Conclusion

IT IS DIFFICULT FOR A WOMAN to write a book on women in the Bible, the church, and the world with any sense of objectivity. Of course, there cannot be any real objectivity in the task. I can only write as an insider of a particular world. I receive the text as a twenty-first century white Western female scholar and pastor. That cannot be helped. It will connect me to some and alienate me from others. That also cannot be helped. However, despite the inevitably subjective nature of scholarship, my hope is that women and men will be encouraged to question hierarchicalist readings, especially if they have been led to believe that these were plain sense readings. I hope that I have demonstrated, first, that the evidence compels us toward a mutualist vision in Scripture, and, second, that at the end of the day, each of us must take responsibility for our own reading, interpretation, and application of Scripture.

Katherine Bushnell exhorted women everywhere to learn biblical languages so they could make up their minds for themselves, as she herself did. I understand her frustration with the disempowerment of women who remain uneducated and at the mercy of biased teaching, and I know personally what a difference knowledge can make. However, it should not be supposed that bookish knowledge will necessarily clarify our vision or indeed is always necessary for the kind of clarity of vision that Bushnell was hoping for. Much of what is behind this debate is about spirit—the spirit of the text, the spirit with which we hear and receive it, the spirit with which we apply it, and the work of the Spirit who shapes our hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of God and one another.

I was struck recently by James Cone’s account of the difference in perception of the slave and master. He writes that when referring to God, they “could not possibly be referring to the same reality. . . . The record shows clearly that black slaves believed that just as God had delivered Moses and the Israelites from Egyptian bondage, God also will deliver black people from American slavery. . . . That truth did not come from white preachers; it came from a liberating encounter with the One who is the Author of black faith and existence.”1 I know that many of us feel that we, in contrast to those who teach on the subordination of women to men, have encountered a different God, a different Jesus, a different Spirit, a different Paul.

A COMPLEX PICTURE

There is a whole range of people, however, between those who exclude and silence women completely and those who hold comprehensively mutualist views. I know there are pockets of communities where women are expected literally to be silent in the public assembly, but on the whole I think this is the exception and not the rule. Most people, in my experience, are not really comfortable with extreme views on the subordination of women or even the total exclusion of women from some form of teaching, pastoral ministry, leading, or ministry (whatever language they use to describe women’s participation in the church). We also see real inconsistencies in the way that people profess to hold to the idea of the submission of women and how that is applied. It takes multiple forms.

Some people, men and women, live with total illogicality with regard to how the verses we have discussed are applied in real situations. There is no rhyme or reason to what they are permitted to do. Some try to systematize the application of the different roles for men and women in the hopes that everyone will know where they stand, but even then, as the whole process of interpretation and application of submission narratives is questionable, their systems will be fragile and will leave any genuine questioners utterly bemused. I will not rehearse the ludicrous scenarios of what countless women have been told they may or may not do with or without a man present and the reasons they have been given for the decision!

I know men who go to church and agree with the exclusion of women in church leadership who appreciate and speak highly of their female bosses in their secular jobs. I know of highly competent female CEOs and managers who are members of churches that disallow women in leadership. This complexifies the debate and muddies the waters. Again, in many marriages where husbands and wives talk about headship, I see no real difference between the way they go about their lives and the way my husband and I go about ours.

Other women and men live with whole monolithic systems of the exclusion of women from the priesthood, as in the Roman Catholic and Orthodox traditions. They may just accept this and see no need to challenge it, or it may be the cause of deep pain. I know that these systems of belief and practices do not remain unchallenged, but it appears from the outside that there is a widespread general acceptance both of the system and the theology that underpins it within those two large traditions. I suppose only time will tell whether any root-and-branch change is desired or imminent, and I am not equipped to comment on this in any knowledgeable fashion. As has been apparent, this book is addressed mainly to the evangelical Protestant world.

However, despite the slightly muddled labyrinth of how men and women relate in the evangelical world, the reason that we still need to keep talking about this issue is that the general message that Christian women should be in submission to Christian men (in some way, and for some reason) still dominates church and family life for many more than those on the outside might realize. There are still churches and networks of churches where the fundamental idea that men should lead and be in authority and that women should follow and submit remains unquestioned and unchallenged. Not only this but as we have seen it is taught as an idea that is supposedly rooted in Scripture. I have written this book for this reason because I do not believe the idea that it is a Christian doctrine that should remain unquestioned and unchallenged, even if people choose to accept certain patterns as a way of life despite other options. If the coming of Christ has really inaugurated what Barclay calls the “cosmic refashioning” of the universe, we should expect to see the tangible results of such a radical renewal in our everyday lives.

A CHRISTIAN HOPE

The submission of women to men taught as Christian doctrine has had untold and far-reaching ramifications that are unrelentingly destructive to women but also to men. There are deep and troubling pastoral consequences of this teaching that affect questions of identity, relationships, calling, and marriage. Books have been written that bring out some of the worst consequences of a theology of female submission.2 There is so much more to be written on this, and I hope more will be. I do not imagine that the worldwide church will cease to disagree over the interpretation of Scripture and the practices that arise therefrom. I do not even think that over some issues this should even be the goal because this presupposes we all think we have arrived at the right answer, whereas in truth we can only ever know in part. On this particular question, though, I hope this book will encourage those who have been told the submission of women to men is biblical and have had their doubts to resist that message. I also hope that there will be those, like many before them have done, who change their minds on this issue and are set free in doing so. There are many men and women who do not need to change their minds because they never believed in the exclusion of women in the first place. In Dallas Willard’s foreword to the book How I Changed My Mind About Women in Leadership, he begins, “When Alan Johnson kindly asked me to contribute a chapter to How I Changed My Mind About Women in Leadership, I had to tell him that I had not changed my mind on this point, and thus could not contribute.”3 Willard had always believed that women could lead, teach, and minister in all capacities in the church.

For those of us, like Dallas Willard, who never needed to change our minds, I hope we continue to encourage others. My deepest hope and prayer, however, is that Scripture will not be misused to oppress, suppress, restrain, silence, belittle, demean, and exclude women in any shape or form. I hope and pray, instead, that the promise of the Spirit for freedom, for reconciled relationships, for healing will be realized in the church through the Word of God, for our own sakes, for God’s sake, and for the sake of the world.