Round Table: Women in the Church

January 27, 2015

Various

Few experiences are as formative as those which we repeat on a regular basis. Routines, habits, and liturgies: they all influence who we are, how we live, and the narratives we inhabit. As important as what we do is who we do it with. Human life comes filled with relationships, our interactions with other human beings, people who impact us as we in turn influence them.

For Christians, this means that a formative part of who we are is influenced by our weekly worship. Recognizing this fact, Christians have occasionally found differences in ecclesiology and Church practice worthy of division over the years, a testament to the importance that the faith places on faithful worship. In recent centuries, the topic of who leads Christian worship has entailed a reexamination of the role of women in the church. It is this question—What is the appropriate place and role of women in the Christian Church?—that we asked Conciliar Post writers to respond to in this month’s Round Table discussion.

Round Tables are where numerous authors contribute their perspectives on a topic or question, demonstrating the unity and/or variety of perspectives within American Christianity on that particular issue. In order to offer a true Round Table, where numerous voices are heard, we have asked that responses be both brief and precise. Accordingly, the statements below are intended as starting places for a civil discussion of this often uncivil topic.

Ian Attila

Guest Author

“[There is] the same creator for man and woman, for both of them the same clay, the same image, the same law, the same death and the same resurrection.”—St. Gregory the Theologian (Discourse 37.6).

The Orthodox Church teaches that women bear the divine image of God exactly as men do. They are ontologically equal. Therefore, women—along with men—are called to be: priests, prophets, and kings. They are icons of God, called to be members of the Kingdom of God experienced through the Church on earth, in which salvation is offered equally to all. In the Church, “there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female” (Gal. 3:28) for all are “sons” of God in Christ (Gal. 3:26). For almost two millennia, women have played numerous roles in furthering God’s Kingdom on Earth in the Orthodox Church. As Fr. Thomas Hopko observes, “among the Church’s canonized saints we find women ‘equal to the apostles’ (isapostolai), as well as women prophets, martyrs, missionaries, monastics, ascetics, elders, secular rulers (empresses, queens, princesses, judges), unmercenary physicians, fools for Christ, and righteous lay people, all of whom are glorified for exactly the same activities and accomplishment as men.”¹ As history shows, there are many roles that women need to take up in the Church today.

That being said, Fr. Thomas also notes that among the canonized saints, “we find no women bishops or priests.”² Actually, the Orthodox Church has never, in its almost two thousand year history, ordained women as bishops or priests (or even full-fledged deacons). Why? Because, I believe, the Orthodox Church teaches that men’s and women’s function in the eschatological assembly are not always the same: within the Church men and women have different tasks to fulfill, and some of them are not interchangeable. Within the gathered assembly, the position of pastoral headship belongs only to qualified men.

There are a variety of reasons why Orthodox object the ordination of women to clerical offices; here are a few reasons why: In 1 Timothy 2:11-15, Paul (or whoever wrote the inspired text) does not allow women “to teach or to exercise authority over a man… For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the women was deceived and became a transgressor.” Some may object that this is only a cultural or regional forbidding, but this cannot be sustained by the text itself, for, as Fr. Lawrence Farley observes, “the rationale is found in the creation stories…[Paul’s] conclusion is clear: by rejecting their original role and becoming their husband’s leader, the women of Paul’s day run the risk of being deceived as Eve was. The insistence on assuming the authoritative pastoral office would lead women into becoming ‘transgressors.’”³ The title “apostle” given to Junia in Romans 16:7 and “deacon” given to Pheobe in Romans 16:1-2 could very easily be interpreted as honorary titles and not clerical offices. Whenever the issue of women’s ordination was taken up in the writings of the Church Fathers, it was always rejected. Take, for example, St. John Chrysostom’s thoughts concerning the pastoral office: “not only must the entire female sex step back from so great a task, but also the majority of males.”⁴ Lastly, the priest or bishop is understood to be an icon of Christ and/or God; this involves being an icon of the Bridegroom, the Father, and the Husband to his Church—a women cannot image those masculine realities.

While the Orthodox Church does not allow women as presbyters or bishops, this does not mean that women are excluded from crucial roles within the Church. On the contrary, there will always be ministries that require the skill and competence of Godly women.

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¹ Women and the Priesthood. Edited by Fr. Thomas Hopko. London: Continuum, 1983. 141.
² Ibid.
³ Fr. Lawrence Farley. Feminism and Tradition: Quiet Reflections on Ordination and Communion. Yonkers: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2012. 61, italics added.
⁴ John Chrysostom. On the Priesthood 2.2
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Molly Bolton

Guest Author

So, this question is sexist.

When a privileged group (men) take it upon themselves to define the appropriate place and role of an oppressed group (women), it is the thing of which nightmares are made. For example, see all of history.

I get that women will be responding to this question too. But what I am saying is, the fact that this question is being asked is ridiculous. Yet again, the Church is on the wrong side of liberation.

How do I say this nicely…I, as one who identifies as a woman, do not give a sh*t about what you think of my appropriate place or role in the Church. I will not defend my work or the work of womyn pastor/chaplain/theologian/scholar/activists on the grounds of us being womyn. It’s laughable.

Neither will I argue point for point about scripture. I have studied the Bible, you have studied the Bible. I get that Protestants are really into it since the Reformation. But if we talk about scripture without understanding the ways in which it is a product of and a contributor to this HUGE, SYSTEMICALLY SEXIST WORLD, we are just rehashing old patterns of oppression. So, I will talk about the system.

Much discussion has been raised about white privilege and white allyship to people of color in the wake of Ferguson. My role as a white person who cares about black and brown lives is to shut up and listen to black and brown people. As part of the privileged group, I take cues from the systemically oppressed group. To break the cycle of oppression, my friends of color tell me how I can partner with them and work to eradicate systemic racism. Not the other way around.

So congratulations, men of the church. You now get to take your cues from me, a woman in the church, as I answer the question: What is the appropriate place and role of men in the Christian Church?

Listen to women.
When women do not occupy at least half of the places of leadership in the church, ask why and fix it.
Study women scholars and theologians. Ancient and current. In equal or greater number to male scholars.
Educate yourself and your church on the history of the Church as a source for the continued oppression, abuse, and shaming of women. Make your church a space of liberation for all.
Educate yourself and your church on male privilege and the link between sexism and heterosexism. Honor the feminine aspects of yourself and others.
Rebel against the sexism and misogyny of the media and the government.
Teach about consent.
Remain privy to current events and conversations about gender and sexuality. Read feminist perspectives. Ask women about their experiences and listen.
Demand inclusive language for God.
Bring forth feminine images of the Divine.
Queer the image of the male God.
Repent of the ways in which you have been part of the oppression of women, personally and systemically, and do better.

Remember that guy named Jesus? How he had power and yielded it. How he took on the form of oppressed humankind. How he listened to women in a radical way. My brothers, go and do likewise. Mother God is waiting to set you free.

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Molly Bolton is a Wake Forest School of Divinity graduate. She is a Chaplain Resident at the Cleveland Clinic and is seeking ordination in the United Church of Christ.

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Deion Kathawa

Author at Conciliar Post

“Then the Lord God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.’ … And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man” (Genesis 2:18, 22).

It is only by opening with these sacred words—beginning “in the beginning”—that we can endeavor to discern what the role and place of women in the Christian Church is and should be.

Pope Saint John Paul II, as he meditated and drew upon the Second Vatican Council’s Gaudium et Spes, wrote in his 1988 encyclical Mulieris Dignitatem (On the Dignity and Vocation of Women): “To say that man is created in the image and likeness of God means that man is called to exist ‘for’ others, to become a gift”. Therefore, the role and place of women in the Christian Church is simply that: to live out their vocation as members of one half of humanity and to truly discover themselves “through a sincere gift of self.” This is possible because Man is the only “creature on earth which God willed for its own sake.” But how can women accomplish this beautiful task set before them by their Creator?

By being mothers—spiritual or otherwise. Women are called to be mothers! Anyone with whom God works—as long as the person is receptive and responsive to his grace—will bear fruit. Relationships bear fruit; it is their essential characteristic. A marital relationship bears obvious fruit: children. But not all women are called to be physical mothers; however, they are all called to be mothers. They are called to share in the triumph of God over sin and death in the person of Mary, the Mother of God, she who, through her fiat, allowed God to break into time, thereby saving and redeeming the world.

Women must play out their unique role in the life of the Church not in spite of, but because of, their femininity. Their femininity is a gift—not a curse to be expunged in favor of the spurious notion that men are somehow “better.” In light of this fact, all such movements within the Church pushing for “female ordination”, must cease, for they are contrary to the Spirit of Truth. Men and women have equal dignity, for, “God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27). So, in not considering women’s entrance into the ranks of the clergy, they have not been “transgressed against” because women—in their unique but equal capacities as daughters of God—cannot be members of the clergy, though the imitation of Mary is indeed the way forward for women.

This will sound dull, insulting, oddly reactionary and patriarchal: So the whole point of women and their role is just that—to be mothers? But that is so limiting! That may be, but consider this: it is an indisputable fact that women, in their essential nature as feminine subjects—persons (to be contrasted with men in their essential nature as masculine subjects—persons)—are inherently ordered toward motherhood. Basic biology informs us of this. Women are to be mothers; men are to be fathers. What so many modern promulgators of [radical] feminism miss in their crusade, is that women will never advance or gain the “rights” they seek by casting off their unique gift of femininity in favor of masculinity or masculine traits—in short, by “masculinizing” themselves. What the Church needs now, more than ever, are loving and holy mothers. As John Paul II writes yet again:

In the name of liberation from male “domination”, women must not appropriate to themselves male characteristics contrary to their own feminine “originality”. There is a well-founded fear that if they take this path, women will not “reach fulfilment”, but instead will deform and lose what constitutes their essential richness. It is indeed an enormous richness. In the biblical description, the words of the first man at the sight of the woman who had been created are words of admiration and enchantment, words which fill the whole history of man on earth.

