authority of Scripture is the claim of Cindy Jacobs and others who affirm that many contemporary prophecies are saying that God wants women to teach and preach to both sexes, or to be in pastoral leadership roles, and so the contemporary prophecies take precedence over the teaching of Scripture. Jacobs, who speaks widely in charismatic and Pentecostal circles, writes,

Of one thing I am certain: God is calling women today in a greater way than He ever has before. Major prophetic voices are prophesying all around the world that this is the time to find a way to release women into the ministry.¹²⁰

Even if there are prophecies from other Christians saying that a certain woman is gifted in Bible teaching, or even that she should become a pastor or elder, this does not mean we should accept these as genuine words from God. Paul commands that when Christians allow prophecies in the church, they are to "test everything" and to "hold fast what is good" (1 Thess 5:20-21). This implies that some prophecies, and some things in some prophecies, are not good. Mature charismatic and Pentecostal leaders recognize that it is difficult, even for someone who has a prophetic gifting and has used it effectively for many years, to be sure whether any specific prophecy is from God, and whether all of it or just parts of it are from God. This is why Paul adds a provision for testing by others who hear the prophecy, both in 1 Thess 5:20-21 and in 1 Cor 14:29.¹²¹ Prophecies must be tested especially for their conformity to Scripture.

The people who give prophecies saying it is time to release women into ministries of teaching and having authority over men may be sincere, committed Christians. But it is possible for sincere, committed Christians to make mistakes, and even to be led astray by their own desires or by evil spirits masquerading as "angels of light" and giving a subjective impression that feels so much like a genuine prophetic impulse: "even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness" (2 Cor 11:14-15).

The only safe way to guard against this is to test prophecies by Scripture. Prophecies that contradict Scripture are in error. We return to the fundamental question: What does the Bible teach? No genuine prophecy from the Holy Spirit is going to lead people to contradict or disobey his Word.

15. Putting Unique Circumstances Above the Bible

Yet another rejection of the ultimate authority of Scripture is found in claims like that of John Arnott of the Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship, that this is a unique time in history and therefore the old prohibitions against women being pastors or teaching the Bible to men no longer apply:

Women readers, be encouraged: your anointing will make room for you! The desperate need of the hour is not merely for people who are trained and educated, but for people of God who are anointed and can bring God's kingdom to a broken, hurting, desperate world through signs, wonders and the power of the Holy Spirit.

All Christians must come to terms with the fact that about 85 percent of the world's population is lost. And the lost are really lost! Under these desperate conditions, why would anyone stand in the way of another who felt called of God to help bring in the harvest?¹²²

In a similar vein Cindy Jacobs writes,

As I have traveled around the world and seen great revivals in places such as Colombia and Argentina, I have seen churches in major revival so busy trying to get the converts discipled that they are happy for laborers-either men or women!¹²³

We are not free to say that "this is an unusual time, so we don't have to obey the Bible." God knew that these days would come, and he has made provision in his Word for every period of history up until the day Christ returns. We are not free to disregard it.

We should also realize that the period recorded in the Book of Acts was a time of great revival and a great work of the Holy Spirit, yet there were no women pastors or elders. The Reformation in Europe and the Great Awakenings in the United States were times of great revival and blessing from God, yet they did not require Christians to disobey God's Word.

People who have said they can disobey God's Word because of unique circumstances have not been blessed by God. Think, for example, of Saul, who disobeyed the words of the prophet Samuel and offered a burnt offering himself (1 Sam 13:9) because he thought the circumstances were so pressing and he was going to lose the people who had gathered to him (see v. 8, 11-12). As a result, Samuel told Saul, "Now your kingdom shall not continue" (1 Sam 13:14). Abram decided that he had waited long enough without a child and chose (at the prompting of his wife Sarai) to have a child with Hagar, Sarai's Egyptian servant (Gen 16). But Abram's decision not to wait and trust God, but to take matters into his own hands because of the apparent urgency of the situation, was not blessed by God. His lack of faith resulted in the birth of Ishmael, whose descendants continue to be at enmity with the people of Israel to this day.

This argument is just a way of saying that we are free to disobey Scripture. That can never be right. Again and again, we keep returning to this question: What does the Bible say? If it forbids women from taking the office of pastor or elder (as I have argued extensively above), then we have no right to say this is a "unique time" when we can disobey what God's Word says.

To conclude our examination of these fifteen categories, I must state that I am not saying that all egalitarian claims are effective rejections of the authority of Scripture in our lives. But a distressingly large number of egalitarian claims do fall in this category, and they indicate a deeply troubling trend toward a liberal rejection of the authority of the Bible. The claims that I have mentioned are promoted by influential egalitarian writers and published by leading evangelical publishers such as (most often) Baker Book House and InterVarsity Press. Equally troubling is the widespread silence from those egalitarian authors who do not deny the authority of Scripture in these ways but who refrain from renouncing the approaches of those who do. In fact, the influential egalitarian organization Christians for Biblical Equality promotes most of the evangelical books I have criticized in the previous section on their web site.

16. The result of rejecting the authority of the Bible in these ways

As evangelicals accept the validity of these claims one after the other, and as evangelical pastors preach sermons adopting the methods found in these claims, evangelicals are quietly and unsuspectingly being trained to reject this verse of Scripture and that command of Scripture, and this passage, and that teaching, here and there throughout the Bible. As this procedure goes on, we will begin to have whole churches who no longer "tremble" at the Word of God (Isa 66:2), and who no longer live by "every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God" (Matt 4:4), but who pick and choose the things they like and the things they don't like in the Bible, using the very same methods they have been taught by these egalitarian writers. The church will thus be led step by step, often without knowing what is happening, to a new liberalism for the 21^st century. And in this way the authority of God's Word, and the ultimate authority of God himself over our lives, will be diminished and in principle rejected.

C. Promoting Untruthful or Unsubstantiated Claims as Established Fact

In addition to these fifteen ways that directly or implicitly deny the authority of Scripture, there is another whole category of egalitarian claims that should also trouble evangelical Christians today. This category does not concern a direct denial of the authority of the Bible, but it nullifies the authority of the Bible in another way, through promoting untruthful or unsubstantiated claims about what certain words in the Bible "really mean," or about some historical facts that change our understanding of the situation to which a book of the Bible was written.

These egalitarian claims are significant because they contain several important historical and linguistic facts that egalitarian writers allege to be true, and these alleged facts change people's understanding of what the Bible teaches. But if those alleged facts are incorrect and people believe them anyway, then people will think the Bible says something different from what it does, and then they will no longer believe or obey what the Bible really says. And thus in a different way, the effective authority of the Bible is undermined in our churches.

I am troubled to see that several of these egalitarian claims are repeatedly promoted to unsuspecting readers as if they were established fact, when actually no proof for them has ever been found in established historical facts, and several of the claims are even contradicted by the facts we have. If egalitarians regularly presented such claims as "an interesting idea that may turn out to be true if facts can be found to support it," this would be a different matter. But very often these claims are presented as facts that have already been proven, when that is far from the actual situation.

Our God is a God of truth (Prov 30:5; Titus 1:2; Heb 6:18), and he cares about truth (Exod 20:16; 2 Cor 4:2; Eph 4:25; Col 3:9). Therefore it is of utmost importance that readers and authors on both sides of this controversy never become careless with regard to truth or fail to exercise the greatest care for accuracy regarding the historical or linguistic data that we depend on in interpreting the Bible.

The following egalitarian claims are some examples of promoting as true something that is either unsubstantiated by actual historical data, or must be judged untruthful in the light of the actual data we have. In each case, I have given an abbreviated response, but fuller discussion can be found in my forthcoming book, Evangelical Feminism and Biblical Truth.¹²⁴

1. The claim that women were disrupting the worship service at Corinth

Several egalitarians claim that the reason Paul wrote that "the women should keep silent in the churches" (1 Cor 14:34) was that women were being disorderly and disrupting the church services at Corinth.¹²⁵ The problem is, there is no data in the book of 1 Corinthians itself to support this claim, nor is there any extra-biblical data to corroborate it. It is true that Craig Keener does cite some twenty-six extra-biblical references, and with such a long string of references, readers may imagine that there is abundant historical information to support his claim.¹²⁶ But when we actually look up these references, they are all references to Graeco-Roman and Jewish writings that talk about concerns for decency and order in public assemblies. Not one of them mentions women in the Corinthian church. Not one of them mentions women in any Christian church, for that matter! Proving that Greeks and Romans and Jews had concerns for order in public assemblies does not prove that women in the church at Corinth were being disruptive or disorderly!¹²⁷

This theory attempts to make the Corinthian situation a special one, when in fact Paul applies his rule to "all the churches" (1 Cor 14:33b).¹²⁸ Thus his rule cannot be restricted to one local church where there supposedly were problems. Instead, Paul directs the Corinthians to conform to a practice that was universal in the early church.

Moreover, this "noisy women" theory either does not make sense of Paul's solution¹²⁹ or else it makes his remedy unfair.¹³⁰ Finally, and perhaps most importantly, we should note the reason that the text does give. Paul does not give "noisy women" as a reason, but rather gives the Old Testament law. He says, "For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the Law also says" (1 Cor 14:34). "Law" here most likely refers to teaching of the Old Testament in general on men and women, because Paul does not quote any specific Old Testament passage. He frequently uses "law" (Greek nomos) to refer to the Old Testament, and especially with this formula, "as the Law says" (see the other two instances in Rom 3:19 and 1 Cor 9:8).¹³¹ It is unlikely that "law" refers to Roman law or to Jewish oral traditions, for Paul does not elsewhere use nomos in those ways.¹³²

Paul therefore gives "the Law" as the reason for his statement, not "noisy women." It is precarious to remove from our explanation the reason that Paul does give and replace it with a reason he does not give. Paul here is not saying,

"Let the women be silent because they should not

be asking disruptive questions," or

"Let the women be silent because God wants

orderly worship services,"

but rather,

"As in all the churches of the saints, the women

should keep silent in the churches. For they are not

permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as

the Law also says" (1 Cor 14:33b-34).

Paul does not speak here about disorder but the principle of submission - in this case, submission to male leadership among God's people.

So where is the actual historical evidence that women were disrupting the worship service at Corinth? None has been found. The idea is mere speculation supported by frequent repetition but not one shred of hard historical data.

2. The claim that women homeowners were overseers in early churches

Linda Belleville claims that "Mary (Acts 12:12), Lydia (16:15), Chloe (1 Cor 1:11), and Nympha (Col 4:15)" were "overseers of house churches," and other egalitarians make similar claims.¹³³ The reason Belleville gives for this is that "the homeowner in Greco-Roman times was in charge of any and all groups that met under their roof."¹³⁴ The example she gives is Jason, who was responsible to "post bond" in Acts 17:7-9.

The problem with this claim is that here, as elsewhere, Belleville goes beyond the text of Scripture and claims far more than it actually says. Jason was required by the city authorities to post some "money as security" (Acts 17:9, ESV), probably as a guarantee against any property damage or violence that the authorities suspected might happen. But that does not prove that Jason was ruling over the meetings of Christians in his house, and even over Paul and Silas when they conducted those meetings! Belleville would here have us believe that homeowners could bypass all the qualifications for elders in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1, and, simply by virtue of having a church meet in their home, become overseers or elders. She would also have us believe that Lydia, who was a brand new convert and who had just been baptized, became the overseer of the church at Philippi simply because she said to Paul, "come to my house and stay" (Acts 16:15). This claim is going far beyond the evidence in Scripture, and the extra-biblical references that Belleville cites do not prove anything about homeowners having such a leadership role in the churches either.¹³⁵ This claim is speculation with no facts to support it, and several factors in Scripture to contradict it.

3. The claim that women deacons had governing authority in early church history

Linda Belleville helpfully points out a number of writings from the early church fathers and other documents that give evidence of women serving as deacons in at least some parts of the early church.¹³⁶ However, then she goes on to say, "Canon #15 of the Council of Chalcedon (fifth century) details the ordination process for women deacons and places them in the ranks of the clergy."¹³⁷

Is it correct that some early church documents place women deacons "in the ranks of the clergy"? It is true that there was a "laying on of hands" to establish a woman in the role or office of deaconess, but there is no indication that this is parallel to what we today refer to as ordination for pastors or elders, and it is not true that this Canon places a woman "in the ranks of the clergy." Here is what it says:

A woman shall not receive the laying on of hands as a deaconess under forty years of age, and then only after searching examination. And if, after she has had hands laid on her and has continued for a time to minister, she shall despise the grace of God and give herself in marriage, she shall be anathematized and the man united to her.¹³⁸

An explanatory note to this canon refers the reader to an excursus on deaconesses that says,

The principal work of the deaconess was to assist the female candidates for holy baptism. At that time the sacrament of baptism was always administered by immersion . . . and hence there was much that such an order of women could be useful in. Moreover they sometimes gave to the female catechumens preliminary instruction, but their work was wholly limited to women, and for a deaconess of the Early Church to teach a man or to nurse him in sickness would have been an impossibility. The duties of the deaconess are set forth in many ancient writings. . . .

[Then the author quotes Canon 12 of the Fourth Council of Carthage (398):]

Widows and dedicated women . . . who are chosen to assist at the baptism of women, should be so well instructed in their office as to be able to teach aptly and properly unskilled and rustic women how to answer at the time of their baptism to the questions put to them, and also how to live godly after they have been baptized.¹³⁹

In light of this evidence, it is misleading for Belleville to say they were placed "in the ranks of the clergy." Women who were deacons in the early church were honored, and they performed valuable functions, but they did not teach or govern men, and they were not counted among the clergy.

(With regard to the question of whether there were women deacons in the time of the New Testament, interpreters have legitimate differences, and the question is not easy to decide. But it does not make much difference regarding the question of whether women can be pastors or elders today, because in the New Testament the office of deacon does not include the governing and teaching authority that is reserved for elders.)¹⁴⁰

4. The claim that women were not educated in ancient Ephesus

According to many egalitarians, the reason that Paul prohibits women from teaching or exercising authority over men in 1 Tim 2:12 is that the women of ancient Ephesus were uneducated and therefore unqualified to be pastors or teachers. They often claim that 1 Tim 2:13 then alludes to a parallel situation in which Eve was uneducated about the prohibition not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.¹⁴¹They then say that the prohibition against teaching men does not apply today, when both women and men are well educated.

