In September of 2004, N.T. Wright gave an address for a symposium on “Men, Women and the Church.” That talk can be found here. The conference was apparently sponsored by an organization (CBE) dedicated to the egalitarian position on women ministering in the Church, and Wright (who supports the ordination of women) was there to offer his views on the subject.
In many ways, his presentation was admirable. He recognized the difference between the opposition of evangelicals on scriptural grounds and the opposition of the “traditional Anglo-Catholic movement for whom scripture has never been the central point of the argument,and indeed is often ignored altogether” (p. 1). Second, he recognizes that the language of equality brings with it the danger of confounding the identity of men and women (p. 2). Third, he makes it clear that his support of the ordination of women should not make anyone assume that he will “tick a dozen other boxes down the same side of the page” (p. 2). In other words, he let them know that he would not necessarily support other contemporary ecclesiastical fads just because he was supporting this one. He goes on to state flatly that Gal. 3:28 is not about ministry, and chides the egalitarians for using that verse in a fight to get it to be a “senior bull in the herd” (p. 3). He then throws out a telling comment — “what a very masculine way of approaching exegesis, by the way.” He also remarked on a brochure he picked up there at the equality conference that maintained that men and women were “equally saved and justified.” He was surprised because he “never heard anyone denying it” (p. 3). In addition, Wright is at pains to point out that Paul is a theologian of the new creation, and the new creation is not about undoing the old creation and vaporizing it, but rather is about renewing and reaffirming the existing creation. He intends here a basic affirmation of the fixed distinctions and similarities of male and female — he rejects homosexuality and other forms of transgendered confusion. He is willing to take at face value the fact that Jesus selected twelve males to be His apostles (p. 5). In all this, Wright is clearly separating himself from those who want a fundamental sexual confusion introdoced into the Church in the name of the current egalitarian platitudes.
In short, it seems to me that Wright’s convictions on this subject are far more sane and balanced than what you find among egalitarians generally. While I believe he is guilty of special pleading at the heart of his arguments, his special pleading is not of the “in for a penny, in for a pound” variety. He makes a number of solid points in this paper that can be used (and should be used) by complementarians in this debate. For those not familiar with the terms here, egalitarians favor the ordination of women and complementarians maintain that this pastoral role is denied to women, but that women are called to serve in the Church in ways that are complementary to the role played by the men.
Wright makes some incidental arguments: although Jesus selected twelve male apostles, they all ran away and the women didn’t. The women were the first at the empty tomb, and were the assigned emissaries to the disciples (feminine apostles to the apostles). He points to Junia, an apostle in Rom. 16:7. But the word apostle means “sent one,” and invites the question “apostle of what?” or “apostle of whom?” An apostle only has the authority of the sending entity. Jesus was an apostle of God the Father (Heb. 3:1). The twelve were apostles of Christ, and had the authority to speak for him. Paul and Barnabas were apostles of the church at Antioch (Acts 13:3). And Phoebe is described as the deaconness of the church at Cenchrea (Rom. 16:1), and was probably the “sent one” who delivered the letter to the Romans. But if someone sends me to Daylight Donuts to pick up a box of those things for the office, and I am the “sent one” in one sense. But this does not give me the right to confide to the guy in the paper hat behind the counter that I have apostolic authority.
Wright also points out that when Mary sat at the feet of Jesus (when Martha was busy in the kitchen), Mary was doing this as a student, and was doing it in the male part of the house. Just as Paul had learned to be a rabbi at the feet of Gamaliel, so Mary was studying at the feet of Jesus, and this, in part, was what ticked Martha off. The problem with this kind of argument is that it assumes something about first-century Jewish practice from general Middle Eastern practices of many centuries later, when those subsequent centuries had been shaped by Islam, and not by a biblical view of women.
With regard to 1 Cor. 14, Wright is of two minds “whether to agree with those who say this verse is a later and non-Pauline interpolation” (p. 6) The verse in question would be the one that says that women must be silent in the churches. Wright favors the view that men and women sat on different sides of the church, and goes on to assume that the women did not understand the language that the preacher was using, and so they would get to conversing among themselves because there was no point trying to listen to the sermon anyway. And so Paul says that the women needed to pipe down, and if they had any questions about the sermon, they should ask their husbands at home. Now I have seen a great deal of evidence that men and women did sit on opposite sides of both synagogues and churches, for a number of centuries. In a number of places it is still done. I have not seen any evidence that the first century Jews had certain residential rooms reserved for the males, and secondly, even if they did, any evidence for saying that Jesus was teaching Mary and the others in that room. But with regard to seating in churches, yes, that was common, and the scenario that Wright sketches is not an unlikely one. But it is also quite beside the point. We all already knew that there was some reason why Paul told the women that they had to be quiet. How does discovery of that reason remove the requirement? And we need to note that Paul does not say that the women should shut up and listen the way all the men do. He says more than this — he gives a reason. That reason is not that the women’s side of the church is too rambunctious, and needs to be quiet and attentive like the men’s side. That may be the occasion, but it is not the reason. The reason given is that they (the women) must be under obedience, as the law requires. It is curious in the extreme that Wright does not take this Old Testament requirement that Paul applies to new covenant churches, applying it straight across from the Old Testament Scriptures, and pursue the implications of it. Where does the law require this? How does the law require this? In short, Paul is dealing with some particular problem at Corinth (and it may be the one Wright describes), but he does it by applying a requirement of God for women generally in distinction from men generally (“under obedience”) and not by applying the requirement of the librarian to both sexes (“shush! we can’t hear!”).
