Can you help? 80% of evangelicals are egalitarian???

[annsni]

Someone quoted this on another site (where we've done the whole 'woman pastor thing for 16 pages thus far) and I can't find where that statement is - or something to counter it. Can you help me? I don't believe that 80% of Bible believing Christians believe that way - especially that women can be pastors.

Ann

 

[Pipedude]

Since 75% of statistics are made up on the spot, I think you have little to worry about.

 

[thjplgvp]

PipeDude said, "Since 75% of statistics are made up on the spot, I think you have little to worry about."

:laugh: :laugh: :laugh: raise:

 

[Marcia]

I don't know if it's 80% or not, but when you realize that among evangelicals (which more and more means very little as far as I can tell), only the So. Baptists, the PCA, Orthodox Presbyterian, and maybe the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod do not ordain woman pastors. This doesn't include some of the So. Baptist churches that do it anyway - I've known some. (Not sure how long they stay in the So. Baptist convention this way).

I'm maybe missing some denominations but I can't think of any. So that means all others outside those few (and I'm not positive about Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, but I think they don't ordain women) ordain women. That's a lot.

 

[Joseph M. Smith]

I cannot imagine how such a statistic could be developed, since both terms, evangelical and egalitarian, are very broad. Surely egalitarian means more than the ordination of women; and surely evangelical means more than reading the Bible literally. As the old fella said when he was asked for directions, "You can't get there from here!"

 

[bapmom]

Ann,

don't let yourself get caught by their statistics-quoting. Go back to the bigger picture. Why are they giving you that statistic? Are they trying to say that if the majority believes it than it must be right? The Bible counters that broader concept in several places......"let every man be a liar, but God be true"......I don't think I got it exactly right, but it's close.

IMO, your counterpoint should be that it doesn't matter how many people believe that way. What the Bible says about it trumps all statistics. Then give Bible verses about why you believe what you are saying.

 

[annsni]

Thanks Bapmom! I keep going back and forth - from just wanting to wash my hands of them and then going back and posting again. They are of the camp that Paul was writing to a certain church and his words to them are not words for us to follow today. They still say that they believe all Scripture is inspired by God but that this is not telling us that women are not to be pastors but that in that particular church, for that particular time, that's what he was saying (I keep bringing up that it's more than one church and such but they haven't commented on that yet). It's been an interesting discussion - one that I've learned with and had fun with but I wanted to comment on that statistic but I couldn't even find it! Honestly, who came up with that statistic and how can we be sure that those 'evangelicals' are truly saved believers? I know that so many churches have gone by the way of women pastors but I feel that Scripture clearly teaches against it.

Oh well - the discussion goes on! LOL!

Annie

 

[Marcia]

Hi, Annie,

Maybe you should ask whoever posted that statistic where they got it from. Then you could make the point that bapmom advises, that even if a majority have that view, that doesn't make it right.

You can ask them this: How can the Bible say that a man is to be the spiritual head of the home and yet we can have women who are spiritual heads in the church?

If what Paul said was just cultural for that time, why not point out that then we could say the passages against homosexuality are just cultural as well. Where is the line drawn? I think cultural issues are clear from the context, and the teaching on women is not one of them.

In fact, I've heard somewhere that early Christianity treated women with much more equality than the surrounding culture. You might want to check into that. So not having woman pastors is not a restriction of early Christianity but results from the biblical role and model given in scripture.

 

[Marcia]

Annie, here are some good links for you on this issue:

This is an article by Ron Rhodes about this issue:
http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/cri/cri-jrnl/web/crj0136a.html

Maybe you know about this one, but here's a complementarian site with loads of info and articles
http://www.cbmw.org/

Here's their page with 50 crucial questions on the gender issue in the church
http://www.cbmw.org/questions/

 

[bapmom]

also, if it was just to that church, for that time, in that culture, than why did Paul cite the creation order of Adam and Eve as part of his reasoning? Adam and Eve were far out of Paul's own culture and time even back then.

 

[annsni]

Oh, trust me! I've given all of the arguments! LOL! They say that just because Adam was created first doesn't mean that he's in charge of Eve or better than her. But again, Paul was writing to a particular church for a particular reason (something about the uneducated women trying to take over the church or something....) and we can't take what Paul writes to them as words for us today (well, then why is it in the Bible???)

UGH!! I kind of gave up. They talk round and round and unfortunately, one of them is a woman pastor so I need to be careful otherwise it looks like I'm attacking her (which I'm not but I also don't agree that she was called to be a pastor - a teacher, maybe but not a pastor since it's not in God's design)! I wish I could give you guys the link to read the whole thing but I checked - it's private and you need to have a certain number of posts to be able to see it. Trust me - it's sad.

Annie

 

[bapmom]

I know, Ive been in these discussions before too. They go round and round. Oftentimes these ladies are just set in their mind and will not be convinced.

I talked to one girl who was convinced that she was called to be a pastor, but when we really talked she believed that God had called her to minister to people. In her mind she had allowed "pastor" to be the only way of ministering to others, so of course she had to try to get around all those passages. She could not see that ministering to others takes many forms, and one does not have to have the pastorate of a church in order to be ministering to people.

 

[annsni]

Yep - exactly! If they came to our church, they'd see MANY women doing lots of things - not just secretaries or singing in the choir (not that we have one! LOL!) We have numerous women on staff in leadership/ministry roles but they're just not a pastor and not in authority over men. More than 1/2 our staff is women (we have a staff of 42) and there's no way the church could function without them so it's not like we're relegating women to the pews in complete silence!

What's sad is that there is true blessing in following God's ways. I've seen it and experienced it.

Annie