Articles by Deion

Jacob Prahlow

Managing Editor at Conciliar Post

In answer to this question (or rather, as the beginning of an answer which extends beyond the brief remarks offered here), I want to take a historical and textual approach to the earliest Christian communities as referenced in Romans 16. When discussing the role of women in the Church, many Christians seem to take a perspective of “There isn’t biblical evidence for female pastors; therefore there shouldn’t be female pastors”, effectively ending their discussions of the subject there. Evidence for this view, in my opinion, seems tenuous at times, as I hope to demonstrate below.

My grandfather—a longtime conservative Lutheran school-teacher—and I once had a conversation about the role of women in the Church, beginning after our reading the book of Romans together. We were particularly interested in Romans 16, where Paul offers greetings to members of the church at Rome. In this chapter, Paul calls out a number of women for their work, and I think that his language is particularly indicative of the role of women in the early Church.

First is Pheobe (16.1), a deacon or deaconess in the church of Cenchreae. As the opening portion of this chapter makes clear, Pheobe is the messenger by whom Paul is sending his letter to Rome. In the ancient Greco-Roman world, it was standard practice for the messenger to read aloud the message they bore upon arrival. In other words, Pheobe was almost certainly the first person to ever proclaim Paul’s letter to Rome, the first to give a “reading”—in the liturgical sense—from Romans. Additionally, there is evidence which suggests that after Pheobe had read Romans, she would have been expected to talk about it and explain the letter at some length. Thus, she may also have been the first person offer a sermon on the contents of Romans.

Next, there is that famous couple Priscilla and Aquilla (16.3-5), who work together with Paul and host a church in their home. This is not the first time that the New Testament mentions Priscilla and Aquilla, nor will it be the last.¹ An especially interesting aspect of this couple is that, on most occasions, Priscilla is named first, contrary to common literary practice. Whatever this ordering may mean, in this passage, wife and husband are named as the patrons of a house church, suggesting both their influence and wealth in Rome, along with the faithful service to the Lord.

In Romans 16 we also hear of Mary (16.6, a hard worker), Junia (16.7, who is outstanding among the apostles), Tryphena and Tryphosa (16.12, both of whom work hard in the Lord), Persis (16.12, another hard worker for the Lord), and finally, Julia and Nereus’ sister (16.15). All in all, Paul names nine women in fifteen verses, making up over one-third of the people specifically mentioned by name in this chapter. It remains somewhat unclear as to what Paul means by some of these terms—for example, it seems as if Junia is called an “apostle”, though scholars remain divided on precisely what that terms means in this context. Clearly, however, the women of the Roman church were both hard workers and important ministers of the Gospel of Christ during the time Paul wrote his epistle to the Romans.

For some Christians, it may seem scandalous to have women play an active role in the Church. However, I believe that Paul’s letter to the Romans provides one instance—out of many—from the New Testament, which calls contemporary Christians to seriously and honestly [re]evaluate precisely what the Scriptures teach about the role of women in the Church. If we take this chapter at face value, it seems Paul was perfectly at ease with women serving as messengers, readers, and preachers of his words and the Gospel—as well as serving as patrons of local church meetings. Of course, this points to consideration of that all important question of whether or not because something occurred in the early Church that it is necessarily normative for Christians today. This is a complicated issue, one made even more complex by the contents of later New Testament writings (such as the Pastoral Epistles) and Church Tradition, both of which I will be the first to affirm as important authorities for guiding Christian life and faith. My point in this Round Table discussion is simply to note that from a historical and biblical perspective, the role of women in the Church may not be so clearly defined as it has been assumed.

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¹ See Acts 18.2, 18.18-19; 1 Corinthians 16.19; and 1 Timothy 4.19.

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Articles by Jacob

Comments

42 responses to “Round Table: Women in the Church”

Chris Cam Smith

January 27, 2015

Thanks for this important discussion! Jacob, I’m glad you brought up the biblical passages which seem to point to the fact that women did indeed perform many important functions in the early Church. The passage that names Phoebe as a “deaconess” seems to be important enough to justify women serving as at least deacons. Also, important is the fact that it was women who first discovered the empty tomb after the Crucifixion. Rodney Stark notes in his “The Rise of Christianity” how women played a crucial role in spreading Christianity especially through interfaith marriages to pagans since they raised their children as Christians (this is the primary reason why I reject the Orthodox Church’s teaching on interfaith marriages). Without those early Christian women being allowed to raise their children as Christians and having influence to convert their husbands, the Christian faith may have died out. So it can be seriously argued that women are most responsible for spreading the faith early on.

Another idea we often lose sight of is that during the entire time-span of the biblical writings, men were required to be outside the home because of the types of work available – military, agriculture, etc. – and the tasks that women did – cooking, making clothing, etc.- required women to remain in the home. Today, with modern technology pushing men out of the workforce due to automation and with advanced weaponry that women can operate (jets, tanks, guns), it is no longer the case that men’s role are outside the home and women’s are inside the home. Many articles have been released of late showing that men are being forced out of the work force in record numbers and that the jobs that are most plentiful – healthcare – are primarily occupied by women. This is a little off topic, but we must not forget this when reading the Bible in such a way that says “women should do X and men should do Y.” While we shouldn’t imprison the Bible in its social and cultural context making it irrelevant for today, we also can’t lose sight of that context either.

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Molly Bolton

January 27, 2015

No, I just laughed. Nothing I haven’t heard before. I am very comfortable with what Mr. Kathawa calls my “masculine traits.” It’s too bad he doesn’t see the Divine Feminine within himself. I wonder (fear) what he has to say about persons who are intersex.

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1. George Aldhizer
  
  January 27, 2015
  
  I’d be curious Molly (thanks by the way, for being the only woman on the panel, also the only one that explicitly believed women should be in the highest leadership roles) what you think of Laura’s perspective. Do you find any credibility in churches or traditions that, while restricting women from ordained ministry, self-consciously see women as essential in other areas of Christian ministry? I guess I’m asking if you believe that any practice that denies women ordained leadership (whether for scriptural/traditional reasons) is irreducibly sexist.
  
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  1. Molly Bolton
    
    January 28, 2015
    
    Hey George, thanks for the question. Here’s the problem I have with complementarianism as argued by anyone: the perpetuation of the gender binary. And the conflating of biological sex and gender.
    
    Sex and gender are not the same thing!! “If you have a vagina, it is the Christian thing to act like this.” I DON’T BUY IT.
    
    An educational video: http://itspronouncedmetrosexual.com/2013/05/my-ted-talk-understanding-the-complexities-of-gender/
    
    The world is a place with a multitude of gender expressions, sexual orientations, and sexual organ make-up. What is the complimentarian’s response to this? Are persons who are intersex not whole and in the image of God?
    
    Let’s queer the binaries for a second: If present myself as woman but have a penis, is it cool if I am ordained? What if I look like a man and act like your idea of a man and no one know that I have a vagina — I could probably get away with ordination, right? I am serious about this. What do you mean by a woman?
    
    Do what you want in your personal relationships and with your own gender identity. But preaching gender essentialism or calling it “God ordained” it is a really really dangerous game to play. I mean it. People die who do not fit into ideas of gender norms. They are often victims of crimes. Women who don’t “know their place” and men who express their femininity get murdered. It’s a big deal. Not to mention the thousands of ways people are denied the fullness of themselves by trying to fit into limited definitions of femininity or masculinity.
    
    The Church has to take seriously the role it plays in perpetuating these norms. We’ve got blood on our hands, folks.
    
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Laura Norris

January 27, 2015

It’s easy to neglect in a conversation about women’s ordination that women have and always will play a significant and irreplaceable role in the Church, as many of these authors (particularly Jacob) pointed out. To neglect what Mary the Mother of God, Mary Magdalene (who was the first witness to the resurrection), Saint Catherine of Siena (who brought the papacy out of corruption and back to Rome), Saint Hildegard, Saint Teresa of Avila, Dorothy Day, etc have to offer is to neglect the significance of women in the church. These women did not need ordination (in fact, ordination would have hindered them) to do great things for the glory of God. Just because we can’t be priest doesn’t mean we can’t serve God; God just calls us in different and equally powerful ways. In fact, it is arguably women, free from the bonds of ordination, who transformed the Church in the middle ages by reforming corruption from the outside, developing practices of devotion for the laity, and producing some of the greatest works of spiritual literature in the Christian tradition.
I’m a runner, and I never look at a bird and envy it’s ability to fly. Likewise, I’m a women, and never envy a man’s ability to be ordained. To envy that would be to downplay everything I am uniquely capable of. And I’m a feminist of some sorts; I go into hysteria (anyone get the irony of that word here?) just about every time some states that women are inferior athletes, less intelligent at STEM, or should stay at home and breed like rabbits because that’s all their good for. But I also know that the priestly position that imitates Christ, a position of service, sacrifice, and consecration, is not a position for me; the position of the Virgin Mary, the position of Mary Magdalene, a position of nurturing the faith, being the head of a domestic church, and evangelizing. They’re complimentary roles, fulfilled by complimentary genders.

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Chris Cam Smith

January 27, 2015

The problem is that women do not seem to have had much say in the formulation of those roles. Much or our discourse on gender in the NT comes from Paul himself and you can see some conflict reflected in his letters regarding women. So we really only have Paul’s side of the story. It would be nice to have some writings from some of the women in the early Church that address this issue. As far as I know we don’t have any, or do we? Do we have any early Christian texts written by women that are not Gnostic or of some other non-orthodox sect?

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1. Ian Attila
  
  January 29, 2015
  
  Chris
  If by “early” you mean first or second century: from my knowledge we do not have any writings from orthodox women–which is unfortunate. If anybody has knowledge to the contrary please let us know!
  
  I question if it is correct say that “we really only have Paul’s side of the story.” and “you can see some conflict reflected in his letters regarding women.”
  
