I'm having a hard time following the argument here. First, you engage the argument for female deacons from those who disapprove of female presbyters. Your disapproval of a particular usage of 1 Tim 3 has limited bearing on that argument. I think you'll need to broaden the scope of ecclesiology and talk about what authority is in the church. A Baptist and an Anglican mean different things by the same words here. What do you mean by deacon, authority, presbyter or overseer, etc?
You then proceed to say there's an inconsistency from a person against WO to receive *any* teaching from a woman - including the teaching of a mother to a child! (You cite 2 Tim 1 :5) No one has ever held this position.
Also, the history of the church bears out the struggle to define what some kind of mitigated or lesser authority might look like - for both men and women. Why is that disingenuous or motivated? It's manifestly going on in some texts (as when Timothy appoints leaders, or Paul counsels leaders as a father to them, or when older men and women who don't seem to be in official leadership are counseled to provide leadership to younger men and women). Why is it unreasonable to read some of the strong statements about male authority in home and church, *alongside* an affirmation of various ways women do exercise some form of leadership, teaching, etc., in the form of primary male-only authority, with something going on underneath that which may be more or less gender-differentiated?
Sometimes "scaffolding" is motivated or extra-biblical, but sometimes it's just an attempt to read various passages together. This can be more or less successful, but it's not unwarranted as such.
That's still on the authority side. You say "Why on earth would you want to read a woman who taught without authority?" Isn't it obvious? Not all things are spoken authoritatively - in any context. "Either women can teach, or they can’t. It does seem that simple." Only if you reduce "teaching" to a univocal meaning. No one's hermeneutics is required to do that. The "silence" of 1 Tim 2 is pretty clearly the opposite of taking up authority - not the opposite of ever speaking in a way that someone might learn, in any context.
These are really valuable questions. I’m glad you engaged them.
I think my horse here is two fold
1. 1 Timothy 2-3 is a dead end
2. Theologies of ordination and ecclesial offices arise from lots of historical and extrabiblical considerations, but they really are not easily read off the text like we sometimes suggest. It’s helpful to consider what forms of motivated reasoning (or “scaffoldings”) have contributed to those theologies (in this case, of ordination and offices).
1. I think you need to provide an alternative account to 1 Tim 2-3 that seems more plausible. The difficulties you provide only seem problematic on a pretty narrow and contested reading. It's not hard to imagine a situation in Ephesus with male-only eldership but still has subsidiary female roles (or at least the ability to communicate *something* without the same authority as the presbyters) that accounts for the language of the passage on both fronts: "silence," "authentein," "didaskalein"
2. Without doubt. But you can only cast doubt on historical motivations with historical data. It's not enough to say that a certain reading seems untenable to you; ergo, that reading was motivated, because you can't discern the logic of their reading. Whose motivation are you contesting? Piper and Grudem? Aquinas? Chrysostom? Calvin?
It seems more charitable to simply give your reasoning for opposing them (particularly) rather than casting a general doubt on motivations without giving evidence. That feels to me like a cover-up for lack of engagement.
If you want to make a broader point that modern day offices (and historical ones) don't line up with 1C Ephesus, and so we need more care in applying the text - fine. But that doesn't feel like the point made in this post.
Kirsten, a conservative Presbyterian in the PCA or the OPC would basically endorse view #1, with the only exception being to women writers. (As others have pointed out, reading a female author can be no different from a mixed-group discussion that includes women, it's not in itself authoritative the way hearing a sermon would be.)
I think in large part you're basically confirming the conservative PCA reading, in which female deacons, or female speakers in the pulpit on Sunday, are an inconsistency.
My (overstated) case of female theologians sought to bring out what I see as a challenge to complementarians- if you take seriously enough the prohibitions on women’s ecclesial roles, you end up having female theologians only as decoration
A lot rides on how you define "theologian" there. If you mean a doctor/teacher of the church, teaching in an authorized capacity as a church officer, then yes, women are excluded. This is why in conservative PCA churches women generally do not teach Sunday school classes.
But if you just mean learning from the insights of a woman reflecting on Scripture and the world, there is no need to merge this with the earlier category. Many of the commands to exhort and encourage one another apply to mixed-gender contexts, like they would at a dinner table.
Right. But I think “theologian” in these contexts can still be “merely decorative”, insofar a the only places to exercise this training of gift are places where you could have done so without the training! Theologians typically end up in two places- the church or the academy. Both destinations aren’t easily open to complementarian women. So why do the training? It seems such women are stuck.
Pursuing an official role in the church would clearly be ecclesial (unless it's leading a women's or children's group), and the academy has historically been considered an ecclesial role as well (hence - most conservative Reformed institutions expect their faculty to be ordained, with a few exceptions).
Why would a complementarian woman aspire to an ecclesial role? It seems like part of the answer may be that she's insufficiently complementarian.
There are exceptions -- such as the female Hebrew professor at Westminster Seminary, who was absolutely terrific in her field, or a female translator of systematic theologies in another country -- and there is training available for those exceptions, but a robust complementarian approach would recognize those as outliers.
We're in a denomination (ACNA) where dioceses choose individually whether or not to allow women to be ordained to the priesthood (all do allow women to be deacons). Husband has been reading up on women's ordination in the early church for some time for a few reasons, noting that female deacons have been necessary throughout the church in order to baptize female converts (in earliest days, this was done with the baptizee naked).
that is interesting! I think i came out too strong on this piece and alienated exactly the readers I'd hoped to engage! Complementarians have many things *right*, but as is usually the case with systems they end up pressing too hard on matters that should be left looser and more unspecified
Hi Kirsten.
