Ordaining women to offices of minister, bishop, elder, pastor, etc.

[JohnH]

This is a thread to discuss ordaining women to offices of minister, bishop, elder, deacon, pastor, and so forth.

Amongst Anabaptists, conservative Anabaptists generally do not think the Bible teaches women should be ordained to such offices. However, a wife of a deacon, bishop, or minister does tend to co-labour alongside him.

Progressive / liberal / mainline Anabaptists tend to be much more comfortable ordaining women. Some might not ordain them to specific positions such as a bishop, elder, senior pastor, and so forth, but would to pretty much any other position.

Conservative / plain Anabaptists are generally quite comfortable with women holding offices such as teaching Sunday school to children, conducting vacation Bible school, overseeing a sewing committee, and so on. There would be a variety of practices regarding "women speaking in church"; generally complete silence is not expected.

Amongst plain Anabaptists groups which are highly influenced by trends in evangelical Protestantism, these Anabaptists might adopt "complementarian" or "egalitarian" views. For example, Preston Sprinkle used to promote the "complementarian" view, but now promotes an "egalitarian" view. These things can probably be discussed in their own right which is not specific at all to Anabaptism and are well-discussed and well-researched elsewhere, but may be relevant to this thread as these things influence Anabaptism.

[Ernie]

This is a thread to discuss ordaining women to offices of minister, bishop, elder, deacon, pastor, and so forth.

Amongst Anabaptists, conservative Anabaptists generally do not think the Bible teaches women should be ordained to such offices. However, a wife of a deacon, bishop, or minister does tend to co-labour alongside him.

Progressive / liberal / mainline Anabaptists tend to be much more comfortable ordaining women. Some might not ordain them to specific positions such as a bishop, elder, senior pastor, and so forth, but would to pretty much any other position.

Conservative / plain Anabaptists are generally quite comfortable with women holding offices such as teaching Sunday school to children, conducting vacation Bible school, overseeing a sewing committee, and so on. There would be a variety of practices regarding "women speaking in church"; generally complete silence is not expected.

Most Plain Anabaptists expect complete silence from women in the church. (Probably about 90%)
It is the conservatives that allow women to speak sometimes in the church.

Note:
"Silence" is defined by Paul as "forbidden to speak" and "not permitted to teach" and "not to exercise authority over men". Paul does not forbid singing in the assembly.

[Soloist]

Most Plain Anabaptists expect complete silence from women in the church. (Probably about 90%)
It is the conservatives that allow women to speak sometimes in the church.

Note:
"Silence" is defined by Paul as "forbidden to speak" and "not permitted to teach" and "not to exercise authority over men". Paul does not forbid singing in the assembly.

Do these sort of churches tend to not have testimony times? I’ve seen reading through the Sunday school passage with women and testimony permitted. I’m assuming you are thinking the non Sunday school plain conservatives?

[joshuabgood]

This is a thread to discuss ordaining women to offices of minister, bishop, elder, deacon, pastor, and so forth.

Amongst Anabaptists, conservative Anabaptists generally do not think the Bible teaches women should be ordained to such offices. However, a wife of a deacon, bishop, or minister does tend to co-labour alongside him.

Progressive / liberal / mainline Anabaptists tend to be much more comfortable ordaining women. Some might not ordain them to specific positions such as a bishop, elder, senior pastor, and so forth, but would to pretty much any other position.

Conservative / plain Anabaptists are generally quite comfortable with women holding offices such as teaching Sunday school to children, conducting vacation Bible school, overseeing a sewing committee, and so on. There would be a variety of practices regarding "women speaking in church"; generally complete silence is not expected.

Most Plain Anabaptists expect complete silence from women in the church. (Probably about 90%)
It is the conservatives that allow women to speak sometimes in the church.

Note:
"Silence" is defined by Paul as "forbidden to speak" and "not permitted to teach" and "not to exercise authority over men". Paul does not forbid singing in the assembly.

You're experience is broader than mine, but this feels like an overstatement to me. At least if one considers SS church, and members meetings church, and testimony time. Every Moderate and Fundamentalist Anabaptist Church I have ever been in did not require silence from women in SS, testimony, or members meetings.

It seems the point of the veiling is so women can speak prophetically and pray in the assembly...no?

[R7ehr]

This is a thread to discuss ordaining women to offices of minister, bishop, elder, deacon, pastor, and so forth.

Amongst Anabaptists, conservative Anabaptists generally do not think the Bible teaches women should be ordained to such offices. However, a wife of a deacon, bishop, or minister does tend to co-labour alongside him.

Progressive / liberal / mainline Anabaptists tend to be much more comfortable ordaining women. Some might not ordain them to specific positions such as a bishop, elder, senior pastor, and so forth, but would to pretty much any other position.

Conservative / plain Anabaptists are generally quite comfortable with women holding offices such as teaching Sunday school to children, conducting vacation Bible school, overseeing a sewing committee, and so on. There would be a variety of practices regarding "women speaking in church"; generally complete silence is not expected.

Most Plain Anabaptists expect complete silence from women in the church. (Probably about 90%)
It is the conservatives that allow women to speak sometimes in the church.

Note:
"Silence" is defined by Paul as "forbidden to speak" and "not permitted to teach" and "not to exercise authority over men". Paul does not forbid singing in the assembly.

