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.

Agree. But even if God had said that, a church service isn't necessarily the place to do that. As others have said, the context of this is more to stop unnecessary chatter / interruptions during a service, not to stop women speaking per se ever again.

Nfi type churches often have elders as leaders or other new forms of church.

@greyinganddecaying yes!!! Its bizarre isnt it! Loud music band/worship, lots of professionals and families looking shiny and yet funny views about women. It is annodd mix. (Btw did you see the amazing episode in Rev with the milkshake bar( i think!) With the spoof on htb type young trendies?)

"it's shameful for a woman to speak on church" does seem like he saying they should never speak in church

If that were true the churches that prevent women from leading should also be preventing them from speaking at all but we all know that's not what it means.

I believe the word used for "speak" there actually means "to chatter" or "to prattle".
"It's shameful for women to prattle on amongst themselves and prevent others from hearing the teaching" is a much more likely interpretation.

" I believe the word used for "speak" there actually means "to chatter" or "to prattle".
"It's shameful for women to prattle on amongst themselves and prevent others from hearing the teaching" is a much more likely interpretation."

How misogynistic.

I go to a baptist church and it's nothing like how you describe.

First of all we are a tiny congregation who can't currently afford a pastor. So the preaching is organised by one of the members (it happens to be my husband who has a theology degree so he's got dead of what to do, but he's not one of the leaders)

We have a leadership team of 5. 3 men and 2 women. I'm one of the women. I act as church secretary (not like receptionist style secretary, more like secretary of a company. I'm in charge of correspondence and meetings including chairing, minuting and scheduling). We have a treasurer who does a huge amount more of the day to day running than I do, We oversee the preaching, children's work, our (much bigger than you'd think for a church of our size) refugee and anti-poverty project.

We employ several people, mainly women, to help administer our outreach. Our project lead is a 70 year old woman (who is a volunteer).

In my experience in Scotland, Baptist churches are mainly egalitarian. The people I know who are baptists wouldn't be members otherwise!

Please explain how.

Because it implies that men aren't "prattlers" or wouldn't talk amongst themselves etc. As if by being a women makes you automatically disrespectful.

If the passage mentioned people rather than women, it would be fine. But it doesn't.

But no, a book written by a man hundreds of years ago, couldn't possibly be misogynistic 🙄

Exactly 00100001. Dismissing women's words as "prattling". Women struggle to be heard the world over and the church sets the tone on this.
There is much evidence to show it was the female of our species that developed the spoken word.
Women are told that their words are pointless, have no power, reduced to "tittle tattle" or "gossiping."
Womens words are some of the most powerful in society, the words of love, caring, sharing , healing-I would suggest far more important that the vile rantings of some clergyman with bible constipation.

Sit down with the church leadership, open the Bible and ask them how they came to this decision. Lets God's word have the final say. Reverence for God and his word should override our own opinions.

Well, if you don't believe the Bible has any authority because it was written by men thousands of years ago, no one will force you to agree with it. But Christians believe that the Bible is God's final word, and that Paul, who wrote the book you have quoted, was an apostle to the Gentiles and therefore his words are as authoritative as those of the gospel writers.

Reverence for God and his word should override our own opinions.

Very scary.

I agree with sitting down with leadership to discuss it- its useful to find out their opinions and share your own when you are part of a community- and I agree that we should hold God in reverence and awe.

However, I would dispute that all Christians revere the bible, my tradition doesn't. I see it as God's holy word written for us as guidance and to help us, as well as written for the culture of the time, but not that we should leave our opinions or intellect at the door when we open it.

There are many ways to interpret it, and it is impossible to find a consensus that also interprets it exactly the way it was intended at the time. We have millenia of tradition to draw on, the culture at the time to consider, as well as the format and intended meaning/ reason for the part of the bible we are reading. Plus our own cultural views which we will, by nature, impose on our reading.

Which is how you can end up with two people reading the same passage and reaching opposite conclusions for eg with women in leadership or not.

It's not about leaving opinions and intellect at the door. Rather, our opinions and intellect should be used to try and understand the author's intent as thoroughly and deeply as possible, rather than simply overriding the Word because we don't like or agree with it. I do disagree with you about not revering the Word, though. A Christian is someone who lives by God's word, and the Bible holds words of life. If we don't listen to it we are spiritually dead.