  We have to remember that when we read the letters of Paul, we are not simply getting the perspective of one man: because these letters are canonical. The Church, through the leading of the Spirit, recognized the twenty-seven books of the NT as God-breathed writings that accurately give the teaching of Christ and the Apostles. I think it is better to think of what we read in Paul’s letters (as offensive and culturally incorrect as they are) as the Church’s (since it raises these particular letters over itself as authoritative Scripture) and God’s (since all Scripture is God-breathed [2 Tim 3:16]).
  
  I don’t think the “conflict” you see in Paul concerning women is actually conflict at all. What I believe we see in his letters is yet another witness to this truth: Orthodoxy is “paradoxy.” How is it that Paul can praise so many women for their sacrifice and service in Romans 16 and proclaim the wonderful news that in Christ there is “no male and female,” but then say what he says in 1 Corinthians and 1 Timothy: because the truth is paradoxical. Men and women are ontological equal and yet have different roles to play in the Church and in the home
  
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  1. Chris Cam Smith
    
    January 29, 2015
    
    We also have to keep in that some parts of, or entire letters, of Paul may not have been written by Paul himself. That would also play a role in this discussion, but that is a question I’m not well-versed enough in to get into too deep. I certainly do not wholly accept everything said in Paul’s letter. Paul himself acknowledges in 1 Cor. that he becomes like the people he’s speaking to in order to win them over to Christ, meaning he will say or recommend things that might not be important (head-coverings, etc.) in order to win the people to what really matters – Christ. I will always remain skeptical of the idea of distinct “gender” roles in the Church, but I certainly can accept the traditional teachings based on Laura’s comment below. My family attends an Orthodox Church and we see woman playing a strong role in the church life and see no patriarchy/misogyny. However, I firmly and vehemently reject that women and men have different roles to play in the home.
    
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  2. Ian Attila
    
    January 31, 2015
    
    In your understanding, what difference could it make if Paul did not write 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy etc? Because in my mind, a canonical book is a canonical book. So it doesn’t really matter who wrote it–does that make sense?
    
    (I’m curious, what don’t you accept in Paul’s letter?)
    
    Concerning head coverings: This is an interesting topic. I am convinced that the essence of the issue is a non-negotiable one, because
    
    1. In chapter 11 Paul (and scholars don’t dispute he wrote this) makes his argument by pointing to the creation story.
    2. In this chapter he gives an order of headship: God, Christ, husband, wife (v3).
    3 In v. 10 he says, “That is why a wife ought to have a symbol of authority on her head, because of the angels” (ESV). This “angelic” reason seems theological and eternal–but, really, I don’t know what he is talking. I need to look into this more. (I wonder if it is possible to fulfill what Paul is talking about through some other means other then a head covering? Such as a wedding ring? I don’t know.)
    
    But that being said, I agree 100% with you that Paul becomes all things to all–that he might save some. On this issue Oikonomia must be used-since this practice is now completely foreign to most of our culture.
    
    What I mean by saying that men and women have different roles to play in the home is that husbands are to be heads (leaders) of the family and women are to submit to that leadership. Husbands are called to be a type of Christ, the wife is called to be a type of the Church–this I don’t see as at all negotiable
    
    Also, (and with more hesitation then what is stated above) I see a principle in the Scripture that wives are to be “homemakers” (Titus 2:6, NKJV), or “workers at home” (ESV). Most women will find much of their salvation, there participation in the life of Christ, “in childbearing (1 Tim 2:15, NKJV): which I understand to mean motherhood. I believe this to mean that generally the wife should be the primary, immediate care giver of the kids and care taker of the home. How this finds itself worked out can vary from culture to culture. And I think there can be exceptions to this for various reasons. (And Chris, please understand that I am not trying to offend you–since I know you are a stay at home dad. I’m just dialoguing with you.) I must admit, I want to study this issue more. I want to read more of the Fathers and the Scriptures concerning this issue.
    
    That is all I mean by roles. Nothing more. When it comes to cooking, cleaning, working, changing dirty dipers, playing with the kids, taking care of the house, the car, the fiances, and so much more, the husband and wife are to be co-workers. I”m not advocating for a “traditionalist” view that says, the wife should only work at home, cook, and make babies No, No. There are those general principles stated above, and then the rest is up to culture.
    
    I look forward to your response. Thanks for the good conversation.
    
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  3. Chris Cam Smith
    
    January 31, 2015
    
    Thanks Ian for your response and elaborating further. Honestly, it wouldn’t change my mind if some of the particular passages concerning women were indeed written by Paul himself or someone later.
    
    Before responding further, I probably need to explain how I view scripture (which is consistent with the Orthodox Church, where my family currently attends). There is a hierarchy with the gospels at the top, then the epistles, then the Old Testament. Thus, the gospels stand at the top, as the highest authority. So you are correct that being canonical means it is authoritative for Christians, but certain parts are definitely more authoritative and that authority rests on the meta-narrative more than each individual proscription.
    
    Thus, when reading Paul we should look more to his overarching message and not every command or recommendation. When looking at the Bible, I see Jesus treating women equal to men in every single way and not establishing any specialized roles for men or women, even going so far as transgressing the existing social norms in some instances. Paul, on the other hand, isn’t much of a “rebel” so to speak. He’s not willing to go against the prevailing culture. He doesn’t really challenge slavery or attempt to liberalize societal views on women. His goal is holding the Christian community together, combating strife in his churches, and teaching Jesus’ crucifixion as forgiveness for sin. It is my belief that our reading of Paul should look to these themes and not to what he says on women. I take his views on women as a reflection of Greco-Roman culture and not anything ordained by God.
    
    I cannot accept any view that says women are to submit to the authority of their husbands. I see a marriage as a communion in which husband and wife are to function as a complementary unit, co-equals who work together to ensure the proper functioning of their family and who bring their family and themselves closer to God together. Now, of course there are certain functions that one must perform and the other cannot due to biological differences. Of course men are called to fathers and women mothers, so in that sense there are absolutely distinct roles, but these are complimentary not hierarchical. In addition, men are better suited to protect their families from harm. But again this is men fulfilling their supporting role, not a hierarchical deal.
    
    Having said all of this, I respect your or anyone else’s position who see it differently. All people of faith must be allowed a place to live according to their convictions. If faithful Christian family want to live according to the belief that a man must be head of the household, I certainly have no problem with that provided that the wife accept that role willingly. I can never accept or apply that belief to myself or my own family based on how I understand God and the Christian faith. I consider my wife a full equal in every sense of the word. There is really no amount of theological or philosophical reasoning that will change that conviction for me.
    
    In terms of church life, I really have no argument against what Laura has outlined below or what the Orthodox Church teaches as outlined here: http://www.goarch.org/archdiocese/departments/youth/youthworkers/sessions/women.
    
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  4. Ben Cabe
    
    January 31, 2015
    
    We must be careful not to fall into the trap of “Jesus didn’t say it, so I won’t believe it.”
    
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  5. Chris Cam Smith
    
    February 1, 2015
    
    Very true. I hope that is not what I implied. I’ve had to go back and read over the epistles and parts of the gospel over the past two days and no matter how hard I try I can’t come away with the view that men are to be over women. The very few verses in the epistles that say things like “Christ is the head of man, and man is the head of women” or “women shouldn’t speak in Church” don’t even seem to line up with rest of Paul’s message. They seem very odd and out of place with what Paul is trying to say and they seem at odds with the gospels themselves.
    
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  6. Ben Cabe
    
    February 1, 2015
    
    That being said, I don’t think Ian is propounding a fundamentalist protestant view. Rather, that men and women, while equal bearers of the image of God, have different roles in the church. Mainly, women cannot be administers of the sacrament of the eucharist or do the liturgical priestly duties. “Cannot” meaning it is not their role to offer it. However, as Laura said, we should not see this in a negative light. Viz. the Holy Mother of God
    
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2. Jacob
  
  February 8, 2015
  
  Chris, Sorry I didn’t see this until now, but we have at least one thing written by an orthodox Christian woman in the second/third century, the account of Perpetua’s Passion, written by a young (pregnant) Carthaginian noble woman in the days before her martyrdom. Perpetua writes as an authority and “takes” a number of the roles often played by men in martyrological narratives, even functioning as an officiant for “baptism” and serving as a “priest” (at least narratively).
  
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  1. Chris Cam Smith
    
    February 9, 2015
    
    Yes, I think we read part of that in Dr. Foskett’s class didn’t we? Very fascinating…
    
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Ben Cabe

January 27, 2015

It’s not that women aren’t abel to “discern” the same truth or data as men. It is as simple as Laura stated it.

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Ian Attila

January 29, 2015

Molly, Indeed, it is true that “I have studied the Bible.” and “you
have studied the Bible” and we have both come to polar opposite conclusions.

And because of that, I am very curious to know what your perspective is on how 1 Tim. 2:11-15 should be interpreted and applied today? Understand I am not trying to argue with you; I am just trying to understand where you are coming from in light of the biblical text. Thanks.

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1. Molly Bolton
  
  February 1, 2015
  
  Hey Ian. It would be ok if you were trying to argue with me. Because I am trying to say that your view has deadly implications.
  
  Remember how Ephesians 6:5 (Slaves obey your masters) was used to justify slavery? But then people were like, whoops slavery is super wrong and we should read the Bible in a social-historic context?
  
  Same thing with that Timothy verse, my friend. Violence against women (mostly at the hands of men, mostly by their partners) is an EPIDEMIC. Please be aware of the broader implications of your view — a man upholding the submission of women. Please be aware of other verses you have read in a social-historic context (ie the Ephesians 6:5 one) and ask yourself why you are not doing the same with this one.
  