But is it true that women were not sufficiently educated in ancient Ephesus? The actual historical evidence shows a much different picture:

1) Many men and women in the first century had basic literary skills, and very few men or women had education beyond this level. Steven Baugh, an expert in the history of ancient Ephesus, writes,

Because women's education in antiquity usually took place privately, we get only a glimpse of it here and there. As for women's literacy, daughters of the upper classes needed some level of education for their duties in managing large households. And though they were not commonly found in fields like philosophy, women did read and write literature and poetry during this period.¹⁴²

Baugh mentions that from Ephesus we have several examples of writing by women, including some poems and prayers.¹⁴³

Other sources indicate that in Greek culture, the "Hellenistic school" form of education "endured with but slight changes to the end of the ancient world," and, "girls, too, were educated at all age levels. In some cases they came under the control of the same officials as the boys and shared the same teachers. . . . In other cases separate state officials were responsible for them."¹⁴⁴

In Roman society, one of the factors of Roman schools was "the inclusion of girls in the benefits of education."¹⁴⁵ The Oxford Classical Dictionary notes that both Plato and Aristotle "believed that men and women should have the same education and training."¹⁴⁶ And in earlier Greek society, "Papyri (private letters, etc.) show widespread literacy among the Greeks of Egypt" while in Rome, "upper-class Roman women were influential . . . many women were educated and witty."¹⁴⁷

In Women and Men in Ministry: A Complementary Perspective,¹⁴⁸ Clinton Arnold and Robert Saucy report further evidence of the significant educational achievements of women in ancient Ephesus:

In a very important recent study, Paul Trebilco has accumulated and presented the inscriptional evidence attesting to the role of women in civic positions in western Asia Minor. . . .¹⁴⁹

There is now inscriptional evidence that women served in some of the cities in a position that would be a close functional equivalent of our "superintendent of schools," that is, in the capacity of a gymnasiarch (gymnasiarchos). The "gymnasium" was the center for education in a Greek city. . . . The "gymnasiarch" had oversight of the intellectual training of the citizens and for the general management of the facility. Inscriptions dating from the first to the third centuries attest to forty-eight women who served as gymnasiarchs in twenty-three cities of Asia Minor and the coastal islands. This suggests that women not only had access to education, but also that in many places they were leading the educational system.

This evidence stands in contrast to what we generally know of the plight of women at the beginning of the Roman Empire. . . . But beginning in the late republic (2^nd Century BC) and early Imperial Period, a much greater array of opportunities opened up for women. The famous British classicist, Michael Grant, observed that "The Roman women of the late republic possessed a freedom and independence almost unparalleled until the present century."¹⁵⁰

2) The Bible never requires advanced degrees for people who teach God's word or have governing authority in the church. The fact that many women as well as men had basic literacy skills in Greek, Roman, and Jewish cultures is enough by itself to disprove the egalitarian claims about 1 Timothy 2. If absolutely no women and only men could read and write in ancient Ephesus, and if that practice had carried over into the church so that no Christian women learned the Bible, then the egalitarian claim would deserve some consideration. But that is simply not the case. Both women and men could read and write.

Formal academic training in Scripture (as in a modern seminary, or in an ancient school for rabbis) was not required for leaders in the New Testament church. We even see that several of the apostles did not have formal biblical training or schooling as the rabbis did (see Acts 4:13). The ability to read and study Scripture was available to both men and women alike, and both men and women learned and studied Scripture in the ancient church (note Acts 18:26, where Priscilla and Aquila together instruct Apollos; also 1 Tim 2:11 which encourages women to "learn," and Titus 2:3-4, where older women are to "teach what is good, and so train the young women"). This would have certainly been true in a major metropolitan center like Ephesus, where there would have been many literate, educated women in the church.

3) It is untrue to state that no women in the first-century churches possessed adequate education to be teachers or rulers in the church. The New Testament shows several women who had a considerable level of understanding Scripture. Many women accompanied Jesus and learned from him during his earthly ministry. (See Luke 8:1-3; 10:38-41; also John 4:1-27; 11:21-27). In this very passage in 1 Timothy, Paul says that women should "learn" (v. 11).

Perhaps the best example of a woman well trained in knowledge of the Bible is Priscilla. When Paul went to Corinth, he stayed with Aquila and Priscilla: "Because he was of the same trade he stayed with them and worked, for they were tentmakers by trade" (Acts 18:3). Paul stayed a year and six months at Corinth (Acts 18:11), and we may ponder just how much Bible and theology Priscilla would have learned while having the apostle Paul as a house guest and business partner during that time! Then Priscilla and Aquila went with Paul to Ephesus (Acts 18:18-19). It was at Ephesus in 51 A.D. that Priscilla and Aquila together "explained" to Apollos "the way of God more accurately" (Acts 18:26). So in 51 A.D. Priscilla knew Scripture well enough to help instruct Apollos.

After that, Priscilla probably learned from Paul for another three years while he stayed at Ephesus teaching "the whole counsel of God" (Acts 20:27; cf. 1 Cor 16:19, where Priscilla is called Prisca, and Paul sends greeting to Corinth from Aquila and Prisca and the church that meets "in their house"). By the end of Paul's three-year stay in Ephesus, Priscilla had probably received four and a half years of teaching directly from the apostle Paul. No doubt many other women in Ephesus also learned from Paul - and from Priscilla!

Aquila and Priscilla went to Rome sometime later (Rom 16:3, perhaps around 58 AD), but they returned to Ephesus, for they were in Ephesus again at the end of Paul's life (in 2 Tim 4:19, Paul writes to Timothy at Ephesus, "Greet Prisca and Aquila"). Now 2 Timothy was probably written in 66 or 67 A.D. (Eusebius says that Paul dies in 67 A.D.), and 1 Timothy a short time before that in perhaps 65 A.D. In addition, before he wrote 1 Timothy, Paul seems to have been in Ephesus and it seems he had told Timothy to remain there when he left for Macedonia (see 1 Tim 1:3: "As I urged you when I was going to Macedonia, remain in Ephesus. . . ."). Therefore, both because 1 Timothy is near in time to 2 Timothy, and because Paul had last been in Ephesus to know who was there before he wrote 1 Timothy or 2 Timothy, it seems likely that they were back in Ephesus by the time Paul wrote 1 Timothy, about 65 A.D.

What is the point of this? Not even well-educated Priscilla, nor any other well-educated women of Ephesus who followed her example and listened to Paul's teaching for several years, were allowed to teach men in the public assembly of the church. Writing to a church where many women had received significant training in the Bible, Paul said, "I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man" (1 Tim 2:12). Paul's reason was certainly not lack of education.

4) Paul does give a reason-the creation order-for the restriction of teaching and governing roles to men, but it is not a lack of education. We should not deny the reason Paul gives and substitute a reason he does not give. Paul does not say, "I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet, for women are not as well-educated as men." That is not the reason Paul gives. The reason he gives is the order that God established when he created Adam and Eve: "For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor" (1 Tim 2:13-14).

5) If lack of education was the reason, it would be unfair and inconsistent for Paul not to prohibit teaching by uneducated men. Surely there were untrained men in the congregations at Ephesus, including new converts and perhaps some poorly educated and illiterate slaves or day laborers. But Paul does not mention them. Why does he focus on women? The egalitarian position is inconsistent at this point, for it cannot explain why Paul excludes all women (even the well-educated ones) and does not exclude any men (even the poorly educated ones).

6) Finally, the phrase, "Adam was formed first, then Eve," cannot be made to mean that Eve had less education than Adam without doing violence to the text.¹⁵¹

So where is the historical evidence that women were not sufficiently educated to serve as pastors or elders in the church in Ephesus? It has not been found, and the idea is contrary to the evidence that does exist both from the ancient world and from the text of Scripture itself. Yet egalitarians continue to repeat it as if it were established fact.

5. The claim that women were teaching false doctrine in Ephesus

This egalitarian claim alleges that there was a unique situation in Ephesus in which women were teaching false doctrine, and as such, Paul's command would only be relevant for that particular situation.¹⁵²

But where is the hard evidence that women were teaching false doctrine at Ephesus? The evidence we do have points in another direction:¹⁵³ (1) The only false teachers named at Ephesus are men, not women.¹⁵⁴ (2) No clear proof of women teaching false doctrine at Ephesus has been found either inside or outside the Bible.¹⁵⁵ (3) If the fact that some people were teaching false doctrine disqualified everyone of the same gender, then all men would have been disqualified from teaching.¹⁵⁶ (4) Once again, Paul gives the reason for his command, and it is the creation order (1 Tim 2:13-14), not any false teaching by women.¹⁵⁷

6. The claim that a Gnostic heresy about Eve being created first was influential in first century Ephesus

Richard and Catherine Kroeger argue extensively for the presence of a Gnostic or proto-Gnostic heresy in Ephesus that taught that Eve was created before Adam and taught Adam spiritual knowledge.¹⁵⁸

Once again, where is the actual evidence? The Kroegers offer no proof from any first century material outside the New Testament, and their lack of care in the use of later sources has opened up their work to significant criticism. For example, Thomas Schreiner says,

Unfortunately, the Kroegers' reconstruction is riddled with methodological errors. They nod in the direction of saying that the heresy is "protognostic," but consistently appeal to later sources to establish the contours of the heresy. The lack of historical rigor, if I can say this kindly, is nothing less than astonishing. They have clearly not grasped how one should apply the historical method in discerning the nature of false teaching in the Pauline letters.¹⁵⁹

Other reviews of the Kroegers' work by New Testament experts offer deeply troubling evaluations. Stephen Baugh, New Testament professor at Westminster Seminary (California) whose Ph.D. thesis is on the history of ancient Ephesus, wrote an extended review called "The Apostle Among the Amazons."¹⁶⁰ As Baugh's title indicates, the Kroegers rely heavily on non-factual myths (such as myths of Amazon women) to paint a picture of ancient Ephesus where women had usurped religious authority over men: a "feminist Ephesus" in the religious realm. But their historical reconstruction is just not true. Baugh says, "the Kroegers . . . have painted a picture of Ephesus which wanders widely from the facts" (155). With his expertise in the history of Ephesus, Baugh affirms, "No one has established historically that there was, in fact, a feminist culture in first-century Ephesus. It has merely been assumed" (154). He says the Kroegers' foundational claim that the religious sphere of life could be led by women, but not the social-civic spheres, "betrays an astonishing innocence of how ancient societies worked" (160). After analyzing their data, he concludes, "It is difficult to imagine how such a momentous conclusion could have been erected upon such fragile, tottering evidence" (161). Other evidence used by the Kroegers is "wildly anachronistic," (163), and contains "outright errors of fact" (165). On the other hand, "they virtually ignore a vast body of evidence of a historically much more reliable and relevant quality: the approximately 4,000 Ephesian inscriptions and the burgeoning secondary literature surrounding them" (162).¹⁶¹

Another review of the book is by Albert Wolters, Professor of Religion and Theology/Classical Studies at Redeemer College in Hamilton, Ontario.¹⁶² Wolters first summarizes the Kroegers' argument that 1 Tim 2:12 should be translated, "I do not permit a woman to teach nor to represent herself as originator of man, but she is to be in conformity [with the Scriptures]," and that Paul was opposing a specific feminist heresy at Ephesus. He then says,

their proposal, both philologically and historically, is a signal failure. In fact, it is not too much to say that their book is precisely the sort of thing that has too often given evangelical scholarship a bad name. There is little in the book's main thesis that can withstand serious scrutiny, and there is a host of subordinate detail that is misleading or downright false.¹⁶³

Citing several specific examples, Wolters observes that the Kroegers

repeatedly misunderstand the sources they cite, and they fail to mention important recent literature which counts against their own interpretation. . . . Their scholarly documentation is riddled with elementary linguistic blunders. . . . Unfortunately, things are not much better with the Kroegers' historical argumentation. There is in fact no direct evidence that their postulated Gnostic sect ever existed in first-century Ephesus, or indeed that a Gnostic group fitting their description ever existed at all.¹⁶⁴

So where is the historical evidence that proves this claim? It has not been found. Yet a number of egalitarian writers continue to affirm the Kroegers' claim as established fact.

7. The claim that the word kephale ("head") often meant "source"

According to many egalitarians, the word translated "head" (Greek kephale) in Eph 5:23 and 1 Cor 11:3 does not mean "person in authority over" but has some other meaning, especially the meaning "source." Thus, the husband is the source of the wife (an allusion to the creation of Eve from Adam's side in Genesis 2), as Christ is the source of the Church.¹⁶⁵ This is based on the egalitarian claim that the word kephale seldom meant "authority over" in ancient Greek, and often meant "source" (with no necessary sense of authority).

It is important to realize the decisive significance of these verses, and particularly of Eph 5:23, for the current controversy about male-female roles in marriage. If head means "person in authority over," then there is a unique authority that belongs to the husband in marriage, and it is parallel to Christ's authority over the church. If this is the true meaning of head in these verses, then the egalitarian view of marriage is wrong.¹⁶⁶ But if head means "source" here, then two Scripture texts significant to complementarians have been shown to have no impact on the controversy.

What is the actual evidence? Is there evidence that kephale frequently meant "source" in the ancient world, or even that it ever meant "source?" Is "authority over" an unproven meaning?

In fact, kephale is found in over fifty contexts where it refers to people who have authority over others of whom they are the "head." But it never once takes a meaning "source without authority," as egalitarians would like to make it mean.¹⁶⁷

Here are several examples where kephale is used to say that one person is the "head" of another, and the person who is called head is the one in authority:¹⁶⁸

1. David as King of Israel is called the "head" of the people he conquered (2 Sam [LXX 2 Kings] 22:44), "You kept me as the head of the nations; people whom I had not known served me;" similarly, Psalm 18 (LXX 17):43.

2. The leaders of the tribes of Israel are called "heads" of the tribes (1 Kings [LXX 3 Kings] 8:1, Alexandrinus text), "Then Solomon assembled the elders of Israel and all the heads of the tribes" (similar statements in the second-century A.D. Greek translation of Aquila, Deut 5:23; 29:9 (English verse 10); 3 Kings [LXX 1 Kings] 8:1).

