Blog Conference: Background and Introduction

Welcome to the start of our Blog Conference on Women and Ministry! Here we’ll be hosting posts written by people from a range of viewpoints with the opportunity for you to interact with the material and discuss the implications for the Church and the gospel.

We’ll be kicking off with the first of our contributor posts tomorrow – Peter Barnes looking at the question of women in the role of elder in the local church. But first, a bit of an introduction and an explanation of how the conference will run.

Our Context

The reason our church in Ryde, Sydney, Australia has decided to host this discussion is because it is an issue that our denomination has been discussing in particular in the last few years. A movement was put to the general assemblies of the Presbyterian Church of Australia (PCAus) to reconsider the place that women have within the eldership of our churches.

Currently and for some time the PCAus has allowed women to serve as an elder in the local church. The motion put before the general assemblies sought to change this current provision so that the laws of the church only allowed male elders. This idea is based on what some have called a “complementarian” view, which on this issue contends that passages in scripture show that God has reserved the position of elder within the church for men.

A number of us at our church in Ryde, though holding different views ourselves on the issue, were concerned that there did not seem to be many arenas for open and fair discussion of the justifications and implications of the different perspectives. Though this will be a motion that will continue to be discussed by our church leaders in the general assemblies of the different states, we believe it also important that the individuals within churches become engaged and understand the topic as, whatever the outcome, it will undoubtedly affect the daily life of the local church. I believe it is also good for members of local churches to be able to discuss the issues in an informed way with their ministers and to voice their opinion on how their elders and minister represent their congregation at assembly.

Of course, the issue of gender differences and positions within the church is not a new topic. The themes appear to be addressed as far back as in the pages of scripture, and have continued throughout the almost 2000 year history of the church. In more recent times, say in the last 15 years or so, we have seen a lot of discussion and articulation in particular within western “evangelical” type churches. This has not just been regarding women elders (not all churches hold an eldership form of church government anyhow) but also whether or not women can be pastors, are allowed to preach, can have authority over men and in what degrees, extending to whether scripture prescribes the roles of men and women in the marriage relationship.

Perspectives and the Spectrum

Two main views have emerged within the discussion. These are often labeled “Complementarianism” and “Egalitarianism”, though there are those within either camp who would prefer to be known by what they would see as more accurate descriptions. (Some complementarians prefer to refer to their perspective as “traditional view” or as “moderate” between hierarchical and egalitarian, whilst egalitarians will often see their perspective as “moderate” too, or prefer terms such as “interdependent”. Egalitarianism has also more recently been alternatively labeled as “evangelical feminism” within complementarian literature.)

By way of summary of the two viewpoints, trying to be objective and no doubt doing a disservice to both, complementarianism claims that its perspective shows how men and women were created by God to work together (to “complement” each other), but that within this God has ordained a created order in the roles that each are to undertake. A key theme within the arenas of marriage and ministry for the complementarian is the idea of “submission”, for example of a wife to the authority of her husband. The ideal would be for this to be under the environment of Godly submission to Godly leadership. Many complementarians would argue that women and men are indeed equal but have different roles.

Egalitarianism claims that its perspective shows how men and women were created to work together within marriage and the work of the church, and argues that scripture does not prescribe roles within these realms which are exclusively reserved for men over women. A key theme for the egalitarian is that there is indeed complementarity, but no gender hierarchy within marriage or the church. In marriage “the two would become one”, and roles in ministry for example would be based on giftedness rather than gender. Many egalitarians would acknowledge difference but stress the equality of the genders in all areas.

The fact is also that there are not merely two clear-cut opposing points of view, but that individuals will hold to positions on various parts of the spectrum between the two and some also further on either extreme. The contributors to this blog conference themselves hold to perspectives on different parts of this spectrum for various reasons. There is really no accurate way to precisely and automatically group people into anything more than very general categories.

