The Rev James Gracie, a minister in Edinburgh, began by telling us that women should not be allowed to have primary roles in the church, including being preachers. His most sound and well thoughtout reasoning is as follows:
"Because the Bible tells us very clearly the roles that men and women are to have"
I always cringe when I hear statements like this. Two of my least favourite statements are: "Because the Bible tells us" and "The Bible tells us very clearly". As I consider myself a Christian, this fact may be surprising to some.
But the reason I object to such statements as the former is because the assumption is usually that something being in the Bible automatically renders it true - due to Biblical inerrancy and the like. And the reason I object to the latter is because the Bible does not tell us things very clearly - we glean things through our reading and interpretation of the Bible.
Least of all does the Bible tell us very clearly the role of men and women. I was hoping for a half-decent argument with this, but all this supposed minister managed to come up with was the oft-quoted 1 Corinthians 14:34-5
"Women should be silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate, as the law also says."
"Women should be silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate, as the law also says."
Once again this verse is quoted entirely out of context - both textual and historical. The textual context is actually in maintaining order in the church. Note in particular Paul uses the article here - the churches, not just churches in general. There was a specific problem with disorder and chaos in the Corinthian churches. I'd consider it 99.9% likely that Paul did not intend that women should remain silent in all churches throughout time, but that specific women in the Corinthian church ought not to just shout out randomly.
Progressing further with the historical context - let us also note that Paul was writing in the 1st century CE. Society was still incredibly patriarchal - women were meant to be subordinate and submissive and this was just the way things were. But something being a social norm in the time of the Biblical authors does not make it right! And it most certainly does not make it the will of God!
Yet again someone who has supposedly studied theology has taken the Bible, assumed his literal, and actually rather ignorant (literally, of social and textual context) interpretation is the correct one.
Unfortunately, this is the kind of attitude that has hurt and damaged women and the church for generations. I have had the privilege of knowing both female and male clergy and leaders in the church. And not only do I think that women have just as much to contribute as men - I actually think they have certain qualities which many men lack.
But perhaps the most important reason for accepting women in the church is that, quite simply, all are loved and accepted by God. God calls women and men to various roles - he calls some women and some men to teach, preach, practise law, practise medicine, serve in shops, clean, build...
It's 2010 - isn't it about time we ended this stupid view that men should dominate, and that some things are just for men?
Let us finish with the words of the Apostle himself, words which are often ignored when other words of his are used instead to hurt and destroy women in the church, but which have a great deal of value and upon which he placed no less significance:
"There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus."
Galatians 3:28
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