I\u2019m currently in Sweden, attending a mathematics conference.\u00a0 Over the next few days, I will be hearing from some of the world\u2019s top minds in my area of research.\u00a0 Many of these experts are women.\u00a0 Of course, this won\u2019t seem much of a surprise to those in academic circles, where the ability of a researcher is judged on merit, not gender.\u00a0 At the end of my trip, I\u2019ll return home to Australia, a country run by a female prime minister, a female governor general and, ultimately, by a female monarch.\u00a0 Women make fine leaders.<\/p>\n
Or at least that\u2019s the way it is in the secular world.\u00a0 Before I left home, I heard a radio interview with Julia Baird, an ex-member of the Sydney Anglican Synod, and an advocate for women in ministry.\u00a0 The interview was a discussion of her recent article\u00a0 in the Sydney Morning Herald, entitled No place for spirited women<\/em><\/a>.\u00a0 The interview and article touched on quite a few areas regarding women and the Sydney Anglican Diocese, including a recent change to the standard marriage vows.1<\/sup> \u00a0But, while these are interesting in their own right, I\u2019m mostly interested here in the topic of women in church leadership roles.<\/p>\n It seems that the British and American branches of the Anglican\/Episcopal Church have long ago recognised female priests.\u00a0 But this is not so in Australia.\u00a0 In 1992, the Australian Anglican Church voted to give individual dioceses the right to ordain, or not ordain, female priests as they saw fit.\u00a0 Sydney saw fit not to, and has remained in that position ever since.\u00a0 Women are officially \u201callowed\u201d to teach children and other women.\u00a0 But not men.<\/p>\n I won’t be focussing here on what<\/em> the Sydney Anglican Church (henceforth, SAC) thinks about women\u2019s roles in ministry, but rather their reasons<\/em> for thinking the way they do.\u00a0 Sydney Anglicans are renowned for their very literal interpretation of the Bible.\u00a0 So it\u2019s really no surprise that women are not allowed to teach men in the SAC.\u00a0 After all, it\u2019s in the Bible:<\/p>\n \u201cI do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man<\/em>\u201d.\u00a0 (1 Tim 2:11)<\/p>\n So that settles it, right?\u00a0 It\u2019s in the Bible<\/em>.\u00a0 So that\u2019s the way it is, whether you like it or not.<\/p>\n Well, this literalist approach would at least seem understandable if this was the attitude taken by the SAC across the board<\/em>.\u00a0 But here\u2019s the problem:\u00a0 there are plenty of things in the Bible that are nevertheless ignored or disregarded by the SAC.\u00a0 For example, let\u2019s take the above verse from 1 Timothy and place it back in its immediate context:<\/p>\n \u201cA woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. But women will be saved through childbearing\u2014if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety<\/em>.\u201d (1 Tim 2:11-15)<\/p>\n Not only is a woman forbidden from teaching a man, she is also commanded to remain completely silent.\u00a0 In fact, we are even given reasons for why this must be so.\u00a0 We have learnt from the Garden of Eden story just how untrustworthy those women are.\u00a0 Elsewhere, we find these words:<\/p>\n \u201cWomen should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church.<\/em>\u201d (1 Cor 14:34-35)<\/p>\n It is disgraceful<\/em> for a woman to speak in church!\u00a0 The Bible is very specific <\/em>about this.\u00a0 Also:<\/p>\n \u201cBut I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ,\u00a0and the head of the woman is man,<\/strong>and the head of Christ is God. \u00a0Every man who prays or prophesies\u00a0with his head covered dishonors his head. \u00a0<\/sup><\/strong>But every woman who prays or prophesies\u00a0with her head uncovered dishonors her head\u2014it is the same as having her head shaved.\u00a0 For if a woman does not cover her head, she might as well have her hair cut off; but if it is a disgrace for a woman to have her hair cut off or her head shaved, then she should cover her head<\/em>.\u201d (1 Cor 11:3-6)<\/p>\n Why does the SAC not require women to cover their heads when praying in church?2<\/sup>\u00a0 And why are women not required to remain completely silent in churches?