I’m still going to be in and out a bit the next week or so, but let’s move ahead a bit in our discussion of gender. It might help a bit to look at some of the women mentioned in the New Testament.

Romans 16 is an important passage; about one third of the people mentioned in this chapter are women. Phoebe is the first; she was probably the bearer of this letter. She is called a servant or deaconess. It helps to remember that “deacon” and “deaconess” really don’t exist in Greek; the word is servant. But that doesn’t answer the question as to whether Paul uses this term in a technical way. The most likely is yes, that Phoebe was recognized as one of the official church workers. Early church writings show women who served as deaconesses, fulfilling roles that the men found difficult, such as helping with the baptisms of women.

Several of the women in the list are said to have worked hard. We’d like to know exactly what that work involved, but we aren’t told.

One of the most interesting comments in Romans 16 is made about a woman named Junia. Paul says:

“Salute Andronicus and Junia, my kinsmen, and my fellowprisoners, who are of note among the apostles, who also were in Christ before me.” (Romans 16:7, KJV)
“Greet Andronicus and Junias, my relatives who have been in prison with me. They are outstanding among the apostles, and they were in Christ before I was.” (Romans 16:7, NIV)
“Greet Andronicus and Junia, my kinsmen and my fellow prisoners. They are well known to the apostles, and they were in Christ before me. Greet Ampliatus, my beloved in the Lord.” (Romans 16:7–8, ESV)

Those three translations give a pretty good idea of the different ways of reading this passage. The KJV shows the ambiguous nature of the Greek, while the NIV and ESV show the different ways that phrase can be understood. Outside of the New Testament, there’s good evidence of the grammatical use reflected in the ESV, though context would tend to favor the NIV’s view.

Either way, it helps a lot to remember that Paul doesn’t use the word “apostle” in the same way that Luke does. That is, Luke uses the word “apostle” almost exclusively to refer to the Twelve, while Paul often uses it in a broader sense. He uses the term for people other than the Twelve, and even contrasts the terms in this passage from 1 Corinthians 15:

5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.

In my view, Junia was one of the sent, probably along with her husband (Andronicus). Like Priscilla and Aquila, they were probably active in evangelism and the establishment of new churches. That would help explain their imprisonment at this early date.

Women were active in the life of the early church, as they are today, so none of this should be threatening to anyone. We need Phoebes and Junias today as much as ever.

“Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord.” (Ephesians 5:22) That’s an unpopular sentence for today’s world. I wonder if it’s not because we don’t really understand submission.

We have this image of the browbeaten bride trembling before her chest-thumping husband. That may be what the world means by submission, but it’s not what the Bible is talking about.

Some thoughts

• The concept of wives submitting to their husbands arises from the concept of mutual submission that is to be practiced by all Christians. We put others’ interests first, we sacrifice for them, we count them as better than ourselves.
• The concept of submission by wives is tied to the concept of sacrificial love by the husband. Both need to be present for the system to work. If the husband constantly sacrifices without the woman respecting him for it, the man is taken advantage of. If the woman submits to a selfish or unloving husband, she is dominated and subjugated.
• The relationship of the husband to the wife is compared to the relationship between the church and Christ. Paul presents this as a theological concept, not a concession to culture.
• In Corinthians, Paul compares the relationship between man and woman to the relationship between Christ and God. (1 Corinthians 11:3) The submissive relationship is a reflection of the godhead. Christ isn’t presented as inferior to his Father, but he is presented as being in submission to his Father. According to Paul, the submission of Christ to the Father will be a key point in the final triumph of the Kingdom. (1 Corinthians 15:24–28)

As we explore gender roles in the church, we need to remember that male leadership is a consistent biblical theme. It’s not about domination or authoritarianism; it’s about men loving their wives as Christ loves the church and doing their best to lead their families closer to God.

I want to back up a bit. My discussion of the value of wives and mothers led to a lot of criticism, including some comments about how easy it is for men to write such things.

Recently I’ve run across some writings by women on the same subject. These are successful, educated women. I might mention that most don’t agree with me down the line. But they have some things to contribute to our discussion.

Anne-Marie Slaughter wrote “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All” in the July-August edition of The Atlantic. Her bio on the article reads “Anne-Marie Slaughter is a professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton University, and the mother of two teenage boys. She served as the director of policy planning at the State Department from 2009 to 2011.”

