I just posted an essay on church and pomo blog on “Why I am Not an Egalitarian in relation to women in ministry in the church: Because postmodernity did it to me.” (The title was shortened for the blog). If you’re interested in the subject please check it out. But first I need to explain some things.
First, I believe flat out the issue of gender relations is central to the church and its witness to the justice God is working out in the world through Jesus Christ. Anyone who knows me for a while, knows that I have been an advocate of women’s ordination and women’s full participation in the authority of the church for many years. I do not subscribe to the complementarian approach that says women can be in any position of authority in the church as long as they have a man over them because I don’t believe that limitation is put on women in Scripture. I believe 1 Cor 14:34, and 1 Tim 2:12 is about something else. Yet I humbly confess I see some problems in staking out a position using the terms “egalitarian” along with “equality” and even inherent individual rights. It is the political assumptions that so often undergird those terms that bothers me.
I believe the Western liberal political assumptions encoded in the words “egalitarian” hinder true gender reconciliation and justice in the churches I have been in and around. They set us up to be individuals, not members of one another in a unity that supersedes gender yet does not erase it (Gal 3:28). They exert power discourses that sublate gender difference. So we have fights, square offs, pain, hurt, make women be men, hurling at one another in unbelievable division in local churches and denominations nation-wide. For these reasons I think the political assumptions that undergird the egalitarian interpretation need to deconstructed. I think postmodern critical theorists can help. Of course I also think complementarians need deconstruction as well for they are captive to the same political categories as egalitarians. I could have written the post on the complimentarians, but that would have been too easy.
Unfortunately I fear if I criticize or engage in the dangers of the political assumptions that underly the Egalitarian position, I get that look of not being Politically Correct, like I am a dinosaur from the fundamentalist dark ages (how can a guy read Judith Butler and be a fundy?). Like how can I REALLY be for women’s justice and full participation in ordination if I am not a complete advocate of the egalitarian position. It’s one of those postmodern things that sometimes you can be saying something that sounds like one position but actually means something quite profoundly different. So I knew I’d be taking some risks when I posted this essay. Nonetheless, I gave it a shot. Lord have mercy. Anyways, if you’re interested in why I am not an egalitarian – because postmodernity did it to me … check it out on churchandpomo and then tell me where I went wrong. Seriously, I’m open for conversation and feedback!
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
I just saw “Talk To Me,” about Petey Greene. He wasn’t very P.C., either…in the town OF P.C. Hah. Screw P.C. “God bless America.” Lol. Is that P.C.?
I’ve ordered a gaggle of blog fire extinguishers for you – for those who will only skim read and respond.
You must need a little excitement in your life. =8-]>
I think this is an important topic, one that I think you handle well. Perhaps many of us cling to the term “egalitarian” for lack of a better option. We like to call it something. However, a closer look at the meaning of the term does raise serious issues. I hope you will continue on this topic.
Peace,
Jamie
I think this is an important topic, one that I think you handle well. Perhaps many of us cling to the term “egalitarian” for lack of a better option. We like to call it something. However, a closer look at the meaning of the term does raise serious issues. I hope you will continue on this topic.
Peace,
Jamie
Your article is a great entryway into the conversation about gender relations.
When I lived in Sweden (where women’s roles as priests and leaders in the Church of Sweden are considered not just self-evident but perhaps obligatory in their egalitarian society) I was bothered, not by women serving as priests, but by how the church was perceived by the greater public as another hall of democracy. The church, people think, is theirs to manage as they wish in accordance with the socio-political standards of their country. While I realize this is a more complex case due to the whole state church history, I agree that the language we use in this discussion is important.
I really appreciated your thoughts on the 1 Cor 11 passage. I look forward to readig more thoughts on this here.
//Jenny
Your article is a great entryway into the conversation about gender relations.
