Which Church Roles Should Be Open to Women?

As a professor of theology for over twenty years, Wayne Grudem has written on a range of subjects, from Bible translation to charismatic doctrine. But a frequent topic of concern for Grudem has been evangelical feminism--the movement to embrace increased roles for women in Christian ministry. In his book Countering the Claims of Evangelical Feminism, Grudem offers specific lists of what women should and should not be allowed to do in church ministry.

The following excerpt includes those lists. Grudem includes explanatory footnotes with additional scriptural analysis for many of the items here; readers should refer to Grudem's book for these.

Probably the most frequent question I hear when I speak to Christian groups about this topic is this: “Okay, I agree with you that only men should be pastors and elders. But what about other activities in the church? Can they teach adult Sunday school classes? What about serving communion? We want to follow Scripture, but we can’t find any verses that talk about these specific things.”

I will try to answer those questions in more detail and with respect to many specific activities, partly in the hope of encouraging churches to examine their traditions to see if there are more areas of ministry they could open to women as well as men. On the other hand, I also want to explain why I think certain kinds of activities are restricted to men.

Generally the restrictions on the roles women may fill in the church fall in three areas, and almost all the questions of application pertain to at least one of these areas:

1. governing authority
2. Bible teaching
3. public recognition or visibility

Note that I have included the third area, public recognition or visibility, because it is closely related to the other two. There are some highly visible activities in the church that do not include governing or teaching authority, and people easily combine and maybe confuse these in their minds. If we keep this area distinct, it helps us think more clearly about specific applications.

What follows here are three lists of activities. One word of caution is appropriate: These lists are not rankings of value or importance to the church! Paul tells us that all the members of the body are needed and that “the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor” (1 Corinthians 12:22–23). And Jesus said, “Whoever would be great among you must be your servant” (Mark 10:43). These statements remind us that when we talk about levels of governing authority, or levels of Bible reaching responsibility, or levels of public recognition, we are not talking about greatness or importance.

Then why talk about such levels at all? We must do so because Scripture tells us that some kinds of governing and teaching are inappropriate for women. In order to think clearly about what those roles are, we first must list the activities we are talking about. Then we can ask, in each case, if this was the kind of governing or teaching that Scripture intended us to understand in these passages. In short, we need to make such lists for purposes of clearer thinking on this issue.

List 1: Areas of governing authority

WHICH OFFICES OR ACTIVITIES SHOULD BE RESTRICTED TO MEN? (listed in order of greatest to least amount of authority over men)

GOVERNING ACTIVITIES THAT SHOULD BE RESTRICTED TO MEN:
1. President of a denomination
2. Member of the governing board of a denomination
3. Regional governing authority (such as district superintendent, bishop, or similar office)
4. Member of regional governing board
5. Senior pastor in local church (or associate pastor with many similar responsibilities to the senior pastor)
6. Member of governing board with authority over whole church (this would be the office of elder in many churches, while it would be the office of deacon or board member or church council member in others)
7. Presiding over a baptism or communion service (but see List 3 for serving communion or performing a baptism)
8. Giving spoken judgment on a prophecy given to the congregation (1 Corinthians 14:33–36)
9. Permanent leader of a fellowship group meeting in a home (both men and women members)

Continued on page 2: Teaching the Bible to adults vs. children »