3. Jephthah becomes the "head" of the people of Gilead (Jdg 11:11, "the people made him head and leader over them;" also stated in 10:18; 11:8, 9).

4. Pekah the son of Remaliah is the head of Samaria (Isa 7:9, "the head of Samaria is the son of Remaliah").

5. The father is the head of the family (Hermas, Similitudes 7.3; the man is called "the head of the house").

6. The husband is the "head" of the wife (Eph 5:23, "the husband is head of the wife even as Christ is head of the church").

7. Christ is the "head" of the church (Col 1:18, "He is the head of the body, the church"; also in Eph 5:23).

8. Christ is the "head" of all things (Eph 1:22, "He put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church").

9. God the Father is the "head" of Christ (1 Cor 11:3, "the head of Christ is God").

In related statements using not metaphors but closely related similes, (1) the general of an army is said to be "like the head" in Plutarch, Pelopidas 2.1.3: In an army, "the light-armed troops are like the hands, the cavalry like the feet, the line of men-at-arms itself like chest and breastplate, and the general is like the head." Similarly, (2) the Roman Emperor is called the "head" of the people in Plutarch, Galba 4.3: "Vindix . . . wrote to Galba inviting him to assume the imperial power, and thus to serve what was a vigorous body in need of a head" (compare a related statement in Plutarch, Cicero 14.4). And (3) the King of Egypt is called "head" of the nation in Philo, Moses 2.30: "As the head is the ruling place in the living body, so Ptolemy became among kings."

Then there are the additional (somewhat later) citations from Chrysostom (c. 344/354-407 A. D.) quoted in my 2001 article,¹⁶⁹ where (1) God is the "head" of Christ; (2) Christ is the "head" of the church; (3) the husband is the "head" of the wife; (4) Christ is the "head" of all things; (5) church leaders are the "head" of the church; and (6) a woman is the "head" of her maidservant. In all six of these cases, he uses language of rulership and authority to explain the role of the "head," and uses language of submission and obedience to describe the role of the "body."

In addition, there are several statements from various authors indicating a common understanding that the physical head functioned as the "ruling" part of the body: (1) Plato says that the head "reigns over all the parts within us" (Timaeus 44.D). (2) Philo says, "the head is the ruling place in the living body" (Moses 2:30), "the mind is head and ruler of the sense-faculty in us" (Moses 2.82), "head we interpret allegorically to mean the ruling part of the soul" (On Dreams 2.207), and "Nature conferred the sovereignty of the body on the head" (The Special Laws 184). (3) Plutarch says, "We affectionately call a person ‘soul' or ‘head' from his ruling parts" (Table Talk 7.7(692.e.1)).

Moreover, the meaning "source" makes no sense in key passages like Eph 5:23, "the husband is the head of the wife." I am not the source of my wife in any meaningful sense of the word "source." And so it is with all husbands and wives. It is just not true to say, "the husband is the source of the wife as Christ is the source of the church." It makes the verse into nonsense.

To my knowledge, no one has yet produced one text in ancient Greek literature where a person is called the kephale of another person or group and that person is not the one in authority over that other person or group. Nearly two decades after the publication of my 1985 study, the alleged meaning "source without authority" has still not been supported with any citation of any text in ancient Greek literature. Over fifty examples of kephale meaning "ruler, authority over" have been found, but no examples of the meaning of "source without authority."

Finally, while all the recognized lexicons for ancient Greek, or their editors, now give kephale the meaning "person in authority over" or something similar, none give the meaning "source."¹⁷⁰ Nor do any of these lexicons or any other ancient citation support other meanings claimed by egalitarians, such as the meaning "one who does not take advantage of his body" or "preeminent one."¹⁷¹

Once again the question is, "where is the evidence?" Where is even one example of a statement that takes the form "person A is the head of person B," in which person A is not in a position of authority over person B? But if all the lexicons and all the citations of this kind of expression contradict the egalitarian position, why do egalitarian writers go on affirming it as if it were proven fact?

8. The claim that the word authenteo ("exercise authority") could mean "murder" or "commit violence," or "proclaim oneself author of a man," or could even have a vulgar sexual meaning

All of these proposals attempt to posit another meaning for the word authenteo in 1 Tim 2:12 in opposition to the established meaning of exercising authority. In other words, these claims argue that 1 Tim 2:12 does not mean simply, "I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man," but rather has some wrongful practice, some abuse of authority, in view.¹⁷² The force of this claim, if true, would be to limit Paul's prohibition to whatever special situation he would have had in mind, whereas if authenteo has an ordinary, neutral meaning such as "have authority," then it is more likely that Paul is making a general statement for all churches for all times.

So which interpretation is correct? The bottom line is that it comes down to a matter of the evidence. The most complete study of this word shows that its meaning is primarily neutral, "to exercise authority over." In 1995 H. Scott Baldwin published the most thorough study of the verb authenteo that had ever been done. Several earlier studies had looked at a number of occurrences of this verb, but no one had ever looked at all the examples that exist from ancient literature and ancient papyrus manuscripts.¹⁷³ In addition, several earlier studies were flawed by mixing with the verb examples of two different nouns with the same spelling (authentes).

Baldwin correctly limited his examples to the verb that is found here in 1 Timothy 2. He found eighty-two occurrences of authenteo in ancient writings, and he listed them all with the Greek text and English translation in a long appendix.¹⁷⁴ He found that in all uses of this verb, "the one unifying concept is that of authority."¹⁷⁵ He only found one example in which the verb seemed to take a negative sense, but because language changes and meanings of words change over time, even that one Chrysostom quotation from 390 AD, coming more than three hundred years after Paul wrote 1 Timothy, is of limited value in understanding the meaning of what Paul wrote.

What is most striking about Baldwin's exhaustive study is the complete absence of some of the other meanings that have been proposed, meanings that are unrelated to the idea of using authority.¹⁷⁶

Two additional reasons also support the positive meaning ("exercise authority") of the verb authenteo. First, the grammatical structure of the sentence rules out any negative meaning (such as, "to misuse authority, to domineer, or to murder") and shows that the verb must have a positive meaning (such as "to exercise authority").¹⁷⁷ Second, a recent extensive and remarkably erudite study of cognate words now confirms that the meaning of authenteo is primarily positive or neutral.¹⁷⁸

Once again the question must be asked of the egalitarian claim, where is the evidence? Where are the actual examples of authenteo that show that it must take a negative meaning in 1 Timothy 2:12, when the positive or neutral sense is so well established? Should a claim without clear factual support be repeated so often as if it were proven fact?

9. The claim that the doctrine of the eternal subordination of the Son is contrary to historic orthodox Christian doctrine

Several egalitarians, such as Gilbert Bilezikian, have recently claimed that the doctrine of the eternal subordination of the Son to the Father (in role, not in being) is contrary to the historic Trinitarian doctrine of the church.¹⁷⁹ This claim, however, is simply not true.¹⁸⁰

It is not responsible scholarship, nor is it fair to readers who may have little knowledge of church history, for Gilbert Bilezikian to claim that the position he holds is the historical doctrine of the Trinity, for it is not. Bilezikian first denies any subordination of the Son to the Father prior to the Incarnation:

Because there was no order of subordination within the Trinity prior to the Second Person's incarnation, there will remain no such thing after its completion. If we must talk of subordination it is only a functional or economic subordination that pertains exclusively to Christ's role in relation to human history.

Then he says,

Except for occasional and predictable deviations, this is the historical Biblical trinitarian doctrine that has been defined in the creeds and generally defended by the Church, at least the western Church, throughout the centuries.¹⁸¹

But when Bilezikian denies the eternal subordination of the Son to the Father in their relationship (which exists along with equality in essence or being), he is denying the teaching of the church throughout history, and it is significant that he gives no quotations, no evidence, to support his claim that his view "is the historical Biblical trinitarian doctrine." This statement is simply not true.

The vast majority of the church has affirmed equality in being and subordination in role among the persons in the Trinity, not simply during the time of Incarnation, but in the eternal relationships between the Father and the Son. The great, historic creeds affirm that there is an eternal difference between the Father and Son, not in their being (for they are equal in all attributes and the three persons are just one "being" or "substance"), but in the way they relate to one another. There is an ordering of their relationships such that the Father eternally is first, the Son second, and the Holy Spirit third.

The doctrine of the "eternal generation of the Son" or the "eternal begetting of the Son" found expression in the Nicene Creed (325 AD) in the phrase "begotten of the Father before all worlds," and in the Chalcedonian Creed (451 AD) in the phrase "begotten before all ages of the Father according to the Godhead." In the Athanasian Creed (4^th-5^th century AD) we read the expressions "The Son is of the Father alone: not made, nor created: but begotten" and "God, of the Substance of the Father; begotten before the worlds."¹⁸²

It is open to discussion whether these were the most helpful expressions,¹⁸³ but it is not open to discussion whether the entire church throughout history has in these creeds affirmed that there was an eternal difference between the way the Son related to the Father and the way the Father related to the Son; that in their relationships the Father's role was primary and had priority, and the Son's role was secondary and was responsive to the Father; and that the Father was eternally Father and the Son was eternally Son.

We may describe this difference in relationship in other terms, as later theologians did (such as speaking of the eternal subordination of the Son with respect to role or relationship, not with respect to substance), and still say we are holding to the historic Trinitarian doctrine of the church. Yet we may not deny that there is any eternal difference in relationship between the Father and the Son, as Bilezikian and others do, and still claim to hold to the historic Trinitarian doctrine of the church.

Bilezikian gives no explanation of how he understands "begotten of the Father before all worlds" or "eternal generation" or "eternal begetting." It is remarkable that Bilezikian, in denying any eternal difference in relationship between the Father and the Son, gives no explanation for why he thinks he has not placed himself outside the bounds of the great Trinitarian confessions through history. And it is simply irresponsible scholarship to accuse all those who hold to the historic doctrine of the eternal subordination of the Son to the Father (in role, not in being) of "tampering with the doctrine of the Trinity" and coming close to Arianism and engaging in "hermeneutical bungee jumping."¹⁸⁴ It is Bilezikian, not complementarians, who is tampering with the doctrine of the Trinity. Bilezikian is certainly free to deny any eternal differences in the Father-Son relationship if he wishes, but he may not truthfully say that a denial of these eternal differences has been the historic doctrine of the church.

Bilezikian quotes no church historians, no creeds, no other recognized theologians when he affirms that his view is the historic doctrine of the church. But it is not difficult to find many theologians and historians of doctrine who differ with Bilezikian's unsubstantiated affirmation.

For example, concerning this inter-Trinitarian relationship between the Father and the Son, Charles Hodge (1797-1878), the great Princeton theologian whose Systematic Theology has now been in print for 140 years, wrote about the Nicene Creed:

The Nicene doctrine includes . . . the principle of the subordination of the Son to the Father, and of the Spirit to the Father and the Son. But this subordination does not imply inferiority. . . . The subordination intended is only that which concerns the mode of subsistence and operation. . . . The creeds are nothing more than a well-ordered arrangement of the facts of Scripture which concern the doctrine of the Trinity. They assert the distinct personality of the Father, Son, and Spirit . . . and their consequent perfect equality; and the subordination of the Son to the Father, and of the Spirit to the Father and the Son, as to the mode of subsistence and operation. These are scriptural facts, to which the creeds in question add nothing; and it is in this sense they have been accepted by the Church universal.¹⁸⁵

The historic creeds affirm that there is an eternal difference between the Father and Son, not in their being (for they are equal in all attributes and the three persons are just one "being" or "substance"), but in the way they relate to one another. There is an ordering of their relationships such that the Father eternally is first, the Son second, and the Holy Spirit third.¹⁸⁶ The egalitarian claim that this is not the historic doctrine of the church is simply not true.

10. The claim that catacomb paintings show an early woman bishop in Rome

In a 1988 issue of the journal Christian History, Catherine Kroeger claims that a fresco on a Christian catacomb in Rome, dating from the late third century, shows a woman in "an amazingly authoritative stance, like that of a bishop." She adds, "the shepherds on either side may represent pastors, in which case the woman may be in the role of a bishop, blessing pastors in her charge."¹⁸⁷

But is this what the fresco shows? What this article does not reveal is that no expert in the study of ancient Christian art supports Kroeger's interpretation, nor does the literature on such art even mention her interpretation as a possibility.¹⁸⁸In addition, this idea is contrary to what we know of the role of women in the early church. Such "orant" paintings with different individuals portrayed on them are very common in early Christian art. If Kroeger's theory is correct, it would mean that women bishops were also very common in the early centuries of the church. But that is highly unlikely. As far as I know, there is no historical record of any woman serving even as a pastor or an elder, to say nothing of a bishop, anywhere in the entire history of the early church.¹⁸⁹

11. Conclusion

These ten egalitarian claims are frequently promoted as fact, but upon investigation they turn out to be only unsubstantiated speculation. Therefore, I believe there are not only fifteen egalitarian claims that directly deny the authority of Scripture (section B above), but also at least ten others that in another way effectively undercut the authority of Scripture because they lead people to misunderstand what it teaches by promoting untruthful or at best unsubstantiated claims as established fact.

There is one more point: When we put these ten claims together with the fifteen in the previous section, we see that evangelical feminism, within the short space of less than thirty years since Paul Jewett's book was published in 1975, has generated, published, and promoted at least twenty-five different ways of effectively nullifying the authority of Scripture for the lives of Christians today. Something should strike us as deeply troubling about such a movement. Is the authority of the Bible really primary for egalitarians? Or is there a deep-seated mentality that actually puts feminism first and the Bible second? The more I have read these egalitarian arguments, the more I have found myself wondering, are these writers actually operating from a deep conviction that says, "I know that egalitarianism is right, now let me see if I can find any ways to support it from the Bible. If one approach does not work, I'll try another, and if twenty-five do not work, I will look for a twenty-sixth, because the one thing I cannot accept is that egalitarianism is wrong."

I cannot say for sure. But I can say that I can think of no other viewpoint or movement within the whole history of the Christian church (except theological liberalism itself) that has generated so many novel and ultimately incorrect ways of interpreting the Bible.

