Adam
Rules - OK?
Brian Newsom
David Pawson, has just
re-published a book that first appeared in 1988: Leadership is Male
What does the Bible say? (Terra
Nova Publications, 2007), and he claims that that is precisely what the Bible
does say. The trouble is that the
cornerstone of his argument lies in the book of Genesis.
So if you really believe that God made Adam first and then he made Eve
out of one of Adam’s ribs, to be his helper, then his argument that women have
no part in leadership sounds very plausible.
Of Genesis 3 Pawson says: this is here taken as fact rather than
fiction, history rather than myth.... And the serpent is a talking
lizard, not a snake (it had legs). But
along with Adam and Eve you have to accept a 6,000 year old earth and set aside
common sense and all the science of paeleontology,
geology, biology and astronomy, which makes it difficult to take anything
else he says seriously.
For
me, Genesis is a myth with a message. It
means that God made the world and the whole universe and he made men and women
in his own image. That means he
made us with the potential to be like him, to be like Jesus who is the image of
the invisible God. God also gave us
knowledge of the meaning of good and evil and the power to choose between them.
And we all know what has happened.
Pawson
then trawls through the rest of the Old Testament gathering ammunition for his
cause. First we have the Patriarchs,
obviously they were all men. Then
we have the Prophets, particularly Moses to Samuel who held the reins
of national leadership. Miriam
may have been a prophet, but simply passing on a message from God is not seen
as exercising authority. Deborah
was a judge, but she did not ‘lead’, instead she delegated this
task to the man, Barak. Next
came the Kings – Saul to Zedikiah, but no queens as in Egypt, Sheba and
Ethiopia. After this it was the Priests
– Zerubbabel to Caiaphas, again all male, who ruled the nation.
Next
we come to the New Testament: Jesus was a man, who never married and who
appointed twelve men to be his apostles. The
seventy others he sent out (Luke
10:1) were also
most probably men. True he had a
great deal to do with women, far more than any rabbi would have done in those
days. He preached about them,
ministered to them and received ministry back in return, but he never sent any
women out on missions and he never said anything about their leadership
qualities. All in all Pawson
concludes that the patriarchal nature of government among the people of God
continues from the old into the new covenant.
In
searching for an ally to combat Pawson’s sweeping denial of female leadership,
I came across the website of Tom Wright, Bishop of Durham1
and one of the world’s foremost biblical scholars, and found that he has some
convincing answers. Pawson says: It
is a cliché that women were last at the cross and first at the tomb, and
sees no leadership qualities there. Wright
says that the fact that it is the women who come first to the tomb, who
are the
first to see
the risen Jesus, and
are the first to be entrusted with the news that he has been raised from
the dead. This is of incalculable
significance. Mary Magdalene
and the others are the apostles to the apostles.
Pawson
dismisses the Mary and Martha episode in Luke 10 as being not relevant
to the issue of leadership in general.
Wright points out that: far more obvious
to any first-century reader, and to many readers in Turkey, the Middle East and
many other parts of the world to this day would be the fact that Mary was
sitting at Jesus’ feet within the male part of the house rather than being
kept in the back rooms with the other women.
Also, to sit at the teacher’s feet is a way of saying you are being a
student, picking up the teacher’s wisdom and learning; and in that very
practical world you wouldn’t do this just for the sake of informing your own
mind and heart, but in order to be a teacher, a rabbi, yourself.
Then
we come to Paul’s letters, and Pawson has a great deal to say about one text
in particular namely Galatians 3:28; If ever a text was used out of
context, this is it! he says. The
immediate context has no reference to the roles or relationships of men and
women. And Tom Wright agrees
with him. He says: Galatians 3
is not about ministry. The
crucial phrase as translated in the KJV, RSV and NIV is neither male nor
female. Pawson has it: there
cannot be male and female, for all of you are one male in Christ Jesus.
Wright puts it thus: no male and female.
The context is provided by 3:29, namely it is all to do with the
inheritance promised to Abraham and his spiritual descendants who are all one
in Christ Jesus and there can be no discrimination between them.
Tom
Wright does not cover all the Pauline texts quoted by Pawson, but here are three
of them. Firstly
1 Corinthians 14:33ff. This
is the one about women keeping quiet in church.
Pawson says it is difficult even to understand, never mind apply.
He is even inclined towards agreeing with those who believe that it was
not written by Paul but put in later. However
he reluctantly concludes that: Paul is apparently excluding women from
dialogue with teachers in a church gathering, even to simply asking questions. Wright also is in two minds whether to agree with those
who say this verse is a later and non-Pauline interpolation.
But he also likes the theory that firstly, men and women would be sitting
apart in church just as they did in the synagogue; and secondly, in Lebanon,
Syria or
Egypt the
service would
be held
in Arabic
which only
the men
could understand. The
women, being left in the dark would then get bored and chatter to each other.
So the preacher would tell them to shut up and wait till they got home so
they could ask their husbands what it was all about.