Wright does point out, rightly, that this passage cannot mean absolute silence is required from the women because three chapters earlier, women who pray or prophesy are taught about the demeanor they are required to have if they do these things. In a meeting of the congregation, nothing is more apparent than the fact that women had and have the right to pray publicly, and, if the Spirit was upon them, to deliver a prophetic word. So whatever Paul is prohibiting later, he is not prohibiting these forms of verbal participation. But from this, I would conclude that women have the full right to participate in worship as supplicants (pray) and as prophetesses (which they also did throughout the Old Testament, nothing new here). But the issue here is ordination to the new covenant fulfillment of the priestly function. I believe that it is most clear that Paul teaches that the new covenat does not take away prophetic privileges, but neither does it bestow priestly privileges. Now lest I start another firestorm, I am not talking about sacerdotal priestly privileges, but simply am talking about the senses in which New Testament ministry incorporates certain features of Old Testament ministry. God Himself promises that in the new covenant, He would take priests and Levites from among the Gentiles (Is. 66:21). But He did not say that He would take priests (in this sense) from among the women. Just the reverse.
Not only this, what Wright does show from this passage doesn’t really get him very far, as Wright himself appears to recognize. “In this passage, almost everything else seems to me remarkably different [I think this is a typo and should be difficult] to nail down” (p. 7).
When it comes to 1 Cor. 11:3, where we learn that God is the head of Christ, Christ is the head of man, and man is the head of woman, Wright goes with the popular (and to my mind, evasise) reading that head here means source, like the head of a river. But apart from the special pleading aspect of this, it appears to me to be special pleading that actually bacfires on the egalitarian. If headship here means covenantal or federal headship, as I would want to argue, then the headship of the man incorporates and represents the woman, allowing for and requiring a perichoretic equality between the sexes. In a Trinitarian framework, submission does not mean inferiority. But this language of headship as source, when it comes to the sexes, is thin ice indeed. Taken too woodenly, this idea would lead us toward an Arian Christology, and a Muslim view of women. In other words, egalitarians need to recognize that their reading of 1 Cor. 11:3 is more conducive to the mentality of raw patriarchy than is the covenantal and representative reading. Subission to a source is more problematic than submission to a covenant representative.
When we get to 1 Tim. 2, Wright is such a good exegete that he knows full well what it looks like he is doing. “I fully acknowledge that the very different reading I’m going to suggest may sound to begin with as though I’m simply trying to make things easier, to tailor this bit of Paul to fit our culture” (p. 10). Well, yes, that is exactly what it looks like. His clear honesty elsewhere leads me to believe Wright when he says that it is not his intent. But whether that is his intent or not, I would argue that the effect remains unchanged. The summary of his argument here is this: the letter was written to Timothy, probably at Ephesus, and Ephesus was the home of the Artemis-cult. In that worship, the priests were all women. And so Wright takes it this way: “Let the women be disciples, in full submission to God. But by allowing them to learn, I am not insisting that they must teach and boss the men around the way it goes over at the Temple of Artemis . . .” (p. 11). But again, Wright barely touches the reason Paul gives for his instruction. And that reason had to do with the creation order (Adam was created first, v. 13), and with the fact that Eve was deceived first. Nothing whatever to do with Artemis. This creational principle applies to Ephesus, where the pagan worship of Artemis had overthrown the creation order. And this same creational principle applies equally well to the Church of England where pagan assumptions have done exactly the same thing.
But having said all this, Wright still ends with some good advice. “And just as Paul was concerned to apply this in one particular situation, so we must think and pray carefully about where our own cultures, prejudices and angers are taking us, and make sure we conform, not to any of the different stereotypes the world offers, but to the healing, liberating, humanizing message of the gospel of Jesus” (p. 12). And amen. But you would think that in a communion that is so clearly at odds with God’s creational decrees (as evidenced by the ordination of homosexuals), Wright would be able to see and follow his own counsel here. If there were Artemis worship today in the United Kingdom, the chances are good to outstanding that many of their priestesses would have spoken in one or more churches of the Anglican communion, and would have been discussion partners in countless seminars. As Bob Dylan once said, you don’t have to be a weatherman to tell which way the wind is blowing.