Questions to Consider
God’s Politics by Jim Wallis is a great book that will make any Christian introspective about their ideologies.[1] Wallis shows readers how God views war, economic justice, moral values, etc. I am looking forward to meeting Wallis and asking him how he encourages voters to weigh the various topics to determine how they should cast their vote.
Dreaming in Black and White by Brett Fuller is a book on the racial tensions between black and white Americans, and ways in which we can work towards reconciliation.[2] He describes three simple phrases that can have powerful impact:
- I feel your pain.
- I’m sorry.
- How can I help? [3]
I’d like to ask Fuller these questions:
- How long do you think this tension will continue?
- Do you see hope that we can have reconciliation in our lifetime?
I enjoyed Dreaming in Black and White as well as God’s Politics, but as the issue of women in leadership is one of the most personally sensitive (and painful) topics I could engage in and I believe it to be worthy of discussion, I’m going to focus all of my attention in this blog post on Brett Fuller’s book, High Ceilings: Women in Leadership.[4]
Throughout nearly all of my childhood, I was in some form of leadership. In every area of my non-church life, I had implicitly understood that leadership was highly valued and I never had to consider what ceilings existed because of my gender. When I got my first professional leadership role, I enjoyed leadership so much, I knew that I would be leading the rest of my life. But as I started to feel a call to ministry, I couldn’t understand what that would mean for me. How can I be a woman in leadership in ministry? If I were a man, it would have been a straightforward choice based on my giftings: I would be a pastor, teacher, or church-planter.
But I looked to women around me in my conservative church and could only find examples of leadership in women’s or children’s ministry. While I have a high level of respect for women that lead in this way, it just wasn’t the way I felt God leading me.
Fuller describes his position of women’s roles in ministry and the home as complementary-egalitarian. Fuller argues that within a marriage, there are specific roles based on gender (complementary), but within the church and all other non-familial contexts, there is no Biblical difference between men and women (egalitarian).
Fuller states that Ephesians 5 gives the most detail of the roles of husband and wife in marriage:
Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church— for we are members of his body. “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband. (Ephesians 5: 22-33 NIV)
In the Bible Project’s Classroom study on Ephesians, Tim Mackie teaches that chapters 1-3 of Ephesians is all about comprehending the apocalypse and chapters 4-6 are about responding to the apocalypse.[4] The apocalypse that Paul is referring to is the bond between heaven and earth that has been made visible to us in Christ. Mackie explains that climax of chapters 1-3 is found in Ephesians 2:19-22:
Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit. (NIV)
Chapters 4-6 are about the implications of this reality, where we are members of God’s household. As such, Paul gives several examples of what this means in relationships that would have been understood by the readers: husbands and wives, parents and children, masters and slaves.
As I was reading over parts of Ephesians today, I couldn’t help but wonder if these were just examples that support the main point (Ephesians 2:19-22), rather than the main idea by themselves. Most western Christians would say that Paul wasn’t making a case for slavery in chapters 6, but many would simultaneously say that Paul is making a prescription for marriage and gender roles.
I’ve been wrestling with this topic for years and I remember asking a church leader if leadership by women was a gift or a sin. Early on in my adulthood, I believed it was a sin that I needed to suppress. I spiraled into confusion because leadership is so core to my being but I had understood that I was “trying to usurp authority over men” and “just needed to submit”.
In 2019, I approached my pastor for guidance because I so deeply desired to use my giftings in the church, but couldn’t see a way to do that in my local congregation. As I expressed questions I had about our church’s policy on women in leadership, I felt desperate, confused, and in need of shepherding, but I was met with hostility. This was an incredibly painful season that the enemy used to destroy trust and sow skepticism in me with my church leaders. I am grateful to God that he has whispered sweet assurances to me that he didn’t make me a leader by accident, that he has given me the grace to forgive those that have hurt me, and surrounded me with amazing male and female church leadership that has given me the space to heal and trust again.
So my question for Fuller:
- How do you interpret Ephesians 5-6 in light of Ephesians 2 and how do you explain the prescriptive interpretation of husbands/wives but the descriptive interpretation of masters/slaves?
- How do you help husbands and wives navigate leadership in the marriage when their roles are generally flipped outside of the marriage?
- Practically, what does it mean to be the head, or lead, in a marriage? If the wife is a CFO, can she provide financial leadership? If she is a Biblical scholar, can she provide spiritual leadership?
[1] Wallis, Jim. God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It. New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 2008.
[2] Fuller, Brett. Dreaming in Black and White. S.l.: Bookbaby, 2021.
[3] Ibid, 144.
[4] Fuller, Brett. High Ceilings: Women in Leadership, 2021.
[5] https://bibleproject.com/classroom/ephesians/
About the Author
Christy Liner
9 responses to “Questions to Consider”
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Christy,
I know that my thoughts on women in church leadership have been on a journey over the last several years. Currently, I worship at a Presbyterian church that boasts having one of the first female pastors in the area (it might even be the first east of the Mississippi) and currently is being led a by a female pastor. I have landed on the position that if a woman feels called by God to lead in the church and the leadership within that church affirms that call, I too am going to support her.
I am sorry for the pain you have experienced in the church. I pray God continues to bless your gift of leadership and heal your wounds.
Hi Jeff, I suppose the journey will continue for many years to come. Can you share any pivotal moments in your journey?
For me it was spending time with some women church leaders and seeing their giftings. Our head pastor left at the end of 2020 and after about 8 months we found what our denomination calls a transitional pastor. He was brash, to be nice, and left before his 1 year contract was up. A few months later we (I was a ruling church elder during all of this) hired a wonderful female transitional pastor who served as a healing balm to our congregation. She’s one of several female church leaders I have gotten to know, love, and respect. Each one is different but their giftings are apparent.
Christy, I really appreciate your inspectional summary of these three books. I am really interested to learn from Fuller about your first question about prescriptive vs. descriptive conclusions in Ephesians!
Hey Christy Thanks for sharing. I read how you questioned at times whether leadership by women is a gift or a sin. How do you speak to those who discredit women in leadership?
Christy, I am so sorry for the damage that has been done to you through your journey.
I have found that the idea of mutuality, based on Eph 5.21, is helpful rather than the ideas of “complementarian” or “egalitarian” . Mutuality seeks to recognize gender difference while at the same time recognizing equality and roles based on gifting, all in submission to Jesus. It seems that if we believed that Jesus was the “functional head” who speaks and acts in real time, that we would submit to him and align ourselves with his words and heart. I think our human relationships, under Christ, are much more nuanced than these categories that we’ve created to explain, protect, defend and characterize.
Your questions are brilliant!
So, one question, how did the Wallis and Fuller come together syntopically for you this week?
Hi Christy,
In your perspective, how does the Complementary-Egalitarian view, as discussed by Fuller in “High Ceilings: Women In Leadership,” reconcile the traditional roles within marriage with the broader opportunities for women in leadership outside of marriage, and what implications does this have for gender equality in church leadership?
Hi Christy,
I really appreciate your perspective, especially on women and leadership. Thank you for being willing to keep pressing on and listening to the Spirit’s leading concerning this topic. I’m sorry for the hostility you have received during this journey. What practical things have helped you receive healing? I hope we can talk more about this in DC.
Hi Christy, I would love to know about your first leadership position! Leadership has been something I have grown into. I am impressed you felt this even as a child. I can imagine your frustration and pain as you were blocked from doing what you naturally felt called to do in a ministerial context. What did you learn about yourself as a leader in that painful season?