The Bible as Basis

An important point to be made, and which I hope will be clear in the discussions here, is that both perspectives believe that God’s will as revealed in the scriptures should be our guide on this. Both perspectives agree on the authority of Scripture and have searched the text to come to their conclusions on this issue. (There are of course people on both ends of the spectrum who have NOT searched scripture or based their beliefs on it, looking to tradition, upbringing, culture, denomination, or their gut feeling to justify their position – but this point of view clearly has less weight in a church context where the Bible is valued.)

Therefore, I believe we could agree that apart from all other pressures the first and last thing we try to appeal to in wrestling with this topic is not our own preference but whether it is consistent with what we see prescribed by God. It is interesting that informed individuals from both perspectives will generally use the same biblical texts to develop their arguments, with other parts of scripture as well as they see them bearing on the issue. The difference, and the struggle of every person who seeks to accurately understand and with integrity apply the scriptures in our contexts, is a case of what is known as “exegesis” and, some would argue, “hermeneutic”.

Exegesis is the work of understanding and bringing out the meaning of a text ( “ex” = “out of” ) with the aim of limiting how much of your own biases you place on the text. This process can involve trying to understand the context in which a text was written, examining the original language, cross referencing with the rest of scripture, etc. The opposite to this is “Eisegesis”, which is reading meaning into a text which may not be there ( “eis” = “into”). Hermeneutic is a method of interpretation, which can involve a person’s overarching understanding of scripture; a lens or rubric for interpretation if you will. A hermeneutic can be very helpful and beneficial in seeing recurring themes in scripture and understanding the unity of the text and concepts therein, but I would say also needs to be honestly tested and continually evaluated against the text itself as well as the critical eye of our peers. A hermeneutic is helpful but should not result in a person thinking they always know what a passage says before they approach it, imposing their meaning upon a text and making it say what they want it to. In fact, this would in itself be classified as a “bad hermeneutic”.

As we go through the posts in this Blog Conference, I hope we see that the contributors are trying to accurately and honestly wrestle with the text of scripture in an attempt to understand what God has to speak into our churches on this issue. The ultimate question which we will hopefully be trying to discuss is not what humans think on the topic, but what God does. He is our Lord and the one with the ultimate authority in the church, and I pray that wherever we stand on the issue we might come to kneel together under his love, mercy and grace.

How the Conference will Run

Over the next two weeks we will be putting up a new post from our contributors every two days and opening the floor to discussion. We welcome comments and questions from anyone, and of course remember that the context of this Blog Conference intends to be one of mutual respect and understanding. In a few words, please no ad-hominems, and play nice! With this in mind, don’t be afraid to challenge and question each other’s statements, because we do so hopefully out of a desire to learn and to help each other.

Here is the schedule of posts and topics. Each post will be added in the morning of the date listed, Sydney time (GMT+10).

2nd Sept – Peter Barnes: “Women Elders?”
4th Sept – Dave Woolcott: “What is Submission?” (Ephesians 5:21-33)
6th Sept – John McLean: TBC, re: how men and women can work together in church
8th Sept – Cheryl Schatz: “1 Timothy 2:11-15 – Universal sin or an Ephesian situation?”
10th Sept – Doug Haley: “Women and Ministry – equal but sometimes different”
12th Sept – Final contributor and topic TBC
14th Sept – Ken Finis: Conference wrap up (a summary of discussion)
15th Sept – Conference Close, though discussion still welcome!

Hope to see you out in the discussion! For more info on how to sign up and participate, see the ‘about’ page. To sign up to recieve updates about the conference, click here.

Related posts:

1. Final Thoughts for the Continuing Discussion – Blog Conference Post #7
2. Women and Men: Equal but sometimes Different – Blog Conference Post #5
3. 1 Timothy 2:11-15 – Universal sin or an Ephesian situation? – Blog Conference Post #4
4. Working together in Ministry – Blog Conference Post #3
5. What is Submission? – Ephesians 5:21-33 – Blog Conference Post #2