Christianity | Sexism

Why Women Are Being Ousted from Church Leadership

Stop blaming your sexism, racism, bigotry, and hatred on God

Women Consoling with a Woman Pastor | Photo by Photo Pavel Danilyuk via Pexels

We need you “working in our churches… We just don’t need you to be the pastors of our churches.”

This statement is one of the more recent inflammatory comments made by a sexist male church leader.

The largest Protestant denomination in America recently voted to restrict the role of women in ministry by removing women from church leadership.

Rather than getting bogged down with theological questions concerning the merit (or lack thereof) of this decision, I want to spend our brief time together pondering a different question: “What do our beliefs say about us”?

Women are not being ousted from church leadership because God has a problem with their leadership. Their ouster says far more about the men leading the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) than it does about God.

This decision has nothing to do with God

Those supporting the restriction of female leadership in the church claim to uphold God’s will. They argue that the Bible represents the literal “Word of God” and prohibits women from having authority over men (1 Timothy). Therefore, preventing women from being church leaders fulfills the will of God. However, the decision to restrict female leadership has nothing to do with God.

To prevent their beliefs from being interrogated, Christians often convey their beliefs within a theological framework and claim those beliefs represent the will of God.

It is impossible to resolve arguments regarding what God wants (or doesn’t want) because such arguments are based on a premise that can never be proven. It is impossible to prove what God wants or doesn’t want. We can’t even prove the existence of God. Because of this, we often invoke a warped understanding of “faith” where faith gets employed to promote oppression.

When we hide behind the notion of “faith” (i.e. belief in God and beliefs regarding what God wants), we deflect the conversation away from examining the merits, implications, and ramifications of our beliefs. Claiming that a belief represents the will of God allows us to ignore or disregard the ramification of said beliefs.

The ramifications of our beliefs become irrelevant because we invoke the “mystery” of God’s ways and claim that “God’s ways are not like our ways” and “God’s thoughts are not like our thoughts” and we simply have to accept God’s ways based on faith.

Excuse my French, but that’s simply a pile of bull shit (I started to write “B.S.” but I really want our minds to read and internally say, “bull shit”).

This decision has nothing to do with Scripture

Southern Baptists who oppose women’s leadership in church argue that the Bible says women cannot teach men or have authority over them. In February 2023, the SBC, which lists 13 million members and 47,000 churches, expelled 5 of its churches from the SBC. The churches included the denomination’s largest and most prominent church, Saddleback Church in Southern California. The churches were expelled because they had installed women as “pastors.”

In an effort to purge women from church leadership, SBC delegates voted for an amendment stating churches must have “only men as any kind of pastor or elder as qualified by Scripture.” The opposition to women’s leadership, however, is not “qualified by Scripture,” and it never has been.

An evangelical marine who was a delegate at the convention declared that America needs “real men” and railed against “all this trans stuff.” He received great applause from the audience. He went on to say, “They are trying to make sissies out of our boys, and they are trying to make boys out of our girls.”

His comments show that his opposition has NOTHING to do with scripture and everything to do with his own beliefs and convictions. While the Bible has more than its fair share of scriptures promoting men’s leadership over women’s leadership, it also provides evidence of several women leaders in the early Christian community.

People, therefore, need to take responsibility for their sexist, racist, and bigoted beliefs and stop attributing such beliefs to God and the Bible.

On June 14, 2018, the then Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, defended the Trump administration’s policy of separating immigrant children from their families at the border by referencing the New Testament. Sessions said:

I would cite you to the Apostle Paul and his clear and wise command in Romans 13… to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained them for the purpose of order.

By appealing to “the purpose of order,” Sessions invoked the argument made by 18th-century Loyalists who opposed the American Revolution and all resistance to Britain. Loyalists taught unconditional submission to British governance as a way of preserving law and order. Patriots, on the other hand, did not believe the Bible supported submission to evil or tyrannous authorities that violated God’s moral law.

After the American Revolution, Patriots — who originally opposed the Loyalist position of unconditional submission — quickly adopted the position by demanding unconditional submission to America’s new colonial government.

While Patriots fought for “freedom” from British governance, Romans 13 became the Patriots’ lynchpin for denying freedom to enslaved black people. It served as a basis for enforcing the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 which gave teeth to a provision in the U.S. Constitution requiring any individual who had escaped enslavement to be returned to slavery.

