Final Statements

I don't think there is much to be said, that makes sense to say here. The arguments are unrebutted. I'll close with a quote from one of the earliest authentically dateable documents we have: one generation after Paul:

After receiving this account, I judged it so much the more necessary to endeavor to extort the real truth, by putting two female slaves to the torture, who were said to officiate' in their [Christian] religious rites (from a report from Pliny the Younger to Emperor Trajan in 95 CE letter 58)

I'll thank Frank once again for hosting this debate and anyone interested in discussing this topic further is welcome to do so on a thread I set up for this purpose over on church-discipline. Anyone interested in reading more material about the evolution of the attitude towards women should see defense against patriarchy (and I'd note that Frank did not take a pro patriarchy possition in this debate). Hope you all enjoyed reading this exchange.

Closing Statement from cent

I leave the reader to decide if CD-Host's rhetoric matches the weight of his arguments.

My closing statement is taken from a book I have just received from Crossway by Mark Driscoll, A book you'll actually read On Church Leadership.

A complimentarian church should encourage women to use the spiritual gifts and natural abilities that God has given them to their fullest extent. This could be in anything from teaching a class to leading a Bible study, overseeing a ministry, leading as a deacon, speaking to the church in a way that is not preaching, leading worship, serving communion, entering into full-time paid ministry as a member of the staff, and receiving formal theological education -- or basically every opportunity in the church except what the Bible and the elders deem elder-only duties. Therefore the issue is not if a woman can be in ministry, but rather what ministry a woman can be in and remain faithful to Scripture.[43]

Conclusion by CD-Host

Not surprisingly this debate has ended up being really focused on the issue of hermeneutics. How to read and understand what the bible means. What is what a verse means literally is not the final determiner for what it means interpretatively. Rather we do need to employ a meta-narrative / a hermeneutical methodology to read scripture. For example 1Timothy 5:23 gives a clear prescription of wine for stomach ailments. I know of no Christian today who demands that Christians with stomach problems should drink wine and not avail themselves of better medicine.

I presented 3 criteria for a perspicuous read of scripture based on the positions held.

• The positions were justified based on scripture.
• These positions were held historically by large groups of people over a long period of time and those people saw scripture as justifying these positions.
• There are no major contradictions between these positions held.

What I have shown rather is the opposite: that large groups of people over a long period of time held positions that contradict one another to their core and saw their positions as deriving directly from scripture.

An alternative theory of interpretation has been presented and while not trying to be insulting it amounts to the “personal standard”. The bible means whatever thoughts pop into the person's head when he reads it. So as we went through passages the analysis of:

1. Jerome
2. Aquinas
3. Augustine
4. Heracleon
5. Elaine Pagels
6. Sarah Grimké
7. Pope Paul VI
8. Valentinus
9. John Calvin
10. Micah (the biblical prophet)
11. Saint Augustine
12. Saint Ambrose
13. Ambrose's sister
14. Saint Thelca of Iconium
15. St. Eustochium Julia
16. Saint Marcella
17. Saint Macrina
18. Bishop Epiphanius
19. Synod of Laodicea
20. Saint Catherine of Alexandria
21. Rashi (Shlomo Yitzhaki)
    
22. (other woman)
23. Arthur Hurdack
24. N.T. Wright (give title)
25. The Cathars
26. The Marcosians
27. Robert Dabney
28. The author of the Acts of Paul
29. The Thecla cult which became 1600 years of the convent movement
30. The Apostolic Constitution
31. Adolf von Harnack
32. Chabad
33. (and others I got tired of making this list)

was simply dismissed out of hand. Not only were they said to wrong but so obviously wrong that it did not place scripture's perspicuity in doubt. I find this an indefensible position. It is arguable to disagree with the general view that words mean what people think they mean, sentences mean what people think they mean and books mean what people think they mean. It is not arguable though to assert that if people don't agree on the meaning of the a word, that word's meaning is universally held; if people don't interpret a sentence the same way the sentence is clear; or that if i large numbers over long periods of time don't walk away from a book with the same opinions about the books position on an issue that the book is clear on that issue. There has been no counter argument other than assertion on perspicuity so I can't say much.

The other part of the debate centered on aner. And again I presented evidence. In particular 3 major Biblical translators who specifically rejected Frank's theory of what the word could only possibly mean:

1. Barclay Newman (CEV) who co-wrote the dictionary for NA27
2. Bruce Metzger (NRSV) ,
3. C.H. Dodd (NEB/REB)

Their views were also rejected without really much counter argument. Here again we run into the problem of a non-methodological personal interpretation. It is impossible for me to argue that about which thoughts occurred to Frank when he reads a passage. It is a burden that cannot be met by any debater. Moreover the thought standard fails a basic desirable criteria: The bible can be perspicuous only to individuals coming from very closely related cultures. In particular the bible cannot have a universal culturally independent meaning under the "whatever thoughts pop in my head" criteria.

