Women as missionaries

[Jenny George]

OK I'm taking this into a new thread so that things don't get too confused. But I've always been intrigued by the appalling hypocrisy with which, throughout the nineteenth and early/mid twentieth centuries, the church has sent single women off to be missionaries and then denied them the chance to preach or lead in their home churches when they got back. The single person as missionary in an unreached region of the world must be the closest thing we've got to the role of an apostle. Certainly, most of these women were evangelists, teachers, pastors, they built churches, they appointed leaders in the church and rebuked and corrected errors and heresies which snuck into the new congregations.

So I want to now go back to something Danny wrote on another thread:

So my question is -look around, how is that situation [referring to 1 Tim] any different from what we see in the world-wide Anglican church and in other churches today that have been taken over or influenced by a liberal feminist agenda - men and women both being deceived? Of course I'm not suggesting all women teachers are liberal but many are (and so of course are many men) and so maybe woman's ordination to congregational leadership and preaching to mixed congregations has been an experiment that has failed and so now we need God's word from 1 Tim to get as back on track - rather than falling more and more into error as we assimilate to the crumbling society around us?

I would argue that this perspective is very much a product of only thinking about the West. If you're going to blame theological heterodoxy in the West on female leadership (and I think that's unjustified) then you have to credit the thriving theologically orthodox churches of Africa and South East Asia to female leadership as well. Of course there were male missionaries, and team ministries and couples too. But for more than a hundred years (probably) the most orthodox, conservative, evangelical parts of the church sent its entrepreneurial women with leadership potential off to Africa. We're reaping the rewards now and we can praise God that he has blessed their ministries.

But spare a thought for what the Western church might have looked like if we'd given the same permissions to those women to minister in our own contexts. The fruits of female leadership might not have looked nearly so lopsided as you seem to think they do.

[Andrew Moody]

Hi Jenny,
 
I don't really want to disagree with you on this. And I wonder if there wasn't also something distastefully racist as well as sexist about the attitude - brown folks are like children (at least compared to whites) so it's okay for women to lead them.

But there is another way to take it too - not that the situation proves women should be leading churches, nor that they should be deprived of the honour where they do it well. But isn't it possible that the situation is like Deborah and Barak - the men are so gutless so God uses the woman. She get's the honour, he gets the rebuke ...and in the strange economy and mercy of God the church grows.

[Matt Williams]

Hey Andrew,

If the "God uses women when there is a shortage of men willing to go" argument is used, would you then need to extend that understanding to the present chronic shortage of people presenting for ordination here in Australia and therefore encourage women to present for ordination?

M

[angusj]

Andrew Moody wrote:

But isn't it possible that the situation is like Deborah and Barak - the men are so gutless so God uses the woman. She get's the honour, he gets the rebuke ...and in the strange economy and mercy of God the church grows.

Hi Andrew. Isn't Deborah a glaring paradox to the Complementarian position? If it's wrong (ontologically) for women to be in leadership over men, why would God place Deborah in leadership over Israel? Why would God provide a precedent that would lead us into error? Yes, often God allows "bad things to happen" to teach us the consequence of rebellion, but these "bad things" are always a consequence of *our* rebellion and not God going against his own divine (ontological) purpose. It wasn't as if God's metaphorical hands were tied and he had to choose a woman. Surely it wasn't a "bad thing" that Deborah exercised leadership, but a "good thing" that she was obedient to God, who endorsed her leadership, for the well being of Israel.

[Andrew Moody]

angusj wrote Hi Andrew. Isn't Deborah a glaring paradox to the Complementarian position? If it's wrong (ontologically) for women to be in leadership over men, why would God place Deborah in leadership over Israel? Why would God provide a precedent that would lead us into error?

Greetings brother Angusj,

I'm not sure Deborah is meant to be a precedent for how we should pick leaders is she?  And if she were wouldn't that also mean that we should be allowed to pick whoring maniacs like Samson to run our churches - after all God installs him as judge too? Or maybe we should allow adulterous murderers to remain in their parishes after the model of David (good news for all you vicars out there)?
 
Mind you I'm talking myself into this - it sounds more fun than the current situation.
How strong are you, Angus?

[Andrew Moody]

Matt wrote If the "God uses women when there is a shortage of men willing to go" argument is used, would you then need to extend that understanding to the present chronic shortage of people presenting for ordination here in Australia and therefore encourage women to present for ordination?

And greetings to you brother Matt,
(now it sounds like I was snubbing Jenny cos I didn't give her the same salutation - greetings sister Jenny, no snubbage intended)

Somewhere deep down I feel something like a naturalistic fallacy coming on here.
The fact that God has and can and does use sub-optimal situations to spread his gospel (and let's face it - he does that all the time) doesn't mean we should ignore his instructions on how we should go about things.

God occasionally uses boyfriend evangelism to secure men who become heroes of the faith - but I don't think we should be encouraging the practice – even though these are desperate times.

