The Fuerst Best of the Week 6.20.2011

We’re going to focus on Egalitarianism in today’s Fuerst Best of the Week.

In this piece, Suzanne McCarthy writes an email to Christians for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood expressing the need to engage and make accessible the best information available regarding gender inclusive language in the NIV2011, even though the information doesn’t jibe with CBMW’s larger theological position.

JR Daniel Kirk looks at Complementarian interpretations of the Genesis creation narratives. I’d be interested in some of your thoughts on his argument. It certainly engages the ambiguity of the Bible in regards to gender roles and hierarchy.

The Gospel…finally will not allow hierarchy to stand. Who we are “in the Lord” transforms our understanding of mutual interrelations, so that it no longer makes sense to say, “Here is man, who simply rules over his wife and family.” Now mutual interdependence and dependence come to the fore, such that both depend upon the other–a kind of relationship in which there can not, for long, be any sense of one ruling the other.

 

At CBE International (Christians for Biblical Equality International) Michael Bird reflects on teaching his students about Phoebe, the deaconess in Romans 16, in ‘Fretting Over Phoebe.” (You’ll have to scroll down a bit to get to it.)

“Could it be that the first person to publicly read and teach about or from Romans was a woman? If so, what does that tell you about women and teaching roles in the early church?”

Kyle, over at the Triniatrian Soapbox reflects on God and Gender/Sex. Kyle’s a brilliant writer from the few months I’ve been following him, so stay focused. It’s worth it. His main point is that though masculine pronouns are used for God (Father, for example), that God is not inherently a male.

The Southern Baptist Convention once again rejects the newest NIV because of it’s apparent Egalitarian bent. To me, it seems from all the evidence I’ve read, the new NIV is sound and is a good middle ground. But like many things in the SBC, if it’s not ‘our way’ then it’s the highway.

Criticism over the update has been high ever since its inception, with opponents like the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood – which support a complementarian view of manhood and womanhood – finding over 3,600 gender-related problems in the new version.

Let’s just say that I’m probably going to get an NIV2011, if they’re still available when I need a new Bible. But until then, I think I’m just going to boycott Lifeway.

The Role of Women in the Church

Here’s a brief (4 min.) discussion by NT Wright on the role of women in the church. He discusses, among other things, those passages that ‘seem’ to prevent women from being ministers in the church like I Timothy 2, and provides a good biblical case for women in ministry. I hope you find it enjoyable.

Women Teachers in the Book of James

Most evangelicals have come to recognize that it is perfectly acceptable and often desirable to translate adelphoi in the plural into English as “brothers and sisters” in contexts in the New Testament where it is unambiguous that men and women alike are being addressed. But James 3:1 is more ambiguous. The NET Bible renders it, “Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers and sisters, because you know that we will be judged more strictly.” The NLT, TNIV and NRSV likewise all employ “brothers and sisters.”

Some argue, however, along the following lines. (1) We know that the first Christian generation did not have female teachers. (2) Including “sisters” as part of the translation of James 3:1 suggests that they did. Therefore, (3) translations such as the four mentioned above are seriously in error at this point and should be shunned.

There are so many holes in the “logic” of this “argument” that one barely knows where to start. But let’s take the three points in order.

Concerning (1), (a) we in fact do not know nearly as much as some complementarians and egalitarians alike confidently affirm about the first generation of Christian history. Some egalitarians believe that there were no “official” first-century women teachers in the church but that because of changed culture, it is acceptable to have women in that role today. Others, however, point to Priscilla (teaching Apollos) or Junia (as an apostle) or Philip’s daughters who prophesied and infer a prominent teaching role from them. Assuming, for the sake of argument, that complementarians have successfully refuted all such claims, there is still (b) the question of how “teacher” is being used here. In Ephesians 4:12 “pastors and teachers” are closely linked but not (necessarily) equated, and a case can be made from Acts 20 and Titus 1 that Paul often uses “pastor,” “overseer” and “elder” interchangeably. A case can also be made that he limited this office to men, but that still stops short of demonstrating that he equated “teacher” with this office. Even if he did, (c) nothing requires James to be using the term in the same way. Luke and Paul, for example, differ in how they use the term “apostle,”—Luke in all but one instance reserving it for one of “the Twelve,” and Paul often using it as a spiritual gift. Finally, (d) Paul clearly uses “teaching” as a spiritual gift in his various lists of gifts which the Spirit gives without reference to gender, and James could be using it that way.

