The recent revival of interest in biblical gender roles—how men and ladies serve within the church and performance at home in relation to one another—appears to be focused within the Western church, especially within the US. Christianity Today reached out to Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary president Scott W. Sunquist, who can also be a missiologist with expertise in non-Western Christianity, to ask concerning the global context around gender and the church.
This interview has been calmly edited for style and clarity.
How have the terms of the gender roles debate come to be defined within the evangelical church?
Two prefatory comments: First, “evangelical” has grow to be a contested category, so each time we ask about “the evangelical church,” we’d like to further specify which family or tradition we’re talking about. Secondly, much of the “debate” regarding gender roles occurred when my family was overseas, so we missed the initial formation of the discussion across the words complementarian and egalitarian. They were recent concepts that began to spread within the late Nineteen Eighties.
The evangelical debate around this has been very different from the larger and broader ecumenical discussion regarding the roles of men and ladies. The Orthodox church doesn’t ordain female priests and neither do Roman Catholics. Protestant mainline churches began opening all offices of the church to women within the wake of the good missionary movement, where women dominated the pioneering work. Pentecostals from the earliest years of the movement recognized the equal function of ladies and men and so, in that tradition, women were planting and pastoring churches within the early twentieth century.
The bifurcated (“either/or”) view of gender roles we now have arises mostly out of Southern Baptist, independent Baptist, and conservative Reformed traditions, which defend the clarity of two genders and delineate roles which are acceptable for ladies with the word complementarian. And it should be stated clearly that this particular discourse is an American approach that has now been exported some through missionary work.
It also needs to be said that not all traditions that discover as evangelical, each throughout the United States and globally, frame the talk in the identical manner.
The complementarian-egalitarian debate is a giant one within the US (and the Western church generally). How is the view of men’s and ladies’s roles within the church viewed globally? How do Scriptures on the distinctions between men and ladies play out in several ecclesiological convictions worldwide?
As everyone knows, the variety of cultures (seen most clearly in religion and language) is an attractive thing to witness and to thank God for. I even have been fortunate to have taught and learned from Christian leaders in lots of countries in Asia in addition to in Africa. Generally, once women grow to be literate, women’s roles change. The gospel brings literacy and education to women, and this is commonly a threat to traditional female roles in Islamic, Hindu, and Buddhist cultures. Women grow to be empowered through literacy. They can teach their children and so they can ask questions and evangelize others.
However, in lots of cultures of the world, Christian men and ladies sit on different sides of the sanctuary, and ladies take care of the kids on the ladies’s side. Gender roles are cultural, however the gospel at all times brings a level of freedom to women in cultures where women are oppressed. Expressed otherwise: When the gospel enters into any culture, it moves that culture toward greater grace, wholeness, and flourishing for all people. Cultures are fallen, and the gospel rectifies cultural patterns to individuals, families, and societies.
How does this compare inside monoethnic churches within the US?
Following up out of your previous query, let’s imagine what happens when people from other countries come to the United States. Korean (and most Chinese) churches are dominated by a Confucian ethic and social order in the primary generation. All social order in Confucian society is hierarchical: emperor over subjects, father over children, husband over wife, etc. Thus, these churches seldom have women in leadership, but women often run the churches behind the scenes.
The positive side of that is that a Korean would understand the church as My church with my people; that Christianity isn’t a foreign religion and I can come to church without changing cultures. The negative side of this strong adherence to cultural patterns is that sometimes women will not be treated by men with Christian respect and dignity. This hurts Christian witness. This is considered one of many cultural examples which we are able to discover as the unfinished conversion of cultures. We find these examples in every world culture.
As I discussed earlier, there may be a rectification that comes with conversion to Christ. We will not be left with all our sinful patterns of our cultures. Many Indian and Middle Eastern churches within the United States have men and ladies sitting on different sides of the sanctuary. We must do not forget that each local indigenous cultures in addition to the teaching of Western missionaries often influence the place and role of ladies.
There isn’t any “pure” Chinese or Black church within the United States—or so-called “white” church either, for that matter. Cultures are all made within the image of God but are fallen. It is very important to recollect this, lest we attempt to shape all ethnic groups in “our” image and demand on our definition of gender roles within the family and within the church.
As evangelicalism grows outside of the West, will controversies and discussions over women’s and men’s roles be roughly relevant in broader evangelicalism?
If by “evangelicalism” you mean faith traditions centered around biblical authority, the centrality of Christ, and the necessity for conversion, then it has already grown outside of the West. Today such “evangelicals” within the West comprise only about 30 percent of worldwide evangelicals. As Ogbu Kalu used to say, “African Christianity is evangelical Christianity.” Most of the growing Christian communities (including Pentecostals) in China, Africa, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Latin America can be considered evangelical in keeping with the outline mentioned above. Non-Western evangelicalism often has unique teachings in lots of African Independent Churches but, broadly speaking, they’re evangelical and their approach to gender follows cultural norms.
But, as I discussed earlier, the place of ladies has improved. We have to listen and watch how the gospel reshapes various African and Asian cultures, specifically the view and role of ladies. Much of their discussion about gender roles within the church relate to applying the Bible to their present cultural gender roles, plus having to read Western books and hearken to Western Christians. When it involves nonessentials resembling gender roles, Western Christians have to listen as, for instance, Egyptian or Malaysian Christians shape their ecclesiologies and pastoral care and preaching. American Christians will not be good at listening.
I pastored a Presbyterian church in Singapore when there was just one woman ordained within the presbytery, and he or she was from England. The next woman ordained was my student, who became the pastor of a church I helped to plant. The change took place over years, and it got here about not by outside “authorities” but through biblical study, recognition of spiritual gifts, and prayer. As within the United States, not all denominations in Singapore and Malaysia ordain women. But most roles within the church—ministering as deacons and elders, reading Scripture, teaching, planting churches, serving the Eucharist—are actually open to women. Ordination is the one role that isn’t open to women in all evangelical churches globally.
What can the American church learn from the worldwide church in the way it approaches the roles of men and ladies? How can we pursue unity while upholding biblical convictions?
I feel we’d like to acknowledge that the worldwide church is diverse when it comes to their ecclesiologies, because that’s what we’re talking about: who could be ordained, preach, oversee sacraments, and teach. Christians have come to many alternative conclusions on nonessentials, and we must be gracious in receiving the richness that our global fellowship provides us. Some churches limit women’s participation in worship on biblical and/or traditional grounds. That is their prerogative and we must always honor that, as long as women are respected and are given meaningful ways to take part in the body of Christ.
In such a divided world, Christians within the West should humbly learn from the bulk church, searching for deeper unity around essentials and never letting nonessentials like gender roles divide us. The world must see unity through gracious, Christian humility.
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