D. The Disturbing Destination: Denial of Anything Uniquely Masculine

The egalitarian agenda will not stop simply with the rejection of male headship in marriage and the establishment of women as pastors and elders in churches. There is something much deeper at stake. At the foundation of egalitarianism is a dislike and a rejection of anything uniquely masculine.¹⁹⁰This tendency is seen, for example, in Sarah Sumner's claim that even asking, "What is biblical manhood?" is asking the wrong question, and in her attempts to deny every one of the characteristics that we say distinguish men from women, and in her limiting "masculinity" and "femininity" only to differences in our physical bodies.¹⁹¹ It is also seen in Rebecca Groothuis's suggestion that Adam was a sexually undifferentiated being when he was first created.¹⁹² But why is it objectionable that God created Adam as a man? It makes one wonder if this idea doesn't reflect some deeper dislike of human sexuality in general, some hostility toward the very idea of manhood and womanhood. This tendency is also seen in the emphasis, advocated by Stanley Grenz, that Jesus' humanity is what was really important for his incarnation, not his maleness.¹⁹³ But one wonders again if this does not represent an underlying desire to reject anything uniquely male. Why should we object that Jesus came as a man?¹⁹⁴

A writer in the egalitarian publication Mutuality suggested (humorously) that a better title for John Gray's book Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus would be

Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus, But Some Men Are from Venus and Some Women Are from Mars, and All of God's Children Have Both Mars and Venus Qualities Within Them So Why Not Just Say that Men and Women Are from the Earth, and Let's Get about the Business of Developing the Unique God-Given Mars/Venus Qualities that God Has Given All of Us for the Sake of the Kingdom¹⁹⁵

When I read that, I realized that egalitarians seem to feel compelled to oppose any kinds of differences between men and women other than those that are purely physical. Even when egalitarian author Rebecca Groothuis tried to answer the charge that egalitarians think that men and women are the same, the only clear differences she could point to were the sexually based physical differences between men and women and abilities that flow directly from those physical differences.¹⁹⁶

E. The Next Step: God our Mother

Following the denial of male headship in marriage, and the denial of any restriction of leadership roles in the church to men, and the denial of anything uniquely masculine other than the physical differences among human beings, it is to be expected that egalitarians would begin to blur and then deny God's identity as our Father. This is exactly what has recently happened in egalitarian writings. Ruth Tucker, in her book Women in the Maze, says,

We sing the words of John W. Petersen in worshipful praise, "Shepherd of love, you knew I had lost my way. . . ." Would it be worse, or blasphemous, to sing something like "Mother of love. . ."? Both are figures of speech. But because of our fear of taking on the trappings of radical feminism or goddess worship, we dare not sing those words-except perhaps in our closets of prayer.¹⁹⁷

We see a similar trend in literature sold by Christians for Biblical Equality through their web site. Their egalitarian-advocacy website (www.cbeinternational.org) says that their bookstore contains books that further their mission: "Each resource we carry has first been evaluated by our team of reviewers to ensure that it furthers CBE's mission and vision."¹⁹⁸ Yet at least two books openly advocate praying to God as our Mother in heaven.¹⁹⁹

The bookstore carries a book by Paul R. Smith called Is It Okay to Call God "Mother"? Considering the Feminine Face of God. In this book Smith says, "In one sense I wrote this book so that our congregation could have a fuller explanation of why I believe it is important to call God "Mother" as well as "Father" in public worship."²⁰⁰

Smith introduces chapter 3 with a cartoon of Moses arriving in heaven, Ten Commandments under his arm, saying to God, "Gee, I didn't expect you to be a soprano!" Later in the book, Smith asks the question, "Will the next thing be to say that Jesus should have been a woman?" and though he affirms that Jesus did come as a man, he says, "Something is wrong when we cannot conceive of the Messiah coming from a different cultural setting or being of a different race or gender." He says he has a sculpture of "a female Jesus hanging on the cross" and he admits that some people "have violent reactions" to it.²⁰¹ Smith concludes this section by saying, "I personally try to avoid using masculine pronouns for the risen, transcendent Christ except when I am speaking of him during his time here on earth before his ascension."²⁰²

Smith does not explain how he can read the dozens or perhaps hundreds of passages in the New Testament epistles that refer to Jesus as "he" and "him" after he ascended to heaven, using masculine singular pronouns in Greek, such as this passage from Colossians 1:

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth . . . all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body of the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent (Col 1:15-18).

Or this statement from Philippians, talking about Christ after his ascension into Heaven:

Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth. . . . (Phil 2:9-10).

How can Smith even read these passages if he tries to "avoid using masculine pronouns for the risen, transcendent Christ"? So eager is Smith to deny the masculinity of Jesus that he has come to the point where he avoids using language like the New Testament itself.²⁰³

Another book sold on the CBE website is God, A Word for Girls and Boys by Jann Aldredge-Clanton.²⁰⁴ This book teaches us to pray prayers like, "God, our Mother, we thank you that you love us so much to want the best for us. Thank you for trusting us enough to let us do things on our own. . . . Stay near us and help us to become all that we can be. Amen."²⁰⁵

In the introduction to the book, Aldredge-Clanton says,

Masculine God-language hinders many children from establishing relationships of trust with God. In addition, calling God "he" causes boys to commit the sin of arrogance. . . . Calling the supreme power of the universe "he" causes girls to commit the sin of devaluing themselves. For the sake of "these little ones" we must change the way we talk about God and about human beings.²⁰⁶

Catherine Kroeger, one of the founders of Christians for Biblical Equality, has advocated calling God "Mother." In an article, "Women Elders . . . Sinners or Servants," Richard and Catherine Kroeger write:

So far we have referred to God as "He" and "Him" because most of us are used to employing these terms when we think of the Holy One. Indeed, it is sometimes asserted that those in holy office should be male to represent the Deity who is male. This is to ignore what the Bible has to say, for God is pictured as both male and female. Let us be clear that God does not possess sexuality-neither distinctive maleness nor femaleness; but to explain the love and work of God, both male and female imagery is used.

Consider these scriptures carefully: Psalm 131:2-3; Deut. 32:18; Isa. 49:15, 66:9-13, 42:13-14; and Matthew 23:37. Among other passages is James 1:17-18, which first speaks of God as Father and then says God brought us forth as Mother. Job 38:28-29, Isa. 63:15 and Jer. 31:20 speak of the womb of God, surely a valuable image when we think of new birth. God's likeness to a mother is an important aspect of the divine nature. Can Christians neglect any aspect of God's being as it is revealed in Scripture? There is good biblical reason, then, to speak of God as both Father and Mother, both "she" and "he." This is particularly important for evangelicals to remember when they seek to witness to people turning to goddess worship in their desire for a deity with feminine attributes. It is also essential to remember when ministering to those with bad father images, who may have positive feelings about their mothers. Women as well as men are made in God's image! (Gen. 1:26-27, 5:1-2).²⁰⁷

Liberal Protestants have traveled this route before. In 2002 the United Methodist Church published a supplement to its hymnal called The Faith We Sing, which included some new hymns such as "Bring Many Names," in which Methodists are to sing praise to "Strong Mother God, working night and day." The author of the lyrics, Brian Wren, professor of worship at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, Georgia, supports these lyrics with an argument that sounds very much like the arguments egalitarians have used on other subjects. According to reporter Maura Jane Farrelly,

Professor Wren says the Bible uses the word "Father" because it was written in a place and time when only men were in positions of authority. And because this isn't the case anymore in many Christian nations, Dr. Wren says there is no need to cling so literally to the "Father" image.²⁰⁸

A similar trend has been seen among disillusioned Southern Baptists who left the denomination in protest over the conservative control of the SBC and formed something called the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (CBF).²⁰⁹ At the CBF annual meeting that began June 28, 1991, in Atlanta, songs of praise to God as Mother were prominent:

With songs and prayers to "Mother God," an auxiliary organization of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship opened its annual meeting at the CBF General Assembly Thursday with a clear message-the current controversy is about more than women pastors. The annual Baptist Women in Ministry breakfast was rife with stridently feminist God language, culminating in a litany read by BWIM members about their discomfort at calling God "Father," "Lord," and "King". . . . The group sang a hymn to "strong mother God". . . . Feminist language for God continued throughout the two-hour long business session and worship service. BWIM treasurer Sally Burgess told the crowd . . . "I believe God is good, and She knows what She's doing". . . . The CBF exhibit hall bookstore displayed a new Methodist "gender inclusive" hymnal. . . with a hymn written from the point of view of the earth entitled, "I am your Mother". . . . Preacher Elizabeth Clements read a sermon about her spiritual experiences in the presence of starry skies, winding rivers, and "trees older than Jesus."²¹⁰

What then is the doctrinal direction to which egalitarianism leads? To an abolition of anything distinctively masculine. An androgynous Adam. A Jesus whose manhood is not important, just his "humanity." A God who is both Father and Mother, and then a God who is Mother but cannot be called Father.

F. The Final Step: Approval of Homosexuality

No leading evangelical egalitarians up to this time have advocated the moral validity of homosexual conduct, as far as I know. And I am thankful that the egalitarian organization Christians for Biblical Equality has steadfastly refused pressures to allow for the moral rightness of homosexual conduct.

However, we would be foolish to ignore the trend set by a number of more liberal Protestant denominations, denominations that from the 1950s to the 1970s approved the ordination of women using many of the same arguments that evangelical egalitarians are using today.²¹¹ While the United Methodist Church, the Presbyterian Church-USA, and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America have all resisted internal movements that attempted to pressure them to endorse homosexuality, they still have significant minorities within each denomination who continue to push in this direction.

1. Episcopal Church

Most recently, the Episcopal Church in the United States has approved the appointment of V. Gene Robinson as its first homosexual bishop, by a vote of 62 to 45 in their House of Bishops.²¹² As recently as 1998, this same denomination had approved a resolution calling homosexual activity "incompatible with Scripture."

Even secular newspapers pointed out that there were parallels to earlier decisions of the Episcopal Church. The New York Times reported:

Bishop-elect Robinson's opponents said he would bring to the broader church schism, pain and confusion. . . . Other people called the warnings overblown. Look, they said, at other controversies that were also predicted to split the church like the ordination of women in 1976 and the ratifying of a woman, Barbara Harris, as Bishop, in 1989. This evening, Ms. Harris . . . said the church had survived and would once more. "I remember well the dire predictions made at the time of my election consent process," she said. "The communion, such as it is, a loose federation of autonomous provinces, has held."²¹³

Therefore the advocates of homosexual ordination were not worried about a split in the church. Conservatives who did not leave when a woman was ordained as an Episcopal priest, and who did not leave when a woman was selected as a bishop, would probably not leave at the approval of a homosexual bishop either, or so the supporters of Bishop Robinson claimed.

A day after the House of Bishops approved this appointment, the leaders of the Episcopal Church approved a "compromise" resolution at the insistence of conservatives within the denomination. The compromise allowed local dioceses the option of whether to bless same-sex unions in their churches or not!²¹⁴ But what this meant was that the denomination as a whole was allowing any local church to give a blessing to homosexual unions (they stopped short of officially calling it homosexual "marriage").

As I am writing this chapter, it remains to be seen whether conservatives will finally leave the denomination, or whether the worldwide Anglican communion will exercise disciplinary measures against the Episcopal Church in the United States. But what has happened in the denomination in the U.S. has still happened, and it is the culmination of a trend to reject the Bible's teachings on manhood and womanhood that began a few decades ago.

2. Presbyterian Church-USA

At least 113 PCUSA congregations in 30 states have designated themselves "More Light Presbyterians" (MLP). Membership in the group, which seeks "full participation of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people of faith in the life, ministry, and witness of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)," is up 20 percent from three years ago, according to retired MLP board member Gene Ruff.²¹⁵

3. Evangelical Lutheran Church of America

Within the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America and other denominations, similar groups are growing:

Meanwhile, 280 churches and 21 synods in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) participate in a similar program called "Reconciling in Christ" (RIC). During RIC's first 18 years, 250 congregations across North America joined, but 30 new churches have joined this year alone. Other denominations have gay-affirming programs such as the Rainbow Baptists, the Association of Welcoming and Affirming Baptists, and the United Methodist Reconciling Congregation Program.²¹⁶

The ELCA has established a task force to formulate a recommendation regarding homosexuality, but some observers think the membership of the task force almost guarantees a liberalization of its current policy opposing homosexual activity:

In April, the ELCA Task Force on Human Sexuality met in Chicago for its second conference. The denomination commissioned the task force "to guide" the ELCA's decision making on gay clergy and the blessing of same-sex relationships. But its expert panels may actually be a series of stacked decks. For example, task force science panelists included a pair of Lutheran clinical psychologists who offered as fact the opinion of the gay-friendly American Psychological Association: "[Sexual] orientation is not a choice, it cannot be changed, [and] efforts to attempt to modify it may even be harmful." Another science panelist cited the discredited Kinsey Report as support for legitimizing homosexuality.

Roanoke College religion professor Robert Benne, a biblical conservative and task force panelist, told World the ELCA task force "certainly is weighted toward those who are open to revising basic teaching on homosexual relations." In addition, he said the presence of open homosexuals at every discussion "makes it difficult for folks who are uncertain or just plain nice to voice objections or even reservations about the revisionist agenda. Most church people like to be polite and accepting, so they often accept that agenda out of the desire to ‘keep the peace in love.'"²¹⁷

4. United Methodist Church

As I noted at the beginning of this article, in April, 2004,

a clergy jury in the [United Methodist Church's] Pacific Northwest regional unit voted to retain the ministerial credentials of Karen Dammann, a self-avowed lesbian who recently ‘married' her partner . . . .Church members looking to their bishops for a decisive response in defense of church discipline didn't get one. In a wobbly statement, the 15-member executive committee of the UMC Council of Bishops in effect said that the bishops are committed to upholding the church's laws but what regional conferences do is their own business.²¹⁸

The denomination's General Conference (the nationwide meeting of the denomination) does not have authority to overturn this regional decision, but when they met in May they voted 579-376 (61% - 39%) to affirm a policy statement against homosexual practice which said, "The United Methodist Church does not condone the practice of homosexuality and considers this practice incompatible with Christian teaching," and they voted 674-262 (72% - 28%) to retain a ban on the ordination and placement of practicing homosexuals as ministers.²¹⁹ The votes show significant minorities in the General Conference (somewhere around one-third) advocating the approval of homosexuality, but these vote margins suggest that they are unlikely to win majority approval in the near future.

