In a lecture on the book of Ephesians, one of my seminary professors described Artemis of the Ephesians as a goddess of fertility. Except she wasn’t. Artemis, whose temple was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, was “nobody’s mother.”
Does the Bible direct the exclusion of women from a pastoral role? Let’s put this hotly debated question under the microscope in Part II of “Disfellowshipped Churches, Rick Warren, the SBC, Women Pastors.” An influential SBC pastor writes, “Abiding women in the pastoral office materially harms the work of the Convention because it cultivates disunity where we have long been united. It contaminates the soil of our Convention with distrust of and disobedience to the Scriptures.” I’ll recap this description of sisters-in-the-faith: Women pastors “harm the work,” “cultivate disunity,” and “contaminate the soil” because of “disobedience to the Scriptures.” Truly?
“What changed my mind was scripture,” said author and retired Southern Baptist pastor Rick Warren, to explain why he changed his mind and now affirms women serving as church pastors. In this article, I’ll connect the dots between disfellowshipped churches, Rick Warren, the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), and women pastors. For those of you who are not a Southern Baptist, don’t attend an SBC church, or haven’t followed the recent happenings in the SBC (the largest Protestant denomination in the U.S.), please keep reading because this conversation broadens to a discussion about women, the Bible, and the disagreement among complementarians and egalitarians over women pastors.
I fell down an escalator, at a recent Evangelical Theological Conference (ETS), to get Nijay Gupta’s newest book, Tell Her Story: How Women Led, Taught, and Ministered in the Early Church. I’d seen a Twitter announcement about this forthcoming book and couldn’t wait to read it. A word of caution, if you drop something while on an escalator DO NOT bend over to pick it up! When my feet hit the bottom step, I rolled like a bowling ball and landed in a splat. Fortunately, though rattled (and bruised), all my limbs worked. Two gentlemen kindly helped me to my feet. I immediately turned to see if I could recover my lost item. Behold, a guy with a twinkle in his eye handed me the postcard he had seen me drop and perilously attempt to recover. “Thank you,” I said and sheepishly added, “It’s for a free book!” All three men laughed uproariously. They weren’t so much laughing at me (well maybe a little), as with me. ETS conference attendees are book nerds, and we especially appreciate free books! With my feet on firm ground, I redeemed my rock-and-roll postcard for a complimentary advance copy of Tell Her Story. The book’s official release day is March 14th and I’ve written a review for you.
My article titled “A Daughter’s Worth” was originally published at Fathommag.com in July 2019.
Be a Daniel, not an Esther.” With papercut precision, the church elder’s words sliced to my core. “Unlike Daniel,” he explained, “Esther discredited herself because she hid her faith.” The elder’s criticism of Esther stung with familiarity. Indeed, Esther—the young girl ripped from her home and forced into a king’s harem—exemplified courageous faith despite a huge power differential. Relying on prayer, Esther used her wits and death-defying actions to save the Israelite nation from impending slaughter. But, according to this elder, Esther isn’t to be imitated.
God chose to work largely through women to found and establish the Christian church in China and Cambodia. Nineteenth-century pre-literate Chinese women, evangelized by Protestant women missionaries, were taught how to read Chinese characters thereby enabling them to teach from the Mandarin Bible. These ‘Bible women,’ such as Dora Yu (1873–1931), publicly evangelized and taught the Bible to mixed-sex groups. Peace Lin and her son Watchman Lee, who later were instrumental in forming churches across China, came to faith through the ministry of Dora Yu.
While tracing the influential roots of an ancient anti-feminine bias, I read a revealing statement by theologian and priest John Wijngaards: “Prejudice against women existed everywhere in the past.” Wijngaards describes the pervasiveness of both secular and religious anti-woman prejudices. From what sources do Westerners argue for the inferiority of women and the subordination of women to men?
Today’s Bible readers mostly read English translations, rather than Greek and Hebrew texts. Though we don’t have the original writings, we do have thousands of ancient biblical manuscripts from which translations have been written. The Bible, in its original form, is the inspired word of God. Translations are just that: translations. And, Bible translations are vital to helping us understand who God is, to see the grand narrative of the Bible’s story, to learn the essentials for living a Christ-honoring life, and for sharing the gospel. Dan Wallace, an esteemed Greek professor reminded me, “All translation is interpretation.” Necessarily then, translations contain many interpretative decisions including word choices and the addition of punctuation, chapter headings, and chapter and paragraph divisions. In addition, translators must discern the author’s intended meaning—a challenging task considering that the Bible writers lived and ministered in a historical time and cultural context vastly different from a modern-day readers’ time and cultural context. Have you ever, as I have pondered, “Who gets lost in Bible translation?”
I’ll never forget when my son Matt stopped me in our kitchen and asked, “Mom, when are we having family dinner night again; we haven’t had one in a while?” He and his twenty-months younger brother played basketball on their local high school team, but one attended a Christian school and the other a public school. With their busy athletic schedules, my son was right. The funny thing is that my husband and I didn’t call it “family dinner night,” but that is how Matt had understood one of our family values—together time around the table.
Authoritarian, Libertarian, the Left, the Right…political polling data of United States voters reflects a broad spectrum of beliefs. Similarly, yet in a different context, a spectrum of beliefs exists among Christians on what the Bible teaches about women’s pastoral leadership. If you were polled today, how you answer questions about what women can do in the church, i.e. serve as a pastor, deacon, elder, teach men, perform baptisms, as well as in community life and the home represents your theological framework of women.
“When my daughter was in fifth grade, we visited my home church in Oakland, it was communion Sunday, and the preacher—male—got up and preached the sermon, then after the sermon, 12 men in their dark suits came forward to serve communion. And my daughter—fifth grade—leans over to me and she says, “Dad, where are the women?”
Misunderstood No More. It reminds me of the long-standing admonition, “Begin with the end in mind.” The last chapter of Mary DeMuth’s new book, The Most Misunderstood Women of the Bible is aptly titled, “Misunderstood No More.” Through the Bible stories of ten women, DeMuth illustrates the value of enduring the tension and hostility of being blatantly maligned, dismissed, and misunderstood. She writes, “I believe we can grow in our understanding of misunderstanding and, through that learning process, begin to act as Jesus did—with perseverance.” To learn more, read my new book review on The Most Misunderstood Women of the Bible.