by Blake » Wed May 11, 2011 8:25 pm
I do think the SBC has an unhealthy low view of women. I am a complementarian but the SBC does not practice complementarianism so much as chauvinism and sexism. The places that women do occupy in the local church are only ever places that affirm chauvinist stereotypes of what women are capable of doing and should do (children's ministry, worship, women's ministry...). They fill roles of caretakers and counselors and teachers of age groups where complicated theological questions are okay to address with anything other than the honest and often difficult truth that is tasked to adult teachers and pastors (on the rare occasion they feel like being honest and rigorous).
As a complementarian I am not bothered by the fact that they fill those roles. Many women do seem more naturally gifted to those areas than men which is fine. My problem is that they do seem regularly barred from the more intellectual teaching ministries. I've not ever seen an SBC church recognize a woman's gift in her ability to teach scripture, theology, apologetics or history like they have men. I simply can not believe that no women are capable of doing these things as well if not better than men. Yet this is precisely what our seminaries confess with their actions.
We have six of the largest and best funded seminaries in the country and not a single one of them has a woman teaching bible, biblical languages, theology, apologetics, philosophy, or church history. Our seminaries affirm with their actions if nothing else that women's place is to be caring and leave the thinking up to the men. That is not complementarian. It is sexist. There are conservative evangelical women who are very capable and brilliant scholars and our resistance to hiring them is no oversight. Every man on our faculty is not a better scholar than women we could have hired if we had been intentional about finding those most merited to get the job. I am familiar enough with our professors' scholarship to realize we've gone for "yes men" over quality and rigor. It is discrimination and affirmation of patriarchy.
Yes, the SBC has major problems of inequality when it comes to women. Our complementarianism, as it is largely practiced, only affirms stereotypes and roles of genders we want to believe are true instead of what the Bible and church history has allowed to women. I affirm male servant leadership in the roles of church elders and bishops as I believe the Bible teaches, but those positions have more to do with managing the vision, mission and discipline of the congregation. Teachers, deacons, prophets, evangelists and missionaries should be open to those qualified among both genders. The SBC has restricted gender roles beyond what is allowed by scripture which makes us disobedient to it.
"But for our parts, to take a carnal weapon in our hands, or use the least violence, either to support or pull down the worst, or to set up or maintain the best of men, we look not upon it to be our duty in the least..."
- Henry Adis