5. Christian Reformed Church

Nor is this movement confined to liberal denominations. The Christian Reformed Church (CRC) is still thought to be largely evangelical, and it was only in 1995 that the CRC approved the ordination of women. But now the First Christian Reformed Church in Toronto has "opened church leadership to practicing homosexual members ‘living in committed relationships,' a move that the denomination expressly prohibits."²²⁰

In addition, Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the college of the Christian Reformed Church, has increasingly allowed on its campus expressions of support for homosexuals to be evident on campus. World magazine reports:

Calvin has since 2002 observed something called "Ribbon Week," during which heterosexual students wear ribbons to show their support for those who desire to sleep with people of the same sex. Calvin President Gaylen Byker . . . [said], ". . . homosexuality is qualitatively different from other sexual sin. It is a disorder," not chosen by the person. Having Ribbon Week, he said, "is like having cerebral palsy week."

Pro-homosexuality material has crept into Calvin's curriculum. . . . At least some Calvin students have internalized the school's thinking on homosexuality. . . . In January, campus newspaper editor Christian Bell crossed swords with Gary Glenn, president of the American Family Association's Michigan chapter, and an ardent foe of legislation that gives special rights to homosexuals. . . . In an e-mail exchange with Mr. Glenn before his visit, Mr. Bell called him "a hate-mongering, homophobic bigot . . . from a documented hate group." Mr. Bell later issued a public apology.²²¹

This article on Calvin College in World generated a barrage of pro- and con- letters to the editor in the following weeks, all of which can still be read on-line by interested readers.²²² Many writers expressed appreciation for a college like Calvin that is open to the expression of different viewpoints but still maintains a clear Christian commitment.

No one claimed the quotes in the article were inaccurate, but some claimed they did not give a balanced view. Some letters from current and recent students confirmed the essential accuracy of the World article, such as this one:

I commend Lynn Vincent for writing "Shifting sand?" (May 10). As a sophomore at Calvin, I have been exposed firsthand to the changing of Calvin's foundation. Being a transfer student, I was not fully aware of the special events like "Ribbon Week." I asked a classmate what her purple ribbon meant and she said it's a sign of acceptance of all people. I later found out that "all people" meant gays, lesbians, and bisexuals. I have been appalled by posters advertising a support group for GLBs (as they are called) around campus. God condemned the practice, so why cannot God's judgment against GLB be proclaimed at Calvin? I am glad Calvin's lack of the morals it was founded on is being made known to the Christian community outside of Calvin. Much prayer and action is needed if a change is to take place.-Katie Wagenmaker, Coopersville, Mich.²²³

This does not indicate that the Christian Reformed Church has approved homosexuality (it has not), but it does indicate the existence of a struggle within the denomination, and the likelihood of more to come.

G. What is Ultimately at Stake: The Bible

As I have spent more and more time analyzing egalitarian arguments, I have become more firmly convinced that egalitarianism is becoming the new path to liberalism for evangelicals in our generation.

The pioneers of evangelical feminism are liberal denominations. The arguments now being used by egalitarians were used by these liberal denominations when they were approving the ordination of women. Many of the current leaders of the egalitarian movement either advocate positions that undermine the authority of Scripture or at least advertise and promote books that undermine the authority of Scripture and lead believers toward liberalism. The hints we now have of the doctrinal direction in which evangelical feminism is moving predict an increasing emphasis on an abolition of anything that is distinctly masculine. Egalitarianism is heading toward an androgynous Adam who is neither male nor female, and a Jesus whose manhood is not important. It is heading toward a God who is both Father and Mother, and then only Mother. And soon the methods of evading the teachings of Scripture on manhood and womanhood will be used again and again by those who advocate the moral legitimacy of homosexuality.

The common denominator in all of this is a persistent undermining of the authority of Scripture in our lives. My conclusion at the end of this study is that we must choose either evangelical feminism or biblical truth. We cannot have both.

Endnotes

¹ This article is an adapted excerpt from Wayne Grudem's forthcoming book Evangelical Feminism and Biblical Truth: An Analysis of More Than 100 Disputed Questions (Sisters, OR: Multnomah, forthcoming), © 2004. Used by permission of Multnomah Publishers, Inc. I wish to thank Chris Cowan and Rob Lister of the CBMW staff, for doing most of the work to adapt this article for publication.

² See Mark Chaves, Ordaining Women (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1997).

³ A more precise statement of a clear dividing line between liberals and evangelicals is found in the statement of faith of the Evangelical Theological Society, which says, "The Bible alone, and the Bible in its entirety, is the Word of God written and is therefore inerrant in the autographs."

⁴ The American Lutheran Church and The Lutheran Church in America are presently combined into a single denomination, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA).

⁵ Chaves, Ordaining Women 16-17. Chaves lists many other denominations, such as Baptist and Pentecostal denominations, that were ordaining women much earlier and were not affected by theological liberalism. Many of these other groups placed a strong emphasis on leading and calling by the Holy Spirit (such as Pentecostal groups) or placed a strong emphasis on the autonomy of the local congregation (such as many Baptist groups) and therefore these denominations were not adopting women's ordination because of theological liberalism. But my point here is that when liberalism was the dominant theological viewpoint in a denomination, from 1956 onward it became inevitable that that denomination would endorse women's ordination.

⁶ Chaves, Ordaining Women 35.

⁷ A much stronger action than the resolution Chaves mentions was taken in June 2000, when the SBC added to "The Baptist Faith and Message" (its official statement of doctrine) the following sentence: "While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture" (added to Article VI, "The Church").

⁸ See "CRC reverses decision . . . again" in CBMW News 1:1 (August 1995) 5.

⁹ Chaves, Ordaining Women 86.

¹⁰ Ibid. 84-85 (italics added).

¹¹ Ibid. 89-91. Chaves strongly favors the ordination of women and goes on to argue that the Bible does not prohibit it.

¹² Conservatives regained control of the Southern Baptist Convention beginning with the election of Adrian Rogers as president of the denomination in 1979 (see Jerry Sutton, The Baptist Reformation: The Conservative Resurgence in the Southern Baptist Convention [Nashville: Broadman and Holman, 2000] 99).

¹³ The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod had been drifting toward a liberal view of Scripture for perhaps twenty or thirty years when conservatives within the denomination effectively regained control with the election of J. A. O. Preus as the denomination's president in 1969. The denominational convention in 1973 in New Orleans affirmed its clear adherence to biblical inerrancy and with this victory the denominational leadership suspended the president of Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, John Tietjen, on January 20, 1974. In February 1974, forty-five of the fifty faculty members at Concordia Seminary left in protest, but new faculty members were appointed, and the seminary and the denomination after that remained in the control of conservatives who held to biblical inerrancy. (See Harold Lindsell, The Bible in the Balance [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1979] 244-74, especially 259-70.)

¹⁴ The Presbyterian Church in America was formed by conservatives who left the Presbyterian Church in the United States ("The Southern Presbyterian Church") in 1973 (see Susan Lynn Peterson, Timeline Charts of the Western Church [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1999] 248).

¹⁵ Personal letter from William D. Mounce to Wayne Grudem, received May 14, 1987, quoted by permission.

¹⁶ Personal letter from William D. Mounce to Wayne Grudem, received July 23, 1987, quoted by permission.

¹⁷ In the United Methodist Church, however, in April, 2004, "a clergy jury in the [United Methodist Church's] Pacific Northwest regional unit voted to retain the ministerial credentials of Karen Dammann, a self-avowed lesbian who recently ‘married' her partner. . . . Church members looking to their bishops for a decisive response in defense of church discipline didn't get one. In a wobbly statement, the 15-member executive committee of the UMC Council of Bishops in effect said that the bishops are committed to upholding the church's laws but what regional conferences do is their own business" (Edward E. Plowman, "None of Our Business," in World 19:15 (Apr. 17, 2004), quoted from www.worldmag.com/world/issue/04-17-04/national_5.asp). This is an indication that the United Methodist Church in one large region has reached point 6 in the seven-point sequence noted above, though the denomination's national governing body, the General Conference took steps in May to minimize the impact of that decision (see section F.4 at the end of this article for further details). (The Methodist Church approved the ordination of women in 1956.)

¹⁸ Rebecca Groothuis, Good News for Women: A Biblical Picture of Gender Equality (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1997) 124.

¹⁹ See Raymond C. Ortlund, "Male-Female Equality and Male Headship in Genesis 1-3, " in Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, eds. John Piper and Wayne Grudem (Wheaton: Crossway, 1991) 98.

²⁰ See William Webb, Slaves, Women and Homosexuals: Exploring the Hermeneutics of Cultural Analysis (Downers Grove: Inter Varsity, 2001). The back cover includes endorsements from Darrell Bock of Dallas Theological Seminary, Craig Evans of Trinity Western University, Craig Keener of Eastern Seminary, and Stephen Spencer of Dallas Theological Seminary (but now of Wheaton College).

²¹ Ibid. 135.

²² Ibid. 142-43 (italics added).

²³ Ibid. 143 (italics added).

²⁴ Ibid. 143 (italics added). Webb explains in a footnote that the "main point" of the creation narrative "is that Yahweh created the heavens and all that is in them, and Yahweh created the earth and all that is in it-God made everything" (143, n. 46).

²⁵ Ibid. 144.

²⁶ This is a fairly standard view among evangelical scholars, but Webb does not even consider it. See Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994) 412, and the relevant pages given for other systematic theologies (434-35).

²⁷ The serpent, the act of deception, and Satan are connected in some New Testament contexts. Paul says, "I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be lead astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ" (2 Cor 11:3, in a context opposing false apostles whom he categorizes as servants of Satan who "disguise themselves as servants of righteousness," v. 15). Revelation 12 describes Satan as "that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world" (Rev 12:9). See also John 8:44 and 1 John 3:8, with reference to the beginning stages of history.

²⁸ Webb, Slaves, Women and Homosexuals 142-43.

²⁹ Ibid. 145 (italics added); repeated (151, n. 55).

³⁰ Ibid. 83.

³¹ Ibid. 73.

³² Ibid. 36.

³³ Ibid. 87.

³⁴ Ibid. 80-81.

³⁵ Ibid. 36-39.

³⁶ Ibid. 60.

³⁷ Gordon Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, NICNT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987) 708.

³⁸ See Ibid. 699-708.

³⁹ Ibid. 705.

⁴⁰ See the discussion in Anthony C. Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians: A Commentary on the Greek Text, NIGTC (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000) 1148-50, with particular reference to an article by C. Niccum, "The Voice of the Manuscripts on the Silence of Women: The External Evidence for 1 Cor 14:34-35, " New Testament Studies 43 (1997) 242-55. Thiselton says Niccum's article "seems overwhelmingly convincing" (1149, n. 342). See also D. A. Carson, "‘Silent in the Churches': On the Role of Women in 1 Corinthians 14:33b-36, " in Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood 141-45.

⁴¹ Ibid. 705.

⁴² The Greek New Testament, 4th rev. ed., eds. Barbara Aland, Kurt Aland, Johannes Karavidopoulos, Carlo M. Martini, and Bruce M. Metzger (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft and United Bible Societies, 1994) (abbreviated as UBS⁴) 601.

⁴³ UBS⁴, 3*.

⁴⁴ Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians 702.

⁴⁵ Fee himself lists-but then rejects-several ways people have interpreted 1 Cor 14:34-35 so as not to contradict 1 Cor. 11.

⁴⁶ Paul King Jewett, Man as Male and Female (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975).

⁴⁷ Ibid. 112-13, 119, 134 (italics added).

⁴⁸ Thomas Schreiner, "An Interpretation of 1 Timothy 2:9-15: A Dialogue with Scholarship," in Women in the Church: A Fresh Analysis of 1 Timothy 2:9-15, eds. Andreas Köstenberger, Thomas Schreiner, and H. Scott Baldwin (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1995) 107, with reference to Clarence Boomsma, Male and Female, One in Christ: New Testament Teaching on Women in Office (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1993). In a review of Boomsma's book, Al Wolters writes, "I do not believe that anyone else in the Reformed tradition has ever dared to suggest that the scriptural argumentation of an apostle is clearly mistaken and unacceptable" (Al Wolters, review of Clarence Boomsma, Male and Female, One in Christ, in Calvin Theological Journal 29 [1994] 285).

⁴⁹ David L. Thompson, "Women, Men, Slaves and the Bible: Hermeneutical Inquiries," Christian Scholar's Review 25/3 (March, 1996) 326-49.

⁵⁰ Ibid. 346, 347.

⁵¹ Ibid. 347.

⁵² R. T. France, Women in the Church's Ministry: A Test Case for Biblical Interpretation (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995) 78 (italics added).

⁵³ Ibid. 91 (italics added).

⁵⁴ Ibid. 94-95.

⁵⁵ Thompson, "Women, Men, Slaves and the Bible," 326-49. For a more detailed response to Thompson's article, especially his hermeneutical principles and his approach to the authority of Scripture, see Wayne Grudem, "Asbury Professor Advocates Egalitarianism but Undermines Biblical Authority: A Critique of David Thompson's ‘Trajectory' Hermeneutic." CBMW News 2:1 (Dec., 1996) 8-12 (also available at www.cmbw.org).

⁵⁶ Thompson, "Women, Men, Slaves and the Bible" 338-39.

⁵⁷ Chapter 3, Paragraph 6 (italics added).

⁵⁸ Article V, Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 21:4 (Dec. 1978) 290-91.

⁵⁹ www.etsjets.org (italics added).

⁶⁰ France, Women in the Church's Ministry 17-19.

⁶¹ Webb, Slaves, Women and Homosexuals 36 (italics added).

⁶² Ibid. 39.

⁶³ Ibid. 243.

⁶⁴ Ibid. 241.