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Jeremy Kolansky

February 1, 2015

You are essentially making the statement that a person’s sexual organs have no effect upon the rest of their being. The foundation of this argument, that ‘They’re still people, and shouldn’t be killed because they are different,” is an incredibly poor argument. I can easily make a similar argument: We should wholesale accept Jihadist suicide bombers since other people want to kill them “because they’re different.” In both cases, the argument is that we should wholesale accept them because other people want to kill them, but it takes no account of what that person is doing differently. How are you determining absolute truth? Do you believe there is absolute truth? Are there actual laws that govern this universe, or can everything be justified somehow? (Have you argued with gravity recently? I do not advise it)

You want to make the argument that someone’s sexual organs play no role in determining who they are, and yet, what physical bases are you founding that upon? You wish to state that there is a dramatically broader view of “normal” than the two gender roles laid down in Scripture, but what justification do you have that we should believe those are “normal” and not perversions of the normal? Sin has many effects in this world, why do you assume that these differences are not manifestations of corruption caused by sin? I am not arguing here for poor treatment of these people, for they are still people, but how do you justify their differences as normal, when your only argument thus far is that “people do evil things”? Because sin is present in this world, does not mean that I must accept it’s perversions as replacements for the originals. Again, this is not an argument for poor treatment or purging of a people group (As a Jew, I certainly understand the issues here). “Love the sinner, hate the sin.” Jesus did not say “I forgive you, now go and continue in your sin.” Quite the opposite. He forgave, but He always gave the command to leave their sin (or life of sin).

What is the absolute truth foundation that you can lay to provide this justification? I do not intend these to be harsh, but direct questions. I am curious what you think.

People misusing information to harm others is no new thing. It is the very reason why we got kicked out of the Garden.

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1. Guest
  
  February 1, 2015
  
  The essential point Molly is making is that having a penis or a vagina has absolutely no bearing on how someone “should” act in society. In some societies and cultures, men kiss each other on the cheek (in the Greek Orthodox Church my family attends). But if you tried to do this in a Southern Baptist church down in Alabama, you might get punched in the face and called a “fag” or “homo.” In Scotland men can wear what are essentially skirts in public and not be looked at funny. Paul’s instruction for women to cover their heads in church or for men to wear short hair are not “God-ordained” gender roles in any way, shape, or form. These are cultural and society constructions of gender identity. The issue really gets problematic when a person has a penis but identifies as a women or has a vagina but identifies as a man. This is a real thing whether one sees it as a biological, neurological, or psychological condition. What do we do when a child is born with both sex organs? The parents can opt for surgery and choose the sex for their child, but then what if the child grows up identifying with the opposite sex? Regardless of how rare issues like this may be, they are real. Gender roles are not as clear-cut as we like to think they are.
  
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Ian Attila

February 2, 2015

Chris,

(Before I begin, I realize that it would be good to clarify that I am an Orthodox Christian, I was received into the Church last year in September. Just FYI—I need to send my bio in to Conciliar Post still.)

(I copied and paste this from a word document, so paragraphs look strange. Sorry about that.)

(Also, understand that if anything I say in the following paragraphs sounds
unnecessarily harsh, forgive me. I am simply speaking my heart, and hoping and
praying that you (all of us) would have the fullness of Christ)

First I want to deal with the headship of the husband and wife issue.

Chris, I know
that you are interested in becoming Orthodox—I have enjoyed your recent two
posts on ecology and scripture from an Orthodox perspective. But if it is true
that you “cannot accept any view that says women are to submit to the authority
of their husbands,” then you may want to reconsider joining the Church
because that is the official, dogmatic teaching of it. The Orthodox Study Bible states on page 1607, in the article
entitled “Marriage” that, “In modern
society, as well as in Christendom, recurring debate concerns the tension
between equality of the partners in marriage and office or order in marriage.
Often, this tension has turned into a polarity between men and women, and
sometimes even breeds hostility. Two elements in the Orthodox service of marriage
serve to heal such tension, while making clear the teaching of the Church on
the twin themes of equality and order concerning husband and wife.

“As to equality, during the ceremony crown are placed on the heads
of the bride and groom. This act is symbolic of their citizenship in the
Kingdom of God, where ‘there is neither male nor female’ (Gal 3:28), and of
their dying to each other (the crown [in
the marriage service crowns are placed on the head of the bride and groom] is often a symbol of martyrdom; see Rev.
2:10.) The words of St. Paul on marital equality are clear: ‘The wife does not
have authority over her own body, but the husband does. And likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body,
but the wife does’ (1 Co. 7:4). Husband
and wife belong to each other as martyrs, they belong to God as royalty, and
they are called to treat each other accordingly.

“But within martial equality there is also order. The epistle
passage read at the sacrament of marriage is Ephesians 5:20-33, an exhortation
to husbands and wives that begins with a call to submit to each other (v. 21).
The husband is to serve God as head of his wife, as Christ is head of the
Church (v. 23). The wife is to be subject to her husband as the Church is
subject to Christ (v.24). There is nothing here to suggest the wife is
oppressed in marriage, any more than one would call the Church oppressed in
relationship to Christ. He who calls us ‘brethren’ (Heb. 2:11) and ‘friends’
(Jn 15:15) exhorts the husband to love his wife, to nourish and cherish her as
He Himself does the Church (vv. 28:29).

Thus marriage is a sacrament—holy blessed and everlasting in the
sight of God and his Church. Within the bonds of marriage the husband and wife
experience a union with one another in love. We pray for them the fruit of
children and one day the joy of grandchildren. And within the bonds of marriage
there is both a fullness of equality between husband and wife and a clarity of
order, with the husband as the icon of Christ and the wife as the icon of the
Church.”

I know that was a very long
quote, but I think it is necessary to articulate the whole teaching.

I also want emphasis that,
as the article above stated, within the liturgical marriage ceremony of the
Orthodox Church Eph. 5:20-33 is read, which according to your view is only a “reflection of Greco-Roman culture and not
anything ordained by God.” Remember that
Orthodox take liturgical use of Scripture very seriously when it comes to
interpreting the text, as Bishop Kallistos Ware states, in his article, “How to
Read the Bible” in the Orthodox Study
Bible, (pages 1757-1566,) which I’m sure you’ve read:

“We read the Bible personally, but not as isolated individuals. We say
not ‘I’ but ‘we.’ We read as members of the family, the family of the Orthodox
Catholic Church. We read in communion with all other members of the Body of
Christ in all parts of the world and in all generations of time….The decisive
criterion of our understanding of what Scripture means is the mind of the
Church. The Bible is the book of the
Church.

“To discover this ‘mind of the Church,’ where do we begin? A first
step is to see how Scripture is used in
worship. How, in particular, are biblical lessons chosen for reading at the
different feast? A second step is to consult the writings of the Church
Fathers, especially St. John Chrysostom. How do they analyze and apply the text
of Scripture? An ecclesial manner of reading the Bible is in this way both liturgical and Patristic
(p. 1761, bold added). How Ephesians 5:20-33 is used liturgically makes it
clear that this is not a culturally sensitive command, but a heavenly one.

Patristic views concerning
this issue are also the same as I have tried to articulate above. Here’s a quote
from Fr. Lawrence Farley’s book, Feminism
and Tradition, which I think gives a fair and realistic understanding of
the views of the Church throughout the ages: the Fathers “worked within their own ages and cultures, inheriting certain views
of women and the roles from those cultures. Some were able to discern how the
Scriptural views about women differed from the secular views of their time, and
some were less able. They inherited, after all, a complex and multi-faceted
view of men and women, and it is not surprising if some focused mostly on the
parts of Scripture that reinforced the views current in secular society. (It is
a timeless temptation, and the modern feminist Christians are not immune to
it.) But all in all, if we look at the patristic writings and their phronema or mindset as a whole, we find the same
themes expounded in the Scriptures…I submit that these themes did survive, and
that therefore theirs was not simply an abandonment of the biblical teaching
favor of patriarchalism of their day. Rather, theirs was a patriachalism, but
it was a partriachalism informed and modified by the New Testament” (pp.
72-73). After quoting
Fathers such as St. John Chrysostom, St. Basil the Great, St. Theodore of
Mopsuestia, St. Cyril of Jerusalem, St. Theodoret Bishop of Cyrrhus, St.
Epiphanius Bishop, and others, he says, “In
all the patristic material surveyed above (the tiniest taste out of the vast
amount available) we see that the Fathers grasped the essential Scriptural
teachings, that women were equal to men and also called to a subordinate position,
especially in the Christian synaxis.” (p. 81).

Forgive me for going on and
on. I did so because I want to make it plain to you and everyone else who is
following our conversation what the official position of the Orthodox Church
is. (Also, I do not say this as some power hungry husband who wants to rule
over his wife. I am called to love my wife so much that I am willing to be stripped
naked, beaten, sentence to death, be whipped to the bone, have a crown of
thorns forced on my head, and be crucified—even if she doesn’t love me. Lord
have mercy on me to do this.)

I think that you make unfair
dichotomy in your non-headship description of marriage. I agree with basically
everything you said, I also “see a
marriage as a communion in which husband and wife are to function as a
complementary unit, co-equals who work together to ensure the proper
functioning of their family and who bring their family and themselves closer to
God together.”, It seems to me that you believe that if the husband is the
God-ordained leader/head then the husband and wife are not “co-equals” and are
not a “complementary unit.” I do think that it is very possible that men to be
the family leader and yet still be truly “equal.”

