Featured Roles of women

I've spent a lot of time trying to figure out roles of women in the church.

I know that, Biblically, leadership of men is obviously off-limits to us. I don't have natural leadership potential (I'm very reserved and have bad social skills), so this isn't as much of an issue for me, personally, as it is for other women, whom often try to fight against this clear Biblical mandate.

Yet there is nonetheless lots of debate as to how many other boundaries should be in place for women as well. I've often found the whole topic of roles of women to be very puzzling, and I often get in the habit of thinking my life is of lesser worth or value to God because I'm female. I also think confusion stems from having been exposed to lots of different denominations growing up; I'm amazed at the many differences in opinion there are on this subject.

As for my own history, my parents weren't very strict. I'm naturally tomboyish and nerdy. I love most sports (even though I have some gross motor deficits) and did very well academically. I've since learned this is an alarm in some Christian circles, who think Biblical femininity is June Cleaver vacuuming in pearls (never mind that the pearls likely violate 1 Timothy 2:9), and that only men can like sports and have intellectual logic. In my twenties, I became friends with Reformed Calvinists, who forbade their women to go to college, vote, or have jobs. They followed the interpretations of Doug Phillips, who thought the Bible lent itself to such dogmas and principles. I remember when my father saw some of these people and their women, and he remarked on how timid and frightened the women looked all the time, like they were in cults. John Piper once even wrote about a man who did not allow his wife to go to the bathroom without asking him first:

Some Complementarians Deny Women More Opportunities Than the Bible Does?

Even Piper admitted this was "sick," and Piper is pretty strict himself.

Naturally, this all leads to the question of, what are women allowed to do? The only universal agreement I have seen in Christian circles is we're allowed to be wives and mothers. However, Paul says it's better for a woman to be single in 1 Corinthians 7 so that her mind is set solely on God and not distracted by the needs of others (he doesn't say that it's a sin to be married, but that a woman who does not give herself in marriage "does better"). I aimed to be this way when younger, but the desire for a man was too strong, so I got married.

I'm happy with my marriage, but sometimes it seems like it's too easy for women, and that we don't really do anything important anyway. Men have to do all the work while women can just sit by in the home, take care of it, and help raise children. However, since the husband is the head, he technically does more of the important aspects of raising children anyway, so what role does that leave women? We seem pretty useless since we can't teach. It seems like woman's only use is to perpetuate the species through childbirth, and perhaps tend to practical home and personal needs.

That doesn't seem like much of a life. I think perhaps men can develop the technology in the future to phase out women, reproduce artificially, and have robots do all the housework. There is nothing a woman does that a man cannot already do better. We're pretty expendable, it seems, when you think about it.

I want to believe this is wrong and that we have use, but using strict logic, women's roles seem pretty meaningless and replaceable.

 

Thanks for the thoughtful response.

That is very interesting about conflicts outside the home. I hadn't heard that take on it before, but it makes good sense. I haven't ever had a major conflict in the assembly, but I've had a few outside of it, especially in churches before the Baptist one I'm going to now. My husband is not a believer; I committed myself to him during a time in my life where I wasn't in the faith. This in and of itself has been a source of conflict for my family in some church circles, but the Baptist church I go to now has never made a spectacle of it, and has handled it in what I perceive to be the kindest and most appropriate Biblical manner.

I'm also glad to know women can read and pray, and don't need male intermediaries for every issue. There are some schools of thought that practically teach this, but there is one issue in particular that is difficult for me where I think it would be very inappropriate to seek a male intermediary, and female intermediaries usually don't understand it, either. The more I pray and think about it, the more I think this issue needs to be between me and God alone. It's a stumbling block, and most attempts I've seen to make public sense of it have been disastrous. I'm glad this forum discourages the open discussion and debate of it; not all denominations are this wise, so it's been a huge problem area in the past.

 

Thanks. I totally agree. I cannot fathom that either the modern, feminist, man-hating nonsense -- or the aforementioned Phillipsian thinking that women are property and shouldn't even work as nurses, secretaries, or school teachers -- are the real gospel truth. Both appear to be distortions of what God originally designed, polar opposite extremes of what the Bible actually teaches. Trying to reason with either camp has been fruitless, too, I've learned.

