Churches who don’t allow women to be elders

[TheBeautifulMoors]

We’ve recently joined a new church and my main niggle initially was that it’s not really diverse.

Then I found out that people who haven’t yet been baptised cannot take communion.

However, my biggest concern now is that women are not allowed to be elders.
Apparently, this is what the “New Testament” teaches us”. I grew up in a Methodist church and my mum was one of the elders. I probably shouldn’t be surprised but I really am.

Their children/youth programme is very good and they guide the children well. There are also quite a lot of children, which isn’t that common in many churches today.

Do you attend a church with this belief? Or would this out you off?

I prayed about the communion bit and was ready to let that go because DC can have communion at home but I don’t know if I want DD growing up in a church where women can’t be elders, even though I have no intention at all of becoming one.

I just wrote a really long message on this and MN crashed just at the point of posting. 🙄

Gist was that I attended a church like this as a teenager and young graduate - big, thriving, trendy and very wealthy, with a congregation of young professionals and families. I wasn’t raised a Christian, so it took a while to dawn on me that the overarching culture was one of deep misogyny, and also homophobia. The exclusively male elders preached and made all the important spiritual, financial and logistical decisions, while the women did most of the donkey work, arranged cake sales and reared children (although the Children’s Minister was, of course, a man).

I very much agree with @ItWillBeOkHonestly in that the culture did indeed extend to how the sexes were viewed and treated in a more general sense. The whole ethos was very much one of traditional gender roles, albeit with a 21st century ‘gloss’ to it. So both sexes were encouraged to go to university, but whereas abstinence and chastity were strongly encouraged among the girls, with the boys there was a bit of an implicit ‘go and sow your wild oats’ thing going on. Then there was a lot of young marriage at 21 or 22, with the girls generally giving up work after a few years to raise children while the husband became the sole breadwinner - so all very conservative and patriarchal in general.

Nowadays I wouldn’t touch that (or any other evangelical church) with a barge pole. After a long break, where I was very disillusioned with all organised religion, I’ve just started attending a local, pretty ‘old school’ C of E church that’s linked to my DC’s school. Much to my surprise it’s been a refreshing change - so much more welcoming, tolerant and inclusive than the evangelical church (the vicar is openly gay), and deeply focused on community engagement and charity work, whereas my last church was obsessed with the vagaries of theology and raising funds for itself. It is pragmatic and practical where the evangelical one was ideological, and (so far) all the better for it.

totally normal to have to be baptised to take communion.

And also what @LifeInsideMyhead said - this stuff does indeed tend to run deep, pervading the entire church culture, and now I have my own DD there is no way I would want her raised in such a misogynistic environment, however subtle and implicit the misogyny was.

There was much lip service paid in my previous church to the whole ‘equally but differently gifted’ thing, but in practice, and where it truly mattered, it was always the men calling the shots, while the women were kept busy with cake sales, childcare and ‘outreach’ coffee mornings. Not a model I want for my own daughter.

I remember as a teen at church being quite outraged when a (very highly regarded) visiting speaker talked about serving your husband, making sure you were meeting his needs, treating him as you would treat Jesus. But there didn't seem to be an reciprocal arrangement for the wife.
Later when I went to a different church I met a couple like this - the husband was to be left in a quiet room for an hour when he got home from work, to rest and recuperate from his day while hi wife attended his needs, and looked after 3 young children. He didn't do things like bathtime "because he didn't want to". Every time she talked about their home life and how he was the Head of the family it made me really depressed.

How outdated and depressing. My own church - the Church of Scotland - has had women priests since the 1960s, two female Moderators (the national head of the church) and my last minister was actually a lesbian, who has just been appointed as Chaplain in Ordinary to HM the Queen in Scotland!
OP, there are plenty of Christian denominations that don’t treat women as second class citizens. I suggest you shop around.

it is normal to require baptism before communion in many many churches ( catholic orthodox presbyterians baptists etc etc)
Baptist and some free churches hold the believer's baptism position which means you need to be baptised as a believer not by your parents so your infant baptoism is not considered valid, most baptist churches require church members to be baptised as believers but would generally allow people from other denominations that were baptised as a child to take communion,
there are a small number of strict baptists that restrict communion to those baptised as believers
I would agree with @ItWillBeOkHonestly above that the position on females in leadership roles can vary depending on youer exegensis of original texts it is not clear cut, any more than it is clear cut over the paedo baptist versus infant baptism both can be justified biblically and both have problems from the text

I have been wrestling with similar recently, in regards to women in leadership. Our current church, when we joined, was (and still is) part of a denomination which excludes women from formal leadership. But, at the time, the pastors were very pro women, and women would lead things "unofficially"- speak from the stage, lead worship alone, lead projects etc. But that pastor has left and we have a new one who is very traditional, believes women should not be in leadership, and that wives should submit to their husbands etc, as the previous poster said about complementarianism. He has changed things so that women don't lead anything alone, there is always a man "in charge". As a result, I am very seriously considering leaving this church for another local one- the only thing keeping me there at the moment is the friendships I have made.

