In a few weeks time Sweden will have a general election and I will be able to vote for the first time here. No single party aligns with my choices but come election day, I will have to make a choice. Any nuance I might have or hold will disappear the moment I put an X in a box. I cannot vote for a diverse range of policies only for political parties. In different debates there is a desire for people to vote, to make their choices clear. But what do you do if no party really represents your position? This seems to me to be part of the dilemma for churches who hold to what has been called soft complementarianism. It is accused of taking bits from this party and bits from this party. Having your fudge and eating it. And for some, it is high time those people vote.

Simon Benham leads Kerith Church in Bracknell and which used to be a part of Newfrontiers. They are no longer (I believe) because of this journey they’ve been on:

We have moved from a position where women could only lead either children or other other women (hard complementarianism); to a place where women could lead and teach anywhere in the church, but not serve as elders (soft complementarianism); to last year affirming that women could now serve as elders (egalitarianism). 

The ‘fudge’, the football and women elders

And Simon is of the conviction that they are not alone in this journey: ‘Virtually every church I know which, like us, would have taken a ‘hard’ position 20 years ago has become softer and softer. Women are now preaching, leading worship, leading ministries, on senior leadership teams and even leading sites. But I believe that revolution will stall without a recognition that there are no roles in the life of the church where gender should be a barrier.‘ But… ‘My observation is that most churches we relate to have been on the same journey as us in terms of moving from hard to soft complementarianism, but not many have yet taken that final step of affirming women elders.’

And this is a fudge.

A ‘fudge’ kind of leadership allows churches to promote female preachers and leaders, as well as forming senior leadership teams comprising both men and women, where women are effectively acting as elders but aren’t recognised as such, while also having a group of male only elders who are effectively there to rubber stamp the decisions of the senior leadership team.

From conversations with these leaders, most do this because either: 

a. They and their teams are divided or unsure over what they believe on this issue, so they are sticking with the status quo. The ‘fudge’ allows them to keep both sides at least somewhat happy.

b. Or they and their teams do believe women can serve as elders, but they would not be allowed to stay in the movements they are part of if they acted on their convictions. They embrace the ‘fudge’ out of a desire for unity. 

As a church, we were encouraged to go with the ‘fudge’… but we respectfully rejected it. 

It’s not a good look: Confused & divided (a) or cowardly (b). Or all three.

Simon rejects the fudge for two clear reasons:

1. The ‘soft’ position is -in my opinion at least – hard to justify and defend Biblically.
2. I have seen the damage that the ‘soft’ position does to women.

 And those are good reasons. No church should be doing stuff that is unbiblical and neither should it be damaging women.

Now I think there are all sorts of problems in how Simon describes what elders do but I’ll save that for another time. Instead a few brief comments about point 1. Here’s how Simon backs that up:

As one example when Paul writes that women shouldn’t teach or have authority over men (1 Timothy 2:12), it is relatively straightforward to argue that this was either a command for all churches at all times (the hard position), or that Paul only meant it to apply to a particular church at a specific moment in history (the egalitarian position). 

This is a black and white reading of the Bible but it’s not the only way to go about reading the New Testament and I’m pretty sure Simon doesn’t read or preach the New Testament in that way on dozens of subjects. First, as others have pointed out, ALL the letters were to a particular church at a specific moment. Everything Paul wrote fits into that category so you need some principle to work out how you move from it was written to a specific church to principles and application today. It’s hard to see from that particular text why, for example, the positive instructions for men to pray and women to learn are universal but the prohibition not to have authority is temporary. You need some principle for explaining why braided hair isn’t such a big deal today but self-control and good works still are or why you might still not want an elder to be a recent convert but you are OK with them being the wife of one husband.

We do this work by asking questions and you can’t address 1 Timothy 2:12 without asking the questions, ‘what does Paul mean by teach?’ and ‘what does Paul mean by authority?’ I think the move from what Simon describes as hard complementarianism to a softer version is precisely because people have asked those questions and revised their answers and practice in light of it. And this is a good thing.

Also in relation to this reading of 1 Timothy Simon says,

What is much harder to argue is that it applies everywhere, but only disqualifies women from certain sorts of teaching and certain positions where they have authority over men. It seems very hard to get that from the passage, and even harder to discern which sorts of teaching and positions of authority women can and can’t engage in.

When actually it’s not that hard at all. Here’s John Dickson responding, interestingly enough, to someone from a ‘harder’ position.

virtually every (technical) commentator notes that “teaching” in Paul’s letters, especially the Pastoral Epistles (1 and 2 Timothy, and Titus), refers to the specialised activity of making sure the church learns the core body of apostolic doctrines. If there is anything fresh in my argument, it isn’t the historical-critical account of Pauline “teaching”; it is perhaps the way I ask whether every modern sermon is “teaching” in the same sense.

http://www.johndickson.org/blog/shouldwomenpreach

As John goes on to argue,

But we are not aiming at simplicity. We all want to be biblical. And there are nuances in the Bible that Kevin seems to flatten out. It is the apostle Paul himself who says that “teaching”, “exhorting”, and “prophesying” are all “different”. Kevin may call this “threading the needle” but I insist it is biblical. All sermons today will take the form of citing and explaining Bible passages. But some sermons will principally be designed to lay down for the church the core apostolic doctrines (“teaching”). Other sermons will principally be designed to encourage the church to heed the commands or comforts of Scripture (“exhorting”; or perhaps “prophesying”). Even if it is only occasionally (I think it should be frequently), churches would benefit greatly from hearing women’s voices exhort us to trust and obey the Lord.

Basically if it’s biblical fudge, I’ll eat it.