The Anglican Church is very wrapped up with this issue of the role of women – especially the current issue of women bishops. The view of the naysayers seems to stem from a view that men are set over women in the Bible. E.g. “But I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God”. (1 Cor 11:3, NIV). And 1 Cor 11: 9: “neither was man created for woman, but woman for man”.
But for me the passage of real importance comes in Genesis, where the Bible says: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (Gen 1: 27, NIV). This right at the beginning does not say to me that God created men to be in his own image, as opposed to women, but that he crated mankind, men and women, male and female, to be in his own image. There is no distinction made that should confer a higher status, or role, on either gender. It is, however, only a little later that the Bible records: “The LORD God said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.’” (Gen 2: 18, NIV). My view is that this is a reflection of the human culture (a strongly patriarchal culture) that existed at the time that this passage was written, continued right through the history of the Bible, and still exists in many areas of our Western culture today, especially in the church and, it seems, in the 'higher classes' (where titles and property are still inherited through the male line). I do not think that this is the original purpose of God, and indeed Jesus himself seems to have related to women on equal terms (although he necessarily operated in the patriarchal culture of his time and only the male disciples are listed as disciples). But Jesus offered his shared inheritance to all: “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God”, (John 1: 12, KJB). So, in a time when women could expect to inherit nothing, he gave them the equal status of ‘sons’ meaning that they also could inherit the kingdom.
And then I cannot improve on this from Wikipedia: While some scholars maintain that Paul restricted the office of deacon to men, others dispute that assertion. For example, when describing the qualities that the office holders called "deacons" must possess, Paul, wrote in I Timothy 3:11 that the gunaikas (Greek for women) "are to be worthy of respect, not malicious talkers but temperate and trustworthy in everything." Combined with the fact that Paul called Phoebe a diakonos (servant) in the church, Paul's instruction to the "women" in I Timothy may indicate that there was an order of servants in the early church that included both male and female members who were in service to the Christian community. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebe_%28Bible%29
There seems to me no justifiable or sensible reason for the resistance to women in leadership roles – in the church, or anywhere else.
Now when it comes to marriage there is a crux text: “Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Saviour. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything” (Eph 5: 22,23, NIV). But then, and crucially: “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her…In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself” (Eph 5: 25-28, NIV).
So taking my interpretation of the Bible as conferring equal status of men and women as my starting point, I propose an interpretation of this crux text as follows: In marriage both partners have equal status. Decisions (e.g. whether to start a family) should be discussed, agreed, and made together. This should be the pattern for all of married life. However there may come a time when an important decision has to be made (e.g. one partner has a new job offer that entails moving a long way away and which has to be accepted or declined quickly) and about which it is not possible to come to a agreement. In this instance a ‘casting vote’ is given to the male partner – probably because it is the male that has the most testosterone and it is therefore the male that will react most negatively if he is not given the ‘casting vote’. However, and this is the most important point, the man must love his wife as himself, meaning that he should always exercise this casting vote in favour of the woman. This means that, should in time it be found that the wrong decision was made, the woman has no complaint, as the decision was made in her favour, and the man has no complaint as it was his decision.
As I hope to show in a later entry, Gods priority seems to be always to be protecting relationships (all sorts of relationships) and valuing faithfulness in those relationships.
