Dan is one of those who took me up on my offer to receive a study of the passages in Mark and Matthew that Doug Wilson, in “The Serrated Edge,” insisted had Jesus calling the Canaanite woman the first-century equivalent of the N-word. The study I wrote about, and sent Dan, is one of the best examples of Biblical exegesis I’ve ever read, and not simply because the author’s conclusion varies from Wilson’s. The offer still stands — if you’d like a copy, email me at kjajmix1@msn.com and I’ll send it out to you.
I thank Dan for taking the time to read the article and for his comments to me. Because they were intended for me only, I won’t post them here — other than to gently point out a flaw in his analogy of Jews and Gentiles, men and women.
Dan wrote that as a Gentile, he felt no slight at all, either from the Lord or from the Church, because the Jews are those God chose to bring the Gospel to first — as Paul writes in Romans, the message of salvation through Jesus the Messiah is offered first to the Jew, then to the Gentile. Dan rightly notes that no Gentile feels discriminated against or “less than” his Jewish brethren, and uses that as an analogy in male-female relationships in Church, home, and society — that women ought not feel slighted or “less than” men even though the created order involved their being created after men and, because of that, are correctly in subjection to them.
But the analogy fails.
No Gentile in the Church is prohibited from leadership in it or denied the full expression and use of his or her Spiritual gifts simply because they’re not Jewish. Women, on the other hand, are routinely kept out of leadership and teaching positions in the Church and are continually denied the complete expression and use of their God-given, gender-neutral Spiritual gifts. And we do feel slighted, not because our feelings are hurt, but because the Church is harmed when half its members are prohibited from exercising their gifts and calling. It’s not a matter of “feeling slighted.” It’s a matter of gross injustice on the part of those who cling to the un-Biblical notion of male supremacy in and out of the ecclesiastical setting. It also has resulted in, for two millennia, a Church that’s trying to minister and combat sin in the whole world with only half its Spirit-given power, half its gifting, and half its passion. If Satan had dreamed up a way to cripple the Body of Christ, he could do no better than to silence the voice and disable the strength of its women.
Complementarians, those who, unlike egalitarians, embrace the view that rigid gender roles are Christ’s will for the Church, often accuse us of mishandling “liberation verses” like Galatians 3:28 (“There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus,” NIV). We know that “Greek” here means Gentile; further, we know — and rejoice — that race, social standing, and gender differences aren’t eliminated by this verse. Both experience and the context of the preceding text confirms that.
But this verse, Jesus’ message, and the broad testimony of the New Testament calls for a Church that is vibrant and diverse, one that refuses to bar its members — the Spirit-led disciples of Jesus — from using their gifts in any role simply on the basis of race, social standing, or sex. Those distinctions remain, but they are irrelevant in the life of the Church. Dan surely rejoices with me that no Gentile or poor man is excluded from full participation in the Church, with full use of his Spiritual gifts, because of this and other parts of the Word that together announce the New Way of Jesus Christ — the overthrowing, through Christ’s death and resurrection, of the reign of sin that resulted from the Fall. I trust that in time, perhaps with more study, he’ll share my dismay that only two-thirds of those included in the sweeping triumph of Galatians 3:28 actually have been released to serve without bondage in the Church of the One who died to set them free.
Ms Mix said: “It’s a matter of gross injustice on the part of those who cling to the un-Biblical notion of male supremacy in and out of the ecclesiastical setting. It also has resulted in, for two millennia, a Church that’s trying to minister and combat sin in the whole world with only half its Spirit-given power, half its gifting, and half its passion.”
There you go again treating the Church as some sort of political body and insisting on it resembling a secular democracy. We are nothing of the sort. The Spirit is not a bureaucratic machine doling out a set amount of grace every year and leaving us to use it as we see fit.
It is the Living Lord who works in us – reconciling the world to Himself. It would not matter if all Christians were deaf and mute – He would still work. It is He that counts. Nothing we do can hinder Him. If we don’t glorify the Father and the Son, the very rock will shout His Name. Only the Spirit can love and glorify God as He should be loved and glorified.
The response to brokenness is prayer. Not condemnation. If you think the Body errs in some way you job is to lay it before the Father, not go out calling fire from Heaven on your brothers and sisters. Do what you think is right and refrain from judging others who are striving to do the same – especially since you have abdicated all responsibility to build the relationships with them that would allow you to effectively rebuke them.
If you refuse to talk to them as brothers and sisters in Christ, you have no business criticizing their walk.
Comment by Ashwin — December 5, 2009 @ 11:32 pm
I don’t hear Keely “call[ing] fire from Heaven on [her] brothers and sisters.” I do hear from her a call to realize Paul’s vision in 1 Corinthians of a body that allows all its members full use of their particular gifts on behalf of the whole, in service to the calling of Christ and the Spirit.
I belong to a denomination that began ordaining women to the ministry of word and sacrament some years ago. Before witnessing the results, I would have supported that decision mainly on “justice” grounds (just as, for example, I support notions like equal pay for equal work, regardless of gender). But since experiencing the full participation of women in these roles, I have come to think that there was a much more profound reason for taking this step – one intimately connected with the nature and calling of the church.
Women tend to bring skills and sensibilities to ministry that are different, in some significant respects, from those of men. I don’t say either better or worse, but different. Female homiletic style tends (in my experience) to be more invitational, to engage hearers at a more deeply experiential and relational level. I am sure that this style reaches and transforms many people in ways that they would not otherwise have been reached or transformed.
The real problem for the church in refusing to allow the full expression of these and other particular gifts is (in my current view) not one of justice. It is more fundamentally an issue of charism – of allowing the Spirit in freedom to blow where it will, and to use the various gifts of the body and its members to the fullest.
Consider the (imperfect but interesting) ethnicity / gender analogy (men : women :: Jews : Gentiles) from this perspective. Luke/Acts tells the story of the Ethiopian eunuch who, having read from Isaiah and having had Philip join him in his chariot and explain to him its meaning, sees a body of water says, “Look, here is water. Why shouldn’t I be baptized?”
There are scriptural prooftexts enough to support a negative answer; according to the purity laws of Torah, the man should be excluded from the assembly of the faithful by virtue of both his Gentile ethnicity and his lack of (physical) sexual integrity. There is however the powerful countervailing witness of the Isaian oracle that welcomes both Gentiles and eunuchs into full community membership. That was good enough for Philip, and for the early church in general.
As Keely points out, the Gentile / women analogy falls apart at precisely the point where some in the Church decide that “full community membership” means “full community membership” for Gentiles (including eligibility for ordained ministry of word and sacrament), but not for women. It’s no good citing New Testament prooftexts against full participation of women in church ministries like preaching and teaching. There are powerful countervailing witnesses in the gospels and in the early letters of Paul that support such participation.
Ironically, part of the scriptural argument for including both women and men in all the church’s essential ministries relies on a kind of gender complementarity. Men and women do bring gifts to preaching, teaching and other ministries that are in some ways similar, and in some ways significantly different. Where gifts differ significantly, cutting either women or men off from the full expression of those gifts, as they are moved and guided by the Spirit, is like cutting off a member of the body. The body can limp or lumber forward, but it is maimed; it is incapable of doing all that it is called upon to do.
Comment by Kurt — December 9, 2009 @ 3:38 am