how I learned to stop worring (long post)

This blog post has been a long time coming, but I must delay it no more. It should be in my "formative influences" series, but I've lost track of the numbers... I think it significant more for the methodological conclusions than from the particular matter at hand - but that is itself rather important, too.

So, what did I stop worrying about? Well, women. No, not like that. Women's ministry, if you want that phrase, is my topic here.

First, the context: I grew up, as I've said, in an Open Brethren church (assembly, ok). Hat-wearing was on the way out, but when it came to "open participation", of which we had lots, the women didn't get to say anything. Unless it was a home bible study. Like a good evangelical I wrestled with the new testament texts, weighing one against another, but struggled to work out how that position could make sense. Requiring women to wear hats seemed anachronistic, but was there in the text as plain as the "must keep slient" bit. (Yes, you could argue about the nature of the head-covering, but that's a cultural digression, really). I came to my own view that if we were to encultureize the one, we should do the same for the other. On the other hand, I kind-of agreed with Michael Green (I forget which book) that whatever the New Testament texts meant, they rather implied that women should not hold the ultimate authority - by which, I largely mean the normative teaching role - in the assembly.

I never saw that as a deeply profound or important position. I could see that it affected certain women rather strongly ( :-) ), but it wasn't going to cause me to make or break fellowship with anyone. When the church fellowship I belonged to as an undergraduate split over the issue of women participating in open worship, I took the default position, which was to stay with the "no" people. But soon afterwards, I joined fellowships which periodically had women in the pulpit, and, indeed, in leadership.

All in all, I guess you could say my position, on my reading of scripture, was a "weak complimentarian" position. Weak, on two counts: I saw no obstacle to women leading worship, prayer, and so forth, only to normative (doctrine-espousing) preaching and leadership, and secondly, weak in the sense that when encountering the latter I was going to generally grin and bear it - perhaps to the point of deciding not to listen to the sermon, rather than accidentally not doing so :-). With all my heart, I wanted to believe something different - namely that in the late 20th century men and women were all called together to the work of the kingdom, and we should make no distinction - but I couldn't, in honesty, find it in scriputre to believe that, so I lived with that tension.

That came to a head somewhat when I was invited to join the leadership of my local church. As a regular member, I didn't have to go along with everything the church did. But I felt that as a leader, I couldn't endorse the ministry of women preaching, nor among the leadership, so it seemed wise to decline.

But by the second time I was asked, I was in the middle of learning about this crazy band of people who might go under the banner of "emerging church", or variations on that theme. Not only was what they were doing culturally relevant, it also began to imply a very different kind of postmodern exegesis of scripture. Being an academic, that kind of line of thinking wasn't totally alien to me - though my part of science has yet to grasp hold of it entirely. But I began to see (and I think I am still only beginning) how to apply that thinking to the way I read scripture: not as a rejection of Evangelical principles, but a development of them.

That does mean placing more weight on the culture in and into which the original text was written. And, indeed, it means realising that we don't always know as much as we'd like about that culture. For that matter, it means realising that many of the cherished ways of interpreting things are a matter of tradition alone: oft repetition really doesn't make them true.

So, on the matter of women's ministry, here's where I've ended up. Would Paul, in his day, have been dismissive of women in leadership and preaching? Yes, it seems so, at least in some places, at some times. Would Paul expect his teaching to last for all time? Most probably, yes. Would he therefore be upset with the practice of [my group of] Christians today? More than likely. Would he be right about that? No. So, right now, here, is there any problem with men and women sharing equally in all Kingdom activity? None at all.

The fourth question and answer is the kicker, as far as evangelicalism is concerned. What reason have I to reach such a conclusion? Why, the whole revelation of God. Faith, reason, scripture. We do lip-service to the idea that the bible needs interpreting, isn't simply a rule-book, isn't akin to the ever-unchanging Koran. But too frequently we fail to embrace what that really means. The Evangelical custom has been to take the text and twist it until it means what we want it to, even to the point of making a reading which plainly wasn't in the mind of the original author. Of course, finding meaning which wasn't known to the writer is a valid interpretative method (it applies, after all, to much OT prophecy), but to go so far as to say that that meaning is normative seems, well, several steps too far. I'm much happier with a "that was then; this is now" argument, even though it feels more tentative and provisional; less grounded.

I could be wrong, I know. But I have peace. I haven't stopped seeking after truth, and I don't think I've properly grasped the extent and shape of this. But I have stopped worrying.