I heard two presentations yesterday on the ordination of women to the offices of pastor and elder, one arguing for the view that has come to be known as complementarianism, the other for egalitarianism. And for the first time ever, I was privileged to hear the egalitarian argument from a biblical perspective.

Having been faced with this issue for many years--I remember it even arising among classmates in elementary school (how pathetic is that)--I have heard countless egalitarian arguments that are devoid of biblical bases. That being said, the perspective offered yesterday was based on rather weak exegetical and hermeneutical interpretations, but it was biblical nonetheless (I can say nothing of the exegetical or hermeneutical skills of yesterday's presenter; he was merely laying out the argument as other thinkers have constructed it).

Though I had close relationships with those in a sister denomination that struggled with the issue for over thirty years, I grew up in churches that did not accept the ordination of women. However, this stance was also argued from poor exegesis and hermeneutics, though on the opposite end of the spectrum; a verse such as 1 Timothy 2:12 was often deemed sufficient to back up their point. It was not until I went to college that I finally learned of and embraced the complementarian perspective. I always maintained that I was completely willing to consider the alternative (that is, egalitarianism) but it had to be argued biblically. No one has every done so (until today) and all other previous egalitarian arguments I have heard were culture- and rights-based. I have absolutely no regard for those arguments because they are completely irrelevant to the discussion.

I still maintain a complementarian perspective, though with the presentation I heard today that view has become more focused and nuanced. I am not going to lay that out here, as the point I wish to make is simply that any argument on this issue must never be rooted in a cultural point of view. How Western society perceives men and women is lacking. Far from giving them the freedom it promises, the disregard for religion (which, of course, is not entirely possible) and promotion of autonomy and independence restricts humanity from discovering the fullness of who they are. Only in unlocking the full meaning of what it means to be human from what Scripture teaches can this argument begin to be addressed.

If you want to discuss the ordination of women, you first need to discuss anthropology--more specifically, biblical anthropology. Well, I suppose before you even discuss that you need to discuss the measure of authority you assign to Scripture, but that is another issue. Will the Church mold itself to a deficient cultural understanding, or engage the issue in an effort to redeem a proper, holistic understanding of what it means to be human? This is one of the basic questions at hand here, and I hope it is implicit that the answer should be the latter. Obviously there is a lot more to the issue than this, but here is a place to start.