Women Pastors

From a participant on our EBA Community listserv

What about women in ministry?
OK, this is how it works for me.  Realize I am going to argue using a rather basic Biblical argument. That is not mean I even believe some of the basic old atonement theories but here goes….
Most people base “no women in the pulpit” on the idea it is because Eve fell first, she is cursed to submit to man and man is cursed to till the soil, ala Genesis.
However, if the death and resurrection of Jesus made everything right, why do we still operated as if Jesus hadn’t had come at all?
If we base things on the Genesis passage, no one should use birth control either because according to that, salvation for women is through childbearing!
Just because Paul said something did not make it a command.  He said lots about slavery too and we don’t listen to that anymore.  The Bible has been used for oppression in the past. The number #1 place the civil war was fought was the pulpit.
Paul was speaking from his cultural situation.  Also, I find it convenient that churches can explain away wearing head coverings and long hair and still say women are not to preach.  
Jesus came to set us all free.
Early Christians met in homes and Paul greets women leaders just as he does men.  
For a whole list of excellent arguments for women ministers from a rather conservative perspective visit
click here @@@
I spent years in fundamentalism. I was called to preach at an early age but was always told that God couldn’t do that.  Well, folks, God does whatever God wants and I was never whole until I started listening to God and obeying my call.
Jesus treated women and men equally, I am foremost a follower of Jesus.
From a Participant
I have to admit I was very eager to hear from Pat on this. It goes back to calling like the other post. And I do agree with what was said about explaining away things in scripture while holding on to others.
This comes back to basic bible interpretation…but this discussion screams what constitutes for Law…experience…and things we should do but are not all that important?
I find myself in a world where experience can over ride the bible…I think it is a dangerous place for our faith…and I am not saying that to this discussion…that is in general.
But back to the topic…I find  God has used women just as much as he has men…Baptist have gone as far to have women pastors in every office except for being the senior pastor.
Pat I will read those arguments you quoted…thanks.
From Tom Bandy:

The United Church of Canada is perhaps one of the oldest North American denominations to ordain women as pastors ... my wife has been a parish pastor for over 25 years ...

I don't think you will find an unambiguous Biblical rationale for women pastors unless you place the Bible in the more fluid context of how the Holy Spirit called out leaders in the early Christian movement. Biblical precedent lies mainly in the many women like Lydia or Priscilla who clearly held pastor-like leadership in the church. The definition of "pastor" itself was fluid from place to place. Greek communities like Philippi were more likely to accept women in leadership because Greek culture gave women more opportunities in general. Both Roman and Hebrew culture were extremely patriarchal, with authority resting not only with males, but with males who had in a sense been "certified" by society as deserving authority.

I think it helpful to compare discussion of women in leadership to the metaphor of "family" in scripture. The family structure usually assumed in later Christian writings is the ROMAN family structure in which a single dominant "pater" essentially controlled the life and behavior of both female and male dependents.

In the 2nd and 3rd century, the leadership of female "prophets" became so important that in Asia Minor and the east they were increasingly accepted as community leaders ... but much less in Rome and the west. Others will comment on the role of women as the church developed later ... but it is significant that only after Valentinian (I believe) and the institutional embedding of Roman expectations on family life and female roles that Biblical commentators began rigorously to apply Biblical teaching about pastors and church leadership to males only.

Although one hates to base an argument on silence, I think you ask the wrong question. The question is not "Does the Bible support women as pastors?", but rather "Why is the Bible so ambiguous about gender as pastoral leadership?" Male leadership WAS a big deal among Hebrews and Romans ... so in light of that, why are Biblical writers so remarkably INDIFFERENT to gender-based leadership in the church? I think the only answer is that early Christians really didn't care that much. Paul's whole focus on unity with Jesus that eliminated distinctions of gender and class was the real, revolutionary, underpinning of the Christian movement ... and one big reason why Christianity was a scandal to Romans and offense to Jews.

From a participant

There is a WONDERFUl book called All We're Meant to Be: Biblical Feminism for Today  by Letha Dawson Scanzoni and Nancy A. Hardesty, originally published in 1992.  These two women are lay women, but they are devoted to scripture and describe themselves as evangelical.
They careful present arguments around a number of issues, including submission of women to men and the wasting of God's gifts to the church.  One delightful for instance:  If women are subservient to men because woman was created FROM man, does that mean that men are subservient to dirt, because they were created from the earth?
Great fun , esp for women, and very, very insightful.
From a participant

I come from a Baptist background and who and the heck were Lottie Moon and Annie Armstrong? Southern Baptist have had women preachers for years, overseas. The real issue here is NOT SCRIPTURE that is used as a justification of keeping men in top positions but POWER.  Baptists have always had women missionaries teaching men, etc.  The difference was, it wasn't here on our soil.  Those people in foreign lands are no threat to the power base here.  If only men sat on panels to translate Bibles, then it will be biased. Why? because no one is neutral.  We all approach things from our own life experience.  That experience often gets in the way of what the Scripture is trying to tell us.

The Bible was used to justify the crusades that killed as many Christians as Moslems, it was used to justify slavery as well.  Using the Bible to argue is in many ways counterproductive since for every argument we could give. someone else has a counter argument.  

I think we really do need to examine the history of the church and how similar it is set up to an imperial model. IF this model is wrong and the whole world has moved past it, no wonder our churches are emptying out.  If we are really moving to Ancient/Future, than the arguments will be meaningless in a very short time. If we flatten the power structures it won't really matter.

I am D of C now and we are not really big on the idea of "doctrines" however, the priesthood of all believers is a key point.  We all have direct access to God and we can all receive a call from God.

Personally,. I spent many, many painful years trying to work out my call in other ways.  Fortunately I had someone challenge me..... (this might seem off subject but it dovetailed) They asked me this, "what if the virgin birth was not true? What would it mean to your faith?"  I thought about that for quite awhile and I came to the conclusion that it didn't have to be true because I know in my heart of hearts that the way of Jesus is true, even if every jot and tittle of the Bible we have isn't.  When I could cease looking at the Bible as a rule book and embrace it as a story of a people, a story that I am apart of, a story within the context of a time and place, I could truly experience the peace and grace that God gives believers.  It was then I could accept that God can work in everyone and in every situation if we will just open our eyes. We spend way too much time restricting God. We try to restrict God to those words collected by humans and voted on by councils.  God is so beyond all that.  

Being a pastor in any form is hard work, but a person that is following a call to that position is helped by the Holy Spirit for that work. I personally have met many, many people who were called but mistook it for pulpit ministry and it was painful for all.

Lest anyone think that I am dissing Southern Baptists, I am not.  I really admire what they are doing in church planting. They have developed some really innovative churches.  However, the issue of women in ministry will ultimately harm them as more and more women are realizing the call and leaving that church.  I know quite a few women in seminary with me who had to leave that denomination to use their gifts.  I have just completed a whole semester just examining the whole issue of atonement (another subject altogether) but applicable to Easter.  We are so stuck in the Middle Ages, to a worldview that operates so differently than the one today, that we still oppress people in the name of Jesus.  Sad really.