"There is [now no distinction] neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is not male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus." (Galatians 3:28)
Last year was the 20th anniversary of women being allowed to enter the priesthood in the Church of England but only to the level of Dean (who is in charge of a cathedral). This July, the church's General Synod ruled that ladies could now go the whole hog and become Bishops, too.
Last Sunday, I attended a harvest festival service at Norwich Cathedral (which has itself recently acquired a lady Dean(ette?) in Jane Hedges) with a sermon by a lady vicar. During it, I overheard an elderly lady behind me say something like "It'd be much better if it was a man doing it." This shocked me a little, primarily because it came from a woman and also that the female preaching could hardly help her own gender, bar having a sex change or dragging up as a man, both of which would be a rather extreme measures to please sexist congregation members, possibly opening up a whole new can of worms. If women and gay people can become priests, what about transsexuals? What would old Ida, who has sat in the front pew for thirty years, think of that one? (Ida's fictional, by the way, I'm just generalising here.)
I knew two female clergy members during my childhood in an Anglican church, which influenced my own acceptance toward women in church leadership, although there were probably naysayers at that church, too. At the time I was also unaware of the biblical verses that spoke against it and which lead more conservative evangelical churches I later attended to hold the stance they do and no doubt inspired the church (in its broadest sense) to instigate the male leadership that Idas love so much.
1 Corinthians 14:34-35 says that "The women should keep quiet in the churches, for they are not authorized to speak, but should take a secondary and subordinate place, just as the Law also says. But if there is anything they want to learn, they should ask their own husbands at home, for it is disgraceful for a woman to talk in church [for her to usurp and exercise authority over men in the church]."
1 Timothy 2:11-12 concurs that "I allow no woman to teach or to have authority over men; she is to remain in quietness and keep silence [in religious assemblies]".
The 'Law' mentioned in 1 Corinthians is from Genesis 3:16 (according to Bible Gateway), which tells us 'To the woman He (God) said, I will greatly multiply your grief and your suffering in pregnancy and the pangs of childbearing; with spasms of distress you will bring forth children. Yet your desire and craving will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.'
Strong words. Taken literally, it also means that Idas need to keep their moaning traps shut, too, at least until they get home. Some would argue that Jesus' attitude toward women was more accepting than Paul's. How can we reconcile the latter's Galatians 3 verse with the words of 1 Corinthians and 1 Timothy? In Galatians, does he mean we are all on an equal footing with Christ spiritually but, socially speaking, women just aren't allowed to show it in church? Were the women-critical verses just aimed at the Corinth churches? Whatever Paul's stance, I think that certain people's current attitude toward ladies in the pulpit is backward and sexist. We are hardly likely to regress to how the early church was after years of women in leadership but those verses shouldn't be ignored, either, however difficult they are to comprehend in a modern context. I'm caught between my natural feeling of accepting women in church leadership because I grew up with them, verses my later experiences in different church settings.
One long-serving Norwich Canon was opposed to Jane Hedges' appointment purely because of her gender, as discussed in this Telegraph article, although Jane and the Canon, in her words, 'have worked happily side by side'. In the article, Stanford also mentions other Idas in Hedges' former Devon parish that took the same attitude to the one I overhead last weekend. "But where a generation of women has grown up to think of their priest as 'Father'," Jane said, "it leaves a mindset that can be hard to change." Indeed but mindset is one thing when the church you attend accepts female priests but more conservative evangelical churches don't allow a woman to assume a leadership position. One such church I attended for a few years did allow women to announce notices, prophesy, sing and give words of encouragement, not to mention run the coffee shop. So much for keeping silent in church, then, even if, on occasion, some of us may have wished they would have done so. It can sometimes be the ones who like the sounds of their own voices a little too much who get up to speak but this goes for the men, too.
I knew of some (usually young) women who had left because of this attitude toward their gender, although there were plenty there of varying ages who were either unaware of their church's stance on women or had no problem with it.
The Anglican church does not seem to put much stock in the New Testament verses, perhaps holding them in as high regard as verses on slavery or homosexuality, for example. Scottish bible scholar, F.F. Bruce, himself an evangelical, says that, "If in ordinary life existence in Christ is manifested openly in church fellowship, then, if a Gentile may exercise spiritual leadership in church as freely as a Jew, or a slave as freely as a citizen, why not a woman as freely as a man?"
Without any leadership, there would be chaos (holy chaos - could be interesting) but I've sometimes wondered whether, if everyone's equal in Christ, he really intended for his church to attain the hierarchies it has - the Popes, Bishops, Archbishops, etc - nice people they may be. I guess we're stuck with the systems we've got until he returns. What will he make of it all?
This post is part of www.blogactionday.org (even though it was a day late!)
All verses from the Amplified Bible.
Image courtesy of Neil Moralee