Concerning (2), (a) James regularly uses adelphoi throughout his letter to address his entire congregation, and in no other instance is there any contextual reason for thinking he has only men in view. Even if he had only men in whatever role he was calling “teachers,” (b) he could still be addressing the entire listening congregation. If all New Testament authors were as uniformly conservative as some complementarians suggest, James could be wanting to forestall any women trying to become teachers as apparently had happened in Ephesus, thereby necessitating 1 Timothy 2:12. After all, his comments are cautions against too many wanting to become teachers. In a traditional society he could be gently saying, in essence, “there are already too many men aspiring to this office that we need to cut back on “applicants,” and the women could easily have heard, “so women, don’t even think about it.” Or (c) James might simply have continued his standard form of address to the whole congregation without being nearly so subtle, because he knew both genders would be listening to the letter being read and women would quickly recognize from the standard practice of the day that he was focusing on men at this point.

Concerning (3), even if none of the previous options should turn out to have been the true situation, the number of ways in which James could indeed have meant “brothers and sisters” that we have surveyed suggests that, if he did not mean this, (a) the inclusive translation can scarcely be called a “serious” error. It would be a fairly minor one. Finally, (b) even if someone remained unconvinced and still deemed it serious, every Bible translation ever created has equally if not more “serious” errors in various places and we can’t shun all of them!

What, then, of a final but quite different counterargument? Shouldn’t we still err on the side of a conservative translation if there is any reasonable doubt that James had both genders in mind. Isn’t that part of where translations differ from commentaries because of our high view of the inspired text of Scripture itself? This may be one of the most widespread and dangerous fallacies afflicting certain wings of evangelical scholarship and the conservative church in general in the U.S. today. Every translation, in fact, has to balance some measure of literal rendering (formally equivalent translation) with understandability (dynamically equivalent translation). The only completely literal translations are interlinear Bibles that are consistently unintelligible if one were to read them solely in English! So one always must ask (and balance the answers to the two questions) both what is at stake if someone misunderstands a translation because it is too literal and what is involved if someone misunderstands a translation because it is too free.

In this case, the answer to the first question, in an absolute “worst-case scenario” would be that someone would think there were women teachers in James’ church(es) in some unspecified role when in fact there were not. But no one could fairly derive from the text that James himself approved (or disapproved) of this fact, since the only prescription (rather than description) in the text involves reducing those who would be teachers (from either gender). And all the other passages in other parts of Scripture used by complementarians to ban women from certain roles or offices would remain unchanged in their translation (and all four translations noted above preserve sufficiently traditional translations of those passages for such interpretations to remain completely plausible).

On the other hand, if James did have women teachers and was not discouraging anyone from the role based on gender, merely on overeagerness, and someone misunderstood a more “traditional” translation as gender-exclusive, and if egalitarian interpretations or applications of the other texts in Scripture appearing to limit women’s roles in church leadership turned out to be true, then the translators preserving the more “traditional” translation would have the guilt on their hands of unwittingly stifling a woman’s gifts and/or calling, and perhaps even quenching the work of God’s Spirit in the world.

I don’t ever want consciously to risk that. I’ll stick with “brothers and sisters” in James 3:1. But then I don’t think he was talking about what Paul called elders or overseers anyway!

HT: Craig Blomberg, NT Scholar: http://www.koinoniablog.net/2008/11/james-3brothers-and-sisters-as-teachers-commentary-and-discussion-with-craig-blomberg.html#more

Culture, Theology and Gender

The other day I listened to a series of sermons by Biblical Complementarians arguing for the traditional role of women in the home and church. Without fail, every sermon mentioned the fact that the Egalitarian position is influenced by secular Feminism, an influence which causes Christian Feminists to obliterate role distinctions and differences between the sexes.

