Dear Folks,
The churches in the CBWC are self-regulating and independent. Who knew? They are also collaborative with one another through resourcing, gatherings and mission to serve the work of the loving Lord Jesus in Western Canada and with partners to the world beyond. Each church sets about to discern God’s will for them in policy, governance and ministry. The framing of ministry includes but is not limited to evangelism, finance, administrative, ministry choices and mission. Like any group of Christian churches, they get to choose who will and who will not hold leadership in the church.
The area of the role of women in the church is something of which has a variety of interpretations and applications in many of our churches. There is, in the main, nothing wrong with that. No serious objection can be made with any credibility about the diversity within our denomination. I understand and affirm that diversity. I advocate and support it. I say this in light of the fact that Mae Benedict was the first woman ordained in the denomination in 1959 from West Kildonan Baptist in Winnipeg. I say that in spite of the fact that many regional and denominational Presidents have been women and that women have been the lifeblood of leadership, financially, educationally, and missionally within churches and within the many institutions that we collectively work with. I say this also within the context of the fact that women have been the numerical majority within our churches since the beginning. I believe that while there can be a legitimate discussion and diversity of opinion for some churches over women pastors even though I believe that theologically, historically, spiritually, and practically there is a solid foundation for the exercise of the gifts of women in this role as well. I believe however that the role of women and other forms of leadership in the church does not have the same solid foundation for debate.
There is a profound irony in this whole discussion. As the Jesuit Francis Xavier was reputed to have said, “Give me a child until he is seven years old, and he is mine for life.” The irony is that women have continued to carry and fulfill every role of leadership in the church but continue to carry the primary role of spiritual leadership in the initial formation of the faith of children. This is not simply the formation of children, it is the foundational, spiritual, framing of an individual life. It is the core of leadership. Read Francis Xavier’s quote again. He is right. Listen carefully to what I have just said. I am describing the role of women in Francis Xavier’s statement; I am not prescribing it as the sole role for women. Please listen carefully to that. The spiritual understanding, perceptivity, and framing of the Christian faith has been and continues to be framed by women. If men are concerned about women in leadership then it would important for more men to be teaching Sunday School if they truly wish to have an influence. That has not been the history of our churches and it will continue not to be the history of Christian formation in early to mid childhood development. I look forward to gender mutuality and balance in this area. I find it equally interesting that some men and women believe that leadership should only be exercised or is primarily exercised in public or “up front” roles. This is one of the most ineffective ways of leading us as studies in learning and communication will tell you that we remember only 10% of what we see, and remember only 30% of what we hear. So, let me be blunt. If you want to lead in a church the most effective individual and collective influence you can have is to teach Sunday School, the least effective is to be up front or part of leadership that does not communicate to the whole person and when it does it is only heard 30% of the time…and since hearing does not always lead to action, you can imagine how poor the return on energy must be. Children, youth and young adult ministries on the other hand bring together seeing, hearing, and doing and have a 90% retention rate. O.K, this maybe a stretch but you get the drift.
The previous paragraph shows the irony of our modern day perception about gender roles, leadership, communication style, and praxis. It is important when churches get into these kinds of discussions, they do not get into “self guided studies in these matters.” J.I. Packer used to say “every system has its own internal logic.” To pick a single book, organization perspective, or study guide, whether it be liberal or conservative is in the end neither balanced nor helpful. There are many churches who have had constructive and even heated discussions about these matters yet come out to a good place. I commend to you places like the church at Brownfield for that experience and process and I respect their work. There are other churches who have taken seriously only one approach and therefore have entered into a predetermined conclusion. That is inappropriate. The denomination resources in a variety of way. Conversation with Carey staff, Regional Ministers and other staff are a start. The denomination makes available two CDs, one a dialogue between Bruce Walke, J.I. Packer, Eugene Peterson, and Gordon Fee on Women in Church Leadership, and another CD by Gordon Fee who is a Pentecostal Textual Critique and New Testament Scholar on the Pauline Texts and how they relate to the role of women. These two experiences raise essential questions and respond to them in a thorough, animated and integral way. It is easier to engage in some dialogue about women in pastoral leadership, it is almost impossible biblically, historically, and theologically to exclude women from other forms of church leadership. A quote from Rodney Stark in this matter might be of some assistance. In his book, The Triumph of Christianity, Stark who is a sociologist at the University of Baylor and a life-long Lutheran says this:
In Romans 16:1-2 Paul introduces and commends to the Roman congregation “our sister Phoebe” who is a deaconess “of the church at Cenchreae, that you may receive her in the Lord as befits the saints, and help her in whatever she may require from you, for she has been a helper of many and of myself as well”. Deacons were important leaders in the early church, with special responsibilities for raising and dispersing funds. Clearly, Paul saw nothing unusual in a woman filing that role. Nor was this an isolated case or limited to the first generation of Christians. In 112, Pliny the Younger noted in a letter to Emperor Trajan that he had tortured two young Christian women “who were called deaconesses.” Clement of Alexandria (150-216) wrote of “women deacons” and Origen (185-254) wrote this commentary on Paul’s letter to the Roman’s: “This text teaches with the authority of the Apostle that…there are, as we have already said, women deacons in the Church, and that women…ought to be accepted in the diaconate.” As late as 451 the Council of Chalcedon determined that in the future a deaconess must be at least forty and unmarried.