What about confession? Do they write it and someone else reads it? Or just not make public confession?

[joshuabgood]

I have a rule in my classroom of no talking. And I remind students at times "no talking." However, that doesn't mean they can never talk. There are appropriate ways to speak in the classroom assembly...in fact even times when I want them to talk. Same perhaps with women (and men for that matter), there are times and places for women to speak, speak in tongues, be involved in communion, baptism, footwashing, etc...which all include some measure of speaking by women. And Paul felt the need to give some structure to this in the Corinthian church and how to do the assembly in an orderly way. This is a large part of the guidance given by Paul in Corinthians. How to pray and prophecy in church, how to speak in tongues in church, how to exercise the gifts in church, how do communion in church.

[MattY]

This is a thread to discuss ordaining women to offices of minister, bishop, elder, deacon, pastor, and so forth.

Amongst Anabaptists, conservative Anabaptists generally do not think the Bible teaches women should be ordained to such offices. However, a wife of a deacon, bishop, or minister does tend to co-labour alongside him.

Progressive / liberal / mainline Anabaptists tend to be much more comfortable ordaining women. Some might not ordain them to specific positions such as a bishop, elder, senior pastor, and so forth, but would to pretty much any other position.

Conservative / plain Anabaptists are generally quite comfortable with women holding offices such as teaching Sunday school to children, conducting vacation Bible school, overseeing a sewing committee, and so on. There would be a variety of practices regarding "women speaking in church"; generally complete silence is not expected.

Most Plain Anabaptists expect complete silence from women in the church. (Probably about 90%)
It is the conservatives that allow women to speak sometimes in the church.

Note:
"Silence" is defined by Paul as "forbidden to speak" and "not permitted to teach" and "not to exercise authority over men". Paul does not forbid singing in the assembly.

You're experience is broader than mine, but this feels like an overstatement to me. At least if one considers SS church, and members meetings church, and testimony time. Every Moderate and Fundamentalist Anabaptist Church I have ever been in did not require silence from women in SS, testimony, or members meetings.

It seems the point of the veiling is so women can speak prophetically and pray in the assembly...no?

I agree, "total silence" other than singing feels like an overstatement. Unless by "most Plain" vs. "conservative" groups, Ernie is talking about Old Order groups perhaps, which I'm not as familiar with; perhaps in those settings women literally remain completely silent other than to sing.

Paul forbids the ordination of women to leadership offices and the exercise of roles associated with those leadership offices during the assembled gathering of believers, such as preaching and teaching men in the gathered assembly. He also calls for doing things decently and in order, without interrupting the orderly proceedings of the assembled body, contradicting the speaker, and so on. Women giving testimony or confession, sharing bible memory verses, sharing their experiences on the mission field (such as an evening dedicated to the experiences of someone who was overseas for a year or two) is not frowned on in conservative circles, and it would be stretching Paul's point to try to make him say women should be literally silent in all such situations.

As for egalitarians vs. complementarians, conservative Anabaptists would certainly reject the egalitarian arguments; most of them probably haven't heard of complementarianism though. They would often be more conservative than complementarians, which might leave them vulnerable to the "patriarchalist" views coming in from hardline right-wing Protestants such as the Doug Wilsons and Michael and Debi Pearl types (the heavily hierarchical types). In my opinion, such heavy hierarchical views are and have been ripe for abuse and tend to hide abusers of women and children, and ought to be avoided. We ought to maintain our views while being on guard for unbiblical attitudes of patriarchy and hierarchy in the church; complementarianism comes closest and its arguments can be profitably used, but not accepted unquestioningly. (There are different varieties of complementarianism as well).

Also, some people - I think Finny Kuruvilla? - have recently argued that the point of the veiling is so that women can speak and pray prophetically OUTSIDE the assembly, seemingly trying to maintain a literal view of total silence for women in the assembly - as if the first half of the chapter has nothing to do with the gathered assembly. My impression was that that argument was too cute by half and seems like a novel view.

[Soloist]

Wife: I found it kind of odd when my daughter started occasionally having morning devotions for her class. Upper grade doesn’t do that, and I assumed none of them did that for the girls, although it is useful for them to know how to do it if they become a school teacher, etc.. Besides, the non-Christian children have to do devotions as well once they get into the older classes.

[joshuabgood]

Personally, I like the term, "nonhierarchical-complementarianism." Awkward I know...but scratches the itch. Jesus didn't promote hierarchy. He came not to be served but to serve. Men are not called to subordinate their wives but to do like Christ, lay down their lives. Christ never coerces us. His Kingship is not an authority like the scribes. It's upside down. But the term above, acknowledges there are general biological differences between men and women, as opposed to radical egalitarianism which defines womanhood out of existence, methinks.

[joshuabgood]

Wife: I found it kind of odd when my daughter started occasionally having morning devotions for her class. Upper grade doesn’t do that, and I assumed none of them did that for the girls, although it is useful for them to know how to do it if they become a school teacher, etc.. Besides, the non-Christian children have to do devotions as well once they get into the older classes.

May or may not be helpful, but in my view, school isn't church. We don't do communions, baptisms, weddings, or funerals. So women voicing inspirational thoughts, prophetic words from scripture, etc...seems appropriate to me and pretty much noncontroversial outside of a church context?