To be sure, there’s no denying the cultural influence of secular Feminism. But does this necessitate that we disregard Egalitarianism simply because it’s been influenced by a culture? Could we not turn the same comments around on the BC position and protest that they’ve been influenced by 1700 years of theologically justified oppression of women? There’s no religious institution which has not in some way been tainted or influenced by secularism. None.

Thus, all sides of any theological/religious discussion have already been shaded by previous predispositions handed to us by culture. Being influenced by culture, then, is no reason to reject a theological position – indeed, if it were, there would be no theological positions to accept or reject.

Most often statements that accuse someone else’s position as being culturally compromised are fear tactics used to persuade people against a position before allowing them to examine the evidence for themselves. If I can convince you that someone is a misogynist bigot before you even talk to them, then I’ve won the argument. If you can convince someone that I’m a bra-burning wo-man, then you’ve won the battle without even allowing me a voice.

The goal, then, is not merely in labeling others as more influenced by culture than myself. The goal is in understanding and critiquing positions on both what they assert and where their logic might end up. How does my cultural influence help or hinder my exegesis or theological analysis? How does yours?

I fear certain BC’s repeatedly fail to understand that Christian Feminism is not the same thing as Liberal Feminism. Liberal Feminism emphasizes the similarities between men and women while downplaying the differences. Christian Feminism, on the other hand, appreciates God-given differences, but maintains that these differences need not necessitate hierarchy or subjugation. The failure of BC’s to understand this, or at least admit this when they do understand it, perpetuates stereotypes regarding their position.

Am I influenced by culture? Yes, but so are you and so is John Piper, Wayne Grudem, Ben Witherington and Michel Foucault. Let us acknowledge this fact and see where we benefit from it, where it hurts us and where to go once we’ve figured this out.

Effortless Egalitarianism: NT Scholar Gordon Fee on Women in Minsitry

The debate surrounding women in ministry is often accompanied with emphatic discussions and poignant testimonies. Noted New Testament scholar Dr. Gordon Fee merely shrugs his shoulders.

“This is a non-issue for me, because I was born and raised in a tradition where God obviously gifted people who were male and female.”

Now professor of New Testament at Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia, Fee was raised in the Pentecostal tradition, where both women and men served in every aspect of ministry, including the roles of pastor, missionary and prophet.

Fee remembers one couple in particular who were long-term missionaries in Indonesia who visited his church when they were on furlough.

“He was a good missionary and a great worker, but when it came to declaring,” Fee said, “she was the preacher — a superb preacher, and far more articulate than he.”

As his parents also held each other in high regard, Fee said there was never a controversy about the ways in which women could minister and serve in the home or church.
It wasn’t until Fee began teaching at Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary in Boston that he was drawn into the controversy about women in ministry. He was asked to sit on a panel with three other evangelical scholars discussing the issue.

At his chance to speak, Fee began by saying that he was born and raised in a tradition in which God obviously gifted both men and women. “That caused us to read texts like 1 Timothy 2 in light of what God had done,” he added.

A well-known evangelical scholar who was also on the panel strongly criticized Fee for reading the text out of experience.

“The thing that bothers me [about] what you’ve just done,” Fee replied, “is that you read the text out of your experience in the church as well, which doesn’t have women in ministry. [You] don’t recognize that you’re even more conditioned by your culture than I am.”

Responding to this kind of criticism, which Fee says he encounters regularly, is something he would rather not devote his time to. “I’m just not of a kind that’s going to spend a lot of time fighting windmills,” he said.

Fee was unable to avoid controversy though, when the public and press discovered Zondervan and the International Bible Society (IBS) were intending to publish an updated version of the NIV Bible approximately four years ago. One aspect of the new version was gender accurate language in reference to the people of God.

As a member of the New Testament team of the NIV Committee on Bible Translation, Fee suddenly found himself in the midst of a Bible battle. Beginning with its March 29, 1997 issue, World magazine led a critique of the new translation, calling it “the Stealth Bible” and “gender neutral.” Others quickly joined in criticizing the translation.

“I still have a lot of pain about that,” said Fee. “I am still having difficulty with the deliberate deceit … that the World magazine did. And certain people allowed themselves to get caught into that, and without talking to us at all, called what we were doing into question.”