More than 160 years later — in 2016 — Romans 13 was given as a reason why innocent black people should stop resisting when they are wrongfully accosted by police. In an attempt to disparage the Black Lives Matter movement, a Christian pastor from Dallas, TX asserted,

The New Testament says in Romans 13:4 that law enforcement officers are ministers of God sent by God to punish evildoers.

Two years later, the U.S. Attorney General used the same passage to defend a policy of separating immigrant children from their families at the U.S. southern border. The use of scripture to defend sexism, racism, bigotry, and all other forms of hatred has nothing to do with God or the Bible and everything to do with us.

This decision is all about who we are

Religious beliefs and belief systems are social constructs that say far more about us than they do about the “gods” we claim to accept or reject. Unlike the dogmatic and argumentative Professor Radisson in the Christian movie “God’s Not Dead,” I am making no particular claim about the existence or non-existence of God. Instead, I am suggesting that regardless of the existence or non-existence of God, we as human beings have to take responsibility for our beliefs and recognize and acknowledge what our beliefs say about us.

As a college professor of religion, I often encounter people who make comments, like “The Bible says X…” or “The Bible says Y…” Most of the time, however, they are rarely quoting the Bible. Instead, they’re giving their interpretation of the Bible (even when we quote the Bible we are still engaged in an act of interpretation).

A perfect example is when people say, “The Bible says, ‘accepting Jesus as Lord and Savior is the only way to heaven and eternal life with God.’” When I ask, “Where does the Bible say this?” they often quote John 14:6.

When I respond, “That verse does not say, “Accepting Jesus as Lord and Savior is the only way to heaven...” they will usually ask me, “What does it say then?” I typically respond, “It says, ‘Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”’” They will then often respond, “Okay, sure… but what does it mean?” It is at this point I emphasize the fact that we are now engaging in the process of “constructing” meaning.

I have no problem acknowledging the socially constructed nature of my beliefs and taking responsibility for the implications and ramifications of those beliefs. As it relates to John 14:6, the meaning that I construct emphasizes the importance of the term, “the way.”

The earliest followers of Jesus were identified as people of “the Way.” The Way represented a way of living. The earliest followers of Jesus were identified as people of “the Way” because of their way of living.

If Jesus represents “the way” to the Father, one reasonable interpretation would be that “the way of living” taught and lived by Jesus represents “the way” to the Father. In other words, we can live the life Jesus preached when teaching about the “Kingdom of God,” and not have to accept the depiction of Jesus as “Lord and Savior” or the only way to heaven and eternal life with God.

Throughout the Synoptic Gospels (i.e. Mark, Matthew, and Luke) Jesus emphasizes a way of living. Many people can embrace and/or embody the moral and ethical “way” of living that Jesus taught without being Christian or accepting Jesus as “Lord and Savior.”

Gandhi embraced the moral and ethical way of living that Jesus taught without claiming to be Christian. The Dali Lama embraced the way of living that Jesus taught without claiming to be Christian. There are countless Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs, agnostics, and yes, even atheists, who embrace and embody the “way” of living taught and exemplified by Jesus without accepting Jesus as “Lord and Savior.”

I’m sure many will disagree with my socially constructed meaning of John 14:6, but their rejection of my socially constructed meaning is not because they are accepting the one true meaning of the verse. Instead, it is because they are accepting a different socially constructed meaning.

The question is, what does the acceptance of their socially constructed meaning say about them and their beliefs? Ultimately, every socially constructed meaning we embrace says something about us. I’m sure my socially constructed meaning of John 14:6 says that I have a tendency to promote and embrace inclusion far more than exclusion, and I’m okay with that.

Why is it important for there to be only one correct religion and/or interpretation? And why does that one correct religion and/or interpretation have to be mine? What does it say about the kind of person that I am when everyone in the world has to “convert” to my way of thinking in order to be welcomed and accepted by God?

I’m fine with people accepting different socially constructed meanings, as long as we are willing to acknowledge that the meanings we embrace are socially constructed and we are willing to take responsibility for the implications and ramifications of our socially constructed meanings.

If the beliefs we embrace marginalize, oppress, and disenfranchise people, we have to be willing to take responsibility for that and not blame the hatred and oppression expressed by such beliefs on God, the Bible, or any other socially constructed belief system.

At the end of the day, our beliefs say far more about us than they do about God. We are the ones responsible for our beliefs and the implications and ramifications of those beliefs. We, therefore, need to own our beliefs and stop blaming them on God and the Bible.