This is really a core part of Christianity. That all humans have rejected God's good rule and design, that we utterly fail to rule ourselves, society and the world, but that God in his great love sent his son to be a propitiation for our sins, so that we can be forgiven and enjoy eternal life and peace in an intimate relationship with our Creator, not because of our own efforts, but thanks to his grace and kindness. Christians do not believe that we should "listen to our heart" because Jesus described the human heart like this "For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander". God's word is where we change and renew our thinking, rather than looking to the world.

I can see where you are coming from, and I have a lot of Christian friends who would agree with you about the Bible- sola scripture etc. However, while I believe it is God's word, inspired by him over the ages, I don't think that reading it/ following it as a rulebook is neccessary for being a follower of Christ. It can be helpful, and if it is, then brilliant. I personally find it helpful and inspiring, and I enjoy reading and studying it. However, to me a Christian is someone who believes in Christs birth, death and resurrection, and believes in the Trinity as part of that. The Bible is a helpful tool but not essential for faith, as otherwise we would have to concede that all the people who had no access to the Bible in the past, or who have no access now (the persecuted church in various countries overseas for example, where to have a bible means death) are all spiritually dead and have no ability to know God or to know Christ.

This isn't what I meant or indeed what the author meant AT ALL. If you'd read the thread, I have actually addressed this further up the thread.

This is a quote from a letter. The letter was written by a well respected and well loved man who had trained and mentored the leaders of the church he was writing to. They had written to him asking for help with specific situations that had arisen since the founding of the church. Unfortunately, we do not have the letter that the Corinthians wrote, only Paul's reply.

It is, however, thought by many well educated and qualified Biblical scholars that the situation the Corinthian church had was that for the first time ever, women were allowed to attend church and access every bit of teaching that the men were. This was revolutionary.

Of course, having never been allowed to attend services like this before the women had less knowledge and understanding of the teaching and even less of the etiquette of a service. It is thought that these women were very excited to be there and keen to learn so were calling out, asking questions of those they were sitting with and generally disrupting the service.

If Paul were "a product of his time" he might have said "too much hassle. Don't let the women in". He didn't. He told the church to continue to allow the women to attend but encouraged the leaders to teach the women how to behave in a service - that is, like the men, they should be quiet, absorb the teaching, and save their questions to the end so that other learners are not disturbed. He told the women it was okay to ask questions and told the husbands that they should answer those questions. This was the antithesis of attitudes at the time.

The letter was written in Greek. We have to remember and respect that and not assume that our English translations are sufficient to convey context and the original meanings of the words.

But how do we know about Christ's birth, death and resurrection? Through the Word.

And by "listening to his Word", I mean accepting the gospel, which all of the Bible points to

That is, the two aren't mutually exclusive

What denomination?

I couldn’t be apart of this group

So it okay for us to reinterpret what was meant with regards to women being silent. Oh actually no, it doesn't mean that, just in the context of when it was written they actually just meant that women should ask questions later.

But no it's absolutely fact and impossible to reinterpret what was meant by women can't be elders. It must mean exactly that and nothing else?

Everything will be interpreted by the individual when we look at reading something - simply because perceptions are individual.

We can deepen our range of perceptions by learning about historical and cultural contexts, the way the language was translated, looking at different schools of thought etc

IMO it all has a bearing on how to interpret this passage. Bottom line, though is Do I want to be interrupting in the middle of a church service (beyond absolute emergencies)? Erm, no. So I wouldn't be wanting to chat through it anyway. The elders thing? Well culture will have had a lot of bearing on that. Culture takes time to change. I tend to look for the good I can take from an experience and discard or put the rest 'on hold' until more information makes it clearer. There are a lot of challenging aspects to the whole of society dwelling on problems and complaining about them doesn't help solve them. If I'm not an elder but had something to say I would just tell everyone on a more informal basis. Action taken, simple.

And I think there are a lot of church traditions and structures which are cultural rather than strictly speaking spiritual. I believe they were put in place in order to aid focus on worship however if they are overly restrictive they can become stifling and obstructive to someone's individual spiritual growth. The rules are then magnified and emphasised rather than worship which is at best unfortunate and at worst harmful. Unity is supposed to be an aim within the Christian church which can't be achieved by any attempt to merely stamp out any individuality. I believe unity is better achieved by respecting and celebrating what is good in others even and especially if that is different to what you have previously have had experience of.

"cultural rather than spiritual".
I have heard that argument in relation to the bile condoning slavery.
Slavery and misogyny have always been wrong- and if god is so all knowing he would have known that- not even a heads up in the bible.