Fear and Loathing in Church Gender Wars

A second article this week about self-righteous conversations that go on in my head...guess I need to do some mind cleansing.

One of my ongoing interests through these years in ministry is seeing how gender roles are played out in churches.  After all my years of study, I'm not convinced by either 'side' that they are really right.  While I believe that the egalitarian crowd is a bit presumptuous with what they think Jesus was all about, I also think that the non-egalitarians have mishandled the so-called Scriptural prohibitions about female leadership.  It's not an easy question by any means, and finding the right balance seems very much elusive.

But today I was thinking way back, maybe twenty years, to a conversation I heard about this topic.  I think I was in grad school at the time, and some of my fellow students were fixing the church world by their heated discussion. One of them was arguing for a more expanded role for women in church leadership when the other piped up with a response I have heard several times since: "If we open doors to women in this, they'll come in and take over and there won't be any men left!"  Maybe not the exact words, but the exact sentiment by my recollection.

Possibly the most troublesome arguments in these discussions come when people let their emotional fears take over, and this was one of those times.  In essence, somebody who was 'in charge' of church could not handle the thought of no longer being in charge.  Whether it is race relations in South Africa in my lifetime or in the U.S. during reconstruction or the 60s, or whether it is issues of finance and power in the American economy, the question of who gets to be the Big Dog always comes up.  Those who are out of power want to be in, and while those in power are wholly suspicious of those who would usurp their authority.

It has always struck me as curious that even in our churches in which women do much of the unseen work that enables the church to operate that they do not speak up more about the inequality when it comes to who stands up in front of the church.  Maybe they agree with the detente that exists in the current church...maybe they just don't care that much.  But when we effectively curtail the ability of people to do what God may (again, that is questionable) have called them to do, the question of why those most impacted don't speak up has always troubled me.  Is it that they don't want to be in charge (and thus have responsibility)?  Or maybe it's just that they realize that it's a lot better to simply DO rather than fight about unanswerable questions?  My experience is that many women do great things without seeking permission from the men supposedly in charge...and because those in leadership positions weren't even anticipating that this work might get done it goes completely under their radar.

I do fear, though, that the day is coming when the women that are left (and many have left already, no longer willing to wait around for that day) decide to speak up in Churches of Christ; it's not that they will wrongly speak up, but that those defending their territory won't handle it very well.  There's nothing as dangerous as a desperate power class who cannot accept that their time is over.

10 self-righteous questions that go through my head when I think I'm being clever...

"What do most Christians think is the best news source, Fox News or the Good News?"
"How can stadiums entice 80,000 people to get excited for four hours of freezing cold football but churches can't draw 80 people to praise God?"
"Why do many Christians think improving their house matters, but can't find a home for Jesus in their hearts?"
(related and just as self-righteous) "Why do people obsess about marble countertops for their kitchens but refuse to think about the streets of gold that are eternal?"
"How can Christians belly up to a half-acre sized buffet restaurant but refuse to think about feeding the poor in the 3rd world?"
"The Bachelor makes people think that a doomed relationship is real, but they act like a real relationship with Jesus Christ is unattainable?"
"How are people obsessed with cleaning out the trash from their houses but refuse to clean out the garbage in their lives?"
"Why do people spend so much time looking at a screen when they could better use that time looking into the face of the Savior?"
"Why do people obsess so much about the weather when they need to avoid the eternal fires of hell?"
"Would most Christian men think that tuning into SportsCenter is more important than centering their lives in Jesus Christ?"

Consider yourself shamed, people.  But rejoice, for my self-righteousness will return soon.