\u00a0 These things are all in the Bible<\/em>!\u00a0 Why is the disgraceful practice of women speaking in churches allowed to continue unabated?\u00a0\u00a0Why is the disgraceful practice of women going hatless in churches allowed to continue unabated?\u00a0 Though I utterly oppose the Westborough Baptist Church in just about every possible way, it must be said that they are far more consistent in their obedience to such Biblical passages.3<\/sup><\/p>\n These kinds of things are usually ignored on the grounds of them being \u201ccultural\u201d; commands for the first century church, but not the twenty-first\u00a0century church. \u00a0A typical argument might run as follows:<\/p>\n Would God, the creator of the universe, really have His mind set on such petty things as women remaining silent in church?\u00a0 Of course not!\u00a0 Women were just uneducated back in those days, so naturally it made sense for them to remain silent in church, or else think of the mayhem that would ensue!<\/em><\/p>\n I won\u2019t go into too much detail of why such interpretations are likely to be nothing more than the post-rationalizations of embarrassed modern Christians living in a post-feminist culture\u00a0.\u00a0 But I\u2019ll mention two things.\u00a0 First is the observation that the verses don\u2019t mention anything about uneducated men remaining silent.\u00a0 And second, the 1 Timothy passage gives very explicit reasons for why women are not to teach men, and it has nothing to do with their level of education.<\/p>\n I will also only mention in passing the fact that the entire book of 1 Timothy is widely believed by Biblical scholars to be a non-Pauline forgery,4<\/sup>\u00a0and that there are good reasons to suppose that the two passages from 1 Corinthians are non-Pauline insertions,5<\/sup>\u00a0though the latter is not the majority view.\u00a0 Though it would be extremely ironic if the SAC\u2019s entire stance on women\u2019s roles in church was based on material that should not be in the Bible in the first place, my focus is on the way the church uses what is in the Bible as we have it today.<\/p>\n The point is that if the culture argument is deemed sound, then doesn\u2019t it apply equally well to the issue of female church leaders?\u00a0 Modern women have access to education that first century Palestinian women could only dream about.\u00a0 A woman can obtain a Masters of Divinity, or a Doctorate in Theology.\u00a0 And a woman is just as likely to be a good public speaker as any man.\u00a0 Why should such a woman \u201cremain silent in the churches\u201d and \u201cask their own husbands at home\u201d if \u201cthey want to inquire about something\u201d?\u00a0 I don\u2019t see why and neither, it seems, does most of the worldwide Anglican Church.<\/p>\n So why the double standard?\u00a0 It seems the church is happy to defend some of their doctrines with the safe \u201cIt\u2019s in the Bible<\/em>\u201d line, but go directly against what the Bible says in other instances.\u00a0 It seems to me that the church does what it wants, and defends their choices to follow the Bible with \u201cIt\u2019s in the Bible<\/em>\u201d, but comes up with clever arguments involving context and culture whenever they wish to go against Biblical commands.\u00a0 So the real question is:<\/p>\n Why does the Sydney Anglican Church not want women to teach men?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Only they can answer that one.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1. \u00a0Apparently women don\u2019t have to vow to obey<\/em> their husbands any more, only to submit<\/em> to them. \u00a0(For all the ensuing talk of marriage involving mutual submission<\/em>, I\u2019m yet to hear a man vow to submit to his wife in a marriage ceremony.)<\/p>\n 2. \u00a0Interestingly, the worldwide Anglican Church seems to\u00a0enforce the corresponding command regarding men not wearing hats in church.<\/p>\n 3. \u00a0They do seem to pick-and-choose a little from the Old Testament though. \u00a0Thankfully, I am yet to heard of any of their children being stoned to death for disobedience (in accordance with Deut 21:18-21).<\/p>\n 4. \u00a0See the wikipedia article on the\u00a0authorship of 1 Timothy<\/a>.<\/p>\n