For some time, I’ve been arguing that both complementarians and egalitarians alike have been letting the church down by failing to give proper place to women in the church. For complementarians, the failure has perhaps been more obvious. The focus has been so much on saying “this is what women cannot do” that the result has been they have had little to say about what women can and should do. However, in the same way, egalitarians have perhaps been focused on showing how women can be equal to men, that they too haven’t said so much about what specific contributions women bring to the church as a family.
I think there are a number of reasons for this. First, we have thought primarily in terms of the church as institution with hierarchy rather than as a family and what that family needs. Secondly, we have thought primarily in terms of achieving or protecting status for individuals rather than about what the church needs and the gifts given to it.
This is why I am with increasing frequency talking about the church needs both fathers and mothers. In effect, the elders are the father figures in the extended household or wider clan and tribe. However, if churches are family units, then they need more than father figures. That’s why I think we need to pay a little more attention to Paul’s identification of elders, deacons and women in 1 Timothy 3. If deacons are servants or stewards who assist with the oversight of the household, then if we just have elders and deacons it still feels like the household lacks something. So, it isn’t enough to say that we appoint women as deacons. There seems to me to be a third role, even if we don’t yet have an obvious title for it. There are various women mentioned by Paul in Romans 12 who clearly have a role that is prominent in the church and spiritual, they are more than deacons concerned for the practical well-being of the church.
Then in Titus 2, Paul gives specific teaching concerning mature women in the church. Notice that in 2:2, older men are addressed as “presbutas” from which we get the word “presbyter”. Then in 2:3, we have older women or “presbutidas”, there seems to be a correspondence between the two. Both the older men and older women have similar requirements set on them in terms of character and behaviour, sobriety marks out both. Notice too, that just like the elders of 1 Timothy 3, these women are to teach, though their focus is narrowed down to the younger women.
And so, this is why I’m saying that churches need mothers as well as fathers. The reason why we say that elders are male is not to do with hierarchy, not to restrict but because it describes men with a fatherly relationship to the family of God. So, we also need women to act as mothers. Perhaps if we are looking for a title for the role, it is just that “Church mothers”. We need them in the life of the church, not hidden away at home or in the background, definitely not in the kitchen. We need them involved in shaping the spiritual direction the church, in pastoral care and discipleship.
I believe that more important than attempting to work out structures and hierarchies, more important than debates about ordination and so forth is that we start to recognise the women in our congregations who play this vital role.
Faithroots 