I think a good way to understand this is to look at the Holy
Trinity as an example. “Strictly speaking, according to Orthodox theology…God is not to be conceived as ‘one God in three persons,’ or as three persons in one divine substance,’ if this is taken to mean that the one God is expressed in three personal forms so that it
is one and the same God who is understood as being the Father, Son and Holy
Spirit. Strictly—and I would also say, biblical, liturgically and creedally—speaking,
the one true and living God is not Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He is the one
God and Father who has within himself eternally and, one might dare say, as an ‘element’
of his very being and nature, his only begotten Son, also called his divine Word
and Image…This one God and Father also has within him his one Holy Spirit, who proceeds
from him alone and rests eternally in his Son and Word….It is this God whom the
Orthodox Church addresses in her Eucharistic liturgy in this manner: ‘For Thou
art God…Thou and Thine Only begotten
Son and thy Holy Spirit’[Anaphora of
the Liturgy of St. John Crysostom]… The Divine ‘Thou’ of Orthodox worship is
the one God and Father. His Son is also a ‘Thou,’ as is his Holy Spirit. And
the three are divine. This is the biblical teaching, summarized in the creed
and celebrated in the liturgy. The Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are
three equally and identically divine persons or hypostases. They are “of one
essence’ or ‘nature.’ There is no metaphysical superiority of any of the
persons to the others, and no ontological subordination. Yet the one God and Father is the source of his Son and Spirit [Compare
Gen. 2:18-25, 1 Cor 11:3-12 and 1 Tim 2:11-15). And the Son and Spirit are not
only ‘from the Father’ ontologically (by way of ‘generation and ‘procession’),
but are personally obedient to him in their divine being and activity [compare
Eph. 5:20-33 and 1 Peter 3:1-70]. They
do his will, they carry out his work, they complete his actions, they reveal
his person, they communicate his nature, they bring him to creation and take
creatures to him. This does not mean that they are any less ‘divine’ (or any
less ‘God,’ to speak in this way) than the Father. And this certainly does not
diminish or degrade them in any manner at all. On the contrary. It is to their
everlasting glory honor and worship that they are from all eternity, God’s very
own Son, Image and his Holy Spirit” (Fr. Thomas Hopko from his essay “Women
and the Priesthood: Reflections on the Debate—1983, pp. 238-240, bold and
italics added) I think this is a very helpful picture for understanding the
headship of a husband to his wife (I would also point to the Biblical
comparison as Christ is head of the Church).

There is no ontological
subordination between members of the Trinity, and between men and women but, “although man and women are the same
substance, the man has relational priority because he is head of the women. He is
greater then she is by cause and order, but not by substance” (“Ambrosiaster”
as cited in Feminism and Tradition p.
81). I see this text to be comparable to what Christ says of himself in
relation to the Father “my Father is
greater then I” (John 14:28, NKJV). How is he greater, “it means that the Father, as the
fountainhead of the Trinity is the eternal cause of the Son.” (Orthodox Study Bible, p. 1455). All of this to say, if one cannot accept
the idea that headship exists among men and women because then they would not be truly equal, how can one accept the headship of the Trinity? Because there we do see the greatest example of love, and in that love we see persons who are ontologically equal within a hierarchy.

Now I want to discuss the
hierarchy of Scripture. I must admit, I have not studied this subject thoroughly.
That being said, I believe that you are egregiously mistaken on how the
hierarchy of Scripture is to be applied. In the time that I have studied
Orthodoxy, I have never come across an Orthodox writer who understands the
authority of Scripture the way you do—I would take note that the Orthodox Study Bible does not deal in
the notes with the texts the way you do. I would challenge you to find one
canonized Saint who treated the Scriptures in this—forgive me—“trump card”
manner. My understanding of the Scriptures in the Orthodox Church, as regards
to the order, does not have to do with one group of texts being more
authoritative, in that, if there is a (apparent) theological contradiction, the
Gospel trumps all. My understanding is that the hierarchy has to do with order
of importance, not doctrinal authority.

Yes the Gospels are the most
important, because they are the Church’s “thus saith the Lord” texts of the New
Covenant, in which “the God from God” speaks in human flesh to humanity: they
are also, proclamations of the Gospel itself (we don’t have four “Gospels,” we
have the Gospel according to…” ) And the epistles are second—and I would say a very close second— in importance/authority because they bear the authority of
the apostles or rightly articulates their teaching: a teaching that is a
commentary and proclamation of that Gospel. Christ says concerning the apostles
authority, “As the Father has sent me, I
also send you” (John 20:22, NKJV). That’s a lot of authority. In 1 Cor. 14:37, Paul, after
talking about very controversial stuff, says, “If anyone thinks himself to be a prophet or spiritual let him
acknowledge that the things which I write to you are the commandments of the
Lord” (NKVJ.) The apostle John says, “Whoever
transgresses and does abide in the doctrine of Christ [a doctrine that the apostles proclaimed] does not have God. He who abides in the
doctrine of Christ has both the Father and the Son” (1 John 9, NKJV). These
text make it plain to me that these epistles should be taken as the very words
of God—written in conjunction with human wills, of course (the Bible is not a
Koran).

Your appeal to the
meta-narrative of Scripture, in my mind, actual hurts your argument to dismiss
the patriarchal texts in the epistles as not commanded by God, because, in 1
Corinthians 11, Ephesians 5, and 1 Timothy 2, Paul articulates his teaching by
a appealing to the meta-narrative. In both 1 Cor. and 1 Tim, the creations
stories—arguably the most important part of the Old Testament—are brought up to
make his points on how the new Covenant, humanity of the risen Lord are to act
in relationship to one another and in worship. And in Ephesians 5 he talks
about the creation story and says that it is talking about the love of Christ
towards his Church. Also consider, if we do not consider every command of Paul,
then who is to pick and choose? We then, as Orthodox, should say the Church.
But at this point you disagree with what the Church has said and is saying.

Understand, that I also
agree that Jesus treated women equal to men—in everyway. Yes Christ did go
against social norms. The fact that the Gospels have women being the first to
see and proclaim that Christ arose is a very important fact. But where does
Jesus ever explicitly contradict Paul (or Peter) on either of these subjects?

I read that questioner you
linked, and there was not anything that I disagreed with (except I don’t think
there are any women acolytes in the Church—I could be wrong. From my
understanding they are all supposed to be boys/men with the exception of women’s
monasteries.)

Finally, sorry this comment
was sooo long. I had a lot to say.

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1. Chris Cam Smith
  
  February 3, 2015
  
  The fact that (at least in my church) we sit during the epistle reading and stand during the gospel reading clearly shows a hierarchy of scripture. Also, the gospel book is the only one kept on the altar during the service and it is the reader who reads the epistle but the priest himself who reads gospel. Fr. Andrew Louth speaks to this hierarchy in his book “Introducing Eastern Orthodox Theology.”
  
  I can’t find much to really disagree with in your rebuttal. I think we’re on the exact same page except on the very trivial issue of language. I refuse to call it headship, but you insist on it. This is something I’ve noticed about Christians in general, they will say “man is head of wife” stuff but actually won’t live it out. They only say it to try and stay true to the Bible. Most Christians treat their wives as equals in every way and do not actually “lead” or serve as “head” in any way other than symbolically. Of course, most Christian women would not tolerate anything else. It is impossible to truly act as head and authority over your wife and still treat her as equal. The Bible even is contradictory on this. For instance, the footnote for Ephesians 5:22-33 in The Orthodox Study Bible states “wives are called to submit to their husbands as equals” (p. 1608). The verses on marriage in Ephesians also give this same sense of paradox or seemingly contradictory teachings. I would argue the reason for this is the social context. Paul is trying to show that women are fully equal in every way while maintain the cultural hierarchy. If he did not keep the “submit” and “head” language, he might alienate followers. Paul’s language in his other letters seem to follow along these lines, except in a few small places that seem very odd when taken along with the whole of the letters (as I mentioned before). My argument is to rid ourselves of the language because too many women have been hurt by it (I will elaborate on this in an upcoming article).
  
  Now, I want to address the suggestion that I shouldn’t join the church if I don’t accept every single “dogma” of the Orthodox Church.
  
  First, let’s speak to the Bible. The Church understands that the Bible is the product of a cooperation between God and fallible human beings, thus “biblical textual criticism is completely normal and acceptable by the Orthodox, since they see the Bible in this light. Nothing human is perfect, including the Bible, which is the end product of human cooperation with the divine Spirit.” (http://www.goarch.org/ourfaith/ourfaith8038). This quote is consistent with every book I’ve read on the Orthodox Church and with my experience attending the liturgy and speaking with those in the Church. The Bible cannot be reduced to a few small passages that seem to contradict the meta-narrative.
  
  Second, on the Church Fathers, they too disagreed with each other on many issues, some minor and some maybe a little more important. However, they all agreed on the Trinity and dual nature of Christ. Here’s a short passage on the definition of heresy from the same article I quoted above:
  
  “A “heretic” (from airoumai, choose) is someone who chooses his own doctrine against the doctrine of the Church, or someone who reduces the doctrine to only one of its aspects; thus heresy means reductionism. The Fathers always stood for the wholeness of truth (catholicity from “truth kata to olon,” in its entirety and wholeness).”
  
  Thus, the Fathers would also say the Bible must be understood according to the overall truth of God and the Bible. Reducing that message to the idea that women must “cover their heads” or must “be silent in Church” could be seen in this light as heretical. The overall message of the Bible and the Church is one of equality in the eyes of God. That is what I believe we are both saying, even if we use different language.
  
  In terms of authority, if I want to be a Christian in the Orthodox Church I must adhere to the Seven Ecumenical Councils fully since these are the only infallible sources of authority as they were decided by the whole Church according to the Holy Spirit. As far as I know, there is nothing in the ecumenical councils on gender roles. In addition to the ECs, I must believe in the Bible as inspired text, but not infallible, and I must read them with the mind of the Church and according to the spirit of the text. I must also believe in the presence of Christ in the Eucharist as this is the sacrament of sacraments, the center of Christian worship. I must believe in the communion of the saints and the resurrection of bodies. I must faithfully accept and believe in the Nicene Creed and be baptised in the name of the Holy Trinity. The only mandatory sacraments are baptism, confession, eucharist, marriage, and chrismation – I must participate in each of these to be an Orthodox Christian. I must also accept the hierarchy of the Church (and I assume you and others might argue that this includes the headship of man over wife, I might concede this point).
  