Now I understand Frank's read of the verses, its not an unreasonable read. But, there are many verses that on their surface are quite oppressive of woman, far more so than what Frank argued for:

• Woman are property of their husbands, “belonging to your neighbor” with a comparison with homes, slaves, lifestock and other property (Exodus 20:17)
• Woman but not men suspected of adultery should have the test by water (Numbers 5:11-31)
• Woman leading in almost any capacity is a curse (Isaiah 3:12)

Either we can develop a morally repulsive society based on literal readings of these and many other verses or we can choose to look deeper into the text and deconstruct in a way to create a reasonable Christian society. Aner in Titus 1:6 and in other places is a perfectly good example of this. James 1:12 “Blessed is the man (aner) who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him”. What about woman who have persevered under trial? Does the verse apply them? Are they cursed rather than blessed, or is God completely indifferent to their perseverance? If it is reasonable to assume that James was using aner in the sense of humanity rather than simply men, then a natural question is in what other capacities is aner being used similarly? We will never know for sure however using linguistic methods. If James had wanted to say, ‘Blessed is the man,’ wanting his readers to understand an adult male and not just a blessed “person,” he have said written in Greek the exactly the same thing. Only context, common sense and a desire to build a decent society determines the meaning there.

This is not specific to Greek, the same thing is a true in English as in Greek. Could a piece of advice like, “A man should make sure his spouse has read his will” apply to a woman who writes a will? That “man” in the above advice literally means “a male adult human” and that “his” is even further evidence for the maleness of “man” was never in question. Just as the fact that aner literally is man was never in question. What is in question is the interpretation not the literal structure, that is as I said our interpretation requires dynamic equivalence not the formal equivalence because in english we would use spouse where Paul used husband.

Another point that bears repeating is the immediate context. Titus 1:6 in the context of a list of moral qualities aner is being used to represent simply a physical state (being male) or a moral state (being faithful to one's spouse). Just as there is no way to prove that James really means person in James 1:12 there is no way to prove that Paul means faithful spouse in Titus 1:6. Ancient Greek uses male words to represent both males and humanity in general. This is fundamentally a question of interpretation. Unless one wants to assert that being female is a moral defect the context tends to lead one to the Metzeger/Dodd/Newman line of thinking.

But the bible lets you see whichever version you want, both are from a purely linguistic standard equally valid. However, throughout this entire debate no evidence was presented that forces one to see this verse as forever disempowering woman. This was a point based solely on assertion, it is true because the reader wanted it to be true. So we are left with a simple question: do we want woman's oppression? If the answer is yes then Titus 1:6 means husband. And if we want we can choose for a bonus that woman who persevere in the faith receive no merit from God. If the answer is no, then we can note that there are many reasonable and good reasons to choose faithful spouse rather than say non-polygimist male as the preferred interpretation.

Questions 7 and 8 dealt with the issue of whether there was any good reason to suspect that woman were too defective as to be capable of leadership in churches. Frank could not come up with one, even when pushed. Which calls into serious question why create such a massive injustice without an obvious reason. I suspect the reason that Frank couldn't answer is that ultimately he has too much decency to actually believe what is necessary to defend the ideology behind the view he is advocating. Someone like Johannes Gratian from The Decretum, "It is the order of nature among human beings that woman obey man and sons obey their parents, because it is justice in those matters that the lesser obey the greater" (Ch XII). Gratian has no trouble saying what the problem is with female leadership:

This is the likeness of God in man [the male], that he is created as the only being, from whom the others have come, and that he possesses, as it were, the dominion of God as his representative, since he bears in himself the image of the one God. So woman is not created in the image of God; that is what [scripture] says: ‘And God created man [the male], according to the image of God he created him’; and therefore the Apostle also says: ‘Man certainly must not cover his head, because he is image and reflection of God, but woman must cover her head because she is neither the reflection nor the image of God'. (ch XIII)

Choose to hold Gratian's philosophy and Frank's interpretation of Titus 1:6 becomes quite natural. Choose to believe that women are not some form of defective men, but rather a co-equal entity and it becomes much harder to defend Frank's position. And I think that is why his argument ultimately failed. In 1840 among most Presbyterians the bible mandated slavery, in 1880 in forbid it. The bible can be read to support inequality and oppression but doesn't have to be.