When we look at the personal lives of some of the 19th century's great missionaries and evangelists we sometimes see some abysmal marriages. I don't think this means it's okay or wise for us to disregard people's marriages when choosing people for the ministry.

[Jono Smith]

Andrew Moody wrote:

Or maybe we should allow adulterous murderers to remain in their parishes after the model of David (good news for all you vicars out there)?
Mind you I'm talking myself into this - it sounds more fun than the current situation.

Ouch! Don't mess with a moody Moody! I'm glad you're throwing punches for our side of the debate Andrew! Keeping landing 'em, slugger...

[Andrew Moody]

Stop staring at me Jono, you're freaking me out.

[Andrew Bowles]

But Andrew, the point at issue with Deborah is whether or not her leadership was irregular given that she was a woman. To argue that God's use of her was in spite of her gender is begging the question. And on that reading, how could any example or argument possibly falsify your position that women can't be leaders?  

We look to the Bible for help with the issue. An example of a godly, gifted and blessed female leader is given, whom the Lord spoke through (Judges 4:6). Then it turns out that it was just God 'making the best of a bad situation' because there was no good male leadership? But where in the text is that taught? Barak was definitely not the most heroic guy, but does it actually teach explicitly in Judges (instead of having to be inferred via complementarian assumptions) that Deborah was a second best? The woman whom Sisera was turned over to instead of Barak was not Deborah, but Jael, anyway. That is a textbook example of presuppositions driving exegesis instead of the other way around.

[Jono Smith]

Andrew Moody wrote:

Stop staring at me Jono, you're freaking me out.

That's right Moody... feel the power of my unflinching gaze, and tremble.
Sorry mate, when one is out of one's academic depth one must use any and all advantages.

On a serious note, I think the example of Samson is an important one in this debate.
Judges 13-16 shows us that God used Samson to defeat the Philistines despite his wanton disobedience (Philistine wife, sex with a prostitute, living with Delilah, etc.)
Obviously God's blessing of him doesn't justify his disobedience, but rather illustrates the point that God blesses sinful 'ministers' in spite of their disobedience.

The sincere worry that I have is that, like with Samson in Judges 16:20, God might withdraw his blessing from female pastors/preachers "but [they] will not know that the Lord had left them".
I fear for my female friends (& sisters) who, by disobeying God's word, put themselves in a dangerous position before the Living God.

[Matt Williams]

Hey Jono,

You're afraid the Holy Spirit will depart from Christian women because they teach men?

What sort of a Calvinist are you??

Matt

[Andrew Moody]

He's a staring Calvinist - the second-worst kind after the wild-eyed Calvinist.

[Matt Williams]

And greetings to you Andrew, my dearly beloved brother in the faith of Jesus Christ, by the power of the Spirit, to the glory of God the Father,

The fact that God has and can and does use sub-optimal situations to spread his gospel (and let's face it - he does that all the time) doesn't mean we should ignore his instructions on how we should go about things.

So... how do you determine that the 19th Century female missionaries were "God doing things" while when we commission people for ministry it is us  doing things? How do we decide that the African need for ministers validates 'sub-optimal' appointments to the ministry while our own vocational shortage does not?

Matt

[Andrew Moody]

And greetings once again siblings in the Lord. Sorry to delay my response but I had an appointment with KUNG-FU PANDA!!!!

Anyway.

The wise and earnest Matt wrote: So... how do you determine that the 19th Century female missionaries were "God doing things" while when we commission people for ministry it is us  doing things? How do we decide that the African need for ministers validates 'sub-optimal' appointments to the ministry while our own vocational shortage does not?

Well if people get saved and changed then or today then it is God doing things - just like when boyfriend evangelism works. Please don't think I'm not saying it was a good idea to have women leading tribespeople and bad when we do it today – I don't think it is ever wise ...just like boyfriend evangelism. Just that God uses it sometimes.
And of course it gets even more complicated than that! The fact that boyfriend evangelism is wacky doesn't mean that some who do it don't do it in a godly and admirable way – I've seen godly girls do this crazy thing in a godly way. Go figure.
But I'm not going to be recommending it to my daughter.

The thoughtful peacemaker Andrew B ("nobody likes that guy" - LOL) wrote: ...To argue that God's use of her was in spite of her gender is begging the question. And on that reading, how could any example or argument possibly falsify your position that women can't be leaders?  
We look to the Bible for help with the issue. An example of a godly, gifted and blessed female leader is given, whom the Lord spoke through (Judges 4:6)...

Well there's two things here. "...how could any example or argument possibly falsify your position that women can't be leaders". My point here is that you can't safely conclude much at all about the significance of Deborah's sex just by hearing the story. Treating narrative as normative is always dicey when it comes to this leaders (Jn 6:70? Acts 1:24ff? – get my joke about dicey? that was actually coincidental but now I'm making it look like it was deliberate) but I would suggest the leap is even more perilous in Judges where one of the major themes seems to be about a failure of leadership.