  The things I am not required to do, although they are encouraged as part of the tradition and as things that bring us closer to God, are kissing icons, lighting candles upon entering the church, agreeing fully with every Church Father and every passage in the Bible, along with a ton of other things.
  
  My decision to become a member of the Orthodox Church is based on a desire to come closer to God in a mystical way, not a legalistic way. When we focus too much on terminology, language, being too dogmatic about the things that aren’t essential, we become like the Pharisees. I understand Orthodoxy as mysticism, as communion, as a relationship with God, Jesus, the saints and the Church. The Church doesn’t call us to be sheep refusing to question things that need questioning. If something harms my relationship with God and my fellow man, I cannot accept it. Accepting hierarchical gender roles does this for me. It has hurt my family personally in the past and continues to hurt many families. The Spirit of God will not allow me to accept the language of hierarchy in family life. Sure, I could give lip service to this just as millions of other Christians do but I cannot lie to myself. The Bible doesn’t teach it. If it states that a wife must “submit as equals.” This isn’t hierarchy, this is equality. Unfortunately, many men, including my sperm donor (aka biological “father”) twisted this language to justify abuse. So it’s time to reject this language.
  
  BTW, I apologize for any issues with my tone, grammatical errors, etc. – I’m typing really fast as I think here. Nothing planned out…
  
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  1. Benjamin Cabe
    
    February 3, 2015
    
    Historically, the church was “standing room only.” Some Orthodox Churches stand during the whole service, even today :).
    
    To my understanding, you do need to agree with everything that has been laid out as “dogma” by the Orthodox Church. Dogma is non-negotiable. Theologoumena (theological opinion) is just that, theological opinion. In this respect, the Fathers are not in complete unity: subjects of what exactly hell is, for instance. But, as you say, we must first find what is dogma (your priest could help). My one concern would not necessarily being covering the heads (although our women do in our church) but rather would be the appropriate persons that comprise a marriage. This would perhaps be the one contention you may have with the Orthodox Church / dogma.
    
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  2. Chris Cam Smith
    
    February 3, 2015
    
    I will also leave this passage which also speaks to my understanding of authority in the OC and has relevance for the so-called hierarchy of the household:
    
    “It has already been noted that the Fathers do not speak of obedience in terms of normative requirements. Obedience transcends mere submissiveness, with which it is commonly confused. The virtue of obedience occurs within the context of loving trust and personal relationship between two people in Christ, which in itself reveals the presence of Christ (cf. Mt. 18:20). Without this special relationship, one gains nothing from authority but pride, and nothing from obedience but guilt. Such feelings, however, defeat the very purpose of spiritual authority and hierarchy in the Church.
    The Church of Christ is hierarchical, and this hierarchy “corresponds to an imitation of God,” reflecting the order of life “even among the celestial beings.”[10] Yet the Church is not solely hierarchical in its ministry and service: the Holy Spirit is poured out on all the people of God. Each faithful is considered king, priest, and prophet, while the gifts of the Spirit are many and varied (1 Cor. 12:28-30), understood as being neither restricted to the ordained ministry nor reduced to the level of obedience alone (cf. 1 Thess. 5:19-20). One recalls the influence in the Christian East of unordained, “lay” or monastic elders, which has often proved far greater than that of any hierarch. The sacramental authority of the hierarchy always exists alongside the spiritual authority of the saints. Both are required and presuppose each other. Ideally, the two work together, like two wings of a bird. They counterbalance and complement one another when needed. The hierarchical order and dimension of the Church cannot be correctly interpreted except in relation to the priestly and prophetic ministry entrusted to the entire people of God (1 Pet 2:9), clergy and laity.[11]
    Authority in the Church is always identified with the vivifying breath of the Spirit. There must be synergy, not tyranny. The role of the holy people does not replace the responsibility of the bishops. The bishops are called to lead their people in taking up the cross of love and freedom in Christ. Orthodoxy has never attempted to resolve this seemingly paradoxical two-fold dimension. It has never reduced the Christian faith to a few charismatics, nor has it relied upon the bishops alone. On the contrary, it is the communal aspect of the Church which is constantly affirmed.”
    (http://www.goarch.org/ourfaith/ourfaith8172)
    
    This adds to the mystical understanding or orders, hierarchy, and headship that I spoke of above. If this is what we are to mean by man is the head of women, then maybe I can accept this understanding. But viewing it this way would necessitate parting ways with or ignoring some of the biblical verses we’ve discussed so far.
    
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  3. Ian Attila
    
    February 9, 2015
    
    Chris
    
    First, again, if you deem anything in my following comments as unnecessarily harsh, forgive me, I am a struggling sinner.
    
    I don’t think the difference between you and me is just about semantics. I come to that conclusion because you disagree with the Orthodox Study Bible’s footnote, and because you say that “it is impossible to truly act as head and authority over your wife and still treat her as equal.” I could not disagree more.
    
    Again, I will refer again to my quote from Fr. Thomas Hopko concerning the hierarchy of the Trinity and the comments of Christ that the Father is greater then the Son. The Persons of the Trinity are indeed ontologically equal but the Father is the head of the Son, as Paul even says in 1 Cor. 11:3. This is in no way to put down women, it is simply has to do with the order of reality within the context of the gathered assembly and the home.
    
    Understand that I am so sorry that your biological father used the verses in question to justify abuse. I’m so sorry for the pain you experienced from that. But I still must challenge your reasoning concerning this. I think it is clear that what you experienced was not the teaching of Paul, but a distortion—because the husband is called to love his wife as Christ loved the Church. Does the twisting and perversion of a command or institution justify its throwing out? If the answer is yes, then shouldn’t we also abandon the authority of the Episcopate? Since the office has
    been the cause of tremendous pain and abuse throughout the centuries. If “it has hurt my family personally in the past and continues to hurt many families” does that justify its abandonment? What about the priesthood? Many priest have betrayed their flock and have caused spiritual destruction, does that mean it should be done away with? Does that disprove that God gave us these offices in the Orthodox Church? The answer is
    no. And the same applies to the hierarchy in the home. While many men have used this verse to justify evil, this in no way disproves that God gave this to Christians to follow. The logic: this has been the cause of pain, therefore it is untrue, is not Biblical or Christian. Again I do mean not say this flippantly—but in love and seriousness.
    
    Also, if Christians do not follow a commandment, does that mean it should not be followed? I’m sure you agree, that this logic cannot be applied to the command: love your enemies. Even if most Christians do not follow this well—if at all—that is no
    justification for negating that command, do you agree?
    
    I again, submit to view what the Orthodox Study Bible teaches in view with everything else it does: Orthodoxy is paradoxy: God is one but three, Jesus is God and Man, Mary is mother and virgin, humanity is physical and spiritual, we must die with Christ and then we will live, the scripture is divine and human, the Church is
    visible and invisible, the sacraments are physical and spiritual, and the wife is to submit to her husband and she is equal to him. This, like all of the paradox doctrines above, is not a contradiction, just an apparent one. The Orthodox Bible has another beautifully articulated note (the same one you reject actually), “For wives, concerning headship (vv. 22-24): In both the Church and marriage, there is one who acts as head, who leads. As man, Christ is first among equals, not superior to us in nature; yet He alone is the head of the church” (p. 1608). If you want an example of what it means to be the head of the home, look to Christ and the Church, Chris; there is the perfect example of headship/leadership.
    
    I am aware that the Fathers disagreed on many things.
    My reason of quoting Fr. Farley was to make the point that they did agree on the topic at hand: that wives are to submit to their husband’s leadership. You say that the Orthodox Church has changed, yes in some ways. But how has it changed regarding following this command in our own egalitarian culture?
    
    Lastly, I agree with the article about authority you posted. It was wonderful. But I believe strongly that something is off with your view, because you state that it contradicts Paul.
    
    I picked up the book Introducing Eastern Orthodox Theology. I read through the sections where Fr. Andrew Louth discusses the nature and authority of the Scripture, and I want to quote his conclusion in full.
    
    After talking about the lectionary use of the Scripture in the Orthodox Church, he says “What does all this add up to? It suggests to my mind an attitude to Scripture that sees it not as some flat collection of infallible texts about religious matters, but rather as a body of witness of varying significance—some clearly
    crucial, as witnessing very directly to Christ, others less important (though never of no importance), as their witness to Christ is more oblique. And the criteria for importance are bound up in some way with the way the Church has taken them up into her experience. There is a hierarchy, a shape: the Gospel Book at the centre, the Apostle flanking it, and then a variety of texts from the old testament, generally accessed not through some volume called the Bible, but from extracts contained in the liturgical books along with other texts, songs, passages from the Fathers and so on” (p. 13). While I must admit, I want to know more about what he is means by “not as some flat collection of infallible texts about religious matters,“ I having a feeling, he does not mean
    that the Bible is theologically in error (I admit, I could be wrong). I think he is battling against a fundamentalist use of the Bible. Take note of a few things: First, he talks about the hierarchy of the Scripture as having to do with, “a body of witness of varying significance,” in other word, importance; and not the authority of the text contrasted against one another. Second, he does not put The Gospel above the Epistles. The Gospel is at the centre. It is the main focus, not the highest authority. Third, he does make note (not in the quote but elsewhere) that the Epistles are always read in conjunction with the Gospels, which again, gives
    them a very high order of importance. I will look more into Fr. Louth’s work to see if he explicates the above controversial comment.
    
    My Church practices the same as yours. It is acceptable if people sit during the Epistle reading, and it is not when the Gospel is read. Yes, the Gospel is in the middle of the alter; the Epistles are not. This in no way gives evidence that the Epistles doctrinally contradict the Gospels.
    
    Does not your view completely negate the logic of the development of the canon? Why did not the Fathers refuse to accept some books but accept others if not for the
    theological content? If they contradicted the apostolic rule of faith, why would these books be considered canonical? And if the letters of Paul theologically contradict one another and also the Gospels, does that not mean something in the Epistles contradicts the rule of faith? (Again, I ask, where is your textual justification for that reasoning? Where does Paul contradict Christ explicitly or vise versa?)
    
