Often in discussing the "role" of women in the church (specifically the churches of Christ brand of church), someone will say that what is being taught now is the historical position, the one Christians have always held and believed. That's not exactly true.
First, this discussion must begin with outlining what is, in fact, the historical position. Traditionalists today often say that they are promoters of the ‘historical view’ of women and women’s roles within the church and that they are simply teaching what Christians have always believed. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately as we shall see) this is iredeemably untrue.
What is referred to as the historical position today is better referred to as the traditionalist stance and will be called such for the remainder of this section in order to differentiate between the two. They are indeed very different.
The traditionalist stance believes that men and women are created equally in the image of God and of equal value and talent, but that in matters of home and church, male headship and female submission is God ordained from the beginning. Normally, this is substantiated by referring to the “order of creation.” Without spending much time on the merit or defect of that argument, it briefly states that man was created first and is therefore to lead woman. Her being created second does not necessarily impute any inferiority to her person, yet she is unchangeably under the leadership of man as part of God’s design. This is generally thought of as a divine mandate and is therefore seen as a timeless principle.
The traditionalist stance is not consistent in its commenting upon the reasons for the restrictions placed on women via its use of 1 Timothy 2:9-14, though when pressed it is not unusual for them to comment that women are less likely to discern things of doctrinal importance and to be able to separate orthodoxy from heresy and that “saved in childbearing” refers to her fulfillment and the blessings she receives in adhering to her ordained role; her unique domain is the bearing of children. While some cringe at that wording, it is a softening of the historical position as will soon be apparent.
The historical position is indeed much different. The early church fathers, often writing within 50 - 100 years of the apostolic age of the church, thought much differently about it. Woman’s creation second to man is a divine ratification of her inferiority; it has been this way since the beginning and will be until the end to time. Thomas Aquinas when pondering this very topic asked, “Does the fact that man was created first, woman second, imply that she is a deficient or defective male?” His answer? “Yes.” Emphatically so, in fact. And he is not alone. Chrysostom, Origen, Tertullian, Cyprian, Jerome and many others have made similar statements from days very early in the history of the church that “because woman was created second, she is to take second place to man; she is an inferior being.”
This inherent weakness, this defect of character, is generally seen to be the reason Eve became the focus of the temptation account. The serpent, knowing her gullibility, sought her out knowing she would fall. As such, she became the gateway of sin and death to a previously idyllic world. As Tertullian wrote concerning women, “Do you not know that each of you is Eve? … You are the devil’s gateway, you are the first deserter of divine law.” More recent theologians such as Luther and Calvin have also held this view.
It is for this reason that woman is to be subject to men in all situations. The reinterpretation that this applies only to roles within the home and the church is actually extremely new. In fact, one is unable to find any reference to any discussion of “roles” before the 1960s, and then it is nearly an exclusively Western phenomenon. This, however, is not the only innovation. In fact, the usage of the “order of creation” argument called as such and in its current manifestation is completely unheard of before World War II – and is again an exclusively western phenomenon. It is a cultural interpolation on the text.
The traditionalist stance has in the past been called hierarchal, but more recently has come to prefer the term ‘complementarian,’ seeking merely to restore the roles they find in the model established at creation, the very roles and model being challenged by those who call themselves ‘egalitarians.’ There are, of course, every nuance of position between the two extremes – those who do indeed hold the true historical position on the one extreme and those who would rewrite the epistles or discard the Bible entirely on the other. In the midground, though, is where the majority of people struggle, people who are desperately seeking to discern the will of God and are at odds with one another because of it. Kevin Giles, a noted new testament scholar observes that “the truth of the matter is that both sides in this debate are complementarians.” He goes on to note that the differences are simply “between those who want men and women to complement each other by standing side by side in the home, the church and the state and those who want ment and women to complement one another with the men standing above the women. The contrast is thus between hierarchal comlementarians and egalitarian complementarians. Honestly demands that this be acknowledged.”
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