After reading about biblical illiteracy it occurs to me that the theological diversity within the SBC is both a blessing and a curse. It is a blessing as it encourages our people to unify around the essentials without dividing over non-essentials. There do remain some matters not essential to salvation that nonetheless divide us from other denominations: ecclesiology, baptism, the ordination of women, etc. But there is also remarkable diversity allowed within SBC life. Calvinists work alongside non-Calvinists. Dispensationalists and amillennialists go to church together (okay, not often). The Baptist Faith and Message establishes what is considered the minimum level of acceptable belief. It presents the least common denominator of Baptist faith. And as it stands the BF&M is a good document. Everything it affirms is right and true. But many topics are left unaddressed, providing freedom for individual Baptists to follow diverse convictions on these issues.

The curse of our diversity is that we also try to over establish uniformity. From a least-common-denominator confession of faith we also have a least-common-denominator body of teaching material through Lifeway, once known as the Baptist Sunday School Board. Lifeway’s approach follows that of the Baptist Faith and Message: teach things held in common by all Southern Baptists without crossing into areas of disagreement. This is not an altogether bad approach. As a Calvinist, I would not be happy knowing my money to Lifeway helped pay for material specifically opposing Calvinism. I imagine my non-Calvinist brothers and sisters would be equally appalled if Lifeway started promoting Calvinism.

The problem is with the end result. We wind up with a denomination full of people who have never been trained to go beyond the basics, never trained to dive into Scripture and emerge with rich jewels of truth.

The Lifeway material is fine for what it does, but what it does is not sufficient for the week-in-week-out growth and edification of the people of God. Our people need to be led deeper and further into biblical truth, not dancing around issues where Southern Baptists disagree but confronting those issues head on and emerging with strong convictions about what the Bible says on every subject that it addresses. For Lifeway, the solution might be to offer a variety of material coming from different theological persuasions. Not really a good solution, but I’m not sure what else they could do. In the meantime, individual churches using Lifeway material will need to go places the material will not go, augmenting the weekly lesson with more time spent in the Bible and less time spent in the Sunday school book. In the end this is the best approach anyway, no matter what material is used.

This was originally written as a letter but I’ve modified it slightly to post on here.

I first affirm the equal worth and value of all people. Men and women stand as equals before God. He does not favor one gender over another but has called all people to himself and he loves all of his children the same. We are equally precious in his sight.

But equality in terms of our value and worth as individuals does not mean we are equal in every way. In mathematics we can say that 5 = 5 and we mean these numbers are the same thing. Among humanity, however, we cannot say that man = woman. It is a simple biological fact that we are not the same and I believe our differences extend beyond biology.

God created men and women to be different and our differences are intended to work together. Men have strengths women do not have, women have strengths men do not have. The only way we can function well as a society is to recognize our differences and seek to use our strengths in ways that compensate for the other’s weaknesses.

One of the great tragedies of modern society is that we attempt to cover up the differences between men and women. The modern feminist movement claims to work for the advancement of women but what often ends up happening is women are made to act like men, thus obliterating the strengths uniquely given to women. There are many reasons why this distortion has taken place and much of the blame falls on men who have failed to live up to their responsibility. Men have ignored what God has called them to do, leaving a vacuum in society that women have sought to fill. The end result is a society turned upside down.

From the beginning of creation God has intended for men and women to augment one another. We see this in the garden of Eden where in Genesis 2:19-25 we read that something was lacking in man and God created woman to fill the need. We were created to work together.

In the creation of men and women God also reveals a certain hierarchy. When he created Adam and placed him in the garden he gave Adam dominion over all creation. He then created Eve as a helper to Adam in the garden. She was no beast, put under man’s authority like the rest of creation, for she was part of Adam, created from his rib, and given all the worth and dignity he had been given. Nonetheless, she was not given his authority. She was put in the garden as his helper. That is, as Adam ruled over the garden, Eve assisted him.

One of the great tragedies of history is that so many men have mangled what God established. Men have declared themselves lords of their own domains while women have been seen as little more than servants to serve the whims of men. Men who act in this way have committed a grave sin as they distort what God has done and deny the unique value of women.

Nonetheless, there is a right way to maintain the distinction between men and women with men serving as leaders and women serving under their leadership. Even in the New Testament we find this expectation that men and women will work together in complementary ways. Men and women continue to be shown to be equal in terms of worth and value and Christ’s work for men and women is the same, but we continue to have distinct strengths and weaknesses that should be used for the glory of Christ and the good of the church.

The New Testament also shows us something that was not revealed in the Old Testament: this relationship between men and women, particularly between husband and wife, has been given to paint a picture for the world of the relationship between Christ and the church. In Ephesians 5:22-33 we see that the husband stands as an image of Christ, leading his family in faithfulness and righteousness. The wife stands as an image of the church, submitting to her husband’s leadership even as the church is to submit to Christ.

This complementary relationship extends to our work within the church. Several times in the New Testament we find the writer addressing men and women in the church. It is always affirmed that just as leadership in the home is to be held by men, so too leadership in the church is to be held by men. Perhaps the clearest text on this is 1 Timothy 2:8-15 which contains some perplexing words but is fairly clear in verse 12 where Paul writes, I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. Paul shows that the work of preaching and serving as spiritual leader over the people of God is to be carried out by men in the church. But within the church men and women alike continue to serve in various ministries and tasks. It is simply a fact that in the history of the church women have quite often been more obedient than men to spread the gospel and serve the needy.