When I lived in Sweden (where women’s roles as priests and leaders in the Church of Sweden are considered not just self-evident but perhaps obligatory in their egalitarian society) I was bothered, not by women serving as priests, but by how the church was perceived by the greater public as another hall of democracy. The church, people think, is theirs to manage as they wish in accordance with the socio-political standards of their country. While I realize this is a more complex case due to the whole state church history, I agree that the language we use in this discussion is important.
I really appreciated your thoughts on the 1 Cor 11 passage. I look forward to readig more thoughts on this here.
//Jenny
I think that you are really brave for the essay and for your willingness to tread on a subject that has become an all or nothing benchmark for both sides of the church. In many ways the egalitarian movement seems to have co-opted the market on seeking justice for women. The terminology and categories that they use to define the issue are politically and culturally loaded. Thanks for the piece, I am going to chew on it for a while and then do some blogging on it myself.
Blessings-
I think that you are really brave for the essay and for your willingness to tread on a subject that has become an all or nothing benchmark for both sides of the church. In many ways the egalitarian movement seems to have co-opted the market on seeking justice for women. The terminology and categories that they use to define the issue are politically and culturally loaded. Thanks for the piece, I am going to chew on it for a while and then do some blogging on it myself.
Blessings-
Thanks for your little piece on egalitarianism. I’m not sure what to think of it. I believe that the whole movement for women’s rights and the recognition of women as being of equal value has been an important one. It has taken us a long way in the right direction. But as in any movement, when politics gets going the truth about the deeper issues gets put into easily classified boxes. So we label ourselves and others and think that about sums us up. And of course life is a whole lot more complicated than the box we choose to sit on – or live in.
I am a woman. The freedoms won for me in the political arena of women’s rights opened up access to the profession that I personally was called to practice. So I appreciate what the politically active and sometimes hard-nosed and obnoxious women of the 60s won on behalf of all women.
I did not, however, give up those aspects of me that characterise the feminine. I loved and married, raised and nurtured children, and carried these same caring and nurturing traits with me into the daily life of carrying on my profession. As I mature (i.e.: get old), I am becoming more aware that my womanliness is of great value. It is that part of God’s image that my humanity reflects and to exchange it for society’s more masculine image of success – a power seeking, hard-nosed, financially successful person – would be a travesty.
So, although egalitarianism may come closest as a term in describing what we should be seeking to practice in terms of gender relations, it does not encompass the totality of how we should relate to each other as male and female in the unique community of faith we call church.
Sorry for this very long comment. I found your site through Jordon Cooper’s and I did read the full deal over at churchandpomo. I think it gets at the underlying problem with the two differing stances of egalitarianism and complementarianism and begins to take us in the direction we need to explore. Thanks.
Thanks for the post, David. I blogged a bit about it over at my place, and really appreciated what you had to say. To echo Jamie, I’m not really sure what will happen with nomenclature. I suggested “Gender Justice Warrior” but i’m not sure my pacifism can stomach it, plus it sounds kind of lame. Maybe “agents of reconciliatory gender justice concerned with bodily unity and socialized difference.” That’s kinda catchy, isn’t it?
David,
In point #1, it seems like you are reacting to 1970′s feminism, more than egalitarianism in the 2000′s. You describe it very well, I just don’t think anyone who calls themselves an egalitarian (or a feminist) is asking women to veil their femininity. There ARE some who do this, but I’m just not sure they would label themselves as egalitarians.
I like what you’re saying in #2 (and I lovvvve this “Instead, I suggest we consider a politics formed around the Eucharist.”) But I do get a little suspicious when a person who has lots of power (from gender, position, race, education, even physical size) suggests that those without power are too hung up on power. This gets thrown at women, especially Christian women, all the time. They’re “grabbing for power”. You can see the problem with this.
