I am a 23yr old staffer at the Sugar Land Vineyard, and Nancy Southern (I think you’ve met her) recommended I check your blog out as I have been wrestling with issues surrounding women in church leadership. I just wanted to say that I appreciate your wrestling and it has helped me to think and pray about this topic with greater clarity (or at least help me ask better questions). All this to say, your “agitation” is a good thing…at least for me.

you gotta know by now that i am soooo with you on this. and i love your courageous heart to do the right thing.

in this justice issue together,
amy

Thanks for this post. In particular, though it came from Jenell, I have to echo her perspective on the young reformed movement of which, regrettably, my sister-in-law is an active part.

I think the difficulties are when the issue ends up creating a dividing wall that wouldn’t be there otherwise. I don’t think this means we need to stop naming it, but, like Adey, I have lost the intimacy of very near female friendships as the result of landing on opposite sides of the issue.

This arises because not only do movements like the young reformeds or Piper-ogues align themselves with “soft patriarchy,” but they also make it a CORE issue. Choosing the side of egalitarianism ends up meaning that we choose out of the “true faith” in the eyes of these our sisters.

*sigh*

What Jenell says about the new reform movement “legitimating” patriarchy all over again really strikes a chord in me. I remember when Mark Driscoll and all he represents first came on the scene. I actually met him 8 or so years ago and was so in awe of what he was doing–He was the “hip” new poster child for young (then) twenty-somethings like me who wanted something different out of how we did church. I met his worship pastors and his staff and talked to them about what they were doing…only after my visit did I go away and realize there were no women in significant leadership roles. When I first learned his position on women, and came face to face with some of his teachings/comments, I began to feel just nauseated. It was one thing, i.e. expected, for one of the white-haired elders at my local evangelical church to say women were out of the running for particular leadership positions, but to have a guy who looked like “my” people, “my” generation, who talked “my” talk about church, to an extent say the same thing, well, it felt like absolute betrayal. Driscoll is wildly popular among various demographics, and I absolutely feel threatened by the message that is being “resinscribed” (as Jenell puts it) for new segments of the population, some previously unchurched. Man, it makes me shudder. I don’t have a relationship with him personally, but I have spent a lot of time thinking about what he represents to believers in my demographic and the unchurched on the west coast.

I do love how you frame the issue of women in leadership, Rose, as a “justice” issue rather than something disputable. I am very much on that side of things, but some people I’ve talked to haven’t even considered it as an issue of justice rather than something disputable. I am feeling encouraged to reframe the conversation in the future….

thanks for your thoughts

Rose, I particularly struggle as I am deciding how to formulate my doctoral work. I know I will do it on something related to the issue of gender equality in the church,and I’m told that, Toppling Patriarchy, might be too broad and a bit grandiose, but, I agree with you that the gender issue is and always will be a justice issue. To say it is a matter of conscience has huge, and I believe, disturbing and debilitating consequences.

Sadly, I’ve lost many friendships (or at least they’ve been quite diminished over this issue). When well intended brothers and sisters describe “soft patriarchy” by saying, “Adey, we are so close in our perspective.” I am deeply saddened. I do not want a benevolent master. It is paternalistic and diminishing.

Rose, at 51 I am weary of saying the “right” thing to promote “unity” which I utterly believe insults the very heart of God, as apparently did Jeremiah, for his own reasons, in his day.

I am ready to live with and embrace the cost of my beliefs. So, activate away!

adey