Actually, writing that down has made me realise- I have only been 2x in 6 months to an actual service. And I think I need to find another church. This, it turns out, is a dealbreaker for me, especially as a woman with daughters. Thank you for starting the thread @TheBeautifulMoors , because it has made me realise that my current church is not for me and that I need to find a new spiritual home. I dont think it has been "home" for at least a year now, maybe more.

Our church has a female worship leader and a female treasurer but the elders have to be men. Women aren't inferior, they have different roles. A few people have said that the Bible says wives submit to husbands, but are cutting that verse short- it also says 'husbands love your wives as Christ loves the church'.

Calm down a minute, will you?

Who is to say what’s “normal”? I have been baptised for a relatively ( to my age) long time so I can take it. I just don’t know if I want to take communion among brethren whose beliefs in this area are not in line with mine.

Those are my exact thoughts on communion too.

@TheBeautifulMoors is this Plymouth Brethren by any chance?

There are a lot of young people. There are people with young families and they also have a youth ministry with students.

A few people have said that the Bible says wives submit to husbands, but are cutting that verse short- it also says 'husbands love your wives as Christ loves the church'.

I think the difficulty with this is there are less practical examples of what it means.
Submit to your husband is often meant to mean he is head of the family, makes decisions, has the final say on things, is "served" by his wife....but there are very few examples how he is meant to behave in regard to his wife.

Well, it's also biblical to sacrifice your first child to god. as in LITERAL sacrifice, but it's been interpreted to mean something different, as it's rather inconvenient to kill your first born child.

aslo, slaves, they're good...

@ItWillBeOkHonestly thank you, that’s where I am, currently, hence using “apparently” in my OP.

As I said, I grew up in the Methodist church and saw many female reverends. Both of my parents were elders in the church so this is in conflict to how I’ve always viewed the roles of men in women in church.

I mean not a single woman covers her head in the church either and that’s ‘Biblical’, isn’t it?

i have. Many times.

Its sad to see people are still caught up in this.😔

Interesting that you mention putting scripture back into original context. Some (E) say that the original Greek letter from Paul to Timothy refers to the older women in a word which translates as ‘women elders’.

Ooooh, that's interesting! I haven't heard that interpretation of that word. I will look into that! Thank you!

I was referring to 1 Timothy 2:11-12 - the usual "clobber" verses.

The word that's often translated as "silent" actually means "tranquility". So "women should learn in silence" becomes "women should learn in tranquility" which gives a very different picture, doesn't it?

And the proceeding verse which says "I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man" has so very many different possible translations! It could easily be reinterpreted as "I do not permit a woman to admonish or domineer her husband".

I have heard that there was a goddess worshipped locally and the temple and worship were led by women. It would not be unreasonable to think that Paul was writing to guide Timothy in how to handle conflicts as these women converted to Christianity and then tried to assume control of the church and run it like their temple.

Basically, we cannot know for certain unless the LETTER THAT PAUL WAS REPLYING TO (People seem to forget that Timothy was requesting Paul's help on a specific issue) is found and we can read it.

Until then, I take Paul's lived example of honouring and naming women in leadership (Phoebe, Junia) and Jesus' own example of teaching and raising up women (Mary of Magdala, Joanna the wife of Chuza, Salome)

If God is still worried about this stuff she needs to have word with herself, the World is going to hell in a handcart!
Maybe dump the sexism and listen to a few prayers, do something about wars or pestilence or starvation etc. ?

That's another point. These churches often seem to view God as male, rather than male and female representing God's characteristics which is another very damaging trait imo.

The big issue for me is that some of these churches take the C viewpoint but then very quickly add their own 'extras'. For example, I read an essay from one church group that said women are not allowed to exercise authority over men, but if they were organising a social event, they WERE allowed to tell a man where to put the tables or the food etc. I mean, come on, that's not 'biblical teaching' that's just good old-fashioned gender stereotyped nonsense.

The other issue I have with the C view is that it's only women who are limited. This viewpoint teaches that men and women have 'different roles' but basically men can do anything, it's just women who are denied access to some roles. Ultimately I go back to the Genesis 1 story where God created man and woman and he gave them both authority to rule. Gender roles didn't enter the picture until after sin became a thing. My view is that God is far more interested in the state of our hearts than he is in our biological sex.

Why are you surprised? Most churches/denominations ( I know that there are many progressive church’s where woman are leaders and preachers etc, but that’s still in the minority) are outdated patriarchal and chauvinistic institutions run by men for men, where women are not seen to be equal to men. The bible is jam packed with this kind of thing. Wouldn’t step a foot into the church you describe and definitely wouldn’t allow my children to experience such outdated nonsense.

I grew up in churches like this and always thought it was unfair that women 'weren't allowed' to do certain things 'because the Bible'.... And there were women who were more pastoral, more intelligent, better teachers etc than some of the men, but weren't allowed to fully exercise those gifts 'because the Bible'.

I wouldn't go to a church like that again today - no way. I go to a CofE church now which recently had a female curate and has a female reader.