⁶⁵ For a detailed critique of Webb's book, see Wayne Grudem, "Should We Move Beyond the New Testament to a Better Ethic? An Analysis of William J. Webb, Slaves, Women and Homosexuals: Exploring the Hermeneutics of Cultural Analysis (Downers Grove: Inter Varsity, 2001)," in Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 47/2 (June 2004): 299-347; to be reprinted as an appendix in Grudem, Evangelical Feminism (forthcoming). See also Thomas R. Schreiner, "Review of Slaves, Women, and Homosexuals," JBMW 7/1 (Spring, 2002) 41-51. (His review was originally published in The Southern Baptist Journal of Theology 6/1 [2002] 46-64).

⁶⁶ Ibid. 39-41, 250-52, and many other places in the book.

⁶⁷ Ibid. 212.

⁶⁸ Ibid. Webb does not consider the far simpler possibility that first century readers would have understood the word "children" (Greek tekna) to apply only to people who were not adults, and so we today can say that Ephesians 6:1 applies to modern believers in just the same way that it applied to first century believers, and no "cultural filters" need to be applied to that command.

⁶⁹ Ibid. 34.

⁷⁰ Ibid. 60.

⁷¹ Ibid. 31.

⁷² Ibid.

⁷³ Ibid. It is surprising to me that Webb's book has endorsements on the back cover by such recognized evangelical leaders as Darrell Bock of Dallas Seminary (who wrote the foreword), Stephen Spencer (formerly a theology professor at Dallas Seminary, but now teaching at Wheaton College), Craig Keener (of Eastern Seminary), and Craig Evans (of Trinity Western University). Sarah Sumner, Men and Women in the Church, (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2003), says Webb's book is "the most helpful book I know" on discerning which passages are culturally bound and which are transcultural (213).

⁷⁴Webb, Slaves, Women and Homosexuals 37.

⁷⁵ The following citations are from the 1838 edition: Theodore Weld, The Bible Against Slavery (4^th ed. New York: American Anti-Slavery Society, 1838). The book was first published in Boston in 1837. See also several essays in Mason Lowance, ed., Against Slavery: An Abolitionist Reader (New York: Penguin Books, 2000).

⁷⁶ Ibid. Webb does not explain what he means by "wages maximized for all," but readers might wonder if it means that profits and capital investment would be minimized in order for wages to be maximized? Or does it mean that all would have equal wages, since "all" would have maximized wages and this must mean that none would have lower wages than others? He does not make clear in what sense he thinks wages would be "maximized for all."

⁷⁷ Ibid. 247 (italics added).

⁷⁸ Ibid. 35.

⁷⁹ Ibid. 53 (italics added).

⁸⁰ Ibid. 37.

⁸¹ France, Women in the Church's Ministry 93-94.

⁸² Stanley Grenz, Women in the Church: A Biblical Theology of Women in Ministry (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1995) 106-7.

⁸³ Sumner, Men and Women in the Church 128; see also 256-257.

⁸⁴ Ibid. 249. She also says that our viewpoints are often the result of traditional assumptions inherited from church history: see 275, 285, 292-293.

⁸⁵ Cindy Jacobs, Women of Destiny (Ventura, Cal.: Regal Books, 1998) 175. Later she compares arguing about 1 Tim 2:11-15 and 1 Cor 14:34-35 to arguing about "other obscure passages" such as "the verse that deals with baptism for the dead (see 1 Cor 15:29)" (234).

⁸⁶ Ibid. 178 (Jacobs says she got this principle from Robert Clinton of Fuller Seminary).

⁸⁷ Taken from http://ag.org/top/beliefs/position_papers/4191_women_ministry.cfm paragraph 2.

⁸⁸ Sumner, Men and Women in the Church 248.

⁸⁹ Rich Nathan, Who Is My Enemy (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2002) 142-144.

⁹⁰ However, it is interesting that both Sumner and Nathan elsewhere say that they have decided that 1 Tim 2:12 means that women who are teaching false doctrine in the church at Ephesus should be silent.

⁹¹ For example, see appendices 3 and 7 in Grudem, Evangelical Feminism (forthcoming), where I give in English translation with context over fifty examples of the word kephale ("head") used to mean "person in authority over" and all eighty-two extant examples of the verb authenteo ("to exercise authority"). Even readers with no technical training in Greek can read these examples and decide whether they think certain egalitarian claims or complementarian claims are supported by the relevant evidence.

⁹² For one example, see Cindy Jacobs's statement about 1 Tim 2:11-15: "In my study of this passage, I have found Richard and Catherine Clark Kroegers' book I Suffer Not a Woman: Rethinking 1 Timothy 2:11-15 in Light of Ancient Evidence (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1992) was particularly enlightening for understanding the historical and religious setting of Ephesus at the time 1 Timothy was written. Their study reveals a world of idolatrous paganism based upon a matriarchal society and goddess worship" (Jacobs, Women of Destiny 235).

Compare Jacobs's trust in the Kroegers' writings to the scholarly analyses of Thomas Schreiner, "An Interpretation of 1 Timothy 2:9-15, " in Women in the Church 109-110; Robert W. Yarbrough, "I Suffer Not a Woman: A Review Essay," Presbyterion 18 (1992) 25-33; Albert Wolters, "Review: I Suffer Not a Woman," Calvin Theological Journal 28 (1993) 208-13; S. M. Baugh, "The Apostle Among the Amazons," Westminster Theological Journal 56 (1994) 153-71. These New Testament scholars do not simply say they disagree with Kroeger (for scholars will always differ in their about the interpretation of data), but that she is not even telling the truth about much of the historical data that she claims:

For example, as Baugh's title indicates, the Kroegers rely heavily in non-factual myths (such as myths of "Amazon" women who were super-warriors) but Baugh (who wrote his Ph.D. on the history of ancient Ephesus) says, "the Kroegers . . . have painted a picture of Ephesus which wanders widely from the facts," (55) "betrays an astonishing innocence of how ancient societies worked," (160) is "wildly anachronistic" (163), and contains "outright errors of fact" (165).

Wolters says of the Kroegers, "their proposal, both philologically and historically, is a signal failure. In fact, it is not too much to say that their book is precisely the sort of thing that has too often given evangelical scholarship a bad name. There is little in the book's main thesis that can withstand serious scrutiny, and there is a host of subordinate detail that is misleading or downright false" (209-210).

Wolters cites several specific examples to show that the Kroegers "repeatedly misunderstand the sources they cite, and they fail to mention important recent literature which counts against their own interpretation. . . . Their scholarly documentation is riddled with elementary linguistic blunders. . . . Unfortunately, things are not much better with the Kroegers' historical argumentation. There is in fact no direct evidence that their postulated Gnostic sect ever existed in first-century Ephesus, or indeed that a Gnostic group fitting their description ever existed at all" (211).

⁹³ Even among those evangelical denominations that had women pastors, such as the Assemblies of God, the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel, and the Church of the Nazarene, women pastors constituted a small minority.

⁹⁴ In fact, egalitarian author J. Lee Grady rejects this idea. He writes, in the context of talking about women who have public preaching ministries, "And in many cases, leaders have innocently twisted various Bible verses to suggest that a woman's public ministry can be valid only if she is properly ‘covered' by a male who is present" (J. Lee Grady, Ten Lies the Church Tells Women [Lake Mary, Fla.: Creation House, 2000] 89).

⁹⁵ Missionaries who hold to believer's baptism would baptize only those who make a profession of faith, and those who hold to infant baptism would also baptize the infant children of those who make a profession of faith, but in both cases they are seeking to follow what they think the New Testament teaches. No one is saying, "We are not a church, so what the New Testament teaches about baptism does not apply to us."

⁹⁶ I realize that the military chaplaincy includes chaplains from many denominations, including those that ordain women. The military should accept such women chaplains if denominations send them, I think, because the decision to ordain and endorse them for the chaplaincy does not belong to the military but instead falls to the different denominations. Freedom of religion in a country includes freedom to hold different views on whether women should be ordained. What I am advocating here, however, is that denominations that wish to be faithful to Scripture should not ordain or endorse women as chaplains, in my judgment.

⁹⁷ Theological seminaries have reached different decisions on this question. Both Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, where I taught for twenty years, and Phoenix Seminary, where I now teach, have women on their governing boards. I did not object to this, since governing the activities of a seminary is sufficiently different from governing a church. The boards met rather infrequently and made decisions regarding broad policies and budgets. They exercised almost no direct authority over me or over my conduct in the seminary, nor did I think of them as having the kind of pastoral responsibility for my life that I think my pastor and elders do. Some board members even attended an adult Sunday school class that I taught and where I was in charge. One board member was also a student in one of my classes, and neither of us ever thought there was any kind of elder-like authority functioning in that situation (except perhaps in a reverse sense, in that I as a teacher felt some responsibility for the spiritual lives of my students). On the other hand, Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia decided that the role of a board member was similar in many respects to the role of an elder in the church, and it decided to require its board members to be ordained to consist only of people who had previously been ordained as elders in Presbyterian or Reformed churches, subject to the qualifications in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1. Within the conservative Reformed circles that Westminster serves, this rule effectively meant that all board members would be men. (The seminary at one point was threatened with loss of accreditation by the Middle States Accrediting Association unless it added women to its board. The seminary decided to fight this in court on First Amendment freedom of religion grounds, but before the matter could go to court, the accrediting agency, under pressure from the U. S. Department of Education, backed down.)

⁹⁸ For example, Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia specifies that their academic dean must be an ordained elder in a church.

⁹⁹ Kevin Giles, The Trinity and Subordinationism: The Doctrine of God and the Contemporary Gender Debate (Downers Grove: Inter Varsity, 2002).

¹⁰⁰ Ibid. 25.

¹⁰¹ Ibid. 10.

¹⁰² Ibid. 25.

¹⁰³ Ibid. 9.

¹⁰⁴ Ibid. He argues that the traditional view of the Trinity was right and should be followed, but the traditional view of male headship was wrong, and should not be followed, since on that matter no other reading was open to people in earlier centuries (9-10).

¹⁰⁵ Peter Schemm, "Kevin Giles's The Trinity and Subordinationism: A Review Article," JBMW 7/2 (Fall, 2002) 67-78. For Giles's inaccuracies, see p. 74 (also available online at www.cbmw.org). For further discussion of the historic view of the church regarding the subordination of the Son to the Father (in role, not in being), see section C.9 below.

¹⁰⁶ Jacobs, Women of Destiny 176. Sumner, Men and Women in the Church, argues that "Every generation produces gifted women who minister effectively to women and men" (49), women whose ministry God blesses (and she has no hesitation about frequently using herself as a primary example: see 15, 17-19, 20-21, 49, 51-53, 73-74, 95-96, 104, 187, 195-197, 226, 308-309, 315).

¹⁰⁷ Ruth A. Tucker, Women in the Maze (Downers Grove: Inter Varsity Press, 1992) 187.

¹⁰⁸ C. M. Robeck Jr., "Aimee Semple McPherson," in International Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements, rev. and expanded ed., eds. Stanley M. Burgess and Eduard van der Maas (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2002) 858.

¹⁰⁹ Ibid. 856-59.

¹¹⁰ Tucker, Women in the Maze 184.

¹¹¹ The information in this chart was compiled for me by my teaching assistants Travis Buchanan and Steve Eriksson from Churches and Church Membership in the United States 1990 and Religious Congregations and Membership in the United States 2000 (Nashville: Glenmary Research Center, 2002), and from reference material compiled by Justin Taylor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota. Numbers for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America use the combined totals for the American Lutheran Church and the Lutheran Church of America for 1971 and 1980.

¹¹² Others could object that such statistics are not conclusive because some Pentecostal and charismatic groups have seen rapid growth even though they ordain women. I agree that groups such as the Assemblies of God and the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel have experienced remarkable growth, but pastors within those groups also tell me that the larger and more rapidly growing churches in those denominations have men as pastors.

¹¹³ To take one example, I saw this happen at an influential evangelical church in Libertyville, Illinois, in 1996 and 1997. The pastor attempted over a period of months to add women to the governing board of the church, and as a result perhaps ten or more of the most conservative, most active families in the church left and joined the other main evangelical church in town, a Southern Baptist Church where I was an elder and where the pastor and church constitution clearly supported a complementarian position.

¹¹⁴ See Leon Podles, The Church Impotent: The Feminization of Christianity (Dallas: Spence, 1999), who notes that in 1952 the adult attenders on Sunday morning in typical Protestant churches were 53 percent female and 47 percent male, which was almost exactly the same proportion of women and men in the adult population in the U.S. But by 1986 (after several decades of feminist influence in liberal denominations) the ratios were closer to 60 percent female and 40 percent male, with many congregations reporting a ratio of 65 percent to 35 percent (11-12). Podles focuses primarily on Roman Catholic and liberal Protestant churches in his study, and he concludes that, if present trends continue, the "Protestant clergy will be characteristically a female occupation, like nursing, within a generation" (xiii).

¹¹⁵ Joseph Fletcher, Situation Ethics: The New Morality (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1966).

¹¹⁶ J. I. Packer, "Liberalism and Conservatism in Theology" in New Dictionary of Theology, eds. Sinclair B. Ferguson and David F. Wright (Leicester, UK: InterVarsity, 1988) 385.

¹¹⁷ Millicent Hunter, as quoted in Charisma, May 2003, 40.

¹¹⁸ Sumner, Men and Women in the Church 27.

¹¹⁹ Ibid. 318.

¹²⁰ Jacobs, Women of Destiny 173.

¹²¹ I have written about the gift of prophecy at some length in The Gift of Prophecy in the New Testament and Today, rev. ed. (Wheaton: Crossway, 2000). For a brief summary of my conclusions, see Grudem, Systematic Theology 1049-61.

¹²² John Arnott, "All Hands to the Harvest," in Spread the Fire 3/5 (Oct. 1997) 1; this journal was published by the Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship: www.tacf.org. The article argued that old restrictions on women in ministry should not be followed today because of the great needs today.

¹²³ Jacobs, Women of Destiny 234.

¹²⁴ Grudem, Evangelical Feminism (forthcoming).

