In his post The ‘fudge’, the football and women elders Simon Benham explains why his church has moved from a complementarian to an egalitarian position. He outlined two main reasons. Firstly, he didn’t think it was biblical and secondly the outworking even of a soft complementarian position wasn’t kind. Even briefly I was unconvinced by his first point but his second point in my mind actually merits more reflection. Here’s what Simon says,

The message “you can teach, but not everything”, and “lead, but not everywhere”, is incredibly disempowering – especially when there is little clarity over when and where any of those boundaries apply. I say this from conversations with women, in churches which are doing their very best to empower women in a ‘soft’ environment, who have told me at length about the opportunities they feel they have been denied… the ways they have been overlooked… the times they have performed a role without being given the title, the pay or the recognition a man would have received in the same position, and therefore the pain this has caused them. 

The ‘fudge’, the football and women elders

This matters to me because Simon’s world was until not all that long ago the same as mine: Newfrontiers. If what Simon recounts is true, and I’ve no reason to think it isn’t, a lot of it is unjustifiable. If you’re going have titles then work it out for everyone, if you’re going to pay someone, pay them fairly and within the law. We need to find ways to equip churches to do better than that.

Different kinds of damage

Some people are bad news; manipulative, controlling, disrespectful, angry, abusive. It isn’t always easy to realise that someone is that kind of leader, otherwise no one would ever find themselves in any kind of toxic relationship. But when you do, it becomes clear enough what you should do – which is to leave. Now I don’t believe that complementarian theology, in and of itself, produces those kinds of leaders. I think they can be find in all sorts of environments. But I will say this, complementarian cultures have not done well enough to root those kind of leaders out. This is doubly damaging because not only are they wolves but one of the mainstays of ‘good complementarianism’ is that the shepherds protect the flock, guarding them from wolves and not aiding and abetting them.

This is the point Natalie Collins makes in response to Megan Cornwell in an article for Christianity:

What I have heard is the notion of protection; using male strength as a force for good, so I put this back to Collins. “That’s not how complementarian theology actually works in practice,” she replies, matter-of-factly. “In practice, women are not protected by men. In fact, the most dangerous place for women, anywhere in the world, is in their own home with their own husband – in the Church and outside of it.”

Is complementarian theology abusive?

That’s an effective punch. Complementarian churches should, because it is the right thing to do, be at the forefront of the fight against domestic abuse and male violence. As I’ve previously said, “We need men not to disavow their strength but their violence.” This would also back up the claim that our culture is not one of entitlement and power, as critics like Collins claim, but instead service and protection as we claim.

But that’s not the only way men in leadership do damage to women in their church. Probably more confusing is the inconsistency, the gap between theory and practice and the weird stuff that happens that seems to go unchallenged. For example, someone told me of this experience in various Newfrontiers gatherings: “I have been in leadership training & been completely ignored by the person teaching, also been to meetings where other females told me to make sure my knees were covered as one of the men ‘struggled’ with women’s knees.”

Does anyone really have to point out say all the ways those two sentences are completely unacceptable? Basic manners should tell you not to ignore someone, and how they heck did we allow someone to teach on a training course if they couldn’t cope if they saw a woman’s knee? How did that go unchallenged? And that is part of the problem. These things do go unchallenged. The challenge to men thinking, speaking and behaving like this is often either non-existent or so tame as to be meaningless. This kind of environment is, perhaps, in the end harder for the women suffering and not flourishing in it because it is the way of slow devaluing. It is the path of a general exhaustion of having to fight for recognition where others don’t need to fight at all. In addition I’d hazard a guess that in many instances the women genuinely don’t think these leaders are the bad kind. They see and appreciate their leadership in all sorts of ways, but that only makes dealing with these sorts of failings all the harder to know what to do with these clumsy and poorly handled moments.

In the few responses I’ve had through social media I would guess that if any of the Newfrontiers spheres took the trouble to listen to women’s experiences as Simon did, then we might find the whole experience rather disconcerting. I’ve heard enough to know both that the problem isn’t everywhere but neither is it just a case of a few bad apples. I think we should go through with that exercise not so we change our theology (I don’t currently think it should be changed) but so that we should across the board improve our practice.

Matching practice to theology

One of the areas that causes confusion is the wide variety of practice that seems to be covered by various kinds of complementarianism. Not exactly a theological fudge but definitely a fudge in outworking and practice. Something that seems cause more confusion not less. Often it comes from attempts to try and paste Paul’s prohibition on teaching and authority to what happens on a Sunday morning and to all sorts of areas where it wasn’t meant to be applied. So for example someone asked me this question: “How do you stop something being directional? What if a woman or non elder man says something which could be considered as falling into Dickson’s ‘teaching’ category? Does an elder check all preaches before they’re given? Does an elder stand up to correct them?“

How exactly is someone supposed to tell the difference between exhortation, preaching, teaching, testimony, prophesy (depending on what you mean by that)? What happens if a sermon is all of those things in any given Sunday? Even if people understood that not all speaking is preaching and not all preaching is teaching people still seem to think this means that if you reference the Bible then you must be teaching. So how can you have biblically rich sermons from anyone, male or female, and avoid it being teaching? I don’t think you can.

So where would I draw the line? Many churches have a ‘what we believe’ page on their website. Sometimes it’s a creed or a link to a statement of faith. The better ones take the time to explain the connection between doctrine and practice. In essence that’s the teaching of the church. The elders job is to guard that teaching and be proactive in ensuring it is, well, actually believed. Sticking it on your website that you believe in the final authority of Scripture is not nearly close to being the same thing as your church understanding, grasping and celebrating that truth. Same goes for pretty much every other truth you’ve listed. The job is to continually guard, tend, protect, nourish the truths you hold to in the life of the church.

But that job does not need to be done either alone or in isolation. The elders should draw on all the gifts in the church that God has given them to accomplish that task. That includes having a robust and correct understanding of helper. The elders should not abdicate or delegate away this responsibility but they should actively engage and include others in the fulfilling of that responsibility. That means teams of appropriately gifted & mature people both, in my opinion, male and female. Teachers, prophets, deacons, evangelists and all the rest of it – all working with the elders who fulfill that role as representative heads of the household.

A practice like this, I think both upholds the principle and creates fresh pathways to pursue and encourage women in our churches to use their gifts. It’s also a lot simpler to explain than trying to navigate whether this sermon is exhortation or somehow strays into teaching every time someone quotes the Bible. And as someone commented to me: clearer is kinder, and we could do with a bit more of that.