At the end, when you say, “I am pro women’s ordination, women’s full participation in the authority of the church and women’s teaching authority over the church including men” it seems like you are standing as an egalitarian – and you are simply reacting to the caricature of what it means to be an egalitarian. And if being an egalitarian was actually about obliterating the differences between men and women, and about power-grabbing women, you’d be right to react against it. But, it’s not. At least I don’t think so. It’s about being pro women’s ordination, and believing women have something to teach, and that they are full human beings. So, I’m not so sure that you are not, in fact, an egalitarian
I have been struggling with the labels egalitarian and complementarian…like many other things in the Christian culture we are forced into one of two boxes. I don’t choose either box, because they come with such baggage. I am reading Loren’s book on the subject. I guess it is just so obvious to me that Christ want’s women to be laborer’s for his kingdom, I don’t judge a woman who desires to prophecy, evangelize, or serve in the home. As long as the women are unleashed to go and make disciples of all nations and be on mission for Christ, in and outside the home. Still processing! I agree that we are very different creatures and as we serve using our gifts our gender differences should add beauty to the body of Christ not chaos.
Beth
David,
My wife just sent me your link and I will have to check it out, but I like what I read. Both of us read Bilezekian’s(sp?)book tittled ” Beyound Sex Roles ” about 20 years ago and adjusted our interpretation of scripture accordingly. We’ve had some recent discussions on this issue which has caused us to grieve for the church and I’d like to offer the following comments:
The continual looking at this issue from a perspective of authority is not the correct frame of reference in my view; this is like banking on the concept of force to elicit actions and transformations. We need to look from a “new wine skin pespective” and that of the perspective of power; power to transform by simply being.
Caleb Rosado of Eastern, in his paper titled “Quantum Physics and Urnban Transformation”, elaborates on physists just now begining to understand that gravity is not a force as we’ve taught all these years; it just is; he asks us to visualize the fabric of space/time as a streched rubbber sheet and if you push a marble across, it would travel in a straight line; now put a bowling ball in this rubber sheet and it would cause a dimple concave surface to the previously flat sheet and rolling that marble close to the edge of this conical dimple would cause it to circle the bowling ball much like the coins we drop in the malls that have this conical design. So it is with the Kingdom; to the extent that each of us know who Chirst is in us, to that extent we are able to impact the world around us; we as Christ followers are suppposed to be about His Kingdom and Kingdom functions through His Power. A notable example of this is mother Theresa who exemplified what the “Church” is and should be. We have to look at this from a different paradigm or a new wine skin.
Learning to bleed for people as Jesus does.
P.S. My apologies, this is too long for a comment.
David,
My wife just sent me your link and I will have to check it out, but I like what I read. Both of us read Bilezekian’s(sp?)book tittled ” Beyound Sex Roles ” about 20 years ago and adjusted our interpretation of scripture accordingly. We’ve had some recent discussions on this issue which has caused us to grieve for the church and I’d like to offer the following comments:
The continual looking at this issue from a perspective of authority is not the correct frame of reference in my view; this is like banking on the concept of force to elicit actions and transformations. We need to look from a “new wine skin pespective” and that of the perspective of power; power to transform by simply being.
Caleb Rosado of Eastern, in his paper titled “Quantum Physics and Urnban Transformation”, elaborates on physists just now begining to understand that gravity is not a force as we’ve taught all these years; it just is; he asks us to visualize the fabric of space/time as a streched rubbber sheet and if you push a marble across, it would travel in a straight line; now put a bowling ball in this rubber sheet and it would cause a dimple concave surface to the previously flat sheet and rolling that marble close to the edge of this conical dimple would cause it to circle the bowling ball much like the coins we drop in the malls that have this conical design. So it is with the Kingdom; to the extent that each of us know who Chirst is in us, to that extent we are able to impact the world around us; we as Christ followers are suppposed to be about His Kingdom and Kingdom functions through His Power. A notable example of this is mother Theresa who exemplified what the “Church” is and should be. We have to look at this from a different paradigm or a new wine skin.
Learning to bleed for people as Jesus does.
P.S. My apologies, this is too long for a comment.