 

I do really like Bradstreet, actually. I think I should have been more specific: these were a particular branch of Calvinists who held to very strong patriarchal views. Doug Phillips proposed such ideas on his Vision Forum site. These Calvinists were ardent supporters of Phillips and the Stay-At-Home Daughters movement. When I asked one of these followers about such views, they said women shouldn't go to college because they need to train at home to be mothers rather than work outside the home (which they viewed as violation of Titus 2, and also as an unnecessary temptation to men in the workplace), and because colleges are too secular and damaging anyway. They did allow for home-based businesses, since those don't tempt men and don't take women out of the home, but that was it. When I inquired about women's high percentages in seemingly honorable professions such as nursing, elementary school teaching, and secretarial work, they replied that just because women were 'naturally' good at those things, doesn't mean God calls them to do them. As for the voting, since the husband was the head, they reasoned that there was thus no such need to vote.

 

Thanks; good points.

Regarding your last sentence, what these Stay-At-Home Daughters folks believed was that the daughters were to be kept at home under protection of their fathers until it was time for marriage, and that they should not be serving their own selfish desires and needs, but those of their father. There were some women in this movement who were in their thirties and still at home tending to home needs (it should be noted that there is frequent overlap between the 'Quiverfull' movement - large families - and strict patriarchy, so the women were kept busy at home by tending to younger siblings, not unlike the Duggar family). With all these demands at home, serving their father and siblings, even if they weren't married, higher education was simply seen as unnecessary, a useless distraction for women who are supposed to be in the home and not getting education even for traditional jobs like nurse, school teacher, secretary, etc.

It should be noted, too, given my earlier remarks, that gotquestions.org -- a fairly Calvinistic site -- points out that there can be excesses with Quiverfull/patriarchy and related movements. They contend (rightfully so, IMO) that the father/husband is the leader of the home, but he should not be regarded as intermediary between family members and God, nor should he be treated as a 'god' of such that needs constant serving (which would be tantamount to idolatry):

What are the Quiverfull and Patriarchy movements?

 

Yes, it was popular among some in the home-schooling segment, I learned. What's ironic is I was largely home-schooled growing up in the 1990s (every year except Kindergarten, 4th, and 7th grade before I started college in 2002), and I never heard of the movement. It seems to have popularized in the early 2000s. My mother used BJU books, and my dad used ED Hirsch books, to assist my education. Pretty standard stuff by comparison. It wasn't until the late 2000s and early 2010s when I became acquainted with these "Vision Forum" people, and learned about their ... unusual way of viewing Christianity and gender roles. It certainly wasn't what I was taught by my parents growing up, or any of the churches we went to.

There certainly is a lot of projecting and poor rationalizing on their part. You are correct that many women want to have jobs to help others, not just to make a career or bring attention to themselves for selfish pursuits. They have this twisted notion that all working women are like the crazy banshee feminists who hate men and want to dominate others. It's so unfair to women who merely want to do useful work assisting other people, but they are lumped in with such groups!

I also tried to point out to them that the father may not always be around, etc., but they would brush that off with "well they still need to help their younger siblings." So yeah, again, always with the "rationalizing."

They definitely had no answers to the Pauline Scriptures which encouraged singleness. They couldn't even address those.

Very glad here that no one seems to subscribe to such peculiar views. Deep down, I knew one could be a devoted Christian and not look at things in this way, but after years of exposure to these kinds of people and all their "reasons" for believing and doing what they did, I still fight against the tendencies and memories of this kind of ... is it too harsh to say "brain-washing"? That's what it seemed like, though.

Whatever the case, I'm glad my family never fell for it. It just goes to show that, even in what seems like orthodox Christendom, we must maintain careful discernment with all our interpersonal associations and ideas.

 

By "preaching," do you mean teaching in the assembly? That would go directly against 1 Timothy 2:12 --

"But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence."

The context here is Paul is writing to Timothy and how things should look in the church. I suppose that a less formal kind of "preaching" could be allowed to women, in particular teaching of other women or children -- but insofar as teaching at a mixed gender church service, that would go against not just "Baptist tradition," but the very Bible itself.

 

Well, that is why I asked the question -- by "preaching," do you mean teaching, or something else? I think it's clear from proper exegesis that Paul didn't forbid women from all speech at church, but he did clearly forbid teaching of men, specifically.