Blog on the Lillypad
Friday, February 06, 2004
 | Women ordained as elders and pastors
More debate about women taking pastoral office is swirling around some of the Christian sites. It's like this: Years ago (as in 30+ years), Alice Walker, the African American writer who penned "The Color Purple," wrote a really thought provoking article about achieving racial equality. She realized that there was a danger that once persons of color became "free and equal," they might just slip into all the ruts and traps that have ensnared white people. She tried to envision her hard working mother sitting down to watch black soap operas. It was a ghastly image. Prior to "equality," common, ordinary people in the black community felt called upon by conscience to sacrifice their well being and safety in order to combat segregation. They were hauled away from lunch counters, beaten up, yanked off buses. Their families were harassed; they were evicted; they lost their jobs. And yet they persevered. The writer mused about what would happen when they got what they wanted. Would they soon learn to trivialize their past times as white people do, she wondered? Would they be caught up in "keeping up with the Joneses" once they attained a middle class affluence? |
Dittos on the women in church leadership deal. The Bible is pretty clear that church leadership (in the sense of the teachers/elders) must be patriarchal. Now was Paul writing in terms of his culture? Or was it a law for all time?
I don't even care. Two elderly women from my own conservative church once remarked that I would make an excellent minister. AGH! I haven't come this far just to stick the word "Reverand" in front of my name so I can collect a paycheck like so many male ministers do. I'm not ready to compromise my viewpoint so that I stay in step with the rest of the people in positions of authority. I'll leave that to the men in the ministry who preach one thing on Sunday morning and then make many deals with themselves and with others to remain silent, look the other way, excuse abuse of office, etc.
Women have been propping up the church and moving it forward into good works for centuries. I hope we are spared the so-called "leadership" roles that have created so much division, pomposity, and sheer boring sermons. Oh, and let's not forget all the honorary doctorates that float around some segments of Christianity. Thank God women have been left out of this circus until now.
 We women have too easily forgotten the power exercised by women in the ministry of the Gospel and in the service of Christ. Amy Carmichael opened the way for modern missions, and that happened *after* her mission board rescinded their support for her. Gladys Aylward led a band of orphans to safety across the wilderness of China. And Mother Teresa--barely educated and not at all a profound thinker---stood before the leaders of the world and rebuked the world from the Scripture for the slaughter of children by abortion. No man in religious office, ever, anywhere in the last century, was placed in such a position to address world leaders. And no man under such pressure to say what his audience wanted to hear has instead spoken such truth so plainly and with such clarity.
No human being atoned for by Christ needs to aspire any higher than to serve and to have fellowship with God. When a woman knows her Savior well and has the power of God on her life and ministry, she does not need the recognition of men. She will accomplish the exact task that God appoints for her. I think it's heart breaking to see women stoop to what men have been doing for years--quarreling and quibbling for power and title. |
I have been confronting the corruption in Christian Fundamentalism that remains unchallenged and unacknowledged by preachers for a couple years now. I don't need a title to say the truth. I don't need a title to have the power to persuade others to demand accountability in pulpits. All I need is the word of my Savior to say the truth about the child abuse, sodomy, and child molesting that has gone unchallenged.
Formal, conventional Leadership among God's people right now is so impotent, political, and even corrupt that whether or not women get it makes no difference whatsoever. It's a failed vehicle of authority, and only repentance before God and the forsaking of this world's love of power and authority will straighten it out. AT THAT POINT, we might get some clarity about changing women's roles or altering the church's view of women's service. But for right now, it seems to me that women who choose to fight for leadership and authority in the church just want a right to go swirling down a bowl with the rest of so-called Christian leadership. A title of "Reverand" or "Pastor" just sanctifies it in some way.