I believe, if there are no good reasons to exclude woman other than “God said so” then it becomes very important to make sure he really did say so. Just as we no longer believe that the mark of Cain is obviously black skin and God did not make Africans black so as to create a situation of permanent oppression; we do not have to believe that God meant to permanently oppress woman whether in church or the home. The Christian tradition has a wealth of material from which to construct an alternate theology, of which I've presented a slice during this debate.

One area that has come up is the issue of whether submission at home precludes leadership in church. I've shown that this was not the view of many Christian scholars.

To conclude:

• Perspicuity has been disproved
• The entire theory of sexual differentiation on which Frank's case is based has been historically rejected by Christianity in favor of a theory of gender
• The entire argument over aner missed the separation between literal translation and meaning.
  
• Scripture most certainly can be read to support woman in all forms of eldership / leadership
• Woman have served in precisely the capacities Frank excluded: within scripture, right after the new testament period and throughout history, the most notable being the convent movement

I thank Frank for hosting this debate and continuing with it. It has been very long for both of us. In the 19th century conservative Christianity was greatly discredited by defending slavery to the very end. I see no reason that the gospel should once again be similarly tainted for this issue.

A#10 for Frank (how is the church led)

Actually I'm using your definition of leadership I'm just holding very strictly to it. That is you used the definition of teach and rebuke. My very first question was clarifying there to make sure that is what you meant, that you didn't want to include other stuff. If I were to give my personal definition of church leadership it would break into three primary classes:

1. Symbolic -- The Mass (i.e. eucharist) and granting absolution from sin.
   
2. Managerial -- Appointing of persons to perform functions
   
3. Financial -- Control of money and resources

Teaching being a primary leadership activity came 100% from you not me. But for example on financial you didn't express any hesitation at all so that didn't seem to be a problem. You're protestant so you don't think anyone, man or woman, can perform the symbolic ones, so no sex discrimination there. The managerial ones were a real issue on both our lists. So we focused on management and teaching.

As far as leadership being tantamount to eldership, I may very well have been confused there. I've been trying to work out hard and fast guidelines for acts that are prohibited (again 2nd rebuttal and the first question). But I was never able to get a clear distinction on this from you, and this may have been a miscommunication that wouldn't surprise me. In the end if there is a distinction there must be acts allowed to the one not allowed to the other.

For example something like: elders vote on church policy, ministers are leaders but they don't vote they execute the instructions of the board of elders with respect to church policy and have no authority in deciding it, would have made that issue clear. Moreover it seemed clear throughout the debate that teaching / rebuking were the activities prohibited to woman so it really didn't matter too much who could do what in your system. Just to be clear if woman were allowed to do everything but buy carpet then the debate would have been about carpet purchasing.

Now in what sense is the church being led based on your definition? Well it sounds to me like spiritual leadership. You are reformed so doctrine and theology are extremely important to you, hence being able to decide those issues both in theory (teaching) and practice (rebuking) are what is key. But you are essentially asking me to read your mind with that part of the question.

So in short what I did was pushed against your doctrine, because I don't think the bible nor history supports it. If you look back, your questions were mostly of the form: why do you assert that person X did Y; and mine were mostly of the form: how can you continue to believe doctrine X when the bible or history or common sense clearly shows X to be false.

Hope that answers your question. I was a bit confused. Feel free to take a free Q10.5 with no extra question from me if I didn't answer everything. See 'ya in the rebuttals. And sorry about the heated exchange near question 5.

Q#10 for CD-HOST

I have been thinking about your position for almost three weeks now, CD-HOST, and it leaves me very puzzled, especially in terms of the way you qualify so many things as "leadership" tantmount to "eldership".

Here's my question: because you seem to have such a broad view of what a "leader/elder" is, it seems to me that anyone who does more than show up for services on Sunday should be classified as a "leader/elder"; how is the church being "lead" if this is true?

A#10 for CD-HOST

The short answer is that I’d reject the way you have said what you have said, but I think that the pragmatic application of sending women into the missions field alone because they are the only volunteers one has is a faulty practice for multiple reasons, the most important of which is the clear New Testament teaching regarding male eldership.

The long answer asks more contextual questions than you have asked here. For example, how is a missionary “sent”? To whom are they accountable? How is their teaching reviewed? Because it seems obvious to me that there is a massive difference between sending a anyone alone into a foreign country to be a missionary, and sending a woman into a country who is under the care of sending churches who assist her in material and spiritual needs. A missionary who is set essentially with a Bible and a billfold is a mis-sent missionary; one who is sent who is still accountable to her church, and teaches what the elders of her church have commissioned her to teach, and places the converted she finds in the care of her elders, has done what any Christian ought to be doing in any church at any time.