Prominent historians now agree that women held positions of honor and authority in early Christianity. Thus, Peter Brown noted that Christians differed in this respect not only from pagans, but from Jews: “The Christian clergy…took a step that separated them from the rabbis of Palestine…[T]hey welcomed women as patrons and even offered women roles in which they could act as collaborators.” As Wayne Meeks summed up: “Women…are Paul’s fellow workers as evangelists and teachers. Both in terms of their position in the larger society and in terms of their participation in the Christian communities, then, a number of women broke through the normal expectations of female roles.”
Let me sum up as part of an on going dialogue and discussion amongst the churches of the CBWC on a variety of issues. There needs to be a collaborative and broad based discussion before individual churches take individualistic decisions on issues of major importance like the role of women. This is clearly only important if dialogue, collaboration, and resourcing of one another are important to an individual church. It does not pressure or force a particular conclusion; it broadens the dialogue, which in my experience is becoming very narrow on both sides. A cursory phone call or visit from your Regional Minister does not constitute a legitimate dialogue or exploration. If this is simply to engage in a cursory conversation followed up by a self guided study from a narrow perspective, it is hardly adequate and in fact is unhelpful and is often seriously damaging to individuals. There are three ironies here, the first is that we are part of a family of churches. That means the family can have collective conversations like any family would have, not independent or sectarian ones. We might not always agree but we still need to have the discussion. To call ourselves a family of churches and not to talk is to deny a relationship that purportedly exists. The second irony is that the primary framing of individual spirituality is done at an early age or as Francis Xavier says “Give me a child until he is seven years old, and he is mine for life.” If you want to lead in the local church, start by leading Sunday School. If you want women to have a lesser role in the church, stop them from teaching Sunday School, put them on leadership boards and committees where they and their male counterparts are anonymous and unheard and whenever they do speak are rarely listened to (at least according to statistics). I’m not being imaginative, pushy, or exaggerating here, it is a reality of learning and formation. The final irony is that many folk legitimately feel that to restrict women in leadership is to obey scripture and history over the current pressures in society to conform to a culture that seems estranged from those values. The irony is that the early church was countercultural in placing women in key roles of responsibility in direct opposition and rebellion against the culture. When we do that, we do the same…a worthy rebellion if there ever was one. Our contemporary culture continues to disrespect and marginalize women. By opposing them we stand for the Gospel and do not conform to the culture. If we don’t do that we perpetuate the culture’s values, not the values of the Christian faith. Rodney Stark observed that Christian women in the first 4 centuries of the Christian era were better off than their pagan women counterparts. In some of our churches that is being brought into question and that would be a serious mistake…a misinterpretation of the scriptures and early Christian history and could well be responsible for the turning away of many from the faith itself.
I would strongly commend that if you have a leadership group and wish to establish another group that is concerned about solely spiritual matters and that that group is exclusively male, or by default exclusively female (given the equal imbalance of the feminization of some of our churches) that you resist splitting the leadership of the church into two groups but meet as one group. The individuals in this group may have differing roles but have a collective sense of prayer and service to one another and the congregation and a united, expectant, and celebrative experience of the faithfulness of God and what He might do amongst his people if we are truly united in Christ.
Warmly,
In Christ,
Jeremy