Today's Women of Age

I’ve attended the same church for 30 years and I appreciate that both men and women serve in all roles within it. Our church honors, celebrates and uses the gifts of every member regardless of gender. There is no one person considered more important than another. And the men and women who are in leadership positions are some of the most humble, authentic and Christlike folks I know. Obviously this is how I think churches should be.

So I’ve been struggling to understand why some denominations are so vehement that women cannot be in any church position over a man, including leading a Bible study where men are in attendance. (Some even believe that women should not be teaching other women.)

As I pondered this issue I stumbled on a piece of writing by Colin Smothers, an adjunct professor at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. At the end of a long article quoting many Bible verses on why he believes in complementarianism, he shared the crux of the matter, saying: 

Paul does not ‘permit a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man’ for a creational reason: ‘for Adam was formed first, then Eve.’ (1 Tim. 2:13). The creation narrative reflects the creation order, which embeds a divine intention that is to be upheld in God’s churches. Because this is a creation order issue, it cannot be said that Paul’s prohibition on women teaching or exercising authority is rooted in any cultural consideration. It is rooted in God’s divine order.

So in Smothers’ opinion, all women are forever forbidden to lead, teach, or have any authority over a man in a church because we were allegedly formed second based on the Adam and Eve Bible account. Now I am not a Bible scholar as he is, but I find this reasoning speculative at best.

Should this Genesis story be taken literally? It’s obvious that whoever wrote the Bible creation tales took poetic license and to deduce a divine gender superiority order from a creatively written tale seems a stretch to me.

But more importantly I think “divine order” theory is damaging.

First, it permanently relegates women to being second-class citizens in the church. There’s no other way to slice that. Men will always be seen as more important and vital to “the church.” And Jesus did not see women as second class. On the contrary. Even the apostle Paul worked alongside female leaders and teachers.

Second, I believe complementarian churches potentially stifle the use of spiritual gifts in their female congregants because a particular gift may not “fit” the female lane.

Third, male-lead churches tend to protect men not women. One only needs to look at the news to see how dismissive they are of allegations of sexual abuse and misconduct among their staff. Their male staff. (The Southern Baptist Convention is currently poo-poohing SA allegations calling them in large part a hoax.) Much is swept under the carpet.

Fourth patriarchal Christianity (or any patriarchal religion) gives men a sense of entitlement, particularly when coupled with “wifely submission.” This power inequality can breed abuse in the marriage as men believe they have a god-given right to treat their wives however they choose rather than viewing them as equal partners made in the image of God. You only need to be on YouTube or TikTok for a hot minute to find stories of women who escaped abusive Christian husbands. These are not isolated stories.

Smothers ends his article hoping we’ll join him in believing and supporting complementarianism in the church–of accepting that only humans born with a penis can lead, teach, preach and have authority in the church.

Well, that’s going to be a no from me Colin. A hard no.