This is one of the downsides of the new phorum: we lose all the threads where we batted this stuff back and forth. Of course, you'd have to dig through several pages of threads to find it, and it was a while ago, so people's opinions may have chaged. A worthwhile topic to discuss, too, given how radically the times have changed over the past 2000 years (ok, maybe it's not considered radical over a 2000-year period, but you know what I mean
).
It is my personal belief that the scriptures aren't 100% straight from the mouth of God: they were certainly inspired by God, but they were written by people. This is NOT to say that I feel the scriptures are necessarily 'incorrect' or not a sound platform for doctirine: don't get me wrong on that! What I'm trying to say here is this: some of the things in scripture are straight from God and are just as immutable and infallable as He is. Other things in scripture are written by men who have had direct revelation into what God thinks and commands. But when we read the Bible, we get it from a human filter: when we read Revelation, for example, we see everything through John's eyes, and sometimes the reason it is so cryptic is that we get his human interpretation of a divine vision.
So what I'm leading up to here is that the church's beliefs in the suitability of women for a teaching position come from several passages, but most of them were written by Paul when instructing people (mainly Timothy) how to set up and run an effective church. The most emphatic passages are in 2 Timothy 2, where Paul lays forth proper behavior and decorum for worship and churchgoing. One thing you will notice is the pronoun 'I'. Paul says, for example, "I want men everywhere to lift up holy hands in prayer, without anger or disputing" (2:8). He doesn't say here that
God necessarily wants this (though in the above example it's not too much of a stretch to say that He does), just that this is how he thinks a church should be run. It can be legitimately interpreted, I would say, that these instructions are as much of a cultural reference as they are a moral one.
As you may know if you know me, I am a firm believer that God wants us to behave in a logical manner, not obeying laws and formulae just because they're bad in themselves, but because there are actual good reasons for doing so. Sometimes we can't know these reasons, but in general, they're pretty obvious: stealing isn't bad because God doesn't want us to have cool stuff, it's bad because it hurts someone else and often leads to violence. So let's apply our minds: why would Paul say "A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent."? Not because women are evil and anything taught by a woman has no value, but because (at the time Paul was writing this) women had no value, so if the Gospel was taught by women, it may be perceived as having no value.
I am, of course, speculating here: I don't know for sure that this is why Paul says this. But we see in several other passages that Paul is concerned with how the gospel is presented, especially to unbelievers, and that he is fairly subtle and crafty in manipulating how he came across to people he was in contact with. Remember when he said "while I was with you I resolved to know nothing but Christ"? We have here a man who wants to make sure the Gospel is spread effectively given the current culture.
So my point in all this is that
- The injunctions against female leadership are mostly cultural artifacts from 2000 years ago
[li]Even at that time they weren't straght from God but were instead orders from Paul
[li]Applying logic, there is nothing about truth that makes it less truthful when taught by a woman
The church defines general roles for husband and wife, male and female, and I think it's fairly wise: modern "gender equality" fails to take into consideration that the genders really ARE different both physically and temperamentally, and there are some roles which men are good fill, and some roles which women are better at. Rather than denying this and putting men and women into jobs for which they are less suited under the name of equality, isn't it better for a person to find what they are best at doing and then do it?
So finally (hah, you say, he's going to shut up now!
), I believe that God will give the gift of teaching and illumination of the scriptures to those that He wants to teach. If He has not given the gift to a woman who wants to be a pastor, it would be harmful to the congregation if she were installed in that role. But if He has given her that gift, it would be an insult both to her and to God to deny her a chance at pastoral leadership because of her gender.