Slaughter writes about the difference between the instincts of men and women regarding parenting. She says:

Still, the proposition that women can have high-powered careers as long as their husbands or partners are willing to share the parenting load equally (or disproportionately) assumes that most women will feel as comfortable as men do about being away from their children, as long as their partner is home with them. In my experience, that is simply not the case.
Here I step onto treacherous ground, mined with stereotypes. From years of conversations and observations, however, I’ve come to believe that men and women respond quite differently when problems at home force them to recognize that their absence is hurting a child, or at least that their presence would likely help. I do not believe fathers love their children any less than mothers do, but men do seem more likely to choose their job at a cost to their family, while women seem more likely to choose their family at a cost to their job.

I know that many will argue that this is merely a reflection of what society has imposed on women, but Slaughter isn’t so sure. She notes:

Many factors determine this choice, of course. Men are still socialized to believe that their primary family obligation is to be the breadwinner; women, to believe that their primary family obligation is to be the caregiver. But it may be more than that. When I described the choice between my children and my job to Senator Jeanne Shaheen, she said exactly what I felt: “There’s really no choice.” She wasn’t referring to social expectations, but to a maternal imperative felt so deeply that the “choice” is reflexive.

In March of this year, Lisa Miller wrote something similar in New York Magazine in the article “The Feminist Housewife: Can Women Have It All By Choosing To Stay Home?” She observes:

Meanwhile, what was once feminist blasphemy is now conventional wisdom: Generally speaking, mothers instinctively want to devote themselves to home more than fathers do. (Even Sandberg admits it. “Are there characteristics inherent in sex differences that make women more nurturing and men more assertive?” she asks. “Quite possibly.”) If feminism is not only about creating an equitable society but also a means to fulfillment for individual women, and if the rewards of working are insufficient and uncertain, while the tug of motherhood is inexorable, then a new calculus can take hold: For some women, the solution to resolving the long-running tensions between work and life is not more parent-friendly offices or savvier career moves but the full embrace of domesticity.

She references Slaughter’s experience, saying “Even Anne-Marie Slaughter would say that her maternal drive ultimately superseded her professional one, which is why she was unable to achieve more in her huge State Department job.”

Another relevant article is “No Happy Harmony” by Elizabeth Corey which appeared in October’s First Things. Corey echoes the other articles when she writes:

I’ve assumed throughout that women possess a desire to care for children that they feel more strongly than men do. Many may balk at this, although I’m often struck by how widespread my presumption is among conservatives and liberals alike. What else could give Slaughter, Spar, and Sandberg the confidence that increased political power for women will make for a more family-friendly economy?

The observation that women, as a group, undoubtedly have more of the “nurturing” impulse than men do (stay-at-home dads in New York City and Portland notwithstanding) does not yield the conclusion that sex alone should determine a woman’s course of life (what I call “gender determinism”). It does imply, however, that we cannot come to terms with the difficulties women face in the present day until we consider the way in which we feel the competing inclinations in our own souls.

Angela Miceli wrote something similar in this month’s Public Discourse from the Witherspoon Institute. In her article “Authentic Feminine Excellence” she notes:

Corey fails to acknowledge that we actually achieve our excellences through relationships. Is not the very gift of oneself to another a means of achieving a kind of excellence? Perhaps there is a unique, distinctly feminine excellence to be discovered—one that witnesses to the great paradox that all human persons reach their highest excellence through self-gift.
Perhaps we have not adequately explored this idea of a feminine excellence because of accusations of being “gender essentialists.” To be a gender essentialist is considered by most academics to be a great insult. However, I see it as plain common sense: men and women are different. They are not the same. Why, then, should we treat their pursuit of excellence as identical? With respect to professional success, research shows that even though the proportion of women in the workforce has increased, women are still more likely than men to adjust their work schedules to fit the needs of their families.

