Last week I dared to disagree with 99% of the church leaders and theologians of the past 2000 years by declaring that the Bible does not teach that women are inferior to men.  For most of its history, the church went along with the prevailing attitude of the surrounding culture, convinced by reason, by nature, and by Scripture that women were created to be man’s subordinates.  I quoted such church leaders as Augustine, Ambrose, Aquinas, Tertullian, and Martin Luther to support my point; since then, I’ve found similar teachings from other church leaders and theologians, including Irenaeus, John Chrysostom, John Calvin, John Knox, and Charles Hodge.  For this reason, I believe that it is dangerous to appeal to church tradition, “the way it’s always been,” as a reason for restricting women from positions in church leadership.  If the Bible teaches such restrictions, then so be it, but the testimony of men who saw women as inferior by nature should not be treated as canon.

So what do we learn from the actual records of women in church ministry over the past 2000 years?  Does church history teach us that God blesses woman pastors and preachers, or is it clear that this is against the will of God?

My goal today is not to provide a comprehensive survey of church history – I haven’t researched it completely, and others have done a much more thorough job.  I would like to give a summary of an interesting take on this subject given by theologians Stanley Grenz and Denise Muir Kjesbo in their 1995 book, Women in the Church.  As they look at the history of women in ministry over the past two centuries, they see these trends repeating themselves in many spiritual movements:

   1) A renewal movement of the Holy Spirit causes people of all genders, races, and classes to be raised up for ministry and church leadership (a la Pentecost and Galatians 3:28)
   2) The denomination, Bible school, or ministry associated with the movement becomes more institutionalized
   3) As it institutionalizes, the denomination/Bible School/ministry begins to value theological training and cultural respectability more highly and begins to hire predominantly men

Read that one more time before we consider some historical examples.  If their assertion is accurate, then it would seem that history shows that when leadership involves the choice of God by the gifting of the Holy Spirit, women are included in ministry, but as factors such as education and respectability become more important, women are excluded.  Following the three stage model proposed above, let me give some of Grenz and Kjesbo’s examples of how this has played out in church history:

The early church: 

   1) Despite the patriarchal culture, there is evidence of some women acting in various leadership roles, including bishop/elder and deacon, and performing various ministerial activities, including administering the Lord’s Supper, teaching, baptizing, caring for the physical needs of the congregation, and leading in public prayers. 
   2) The church gained greater respectability and became more institutionalized
   3) Church councils, as well as bishops and popes, in the 300s and 400s produced statements restricting and prohibiting women from holding the offices they had held in earlier centuries.  As a result, many religious women (among them Catherine of Siena and Teresa of Avila) flocked to monasteries, where they could exercise more influence.

The Wesleyan Revival:

   1) A movement associated with John Wesley in 18th century Britain (also known as Methodism), it involved Spirit-gifted preachers who brought revival to the crumbling English church.  Wesley allowed women to participate fully and to serve as leaders, but gave them permission to give short “exhortations” and to call their meetings “prayer gatherings” so that no one would think they were female preachers leading congregations.  However, the success of these women’s led Wesley to conclude that if a woman was called to the ministry, then she needed to obey that call, and he eventually affirmed the right of women to preach, regardless of public opinion.
   2) The Revival eventually institutionalized into the Methodist Church.
   3) Women’s roles diminished quickly following Wesley’s death as the church gained greater respectability.

The Holiness Movement:

   1) Women such as Phoebe Palmer and Aimee Semple McPherson were leaders in the 19th century holiness movement that gave birth to or influenced denominations such as the Church of the Nazarene, the Christian & Missionary Alliance, the Salvation Army, and the Church of God.
   2) Some of these denominations continue to have women in leadership; others, like the Church of the Nazarene, have shifted as they gained more respectability. 
   3) Originally the Nazarenes recognized the right of women to preach in their original constitution, but now only 3% of their pastors are women, because of their desire to blend in with the evangelical mainstream.

Baptists:

   1) In the early Baptist movement in England and North America, women preached and served as ordained deacons. 
   2) Baptists moved from despised sect to established denomination in the 1800s.
   3) By the mid 1800s, Baptists questioned the right of women to vote in church conferences or to speak in mixed assemblies, and many churches did away with female deacons.  Today, many Baptist denominations such as the Southern Baptist Conference do not teach that the Bible allows for women to teach men or be pastors.

Moody Bible Institute:

   1) Dwight Moody, one of the foremost American revivalists, founded Moody Bible Institute in 1886.  In their early days, they actively promoted public church ministry for women, using women as evangelists, Bible teachers, and Bible conference speakers.
   2) The second and third generations of school leaders sought credentialing and respectability
   3) Women were increasingly excluded from positions of leadership and responsibility as theological education and ordination, unavailable to most women, became necessary.  Moody Bible Institute no longer teaches that the position of elder or pastor is open to women.

I believe the validity of this pattern is worth considering.  There is no doubt that cultural factors have always played into the question of women in ministry.  The only question is whether it is cultural forces that kept women predominantly out of ministry for 1900+ years (against the will of God) or whether it is cultural forces that are now causing churches and denominations to recognize women as pastors, elders, and preachers (against the will of God).  If we could only throw up our hands and declare that “we don’t know,” that would be simple, but there are women who feel called to ministry who are waiting on an answer. 

As I mentioned on Sunday, I believe that Galatians 3:28 - “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” may offer the clearest picture of what God intends his church to be like:  a community where people’s access to God and spiritual roles are not determined by the typical cultural categories of race, class, and gender, but by the salvation offered in Jesus Christ and the gifting of the Holy Spirit.  If this is true, then it means that if someone is a gifted leader or preacher, it doesn’t matter if they are a rich Mexican man or a poor British woman; they should use the gifts the Holy Spirit has given them to build up the church.

If you have any thoughts or comments to add, please post your comments so that we might all learn and seek the truth together.  May God grant us wisdom and discernment as we seek His will.

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