Wright
goes on: What the passage cannot possibly mean is that women had no part in
leading public worship, speaking out loud of course as they did so. This is the positive point that is proved by the other
relevant Corinthian passage, 1 Corinthians 11:2-11, since there Paul is giving
instructions for how women are to be dressed while engaging in such activities.
The meaning of this section hinges on the use and meaning of the word head.
Pawson concludes that: The traditional understanding of headship as
including governmental responsibility (as
in Ephesians 5:22-24) provides the connection and makes most sense of Paul’s
argument. The biblical use of the
word head is invariably hierarchical and governmental.
So he is maintaining that leadership is male. The point about the head covering is that the sexes should be
clearly recognisable, no cross-dressing!
And for the woman, covering her hair expresses her acceptance of male
governmental responsibility within the assembly.
Finally
we come to 1 Timothy 2:8-15, as Pawson says: widely considered to be the
passage most offensive to Christian women in the writings of Paul, if not in the
whole New Testament. He points
out that all the accepted translations of the Bible are just about
unanimous about what Paul actually wrote, whether they agree with it or not.
And the conclusion is obvious: during public teaching women are to
keep silent; they are not to teach at all in mixed congregations; and for a
woman to direct a man ... violates the order of creation!
Because Adam was created before Eve.
Well
Tom Wright has an alternative scenario. We
may conclude from 1 Timothy 1:3 that Timothy was in Ephesus when Paul wrote to
him, and the dominant religion in Ephesus was the cult of Artemis.
The massive temple was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World and
it was entirely run by priestesses. So
if you were writing to someone in a small, new religious movement in Ephesus to
say that there was to be no more patriarchy and women were to be encouraged to
study and learn and take a leadership role, you would not want them to think
that you wanted to develop a religion like that of Artemis, where women were in
charge and bossed the men about.
So
verse 8 means that men must devote themselves to prayer, with no anger or
arguing. Verses 9 and 10 mean that
women should not fuss about their appearance but make a creative contribution
to the wider society. Verse 11
means women should be allowed to study and learn and to be in full submission.
This is normally taken to be towards men but could equally well mean to
God or to the Gospel. Then the
crucial verse 12 could mean: I don’t mean to imply that I’m setting up
women as the new authority over men in the way that men previously held
authority over women. The
bit about
Adam and Eve is because Eve
was deceived, while Adam sinned
deliberately,
so women need to learn just as much as men do.
There
is no doubt that the exclusion of female leadership in the Church has caused
much heart-ache, pain and resentment. Bishop
Dominic reminded us of this when, speaking at our A.G.M., he quoted the
graffitti he found in a convent: When God made man She was only testing!
After
all women have displayed ample proof of their leadership qualities in the
spheres of government, politics, education, industry and commerce.
And if you want a prime example of a female, Christian leader, look no
further than the 7th Century royal abbess Hild, known as St Hilda,
who founded a mixed-sex monastery at Whitby.
According to Bede2, kings and princes used
to come and ask her advice in their difficulties and take it.
The monastery became such a great centre of Christian education and
learning that five men from it later became bishops – all of them men of
outstanding merit and holiness, who clearly were not put off by St Paul’s
epistles. I think it is now
time for David Pawson and those of his ilk to show a bit of Christian charity,
that is love, towards those women who feel called to God’s ministry,
for it does not belong to men.
References.
1.
Women’s Service in the Church: The Biblical Basis - a conference paper for the
Symposium, ‘Men, Women and the Church’, St John’s College, Durham,
September 4 2004, by the Bishop of Durham, Dr N. T. Wright on www.ntwrightpage.com.
2.
Bede, Ecclesiastical History of the English people, Penguin Classics, 1990.
The
Light that Shone in the Darkness
I was profoundly moved
by the images that appeared on our television screen and in the newspapers of
the funeral of Boris Yeltsin, former President of Russia.
There displayed in all its glory was the Russian Orthodox Church, with
its bearded patriarchs in richly embroidered vestments and flaming, red and gold
candles.
The funeral was held
in the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour.
Originally built in the 19th Century, it was destroyed by Stalin and
rebuilt under Boris Yeltsin's presidency.
This was the first
time in 100 years that a Russian leader was mourned in a church.
Russian President Vladimir Putin was there along with about a dozen
former and serving heads of state and senior foreign officials.
During
Communist rule, religion was suppressed but never eliminated.
When we visited Russia we saw many of those cathedrals that had not been
demolished by the regime, had been turned into museums – a priceless treasury
of tapestries, stained glass and above all, icons, the bulwark of the Orthodox
faith. The
people never worshipped icons, they weren’t idols, they were windows into the
spiritual world that brought the observer closer to God.
And they stayed close to God throughout the seventy years of spiritual
darkness and in this funeral service they were fully vindicated.
How can atheists see
this kind of affirmation of a faith so precious as ours and not doubt
their nihilist persuasion.
Brian Newsom
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