    I consulted my priest about your views, and he does not agree with your understanding. He said, (paraphrasing) that the Scriptures need to be taken as a whole.
    
    Your reasoning, seems to go against Bishop Kallistos’ Ware’s comments in the article “How to Read the Bible:”
    
    “First of all, then, we see Scripture as inspired by God, and so we approach it in a spirit of obedience. The divine inspiration of the Bible is emphasized alike by Saint Tikhon and by the 1976 Moscow Conference [a conference that included delegates from
    the Anglican and Orthodox Churches]. Scripture is ‘a letter’ from ‘the King of Heaven,’ says Saint Tikhon; ‘Christ Himself is speaking to you.’ The Bible, states the Conference, is God’s ‘authoritative witness’ of Himself, expressing ‘the word of God in human language.’ Our response to this divine word is rightly one of obedient receptivity. As we read, we wait on the Spirit.
    
    “Since it is divinely inspired, the Bible possess a fundamental unity, a total coherence, for it is the same Spirit that speaks on every page. We do not refer to it as ‘the Books’ in the plural, ta biblia, but we call it ‘The Bible,’ ‘the Book,’ in the singular. It is one book, one Holy Scripture with the same message throughout—one composite and yet single story, from Genesis to Revelation”
    (Orthodox Study Bible, pp. 1757-1758)
    
    The Bible “poses a fundamental unity, a total coherence:” this seems to me to go against your view of a contradictory Bible.
    
    Your view also contradicts Fr. Josiah Trenham’s, Ph.D. statements that “we have an infallible collection of infallible books. We believe that the guidance of the Holy Spirit superintends the canonization process so that what we have by the Fathers is unquestionable. (“The Bible and the Church” Lecture 3 “ The Interpretation of the Bible.” 11:19-11:34)
    
    Fr. Lawrence Farley, in his Feminism and Tradition, states, “We come to the Scriptures as disciples to be taught and corrected, not as judges to give our own verdict as to their truth. This was the approach of the Fathers. Concerning the authority of the Scriptures, for all their diversity, the Fathers spoke with one voice.
    We choose but a few examples. We may quote from St. Justin Martyr: “[That the Scriptures contradict each other]—I will not have the effrontery to suppose such a thing. If a scripture which appears to be of such a kind be brought forward, since I am totally convinced that no Scripture is contradictory to another, I
    shall admit instead that I do not understand what is spoken of.’ Or consider the approach of St. Augustine, who takes the same attitude: ‘I have learned to hold those books alone of the Scriptures that are not called canonical in such reverence and honour that I do most firmly believe that none of the authors has
    erred in anything that the has written therein. If I find anything in those writings which seems to be contrary to the truth, I presume that either the codex is inaccurate, or the translator has not followed what is said, or I have not properly understood it.’ Or we may quote from St. Ireneaus: “ […We know] full well that the Scriptures are certainly perfect, since they were spoken by the Word of God and by His Spirit.” In all of these examples, we see a willingness to lay down one’s own opinion and view and to prefer instead the teaching of the Scriptures. These are men who trembled before the word of God.”
    (pp. 26-27).
    
    Dr. Jeannie Constantinou, on Ancient Faith Today in the episode entitled, “The Eastern Orthodox Approach to the Bible,” says the following comments: “The gospels definitely are treated differently in the Orthodox Church. Very simply, they contain the words and the life of the Lord. So they are in higher esteem. He’s the one that we’re following, so, definitely, they are treated very differently, but other than that, we don’t really rank books in the Orthodox Church, which books of the Old Testament have more
    authority. The Revelation is a kind of case on its own. It’s not in our lectionary, but definitely you’re right about the gospels” (20:05-20:38).
    
    Dr. Costantinou does not say the Gospels are held in higher esteem because they are more theologically correct. They are higher because, “very simply, they contain the words and life of the Lord. So they are in higher esteem.”
    
    Concerning Biblical inerrancy she says “the early Church always understood the book, the Bible, to be inerrant. The Fathers of the Church speak about it as inerrant, so it definitely [is] the understanding of the Church, because it’s inspired. The question is: What do you consider to be an error? This really is the question, because if you’re trying to compare the Bible and measure it against science, then that’s a problem. (1:07:40-1:08:07)
    
    I have heard the Orthodox many times speak about the Bible as not being infallible when it comes science and history. I wonder if that is what the article quoted meant by saying the Bible is a product of sinful people, therefore making it fallible–I couldn’t open the page to read the statement in full context.
    
    All this to say again, I think you are egregiously mistaken on your understanding of the hierarchy of Scripture.
    
    Besides the Scriptures Chris, you also have to deal with the liturgical use of the Scriptures in the Orthodox. Again, Ephesians 5 is read at wedding services.
    
    Also, here are some texts from the wedding service of the Orthodox Church:
    
    “For this cause shall a man forsake his father and his
    mother, and cleave unto his wife, and two shall be one flesh‑”
    and “whom God has joined together, let no man put asunder.” And now, O Master, Lord our God, send down Your heavenly Grace upon these Your servants, (Name) and (Name), and grant unto this woman to be in all things subject unto the man, and to this Your servant to be at the head of the woman that they live according to Your Will” (Compare to Ephesian 5:22-28)
    
    “Holy God, Who fashioned man from the dust, and from his rib fashioned woman, and joined her to him as a helpmate for
    him, for it was seemly unto Your Majesty for man not to be alone upon the earth, do You Yourself, O Sovereign Lord, stretch forth Your hand from Your holy dwelling place, and join* together this Your servant (Name) and Your servant (Name), for by You is a wife joined to her husband” (Compare, 1 Corinthians 11:8-9)
    
    (http://www.goarch.org/chapel/liturgical_texts/wedding)
    
    These text are, to me, quite Pauline.
    
    I will post another comment soon concerning dogma in the Orthodox Church. ( I will also touch on the topic of homosexuality and then end with comments on women’s roles in the church.)
    
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2. Chris Cam Smith
  
  February 3, 2015
  
  I just wanted to step outside the discussion for a minute and welcome you to the CP community and I look forward to many good discussions with you. Congratulations on your conversion to Orthodoxy! I will pick up the book you mentioned by Fr. Farley and read it, it sounds like something I should read.
  
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  1. Ian Attila
    
    February 6, 2015
    
    Thanks for the kind welcome Chris.
    I’m very glad you bought Fr. Farley’s book. I’m interested to here your thoughts after you read it.
    Just FYI, I’m hoping to post a response to your last set of comments sometime tomorrow.
    
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  2. Ian Attila
    
    February 8, 2015
    
    Chris so sorry I did not post on Saturday (or today). I am (mostly) sure I will have a response up tomorrow evening
    
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  3. Chris Cam Smith
    
    February 9, 2015
    
    No worries. I found Laura’s weekly reading list for this week very helpful on the issue of women and the church.
    
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3. Ben Cabe
  
  February 3, 2015
  
  I didn’t think Theodore of Mopsuestia was a saint (unless there are two). Some claim that Nestorius was influenced a Theodore of Mopsuestia (I’m posting on this tomorrow)
  
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4. Benjamin Winter
  
  February 3, 2015
  
  I’m enjoying these discussions. Just as a practical note, to avoid the paragraph difficulty when transferring text from word, hold down control, then shift, then v. If you’re using a mac though I’m not sure, but I believe you can bring up a “click” menu and select “paste as plain text” somehow!
  
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Jeremy Kolansky

February 2, 2015

I’ll say it again, if you reject the roles laid down in scripture, how do you justify your set of roles?

Why is Bi-Polar considered a malady, but identifying with a different sex not one? How do you distinguish between them? What objective scale do you use? Scripture does lay down gender roles, and at least partial guidelines for each. Specifics such as clothing aren’t of much importance, but there are clearly roles for them to portray. Jesus came as a man, do you think that was superfluous? If God intended for there to be several different “sex types” why only create two? Why melt Sodom and Gomorra? Why talk about homosexuality so harshly throughout the bible?

You say they aren’t, but I don’t see scriptural evidence that supports more than two gender roles. Indeed, I see the opposite.

Do you then suggest that the pairing of the female body to the female sex organs was unintentional? Why not make two men at the beginning? One with a male mind, and one with a female mind (For these are totally different brain structures. One with two halves that are partially linked, and one with two halves that are fully linked). Why not make four men? One with each brain, but one dominated by testosterone, and the other dominated by estrogen?

You see that we can continue this chain on forever. Yet God created two. One of each type. Not only that, but he labeled them. Man, and Woman. He left the naming/classifying of the animals to us, but He classified humans.

If you reject that, what is your basis for it?

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1. Chris Cam Smith
  
  February 3, 2015
  
  First, I don’t start from scripture. I start from Christ. I don’t “believe” in the Bible, I believe in Jesus as the Christ. Thus, I read the Bible according to the way it speaks to God and Christ. When read in this way, I see no roles laid out for men and women. Saying women shouldn’t speak in church, lead a man, or must cover her head is not a role, these are just one man’s personal belief (although his belief probably represented the broader society). The only role I may concede is that women are mothers and men are fathers, but that doesn’t mean a woman or a man are any less of a person if they choose not to have children. I’ve spent the past few days reading back over Paul’s letter and I just can’t find these mythical gender roles everyone keeps speaking of. The few passages contain proscriptions not roles, and even these seem to be contradicted by the overarching message of the letters.
  
