Rick Warren’s Saddleback church recently made headlines by ordaining three female leaders. I was grateful to see these women recognized and lent both the public authority and institutional accountability that comes from ordination. But when I read the news, I also thought with a heavy sigh, “Oh, here we go again.” I knew the debate about women’s roles in the church would dominate conversation all week, and I could already predict the rutted arguments I’d hear recited over and over.
Here’s an open secret: You know who hates talking about women’s ordination? Female pastors. Not all of us, of course. Some women have a special unction to debate this topic, and honestly, more power to them.
Scot McKnight Image: Unsplash
One of the ironies of contemporary discussions about whether or not women should be ordained or not is the role Christ plays in the arguments against women’s ordination. William Witt, in
Icons of Christ, offers nothing less than very clever statement about this very issue (my emphasis):
The Catholic and Protestant positions thus provide contrary reasons for not ordaining women to church office. For the Catholic position, women cannot be ordained
because they do not resemble a male Christ. For the Protestant position, women cannot be ordained
because they do resemble Christ; in the same way, it is claimed, that the Son always submits to the Father, women must always be in submission to male authority.
William Witt analyzes a complementarian reading of Genesis 1-3
Scot McKnight Image: Unsplash
The ordination of women is not mentioned, of course, in Genesis or the Old Testament. But the issues about the ordination of women begin there, and a good example of this is in the complementarian reading of Genesis 1-3 as found in Wayne Grudem.
William Witt’s fifth chapter in
Icons of Christ, “Beginning with Genesis,” offers a brief exposition of salient factors in Genesis 1-3 and then states and responds to Grudem’s reading of Genesis 1-3.
He’s right: the creation account is used by both sides of this debate, one side for equality and mutuality and the other side for hierarchy and subordination. Which is more consistent with the text?
Introspective, moody Night Sounds at Hearst Center embraces winter wcfcourier.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from wcfcourier.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
The claim to have a traditional argument ag: women s ordination is far from traditional
Scot McKnight Image: Unsplash
Many claim to be providing the “traditional” reason why women should not be ordained, saying their view is the traditional view. William Witt, in
This book is a grand step forward in this discussion today in this very point. You can now challenge every complementarian who utters the view that their argument is the traditional view.
Before I take another step forward I want to give the big ideas of this post:
First, the church’s traditional view is that women were ontologically inferior to men.