That said, Paul didn’t send any female missionaries, your inferences about Priscilla notwithstanding. And missionary work most often results not in sending people back to one’s elders but in fact – as Titus was sent to do by Paul -- establishing elders in the various places one will go. In that work, women are not eligible. That doesn’t make any person evangelized by a woman unsaved, but it does make churches which, in the long run, reject sound ecclesiology.

For the record, I have a lot of concerns with so-called "sending agencies" as well, but that's not in the scope of this exchange.

Your view continues to be extremely black-and-white on this subject, and in trying to frame the matter as either one is an elder or one is an outcast and a damned sinner, you miss almost all of the real liberty expressed by the New Testament regarding the matter of ministry and service in the church. All service to the Gospel is not eldership: some of it – in fact, most of it – is simply living as if you have a living faith. Until you work that into your view of both your own position and the position(s) you are trying to criticize, your argumentation falls flat.

Q#10 for Frank (damnation of female teachers)

Sorry I can't return the favor of a softball question.

I'd like to address the issue of single female missionaries. The reformed tradition has for over a century sent single woman primarily to Asia as missionaries. In fact the turn of the century (20th) pool was 2 females for every male volunteer (cite). In that capacity women have both led and taught. Is this permissible and if so why? If not, these are reformed woman, who in your opinion are deliberately disobeying God. That is assuming you are correct engaging in unrepentant sin. Moreover many of them speak about how these were some of the best and most important years of their lives and encourage other woman to follow.

The bible speaks very harshly of people that take pride in their sins. It speaks very harshly about leading others astray. So are these woman missionaries damned for their unrepentant sins of teaching, leading and then compounding it by attempting to recruit others to their wicked lifestyle?

Obviously I'm being a bit tongue in cheek here, but is female teaching and leading in mission churches wickedness?

A#9 for Frank (Child Elders)

My short answer is a qualified yes. First off I don't think there is anything prohibiting it at all for a church, so in answer to the "can we" is a yes, there have been child kings. For the rest of the answer I'll address the "should we". For this I think it matters a great deal what sort of church he goes to. For example if he is Catholic then Titus 1 is talking about a bishop (episkopos from Titus 1:7) and I can't think of any circumstances in which a 12 year old is qualified to be a bishop. So to answer the question you are interested in, I'll assume Reformed. I don't know much about the structure of your church, but one of the things I think is fantastic about the reformed tradition is the separation between teaching and governing elders. I'll assume this exists in the answer.

In terms of a governing elder I not only think its allowable I think it's a good idea. One of the biggest problems that I see on my blog, and one of the most frequent complaints is that issue of discipline are handled in ways that are extremely biased. Elders being older men tend to sympathize with issues that effect older men. Hence woman and younger men tend to get disciplined much much more frequently, i.e. there is systematic bias. In terms of age: the sins of Venus are punished much more often than the sins of Pluto. In terms of male to female discipline in most studies it runs 1:2-3. And I yes I think a child elder could do a lot to try and fix those sorts of biases. Moreover such a governing elder creates a reasonable bridge of communication between the membership and the church government. Creating these sorts of bridges is a key to good government.

Now it certainly is the case that a 12 year old, or even a 22 year old is likely on average to be substantially less mature than a 52 year old. They aren't going to carry the same sort of respect with the adult men; but middle aged and elderly men have good representation already. Among the disempowered or the alienated a child elder might carry more authority since they aren't seen as being part of the machine. They would carry more respect with that demographic and be more able to rebuke them with moral authority. The message underlying Titus 1 is that governing elders need to be people that others in the church will listen to, in a democratic culture ideas of empowerment and representation are important for governing in a way they aren't in a highly hierarchical culture.

Now in terms of teaching elder you listed a bunch of skills. I think the specific skills are relative to the church. I can image churches in which being able to read at all puts you well above the vast majority of membership. I can imagine others (say at Nassau Presbyterian Church) where "knowing the Greek" means being able to discuss issues with the individual fragments of the early bible. So I'll change the question to a situation where a 12 year old knows more than 98% of the church, and is a talented teacher. Also for many reformed traditions to become a teaching elder means certification by the denomination. Essentially "can you pass the test". In this case the test determines if the boy knew enough. And yes if he is a good teacher, good morals, believes the creeds and people will listen I don't see why he can't be a teaching elder. Is this likely to happen often? No but the issue you are asking about is ever rather than frequency.