Because of the pressure applied by the Bible’s opponents, Zondervan and IBS made the decision not to publish the Bible in the United States. The New International Version, Inclusive Language Edition (NIVI), is currently being published in the United Kingdom by Hodder & Stoughton.

“My problem with that whole thing was that this was being driven by the market, not by scholarship, not by integrity,” said Fee, “and we were trying to do our work with great integrity as scholars.”

“It’s an unfortunate piece of American church history,” he added. “It says something far more about a community driven by fear than by grace, and when people are driven by fear, they do things that grace would never allow them to do.”

While Fee continues to serve on the Committee on Bible Translation, his recent work has included the book Listening to the Spirit in the Text (Eerdmans 2000). This book is a collection of essays, many of which appeared first in other publications.

While the essays address issues like wealth and possessions, worship and the church’s global mission, two of the essays focus on women in ministry. One addresses hermeneutics relating to women in ministry, and another the question of gender issues and Paul, which was first given as a class lecture at Regent College.

By addressing this issue in lectures and other formats, Fee said he is seen as an advocate for women in ministry, but this advocacy is sometimes misunderstood.

“I care about the women who have been gifted very, very deeply,” he said. “But my advocacy is not so much on their behalf, as it is on the behalf of the Holy Spirit in the church.”

“God was there before me,” he concluded. “To those whom he has gifted, who am I to say, ‘God, you have to take this gift back.’”

http://www.cbeinternational.org/new/about/Gordon.Fee.shtml

The Absence of Pre-Fall Patriarchy in Genesis 1

If Patriarchy was a Pre-Fall reality, then it would be at least implicit within the biblical text. I previously demonstrated that the 2^ndcreation account (in Genesis 2) does not support such a reading, but I said nothing at the time regarding the 1^st creation account in Genesis 1.

Genesis 1:26-28 describes the creation of humanity “in the image of God” and after his “likeness.” There are a number of hermeneutical and theological difficulties related to these phrases - particularly what exactly it means to be created in God’s image and how that relates to the phrase about “according to our likeness.” Couple those things also with the use of plural pronouns and you’ve got a longstanding theological and exegetical argument.

What I want to demonstrate in this post is that the *structure* of the pericope provides us insight into the author’s intention –that is, the way he formulates the narrative gives us insight into what he means by the mysterious phrases. More to the point, though, when we see what he means, we are also given insight into the Pre-Fall relationship between the man and the woman - one which, as I will demonstrate, is one of equality, not patriarchy. This argument will, in effect,support my reading of Genesis 2 and 3 which says that Patriarchy is a result of the Fall, not prior to it.

The Hebrew text in 1:27 reads something like this….(the word order is important – often skewed by our English translations)

“Created God humanity in His image. In the image of God He created him. Male and female He created them.”

Structurally, the text is a Chiasm (an inverted parallelism) followed by a straight forward Parallelism. Notice the Chiasm 1^st…

1. Created humanity

B God

C In His image

C’ In the image

B’ of God

A’ He created him

Surrounding the whole things is the Creative purposes of God. Central to the chiasm, and thus the emphasis of the writer, is the Image of God. Unfortunately, besides the fact that it is the creative act of God, no other exegetical clue is provided for us to help us discern the substance of the Image of God…..that is, until the parallelism which begins with the 2^nd half of the chiasm:

1. In the Image of God B. He created C. Him

A. Male and Female B. He created C. Them

What the structuring of this narrative suggests, then, is that whatever it means to be in the image of God, it must be fully understood in the context of BOTH male and femaleness. Man is not the image of God without woman and woman is not the image of God without the man. They are both, together the image of God. In other words – what the chiastic structure gives emphasis to (the image of God), the parallelism gives substance to (male and female).

Now notice that there is no implied subordination within this structuring. Rather, there is implied equality. Nothing within this text points to male headship. The Biblical Complementarian argument fails to account for the fact that this first creation account doesn’t even have a creation order for the genders. This narrative suggests that male and female are equal before God – for they both, together, stand before Him and are equally created in His image – so much for the old discussions about whether women were really created in God’s image or not.