  On the topic of homosexuality, I would urge you to revisit our round table on the topic and the comments section for my thoughts there. First, the Bible simply does not condemn it “throughout the Bible.” The verses on the topic are very few indeed. Sure, the Bible does condemn it, but it maybe the most minor theme in the entire Bible. Second, the story of Sodom and Gomorrah was not about gay sex. If you read how the Bible itself references the “sin of Sodom,” it is almost always seen as the way its inhabitants treated their fellow man and general moral wickedness (see Deut. 29:26, 32:32-38, Isaiah 1:9-10, 3:8, 13:11-18, Jeremiah 23:13-14, Lamentations 4:3-6, Ezekiel 16:46-50, Amos 4:1-11, Zephaniah 2:9). Jesus himself never interprets the sin of Sodom as referring to homosexuality (see Matt. 10:14-15, Matt. 11:20-24, Luke 10:1-12, 17:28-33). In fact, only one reference to Sodom and Gomorrah in the Bible can be reasonably interpreted as condemning homosexuality (Jude 1:7-8) and here it only says that they “pursued unnatural lust” (the NKJV uses “strange flesh”). So based on the entirety of the Bible, it is difficult to argue against homosexuality using the story of Sodom and Gomorrah.
  
  Now, that previous paragraph does not make the claim that the Bible does not condemn homosexuality. It clearly does in a few (and I would add very few) places. But far more important and prominent throughout the Bible is the need to avoid idolatry, love God, love neighbor, and care for the sick, poor, and needy.
  
  Now, I will address your question of how I justify my “rejection” of so-called “biblical gender roles.” Like I said before, I don’t reject them because I don’t see anything to reject. I can’t reject something that isn’t there. The fact that woman can bear children and men cannot is not a gender role, it’s a biological fact. So yes, God did design men and women as complimentary to each other in terms of biological reproduction. But the fact remains that people can be born with a mix of organs or with a neurological and psychological makeup that doesn’t match their sexual organs. So ignoring this fact by claiming that God doesn’t create ambiguity or the “Bible says X, not Y” is not a viable option. I base my views on gender and sexuality on 36 years of life in the real world, seeing and observing how people really are. I base them on growing up with a gay aunt who cannot change who she is. I base these views on my experience of having grown up around many gay people. I base my views on having a close friend I served with in the military who was born gay and cannot change who he is, a guy who is also a Christian who goes to church and only engages in monogamous relationships.
  
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  1. Jeremy Kolansky
    
    March 4, 2015
    
    I appreciate your thoughts. However, I cannot help but notice that your arguments downplay what is written in scripture and accentuate what you have experienced in life.
    
    Sin is real and present in this world. We brought it in, and it corrupts everything it touches. Please do not mistake the corruption from Sin as being the design of the Lord. What He made perfect at the start we corrupted when we fell from grace.
    
    I know that many of the issues you’re talking about are hard. I know that it can be difficult to say “Yes, I believe that God did not intend this.” But at the same time, we must also be able to say “Yes, God is greater than these things, and His words are truth, regardless of how I feel about them.” I do not say that lightly, but from many sleepless nights.
    
    In terms of gender roles, I don’t so much mean one rigid structure on how each should perform, but limitations on where each gender is allowed to perform. Much as you describe proscriptions. It depends on what someone defines the word “role” as.
    
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Chris Cam Smith

February 3, 2015

Good point. Based on my understanding, dogma, the non-negotiable stuff, is the Nicene Creed and the Ecumenical Councils, those participated in and voted on by the whole Church and prayed upon with the Holy Spirit – these are absolutely infallible and non-negotiable. It is on those things, christology and trinitarian theology, that the Church has remained the same throughout history. On women though, there has absolutely been change and rightly so. There are plenty of statements made by early church figures that suggested women were ontologically lower than men and this was based on the bias of the surrounding culture and Greco-Roman philosophy entering their writings. Certainly, the passage I posted below on “obedience” would have been seen as un-Christian or un-orthodox in early times.

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1. Ian Attila
  
  February 10, 2015
  
  Chris, very quickly, I also want to touch on the issue Dogma in the Orthodox Church. While it true, to be Orthodox, one must affirm the Seven Ecumenical Councils, the sacraments, the hierarchy and the Nicene Creed, from my understanding these do not communicate all that is Dogma within the Church. As Bishop Kallistos Ware says,
  
  “The formulation of Orthodox doctrine, as we have seen, did not cease with the Seventh Ecumenical Council. Since 787 there have been two chief ways whereby the Church has expressed its mind: a) definitions by Local Councils (that is, councils attended by members of one or more national Churches, but not claiming to represent the Orthodox Catholic Church as a whole) and b) letters or statements of faith put out by individual bishops. While the doctrinal decisions of General Councils are infallible, those of a Local Council or an individual bishop are always liable to error; but if such decisions are accepted by the rest of the Church, then they come to acquire Ecumenical authority (i.e. a universal authority similar to that possessed by the doctrinal statements of an Ecumenical Council). The doctrinal decisions of an Ecumenical Council cannot be revised or corrected, but must be accepted in toto; but the Church has often been selective in its treatment of the acts of Local Councils: in the case of the seventeenth century Councils, for example, their statements of faith have in part been received by the whole Orthodox Church, but in part set aside or corrected.” (http://orthodoxeurope.org/page/11/1/6.aspx)
  
  He then goes on to list authoritative Councils and Letters. (If you click on the web link you will see the list, just scroll down a little.) The best example that I know of a doctrine that was never ratified by an ecumenical council, but yet is still dogma, is the teaching of St. Gregory Palamas concerning the energies and essence of God. His doctrine is celebrated always on the second Sunday of Lent.
  
  But, also, there is Dogma that has never been formally defined by Council or Letter. We must remember, the Nicene Creed was written because Arius objected to the Divinity of Christ. its teaching was dogma even before the council, it had just not been articulated that precisely yet.
  So how do we know what the rest of the teaching of the Church is? One has to consult the Scriptures, the Liturgy, the Councils, the consensus of the Fathers, canons of councils, and the holy Icons to find it.
  And in the midst of all of this arises not just dogma but also “theological opinion” as Ben talked about above.
  (I strongly hold women in priesthood to be a dogmatic issue and not “theologumena.” And the same for gay marriage and homosexual practice–that being in the negative as well.)
  
  While yes, the Creed, the Bishops, the Sacraments, and the Seven Councils are necessary, there is more.
  
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Chris Cam Smith

February 3, 2015

I want to address another issue here since I’ve gotten a little flak for some of my responses. This is not in relation to women in the Church, but women in the home. For those that see clearly defined gender roles and that believe men are to be heads of their houses or authorities over their wives, what does this mean in practice? And where in scripture is this clearly defined? How does this play out in your own family life?

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1. Chris Cam Smith
  
  February 3, 2015
  
  This might even be a good round table on its own! I would love to hear more on this topic…
  
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2. Ben Cabe
  
  February 3, 2015
  
  Good note. I’m speaking Liturgically: specifically about women in the church
  
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3. Ian Attila
  
  February 9, 2015
  
  My wife and I apply this headship doctrine in the following ways: indeed we are “submitting to one another in the fear of God” (Eph. 5:21, NKJV) because Christ is our Lord. If I want my wife to do something, but it is sinful, she is bound to follow Christ, not me. And if I do evil, and she corrects me, I am to submit to that authority she has in Christ, because Christ is our primary head.
  
  As we move along in life, we try to do everything in harmony. The ideal is that in every decision, we will have complete unity. But this is not the case. When there is a disagreement about something, I am the one given the responsibility as head
  to make the final decision. I have the authority; she does not. But understand, this does not come without consequences, because to whom much is given much is required.
  
  As head, all decisions made are ultimately on my shoulders. If we make a decision and something goes terribly wrong, I am primarily responsible—even if we are in complete agreement.
  
  As head of the household, everything that happens is first my responsibility, if Christ came knocking at my door, to give an account of what happened in my home, he would call my name first, as he did to the male humen in the garden.
  
  I also recognize the only way to fulfill this leadership is to love my wife. If I do not do that, I will give an account for that—and that will be a terrible thing.
  
  We again feel that the ideal for a Christian family is to follow Scripture. Repeating what I said above we “see a principle in the Scripture that wives are to be “homemakers” (Titus 2:6, NKJV), or “workers at home” (ESV). Most women will find much of their salvation, there participation in the life of Christ, “in childbearing “(1 Tim 2:15, NKJV): which I understand to mean motherhood”–and not simply biological motherhood.
  These passages, along with Ephesian 5 and other headship passages are where I see the “gender roles” in the home. Again, these are principles that can be applied differently in varies cultures.
  So she stays home with our baby and I go to work.
  We both cook, clean dishes, read to the baby, vacuum, take out the trash, do laundry, etc. Other activities we do exclusively–for example, I do the budget and keep up the ledger; and my wife does the taxes.
  I believe in every home, how these tasks are accomplished, can look differently.
  
  I hope this is helpful.
  
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  1. Chris Cam Smith
    
    February 10, 2015
    
    Thanks for explaining what this means to you and how your family lives out these roles. It sounds pretty egalitarian, except for the one remark about you having the trump card in case of disagreement on a major issue. I certainly have no problem with that as long as your wife agrees to live in that manner. The most important thing is that the family unit work as a system. I still wholeheartedly believe that too many Christians read too much into so-called biblical gender roles. But I’m afraid I have nothing more to add to this conversation. We will never reach any more agreement on this issue than we already have. When I was an atheist, I asserted my authority and “laid down the law” so to speak. It almost ruined my marriage. Now, that my family has gotten into church and now that I treat my wife as a full equal, we are thriving spiritually. So I won’t change what is working for us. Head of the house for me means that I do anything necessary to protect and support my family.
    
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Women and the Church? Reflections from Romans | Pursuing Veritas

February 24, 2015

[…] February 24, 2015February 22, 2015 / Jacob J. Prahlow In addition to writing here, I also serve as Managing Editor at Conciliar Post, a website dedicated to faithful and serious thinking about important topics. One of the many things I enjoy about Conciliar Post are the monthly Round Table discussions, where several writers offer answers to a question about a contemporary cultural or theological issue. January’s Round Table was about the role of women in the Christian Church. After reading my contribution (below), I would encourage you to visit this discussion on Conciliar Post. […]

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