¹²⁵ For representative egalitarian statements of this position see, Craig Keener, Paul, Women & Wives (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson Publishers, 1992) 70; Grenz, Women in the Church 123-124; Grady, Ten Lies 61-64; and Linda L. Belleville, "Women in Ministry," in Two Views on Women in Ministry, eds. James Beck and Craig Blomberg (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2001) 116.

¹²⁶ Keener, Paul, Women & Wives 89, note 4.

¹²⁷ For a more detailed response to this claim and other variations of it see Grudem, Evangelical Feminism (forthcoming) Section 7.7a.

¹²⁸ See Ibid. Section 7.7b for my discussion of how the phrase "as in all the churches of the saints" (v 33b) relates best to verse 34. But even if someone thinks that phrase goes with the preceding sentence, Paul still says, in v. 34, "the women should keep silent in the churches."

¹²⁹ If women were being disruptive, Paul would just tell them to act in an orderly way, not to be completely silent. In other cases where there are problems of disorder, Paul simply prescribes order (as with tongues or prophecy in verses 27, 29, 31 and as with the Lord's supper in 1 Cor 11:33-34). If noise had been the problem in Corinth, he would have explicitly forbidden disorderly speech, not all speech.

¹³⁰ With this view, Paul would be punishing all women for the misdeeds of some. If there were noisy women, in order to be fair, Paul should have said, "The disorderly women should keep silent." But this egalitarian position makes Paul unfair, for it makes him silence all women, not just the disorderly ones. It is unlike Paul, or any other New Testament writer, to make unfair rules of this sort. Also, Paul would be unfair to punish only the disorderly women and not any disorderly men. And to say that only women and no men were disorderly is merely an assumption with no facts to support it.

¹³¹ This was pointed out by Carson, "Silent in the Churches" 148.

¹³² Linda Belleville says "law" here refers to Roman law ("Women in Ministry" 119). As evidence, she says, "Official religion of the Roman variety was closely supervised," but the only proof she gives is a reference to her book, Women Leaders and the Church: Three Crucial Questions (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2000) 36-38. On those pages, we look in vain for any reference to Roman law regulating anyone's conduct within any religious service. She mentions the Emperor Tiberias's attempt to abolish the Cult of Isis, but that proves nothing about attempts to regulate Christian conduct or any other religious activity within a worship service. Belleville asks us to believe, without proof, the rather remarkable position that Roman laws prohibited women from asking disruptive questions within a worship service such as found in a Christian church. And she gives not one shred of proof.

Paul never uses "law" (Greek nomos) to refer to Roman law, but often uses it, as here, to refer to the teachings of the Old Testament taken as a whole.

Walter Kaiser, Hard Sayings of the Old Testament (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1988) 36, claims that "the law" here means Rabbinic teaching, but he provides no supporting evidence, and, again, Paul does not use the word "law" in that way.

¹³³ Belleville, "Women in Ministry" 95. See also Judy Brown, Women Ministers According to Scripture (Springfield, Ill.: Judy L. Brown, 1996) 170, 175, and Jacobs, Women of Destiny, 200. Jacobs says that the "presiding elder" of a house church "was also the head of the household where the church met." Therefore she concludes that "Lydia and Mary . . . and others very possibly functioned as ‘presiding elders' (or at least the deacons) of the churches in their houses. In fact, if this is so, most of the house churches listed in Scripture were ‘pastored' by women!" (200). A few pages earlier she quotes with approval a comment of C. Peter Wagner that there were no church buildings as we know them in the early church, and therefore meeting in private homes was the "norm" (197). Thus, reasoning from one unsubstantiated assumption about the role of a woman who owned a house, Jacobs suddenly has women pastors in most of the house churches in the New Testament.

¹³⁴ Ibid. 83; also 96.

¹³⁵ For additional comments concerning this claim see Grudem, Evangelical Feminism (forthcoming) Section 7.14b.

¹³⁶ Belleville, "Women in Ministry" 89-90.

¹³⁷ Ibid. (italics added).

¹³⁸ Quoted from The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, eds. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, 14 vols. (repr., Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1994) 14:279. Hereafter, The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, will be indicated by the abbreviation NPNF².

¹³⁹ "Excursus on the Deaconess of the Early Church," unsigned article in NPNF², 14:41 (italics added).

¹⁴⁰ For further discussion of the question of women as deacons, see Grudem, Evangelical Feminism (forthcoming) Section 7.15.

¹⁴¹ For example, see Gilbert Bilezikian, Beyond Sex Roles: What the Bible Says about a Woman's Place in Church and Family, 2^nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1985) 180-81. Bilezikian concludes from this understanding that Paul's abiding principle here is not a prohibition of female instruction and authority over men, but one designed to prohibit the incompetent and uneducated from exercising these functions. Hence Bilezikian states, "According to Paul's principle, neither men nor women should be appointed to positions of leadership in the church until they can show evidence of maturity and competency." See also Jacobs, Women of Destiny 230; and Keener, Paul, Women & Wives 116.

¹⁴² S. M. Baugh, "A Foreign World: Ephesus in the First Century," in Women in the Church 46, with reference to H. I. Marrou, Education in Antiquity, trans. George Lamb (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1956) 46.

¹⁴³ Ibid. 47, footnote 140; additional evidence from several other sources is given on p. 46, notes 136, 138, and 139.

¹⁴⁴ F. A. G. Beck, "Education," in The Oxford Classical Dictionary, 2^nded., eds. N. G. L. Hammond and H. H. Scullard (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970) 371.

¹⁴⁵ Ibid. 372.

¹⁴⁶ Walter K. Lacey, "Women" in The Oxford Classical Dictionary, 2nd ed. 1139.

¹⁴⁷ Ibid.

¹⁴⁸ Robert L. Saucy and Judith K. TenElshof, eds., Women and Men in Ministry: A Complementary Perspective (Chicago: Moody Press, 2001).

¹⁴⁹ Arnold and Saucy at this point referred to Paul Trebilco, Jewish Communities in Asia Minor, SNTSMS 69 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991) especially chapter 2, "The Prominence of Women in Asia Minor" 104-26. (Information taken from Arnold and Saucy, 366, note 4.)

¹⁵⁰ Arnold and Saucy, "The Ephesian Background of Paul's Teaching on Women's Ministry," in Women and Men in Ministry 281-83. The quotation from Michael Grant at the end of this statement has an endnote indicating that it was taken from Michael Grant, A Social History of Greece and Rome (New York: Scribner, 1992) 30-31.

¹⁵¹ Contra, e.g. Bilezikian, Beyond Sex Roles 180. The problem with this "lack of education" interpretation of, "For Adam was formed first, then Eve," is that the Greek word that Paul uses, plasso, does not mean "educated" anywhere in the Bible. Paul is quoting the Greek translation of the Old Testament (the Septuagint) which uses the verb plasso four times in the very story of creation Paul is referring to (Gen 2:7, 2:8, 2:15, 2:19). The word plasso is commonly used in the Septuagint to refer to God's act of creation (31 of 49 instances of plasso in the Septuagint refer to creation). In no case in the Septuagint does this word mean "educate." So how could Paul mean "educate" when he used plasso in this very passage? Paul's words clearly and simply refer to the creation of Adam first, and then Eve, as the usage of plasso in the Greek translation of Genesis 2 indicates. That is surely what the original readers would have understood by Paul's words. See Grudem, Evangelical Feminism (forthcoming) Section 8.2f for further discussion.

¹⁵² For representative egalitarian statements of this claim see, Kroeger and Kroeger, I Suffer Not a Woman 65-66; Keener, Paul, Women & Wives 111-112; Sumner, Men and Women in the Church 259.

¹⁵³ For more detailed treatments of this objection, see Grudem, Evangelical Feminism (forthcoming) Section 8.1, and the complementarian works cited below in response to the next claim.

¹⁵⁴ 1 Tim 1:19-20 (Hymenaeus and Alexander), 2 Tim 2:17-18 (Hymenaeus and Philetus), and Acts 20:30 (men, Greek andres). All three of these references are clearly to men, as all three are marked with masculine gender in the Greek text. Yet, the Kroegers nevertheless conjecture that there must have been false female teachers in addition to these men teaching false doctrine. Kroeger and Kroeger, I Suffer Not a Woman 59-60.

¹⁵⁵ For elaboration of this point see, Grudem, Evangelical Feminism (forthcoming) Section 8.1b. But even if this egalitarian claim could be established, it would not be persuasive because it does not show that women were primarily responsible for spreading the false teaching - of which the only named proponents are men. And unless women were primarily responsible for spreading the false teaching, Paul's silencing of the women (in the egalitarian view) would not make sense.

¹⁵⁶ The egalitarian argument simply is not consistent. Even if some women were teaching false doctrine at Ephesus, why would that lead Paul to prohibit all women from teaching? It would not be fair or consistent to do so. As we saw above, the only false teachers we know about with certainty at Ephesus are men, not women. Therefore if the egalitarian argument were consistent, it would have Paul prohibiting all men from teaching, just because some men were teaching false doctrine! But Paul does not do that, and this shows the inconsistency of the egalitarian argument.

¹⁵⁷ It is precarious to substitute a reason Paul does not give for what he does give. Paul does not mention false teaching by women as a reason for his command. He does not say, "I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet for some women are teaching false doctrine there at Ephesus."Rather, Paul's reason is the creation order: "For Adam was formed first, then Eve." We should be reluctant then, to accept a position based on a reason Paul does not give, especially when it minimizes, ignores, or presents an eccentric interpretation of the reason Paul actually does give (as several egalitarian positions do).

¹⁵⁸ Kroeger and Kroeger, I Suffer not a Woman 59-66, 119-125.

¹⁵⁹ Schreiner, "An Interpretation of 1 Timothy 2:9-15" 109-10.

¹⁶⁰ Baugh, "Apostle Among the Amazons" 153-71.

¹⁶¹ The response to Baugh's analysis in the egalitarian journal Priscilla Papers by Alan Padgett is to say that Baugh "nowhere even considers, much less refutes, the idea that a small group of philosophers (like the Gnostics) might have been teaching the equality of women, contrary to the rest of society" Alan Padgett, "The Scholarship of Patriarchy (On 1 Timothy 2:8-15)," Priscilla Papers (winter 1997) 25-26. The word "might" in this statement reveals a desperate grasping at straws when there is no supporting evidence. I suppose someone could say there "might" have been people at Ephesus supporting all sorts of different doctrines, but a bare "might have been" in the absence of facts is hardly a sufficient basis on which to justify rejecting present-day obligations to obey the instructions of 1 Tim 2:12. People can believe something that has no contemporaneous facts supporting it and hundreds of facts against it if they wish, but it will be for factors other than evidence and rational analysis.

¹⁶² Wolters, "Review: I Suffer Not a Woman" 208-13.

¹⁶³ Ibid. 209-10.

¹⁶⁴ Ibid. 211. For further discussion, see Yarbrough, "I Suffer Not a Woman: A Review Essay" 25-33.

¹⁶⁵ Egalitarian writings holding that kephale means "source" are numerous. Some of the most influential are Berkeley and Alvera Mickelsen, "What Does Kephale Mean in the New Testament?" in Women, Authority, and the Bible, ed. Alvera Mickelsen (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1986) 97-110; Philip B. Payne, "Response," in Women, Authority, and the Bible 118-32; Bilezikian, "A Critical Examination of Wayne Grudem's Treatment of kepahle in Ancient Greek Texts," Appendix to Beyond Sex Roles, 215-52; Catherine Clark Kroeger, "The Classical Concept of Head as ^v Source,'" Appendix III in Equal to Serve by Gretchen Gaebelein Hull (Old Tappan, NJ: Fleming H. Revell, 1987) 267-83; Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians 501-5; Catherine Kroeger, "Head," in Dictionary of Paul and His Letters, eds. Gerald F. Hawthorne, Ralph P. Martin, and Daniel G. Reid (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1993) 375-77; Brown, Women Ministers 213-15, 246.

¹⁶⁶ I realize that a few egalitarians claim that Paul's teaching only applied to his time in history, and is not applicable to us today. This position is not affected by disputes over the meaning of head but it is very difficult to sustain in light of the parallel with Christ and the Church, and in light of Paul's tying it to the statements about marriage before there was sin in the world (Eph 5:31-32, quoting Gen 2:24).

¹⁶⁷ See Wayne Grudem, "Does kephale ("head") Mean "Source" or "Authority Over" in Greek Literature? A Survey of 2,336 Examples" Trinity Journal 6 NS (Spring 1985) 38-59; Idem, "The Meaning of kephale ("Head"): A Response to Recent Studies," Trinity Journal 11 NS (Spring, 1990), 3-72; Idem, "The Meaning of "Head" (kephale) in 1 Corinthians 11:3 and Ephesians 5:23, " in Biblical Foundations for Manhood and Womanhood 145-202; and Idem, Evangelical Feminism (forthcoming) Sections 6.6a-g.

¹⁶⁸ These texts are discussed in my two previous articles on kephale (mentioned above).

¹⁶⁹ Grudem, "The Meaning of kephale ("head")" 25-65.

¹⁷⁰ For elaboration see Grudem, Evangelical Feminism (forthcoming) Section 6.6e.

¹⁷¹ Ibid. Sections 6.6f-g.

¹⁷² For various nuances of this "abuse of authority" interpretation see, David M. Scholer, "The Evangelical Debate over Biblical ‘Headship,'" in Women, Abuse, and the Bible, eds. Catherine Clark Kroeger and James R. Beck (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1996) 50; Groothuis, Good News for Women 215; Sumner, Men and Women in the Church 253; Leland Wilshire, "1 Timothy 2:12 Revisited: A Reply to Paul W. Barnett and Timothy J. Harris" Evangelical Quarterly 65:1 (1993) 47-48, 52; Grady, Ten Lies 58; Kroeger and Kroeger, I Suffer Not a Woman 103 and 185-188. Note that the two page citations from the Kroeger volume indicate two separate variations of this proposal.

¹⁷³ H. Scott Baldwin, "A Difficult Word: Authenteo in 1 Timothy 2:12, " in Women in the Church 65-80 and 269-305.

¹⁷⁴ Ibid. 269-305.

¹⁷⁵ Ibid. 72-73. On page 73, Baldwin summarized his findings on the range of possible meaning for authenteo in a table. What becomes evident from his chart is that there are no negative examples of the word authenteo at or around the time of the New Testament.