So even if you don’t like my assertion that men and women respond differently to the call of parenthood, many women writers are saying the same. They also present evidence to back my claim that families tend to be happier when women are given the freedom to lead in this area. Micelli reports:

That same year, an American sociologist published a paper describing similar results. Predictors of marital unhappiness, found Bradford Wilcox at the University of Virginia, included wives who earned a large share of household income and wives who perceived the division of labor at home as unfair. Predictors of marital happiness were couples who shared a commitment to the institutional idea of marriage and couples who went to religious services together. “Our findings suggest,” he wrote, “that increased departures from a male-breadwinning-female-homemaking model may also account for declines in marital quality, insofar as men and women continue to tacitly value gendered patterns of behavior in marriage.” It’s an idea that thrives especially in conservative religious circles: The things that specific men and women may selfishly want for themselves (sex, money, status, notoriety) must for the good of the family be put aside.

She also observes:

In researching her 2010 book The Unfinished Revolution: Coming of Age in a New Era of Gender, Work and Family, New York University sociologist Kathleen Gerson found that, in spite of all the gains young women have made, about a quarter say they would choose a traditional domestic arrangement over the independence that comes with a career, believing not just “that only a parent can provide an acceptable level of care” but also that “they are the only parent available for the job.”

Corey sees an inherent clash between the quest for identity and fulfillment outside the home and the quest for excellence in the home. She asserts:

Thus they ask a question at the forefront of popular literature about women and work: How can ­women “balance” professional interests and family? Like countless other women, I’ve had to juggle my obligations as a mother and wife with the demands first of graduate study and then of teaching and scholarship. But I’ve slowly come to realize that this quest for balance, the desire to reconcile radically conflicting demands, is misguided. Work and family evoke from us two distinct modes of being and of relation to others. The conflicts between these modes cannot, if we are honest with ourselves, be wished away or ignored.

She also observes:

Yet this is precisely where such literature fails. It presents the problem as one that admits of solution primarily through political or social reform. But the problem Slaughter, Spar, and Sandberg describe is not at root sociopolitical. It is rather that the personal qualities required by professional work are directly opposed to the qualities that childrearing demands. They are fundamentally different existential orientations, and the conflict between them is permanent.

One final thought from Miceli is worth consideration. It’s certainly something I hadn’t thought of. She points out:

But perhaps our consideration of authentic feminine excellence has been stifled by something else, the discussion of which is curiously missing in Corey’s article: contraception. With such ready access and widespread use of contraception, women are often tacitly, and sometimes quite explicitly, expected to delay childbearing or forgo it altogether in order to advance their education or their career.
Contraception disrupts the order of marriage, sex, and childrearing. As a result, women often feel tremendous pressure from employers, colleagues, doctors, neighbors, and sometimes even their own friends and family members regarding the number of children they ought to have and when they should have them. If a woman should venture to have more than the respectable one boy and one girl, she is often lectured about the various contraceptive measures she should take to prevent such an “irresponsible” thing from happening again.

Being a wife and mother does not disqualify a woman from being active in the church. However, it’s my belief that God has prepared men and women for different tasks and that our spiritual gifts do not negate those differences.

OK, time to make a totally different group of people angry. Let me tell you some of the ways that I know that my views on gender differ from the traditional view. I’ll do it by quickly reviewing some of the main texts that usually come up in these discussions:

• I think that 1 Corinthians 11, where it talks about head coverings for women who pray and prophesy, is talking about a public setting. If not, why would they need the head coverings? The whole discussion seems to suppose a non-private context. I think that women in the first century prayed and prophesied in church, with full apostolic approval. I have no problem with women praying in public. What about prophesying? I think that’s most closely related to Scripture reading in today’s church, though some would interpret it more broadly.
• I think the “keep silent” passage in 1 Corinthians 14 related to a specific problem in the church in Corinth. Just as tongue speakers are told to keep silent and prophets are told to keep silent, the women who were interrupting with questions (to their husbands?) were told to be silent. Just as the prophet is reminded that his spirit is hupotasso, under obedience, so the woman is to practice hupotasso. The passage very much fits with the context, and that context is dealing with specific problems.
• I think that 1 Timothy 2 tells men to pray instead of arguing. It doesn’t say for men to pray instead of women praying.
• I also understand 1 Timothy 2 to speak of women learning in quietness (same word used in verse 2 of that chapter), not silence.
• I believe that 1 Timothy 3 allows for deaconesses in the church.
• I think that the church needs to emphasize the ministry of widows (1 Timothy 5) in the church as much as we do that of deacons/deaconesses.

OK, that’s a start. I plan to explore several of these ideas more, but I wanted to further reveal my views before we progress.