As to how I would falsify my own opinions. Well "falsify" is a kind of scientific paradigm. I would have thought the onus was on complementarians to prove it (am I missing something here?) And to do that we would need either explicit teaching on women in leadership that is framed in transcultural categories or some other good creational or eschatological reasons for making such a prohibition. Judges won't help us there positively or negatively.

The second point is that Deborah seems like a good egg.
Yes she does, far better egg than me (as are the three ordained women I have known best).
See my point about godly boyfriend evangelism above.

[Jono Smith]

Matt Williams wrote:

You're afraid the Holy Spirit will depart from Christian women because they teach men?

What sort of a Calvinist are you??

Matt, I'm the sort of Calvinist that believes that Aslan is not a tame lion...

I believe that God takes very seriously our (dis)obedience. I don't think it's 'unReformed' to say that God might cease to bless (withdraw his blessing from) the ministry of someone who wantonly disobeys his commands. And, yeah, I'm worried that that might happen to some of my dear sisters.

I would give the same warning to the porn-addicted preacher, the murderous minister, the racist rector, even the blasphemous bishop... God is free to judge wanton disobedience.

Witness a very similar incident in 1 Kings 13:32-34 (similar in that Jeroboam was appointing people as priests who, according to God's decree, shouldn't have been):
"Even after this, Jeroboam did not change his evil ways, but once more appointed priests for the high places from all sorts of people. Anyone who wanted to become a priest he consecrated for the high places. This was the sin of the house of Jeroboam that led to its downfall and to its destruction from the face of the earth."

I tremble at the thought that God might do the same to a church (or a denomination!) that disregards his commands regarding who should be appointed as preachers/pastors in the church.
While I absolutely love a good theological punch-on, my concern is primarily pastoral - I'm mainly worried about the implications of disobedience for our church - I seriously don't care if my arguments don't look impressive next to Groothuis', Fee's, Giles' etc.

[Jono Smith]

Andrew Moody wrote:

He's a staring Calvinist - the second-worst kind after the wild-eyed Calvinist.

Better a wild-eyed Calvinist than a blind Arminian!
If I wanted to induce some serious Cringe I'd label myself a "Cross-eyed Calvinist".

Ahh... but then Driscoll would be forced to excommunicate me from the Cool Calvinists club that I've worked so hard to become a member of...

[Andrew Bowles]

With regard to falsification, I just felt that the 'in spite of' argument with regards to Deborah and female missionaries has the ring of this sort of thing:

'Communists always deny that they are communists. Are you are a communist?'
'No.'
'Ha! I knew it!'
'Okay then...yes, I am.'
'Ha! I knew it!'

Nothing you say could convince him that you're not a communist, but it's not as though he's really a great interrogator. He just assumes that everyone is a communist. For a complementarian, nothing that Deborah did that was good and blessed by God could convince them that she was a valid leader, but it's not as though that opinion is really being driven by the exegesis of the passage.

[Jereth]

Jenny George wrote:

OK I'm taking this into a new thread so that things don't get too confused. But I've always been intrigued by the appalling hypocrisy with which, throughout the nineteenth and early/mid twentieth centuries, the church has sent single women off to be missionaries and then denied them the chance to preach or lead in their home churches when they got back.

Hello Jenny,

Can I please just say that I'm very uncomfortable with this "women missionaries" argument. It seems to me to be an ad hominem argument against those 19th century Christians who were guilty of hypocrisy, rather than an argument based on what Scripture says about gender roles. The 19th century Christians may well have got it wrong, and if so I'm not going to defend them -- but that doesn't change what Scripture says to us today, and this is what we should be wrestling with (as we are on the other threads).

regards,
Jereth

[Jenny George]

Jereth - I specifically wrote this, not to comment on Biblical evidence, but because Danny had made a comment on another thread about his perception of the fruits of female leadership in the church today (see the rest of my post). I am not saying (here) that it is right or wrong for women to lead - though I do think it is hypocritical to suggest they lead male Africans but not male caucasians. Also because the denomination I came from in NZ was pretty conservative overall this was not a nineteenth century problem but very much still live at the women's missionary conferences I went to.

That wasn't really the main point though. I just think that there is a thread of argument doing the rounds that says "see where it gets you as a church when you let women lead". Danny started along that track. You yourself used an argument a little bit like this way back when you were talking about the feminisation of the church and suggesting that this is leading to all sorts of ills.

If you stick to the Bible - fine. If you want to make an argument based on the way you think the church in the West looks then I'm just saying that you need to include the church in the (two-)third(s) world and include it in your data when considering the effects of women in leadership roles.

Jenny

[Jereth]

Thank you for pointing this out Jenny.

In hindsight that line of argument about "feminisation of the church" was not fruitful, and I won't be pursuing it any further on this forum. I agree too that we shouldn't jump to too many conclusions about the consequences (positive or negative) of the egalitarian model of ministry. Perhaps in 50 years time people will be able to make a call, but right now I think we'd all agree that egalitarian ministry is still in the "experimental" phase.

Yes, let's stick to looking at what the Bible says.

Jereth