Much more can be said – indeed, many books have been written on both sides of this issue! – but this letter will be enough to show you my feelings on the subject. I respect and appreciate women who desire to serve God and feel their service should be through pastoral work. In seminary I had several lady friends who were preparing for pastoral ministry. They knew where I stood and I knew where they stood and somehow we managed to remain friends. But I believe that these women are misusing the gifts and abilities uniquely given to them as women and in the process are harming the church by distorting what God has intended.

In our egalitarian society my beliefs on this matter are not popular. But in all things we do not judge truth on the basis of popularity but on the basis of the timeless, unchanging revelation given to us by God in his Word.

Will Willimon is bishop of the North Alabama Conference of the United Methodist Church and he blogs occasionally at A Peculiar Prophet. Yesterday he posted an entry titled A Faith that is Based on the Testimony of Women. The title itself is problematic – the Christian faith is not based on anyone’s testimony, the Christian faith comes from the work of God in Christ. But Willimon was trying to be provocative with his title, a frequent characteristic of his speaking and writing, so I will give him a little leeway.

More problematic is the content of his entry. For example:

The angel preached the first Easter sermon: “Don’t be afraid. You seek Jesus, who was crucified? He is risen! Come, look at where he once lay in the tomb.” Then the angel commissioned the women to become Jesus’ first preachers: “Go, tell the men that he has already gone back to Galilee. There you will meet him.”

Two issues here. First, the proclamation of the angel was not a sermon. I suppose if we use the term as loosely as Willimon does we could say that any religious proclamation is a sermon. But the angel was not unfolding the word of God to the people of God, he was proclaiming an event. He was testifying. He was evangelizing. 

Second, the women were not then commissioned to preach but were called to do what the angel had done. If we define preaching loosely we could say that anyone presenting the gospel is preaching, but the word is more specific than that.

The women were sent out to spread the good news that Jesus Christ was risen from the dead. This is not preaching, this is evangelizing. 

In his attempt to defend the role of women as preachers Willimon misses something more important. Not everyone is called to preach but everyone is called to evangelize. Not everyone is called to stand in the pulpit but everyone is called to do what the women did here, proclaim the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

Willimon then brings up the Great Commission and reminds us that we are called to spread the gospel to the ends of the earth. But he doesn’t seem to realize that this is what the women at the tomb were doing. They were not commissioned to be preachers, pastors, or spiritual leaders. They were told to spread the good news of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

In his discussion Willimon includes this lament:

How sad that there are still churches that continue, despite this clear witness of scripture, to deny the testimony of women and to prohibit them from preaching the gospel that God has given to them – but I digress.

Once again he seems to be confusing what preaching is. Giving a testimony about the work of God is not preaching. Men and women alike are called to testify of the goodness of God, in particular the work of salvation by which we are brought from sin to righteousness, from death to life, from darkness to light. Scripture does not limit the call to evangelize. Scripture does limit the call to pastor.

The clear witness of Scripture is that all believers are called to spread the good news. The clear witness of Scripture is also that men and women are different and have been given different work within the church and the world. We share some of the work but not all of the work.

What is truly sad is that many churches have chosen worldly egalitarianism over biblical complementarianism. God created men and women to work together and to complement one another in the work of the church. So much is lost when we try to force men and women into the same roles.

Bishop Willimon, please be true to Scripture. Do not take one example and try to force it to be something it isn’t. And please consider the whole counsel of God, that God made human beings male and female with a particular hierarchy and particular roles. Only when we are ordered according to the purpose of God can we find liberty and joy.

One problem the organized church faces is the great temptation to seek the growth of the organization rather than the growth of Christ. I support the organized church and think everyone should be part. But how do you avoid the natural tendency to want to see the organization do well, even more than you want to see people grow in the Lord? Sometimes we confuse the two without even realizing it and because of that all too many churches fall into the fatal trap of building the wrong empire.

Before you go any farther I want you to hop over to Amazon and buy the book Young, Restless, Reformed by Collin Hansen. It’s okay, I’ll wait.

Done? Good.

I won’t be reviewing this book but I do wholeheartedly recommend it. Even non-Calvinists should find the book exciting as it presents a growing movement of young people energized with a desire to spread the gospel and grow deeper in the word of God. I kept having great moments of excitement while reading the book and it gave a little lift to my step as I consider my own pastoral work. Want to see some of the good things God is doing in the church in America? Get this book.

Al Mohler, quoted in Young, Restless, Reformed, had this to say:

As Southern Baptists, we are in danger of becoming God’s most unembarrassed pragmatists – much more enamored with statistics than invested with theological substance.

I’m tempted to write this on the next Annual Church Profile we get from the convention. Our obsession with numbers is downright distressing.

As if I didn’t struggle enough with the weight of preaching, the Pyro folks have to go make it worse. Be sure to check out Dan Phillips’ post Carpe Diem.

This may be the only time they’ve been in a church, about to hear someone who claims to believe the Word, the Gospel. Maybe they’re there because a friend or relative has prayed for them for months, for years, for decades. Finally, they’re in a (professedly) Christian church, intending to listen to whatever a (professedly) Christian preacher is about to say. It is literally a critical moment, a moment of crisis, of judgment. Angels attend! The Triune God is there! Endless ages will reverbrate with the impact of what happens next. These people are accountable, you are accountable. All eyes are on you.

Just letting you guys know that Immanuel Baptist Church now has a website. Announcements, brief weekly devotionals, and new sermons can be found on there.

Imnmanuel Baptist Church