I'm having a hard time following the argument here. First, you engage the argument for female deacons from those who disapprove of female presbyters. Your disapproval of a particular usage of 1 Tim 3 has limited bearing on that argument. I think you'll need to broaden the scope of ecclesiology and talk about what authority is in the church. A Baptist and an Anglican mean different things by the same words here. What do you mean by deacon, authority, presbyter or overseer, etc?
You then proceed to say there's an inconsistency from a person against WO to receive *any* teaching from a woman - including the teaching of a mother to a child! (You cite 2 Tim 1 :5) No one has ever held this position.
Also, the history of the church bears out the struggle to define what some kind of mitigated or lesser authority might look like - for both men and women. Why is that disingenuous or motivated? It's manifestly going on in some texts (as when Timothy appoints leaders, or Paul counsels leaders as a father to them, or when older men and women who don't seem to be in official leadership are counseled to provide leadership to younger men and women). Why is it unreasonable to read some of the strong statements about male authority in home and church, *alongside* an affirmation of various ways women do exercise some form of leadership, teaching, etc., in the form of primary male-only authority, with something going on underneath that which may be more or less gender-differentiated?
Sometimes "scaffolding" is motivated or extra-biblical, but sometimes it's just an attempt to read various passages together. This can be more or less successful, but it's not unwarranted as such.
That's still on the authority side. You say "Why on earth would you want to read a woman who taught without authority?" Isn't it obvious? Not all things are spoken authoritatively - in any context. "Either women can teach, or they can’t. It does seem that simple." Only if you reduce "teaching" to a univocal meaning. No one's hermeneutics is required to do that. The "silence" of 1 Tim 2 is pretty clearly the opposite of taking up authority - not the opposite of ever speaking in a way that someone might learn, in any context.
What do you think?
These are really valuable questions. I’m glad you engaged them.
I think my horse here is two fold
1. 1 Timothy 2-3 is a dead end
2. Theologies of ordination and ecclesial offices arise from lots of historical and extrabiblical considerations, but they really are not easily read off the text like we sometimes suggest. It’s helpful to consider what forms of motivated reasoning (or “scaffoldings”) have contributed to those theologies (in this case, of ordination and offices).
1. I think you need to provide an alternative account to 1 Tim 2-3 that seems more plausible. The difficulties you provide only seem problematic on a pretty narrow and contested reading. It's not hard to imagine a situation in Ephesus with male-only eldership but still has subsidiary female roles (or at least the ability to communicate *something* without the same authority as the presbyters) that accounts for the language of the passage on both fronts: "silence," "authentein," "didaskalein"
2. Without doubt. But you can only cast doubt on historical motivations with historical data. It's not enough to say that a certain reading seems untenable to you; ergo, that reading was motivated, because you can't discern the logic of their reading. Whose motivation are you contesting? Piper and Grudem? Aquinas? Chrysostom? Calvin?
It seems more charitable to simply give your reasoning for opposing them (particularly) rather than casting a general doubt on motivations without giving evidence. That feels to me like a cover-up for lack of engagement.
If you want to make a broader point that modern day offices (and historical ones) don't line up with 1C Ephesus, and so we need more care in applying the text - fine. But that doesn't feel like the point made in this post.
Thanks!
Don’t worry, I’m done now. You can have the last word if you want it. :)
I wouldn’t post such controversial takes if I didn’t enjoy the back and forth!
Kirsten, a conservative Presbyterian in the PCA or the OPC would basically endorse view #1, with the only exception being to women writers. (As others have pointed out, reading a female author can be no different from a mixed-group discussion that includes women, it's not in itself authoritative the way hearing a sermon would be.)
I think in large part you're basically confirming the conservative PCA reading, in which female deacons, or female speakers in the pulpit on Sunday, are an inconsistency.
My (overstated) case of female theologians sought to bring out what I see as a challenge to complementarians- if you take seriously enough the prohibitions on women’s ecclesial roles, you end up having female theologians only as decoration
A lot rides on how you define "theologian" there. If you mean a doctor/teacher of the church, teaching in an authorized capacity as a church officer, then yes, women are excluded. This is why in conservative PCA churches women generally do not teach Sunday school classes.
But if you just mean learning from the insights of a woman reflecting on Scripture and the world, there is no need to merge this with the earlier category. Many of the commands to exhort and encourage one another apply to mixed-gender contexts, like they would at a dinner table.
Right. But I think “theologian” in these contexts can still be “merely decorative”, insofar a the only places to exercise this training of gift are places where you could have done so without the training! Theologians typically end up in two places- the church or the academy. Both destinations aren’t easily open to complementarian women. So why do the training? It seems such women are stuck.
Pursuing an official role in the church would clearly be ecclesial (unless it's leading a women's or children's group), and the academy has historically been considered an ecclesial role as well (hence - most conservative Reformed institutions expect their faculty to be ordained, with a few exceptions).
Why would a complementarian woman aspire to an ecclesial role? It seems like part of the answer may be that she's insufficiently complementarian.
There are exceptions -- such as the female Hebrew professor at Westminster Seminary, who was absolutely terrific in her field, or a female translator of systematic theologies in another country -- and there is training available for those exceptions, but a robust complementarian approach would recognize those as outliers.
We're in a denomination (ACNA) where dioceses choose individually whether or not to allow women to be ordained to the priesthood (all do allow women to be deacons). Husband has been reading up on women's ordination in the early church for some time for a few reasons, noting that female deacons have been necessary throughout the church in order to baptize female converts (in earliest days, this was done with the baptizee naked).
that is interesting! I think i came out too strong on this piece and alienated exactly the readers I'd hoped to engage! Complementarians have many things *right*, but as is usually the case with systems they end up pressing too hard on matters that should be left looser and more unspecified
Thank you for having the courage to call these inconsistencies out. They are the tip of a vast iceberg.