¹⁷⁶ See Grudem, Evangelical Feminism (forthcoming) Sections 8.8b-d, for responses to the specific alternative proposals for understanding authenteo mentioned in the heading over this section.

¹⁷⁷ Note especially Andreas Köstenberger's study, "A Complex Sentence Structure in 1 Timothy 2:12, " in Women in the Church 81-103. His study examined one hundred parallel examples (52 in the NT, 48 from literature outside the NT ranging from the third century BC to the end of the first century AD) to the construction found in 1 Tim 2:12. In all of these cases where two activities or concepts were joined according to the construction found in 1 Tim 2:12, then both activities were either viewed positively or negatively. No exceptions were found. (Cf. Dan Doriani's observation that when an activity that is viewed positively is joined with another viewed negatively, a different construction is used. E.g. Matt 17:7; John 20:27; Rom 12:14; 1 Tim 5:16. Dan Doriani, Women and Ministry [Wheaton: Crossway, 2003] 179). The importance of this for 1 Tim 2:12 is that if the activity of "teaching" is viewed positively in the context of 1 Timothy, then the activity of "having authority" must also be viewed positively. Köstenberger goes on to demonstrate that, in fact, "teaching" is viewed positively by Paul in 1 and 2 Timothy (1 Tim 4:11, 6:2, 2 Tim 2:2).

¹⁷⁸ Al Wolters, "A Semantic Study of authentes and its Derivatives," Journal of Greco-Roman Christianity and Judaism 1 (2000) 145-175. This journal is so far only available online. See http://divinity,mcmaster.ca/pages/jgrchj/index. html).

¹⁷⁹ Gilbert Bilezikian, Community 101: Reclaiming the Church as Community of Oneness (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1997) 191-192. But when Bilezikian denies the eternal subordination of the Son to the Father in their relationship (which exists along with equality in essence or being), he is denying the teaching of the church throughout history, and it is significant that he gives no quotations, no evidence, to support his claim that his view "is the historical Biblical trinitarian doctrine."

¹⁸⁰ For further discussion of the eternal subordination of the Son to the Father see Grudem, Evangelical Feminism (forthcoming) Sections 10.2a-j.

¹⁸¹ Ibid. 191-92.

¹⁸² Other creeds with similar affirmations include the Thirty-nine Articles (Church of England, 1571): "The Son, which is the Word of the Father, begotten from everlasting of the Father, the very and eternal God, and of one substance with the Father" and the Westminster Confession of Faith (1643-46): "the Father is of none, neither begotten, nor proceeding; the Son is eternally begotten of the Father" (Chap 2, para. 3).

¹⁸³ For further discussion of the phrase "only begotten" and the Greek term monogenes on which it is based, see Wayne Grudem, "The Monogenes Controversy: ‘Only' or ‘Only Begotten'?" Appendix 6 in Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Zondervan) 1233-34. (This appendix is in the revised printing only, from 2000 onward.)

¹⁸⁴ For these accusations see Gilbert Bilezikian, "Hermeneutical Bungee- Jumping: Subordination in the Godhead," Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 40 (1997) 57-68. The same article is found in Bilezikian, Community 101 187-202.

¹⁸⁵ Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, 3 Vols. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1970 [reprint]) Vol. 1, 460-62 (italics added). A survey of historical evidence showing affirmation of the eternal subordination of the Son to the authority of the Father is found in Stephen D. Kovach and Peter R. Schemm, Jr., "A Defense of the Doctrine of the Eternal Subordination of the Son," in Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 42 (1999) 461-76. See also Grudem, Systematic Theology 248-52.

¹⁸⁶ For an extensive documentation of the history of this doctrine see Grudem, Evangelical Feminism (forthcoming) Section 10.2f. Among the theologians affirming an eternal difference in role between the Father and the Son are Augustine (354-430), Thomas Aquinas (1224-1274), Calvin (1509-1564), Charles Hodge (1797-1878), Augustus H. Strong (1836-1921), Louis Berkhof (1873-1957), and Lorraine Boettner (1901-1990). Specialists in the history of Christian doctrine who see this as the historic Nicene doctrine include Philip Schaff (1819-1893), J. N. D. Kelley, and Geoffrey Bromiley.

¹⁸⁷ Comments by Catherine Kroeger in Christian History, Issue 17 (1988) 2. The fresco is said to come from the Coemeterium Majus arcosolium in Rome.

¹⁸⁸ Paul C_orby Finney, "Orant" in Encyclopedia of Early Christianity, 2nd ed., ed. Everett Ferguson (New York and London: Garland, 1997) 831; J. Beaudry, "Orans," in New Catholic Encyclopedia, ed. Berard L. Marthaler (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America, 2002) 621; A. M. Giuntella, "Orans," in Encyclopedia of the Early Church, ed. Angelo DiBerardino, trans. Adrian Walford (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992) vol. 2, 615. The procedure followed in this egalitarian claim troubles me even more than most of the other claims that I consider in this article. When no explanations or disclaimers are made alerting readers to the uniform lack of support from scholarly specialists for such an interpretation, this wild speculation (or so it seems to me, after reading these other articles) is taken as truth by unsuspecting readers.

¹⁸⁹ Probably the first woman to have such a recognized public role was Margaret Fell in the sectarian Quaker movement in 1667. If there ever had been a woman bishop in Rome in the late third century, as Kroeger supposes, it would have prompted widespread comment, and even opposition and conflict. In fact, the Roman Catholic church has a high interest in the historical succession of bishops in Rome! But there is no record of a woman bishop, to say nothing of dozens of women bishops, all of which also makes Kroeger's speculation highly unlikely.

¹⁹⁰ For further discussion of this trend, see Daniel R. Heimbach, "The Unchangeable Difference: Eternally Fixed Sexual Identity for an Age of Plastic Sexuality," in Biblical Foundations for Manhood and Womanhood, ed. Wayne Grudem (Wheaton: Crossway, 2002) 275-89; and Peter R. Jones, "Sexual Perversion: The Necessary Fruit of Neo-Pagan Spirituality in the Culture at Large," in Ibid. 257-74.

¹⁹¹ See for example, Sumner, Men and Women in the Church 86, 98.

¹⁹² Groothuis, Good News for Women 124.

¹⁹³ Grenz, Women in the Church 207-9.

¹⁹⁴ For responses to the claims of Sumner, Groothuis, and Grenz, see Grudem Evangelical Feminism (forthcoming).

¹⁹⁵ Jim Banks article in Mutuality (May 1998) 3.

¹⁹⁶ Groothuis, Good News for Women 47-49.

¹⁹⁷ Tucker, Women in the Maze 20-21.

¹⁹⁸ See www.cbeinternational.org, in the "About CBE's Bookstore" section.

¹⁹⁹ An extensive discussion of this tendency in egalitarian writings, and an analysis of why it is contrary to Scripture, is found in Randy Stinson, "Our Mother Who Art in Heaven: A Brief Overview and Critique of Evangelical Feminists and the Use of Feminine God-Language," JBMW 8/2 (Fall, 2003) 20-34. Stinson notes that there are several metaphors in Scripture that use feminine language to describe God in metaphorical ways, such as "the God who gave you birth" (Deut 32:18) or "As one whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort you" (Isa 66:13), or "For a long time I have held my peace; I have kept still and restrained myself; now I will cry out like a woman in labor" (Isa 42:14). But these never say God is a mother and they never call God by the name "Mother." Stinson writes, "There are . . . figures of speech: similes, metaphors, analogies, or personifications. There are no cases in which feminine terms are used as names, titles, or invocations of God. There are no instances where God is identified by a feminine term" (28). He quotes with approval John Cooper's statement, "God is never directly said to be a mother, mistress, or female bird in the way he is said to be a father, king, judge, or shepherd" (28). (See John Cooper, Our Father in Heaven: Christian Faith and Inclusive Language for God [Grand Rapids: Baker, 1998] 89). In short, we should not name God with names that the Bible never uses and actually avoids using. God's name is valued and highly protected in Scripture.

²⁰⁰ Paul R. Smith, Is It Okay to Call God "Mother"? Considering the Feminine Face of God (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1993) 1.

²⁰¹ Ibid. 134, 137, 140, 141. Page 142 suggests that this sculpture, like another picture he has, is hanging on his office wall.

²⁰² Ibid. 143.

²⁰³ Stinson also notes that Smith is an openly professing homosexual pastor, and cites Smith's writings on homosexuality ("Our Mother Who Art in Heaven" 25-26).

²⁰⁴ Jann Aldredge-Clanton, God, A Word for Girls and Boys (Louisville: Glad River Publications, 1993).

²⁰⁵ Ibid. 23.

²⁰⁶ Ibid. 11.

²⁰⁷ This statement can be found at http://firstpresby.org/womenelders.htm. (italics added).

²⁰⁸ Maura Jane Farrelly, "Controversial Hymns Challenge U. S. Methodists' View of God," in Voice of America News, July 5, 2002 (www.voanews.com).

²⁰⁹ The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship was accepted into full membership as an independent denomination by the Baptist World Alliance in July of 2003, according to World, Aug. 2, 2003, 23.

²¹⁰ ^"‘Mother God' worshipped at group's gathering for CBF annual meeting," in Baptist Press news, June 29, 2001 (www.bpnews.net).

²¹¹ The widely influential book by Krister Stendahl, The Bible and the Role of Women, trans. Emilie Sander (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1966) contained many of the arguments that persuaded liberals to ordain women, and it is amazing to see how closely these arguments parallel the arguments being made by egalitarians today. (I am grateful to my former student, David Jones, for pointing out to me this parallel between Stendahl's writings and current egalitarian arguments.)

²¹² "Episcopal Church Elects First Openly Gay Bishop," at www.foxnews.com, Tuesday, August 5, 2003.

²¹³ New York Times, August 6, 2003, A12 (italics added).

²¹⁴ "Episcopal Vote Allows Blessings of Gay Unions," www.washingtonpost.com, August 7, 2003, A-1.

²¹⁵ "Go forth and sin: A growing mainline movement seeks to affirm homosexuality as biblical," World, Aug. 2, 2003, 20. The same issue of World reports the results of a similar trend in Australia: "By a large margin, the 267 delegates to the national assembly of the 1.4 million-member Uniting Church of Australia (UCA) July 17 formally approved the ordination of homosexual men and women on a local-option basis by presbyteries and congregations. Evangelical clergy and congregations immediately began heading for the exits. . . . The UCA was formed by a merger of Presbyterian, Methodist, and Congregational churches in 1977, making it the country's third-largest denomination at the time" (World, Aug. 2, 2003, 23).

²¹⁶ Ibid. 20.

²¹⁷ Ibid. 21.

²¹⁸ Plowman, "None of Our Business" 15 (Apr. 17, 2004), quoted from www.worldmag.com/world/issue/04-17-04/national_5.asp.

²¹⁹ Edward E. Plowman, "Four More Years," in World 19:20 (May 22, 2004), quoted from www.worldmag.com/world/issue/05-22-04/national_5.asp.

²²⁰ "Reformed Congregation OKs Gay Leaders," Christianity Today, December 9, 2002, 19.

²²¹ "Shifting Sand?" World, May 10, 2003, 41-42.

²²² See www.worldmag.com. A search for the phrase "Calvin College" turned up letters in the "Mailbag" section of World for June 7, June 14, June 21, June 28, and July 3, 2003. Calvin's president, Gaylen Byker, posted a response to the World article on the Calvin web site, under "Calvin News" for May, 2003: see www.calvin.edu/news/releases/2002_03/calvin_letter.htm. He defends the diversity of the campus as well as its steadfast Christian orientation and academic excellence. He also says that the World article failed to give a balanced representation of the entirety of the college campus, which is excellent in many ways. Regarding homosexuality, he says, "Despite what World's story might lead people to believe, homosexuality is not a preoccupation on Calvin's campus. We are working as a college to follow the call of our denomination's Synod (the Christian Reformed Church's highest ruling body) which in 1999 said the entire denomination is ‘called as a Church to repent for our failures' in this area. ‘Ribbon Week' is one way of reaching out with love and compassion to Calvin students who are gay. . . ." He goes on to affirm that homosexual conduct is wrong. Interested persons may read the letter themselves and notice both what he says and what he does not say about the positions that are advocated on the campus. In another letter responding to the World article, professor Quentin Schultze says, "The fact is that the Christian Reformed Church, which ‘owns and operates' Calvin College, has encouraged the entire denomination to love gays and lesbians even while not accepting the sinful practices of some of them." (Quoted from http://www.calvin.edu/news/releases/2002_03/schultze_letter.htm, Oct. 24, 2003.) His expression "the sinful practices of some of them" seems consistent with the picture of Calvin College indicated by the other quotations in the article: The repeated theme is that there are some people who just "are" gays and lesbians, and if they refrain from putting their same-sex inclinations into practice, our attitude toward them should be one of love and acceptance. Hence, the campus-wide week-long emphasis on raising student awareness of gays' and lesbians' need for acceptance and support. At one level, who can object to showing love and support for any other human being? However, at another level, one suspects a larger agenda here on the part of homosexual advocates, an agenda of gaining acceptance by degrees. What would we think of a Christian campus, for example, that sponsored a week-long campaign to show acceptance and support of people who had lustful and adulterous desires, or were alcoholics, or who were addicted to gambling, or were always tempted to lie or curse, or who struggled with constant greed or envy? It seems from reading these comments from Calvin faculty, administrators, and students, that homosexuality is being made into a special cause at Calvin.

²²³ "Mailbag," World, June 7, 2003, copied from www.worldmag.com on Oct. 23, 2003.

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Is Evangelical Feminism the New Path to Liberalism? Some Disturbing Warning Signs¹

Wayne Grudem

A. The Historical Connection Between Liberalism and an Egalitarian View of Women in the Church

B. Current Egalitarian Views that Deny the Authority of Scripture

C. Promoting Untruthful or Unsubstantiated Claims as Established Fact

D. The Disturbing Destination: Denial of Anything Uniquely Masculine

E. The Next Step: God our Mother

F. The Final Step: Approval of Homosexuality

G. What is Ultimately at Stake: The Bible

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