What roles in church leadership are open to women? Every church in our day faces this perennial question and will, at some point, need to find an answer on which they are willing to stand. They will need to decide whether they take a traditional complementarian position—holding that the Bible reserves certain roles in church leadership for men—or an egalitarian position—holding that all roles in the church are open to women and men. Likewise, denominational bodies will also need to navigate disagreements between their constituent churches on this issue and decide where they stand.
A Renewed Debate
I am aware of a number of denominational bodies that are currently trying to work through such disagreements. These particular cases are complicated by the fact that churches on both sides of the disagreement all call themselves complementarian. Churches on one side of the disagreement reserve the pastoral office for men—meaning that only men would be given the title of “pastor” or be allowed to preach to the congregation on a Sunday morning. Churches on the other side of the disagreement reserve the role of senior pastor for men, but would allow a woman to be an associate pastor or to preach occasionally. Because of this, the disagreements have been characterized by some as being merely disagreements in the application of complementarianism.
The logic goes something like this: if complementarianism advocates for a distinction in roles between men and women and egalitarianism advocates for equal roles for men and women, then churches that restrict the role of senior pastor to men would fit within the term “complementarian”. They simply don’t hold as narrow a definition of complementarianism as some would like.[1]
Others have responded that the definition is exactly the problem. Complementarianism, by definition, means more than simply believing in any difference between the roles of men and women. Therefore, this is not a disagreement of application but of definition.
I agree wholeheartedly with this second understanding of the disagreement and I am thankful for the many excellent resources available on the definition of complementarianism, including some published recently by TGC Canada. I hope those resources help strengthen the convictions of those who already agree in principle, and help those who are on the fence, but I wonder how many people will be convinced who begin by disagreeing.
And so, I would like to try a different approach. I would like to, for sake of argument, accept the premise that this is a disagreement of application and follow that train of logic. My hope is by thinking through the way complementarianism could be applied, we will see how it should be applied. If we can accomplish this, perhaps some will be willing to reconsider the definition of complementarianism.
Applying Complementarianism
If we are honest, we must admit that even among complementarian churches who agree on a more narrow definition, few would be exactly aligned in practice. There are so many layers of practical applications that must be considered in the life of a church. Is it appropriate for a woman to serve as a pastor? As an elder? Are those the same thing? What about as a deacon? What about in churches that don’t have elders and the deacons are the board of directors? Is a woman permitted to preach on a Sunday morning? What about regularly teach a mixed adult Sunday school class? Maybe occasionally? What about regularly lead the congregation in worship? Can a woman regularly lead a small group discussion?
So, when we ask the question, “How do we apply complementarianism in our churches?” we must admit that we are not looking for uniformity, but a baseline agreement with some of the finer points of application left to the discretion of each local church. So, what will define our baseline?
Fair and Biblical
We want this baseline to be truly fair. Once again, we must admit that it can easily be applied unfairly. If a church is hiring someone to lead the children’s ministry, many complementarian churches would be fine with hiring a man or a woman. But even if the role is exactly the same, when a man is hired, he is hired as a “Children’s Ministries Pastor”, while when a woman is hired, she is hired as a “Director of Children’s Ministries”. And possibly (perhaps even likely), regardless of experience or ability, she is paid less. We should be quick to criticise this application of complementarianism as inherently sexist. We must find a baseline application that answers this reasonable critique.
On the other hand, if we believe a woman can serve as a pastor in a church, but not as the senior pastor, we must justify that application as well. Why draw the line there? If this distinction is arbitrary, then this is also an unfair application.
It should go without saying that the baseline application we seek should come from the Bible. Any other line we draw will be problematic. The difficulty, though, is that there is no verse in the Bible that specifically defines the issue and its application. There is no text that states, “only men may serve as pastors (or senior pastors) in the church.” Rather, the biblical application comes by inference.[2] We draw this inference from the Bible’s anthropology (theology of humans) and ecclesiology (theology of the church).
A Biblical Anthropology: Different Roles
It is clear from the creation accounts in Genesis 1 and 2 that God made man and woman equal, but different. Many egalitarians would agree with this so far. Where the disagreement starts in earnest is in how God made man and woman different. Both are created in God’s image, instilled with intrinsic and equal value by their creator. But Adam was created first, and Eve was created to be “a helper fit for him” (Gen. 2:18). The way we understand this phrase carries a lot of weight for the definition of complementarianism. But since we are laying that aside for now, suffice it to say that God designed men and women with distinct roles that are rooted in the order of creation. These distinct roles existed before sin entered the world and do not lower the value of the woman below the man.
This foundational truth is applied over and over in the New Testament as passages about the roles of men and women in marriage and in the church refer back to the order of creation. It would be fair to say that these references to Genesis 2 are often difficult to understand. Despite this, there is a clear throughline between God’s design in creation and the continuing roles he assigns to men and women in marriage and in the church. Even if we lay aside the discussion on how to define those roles biblically, the connection back to Genesis 2 should be clear.
A Biblical Ecclesiology: Elders
The most important of these New Testament passages for this discussion about complementarian church leadership is in 1 Timothy 2:12-13, “I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve.” Once again, many difficult interpretive questions arise when these verses are read in the context of statements immediately surrounding them. This context gets to the heart of the definition of complementarianism, but once again, we will lay that aside and move on to speak of application.
The way Paul intends these verses to be applied is seen when we read them in light of the broader context of the following chapter, which lays out the qualifications for overseers (also known as elders, as the parallel passage in Titus 1 makes clear) and deacons. These qualifications focus on character, with the exception of two skill-based qualifications for overseers: teaching and management of the church, which certainly involves exercising authority (1 Tim. 3:2, 4–5).
Therefore, the clear application of complementarianism in the church is that, because of God’s design for men and women in creation, women are prohibited from doing the two tasks that overseers are called to do. Or, put more positively, God has given the task of teaching and exercising authority in the church to men who are qualified for the office of overseer. Or, as the late Dr. Stan Fowler, in his ever-balanced manner, remarked, “male-only eldership is an appropriate application of biblical anthropology.”[3]
Biblical Ecclesiology: Pastors
But is a pastor an elder? The word pastor means shepherd, a word that is applied to elders/overseers more than once in the New Testament (Acts 20:17, 28;[4] 1 Pet. 5:1-2). Everyone agrees that elders/overseers do the work of shepherding/pastoring. But there is some debate over whether the term pastor is synonymous with the office of elder/overseer, or if it is simply an activity performed by elders/overseers and a spiritual gift that some of them have.
This question determines whether having female pastors is a legitimate application of complementarianism. If we are bound to having only male elders, but elders are distinct from pastors, we could potentially still have female pastors. Once again, this is an important question of definition, not of complementarianism, but of what a pastor is. And so, again, rather than trying to nail down a definition of what a pastor is, we will think of how the title and gift of pastor is applied in the life of our North American churches.
We should all be happy to admit that women can have the spiritual gift of shepherding. So then, why not call them pastors? Is that an application that we can leave to the discretion of each church? Well, once again, if we want our standard application to be fair, we have to acknowledge that every Christian in a local church has a spiritual gift, and yet we rarely speak of giving them titles that reflect those gifts. I suppose we might see titles such as “Administrative Assistant” or “Hospitality Coordinator” at a church, and those could reflect spiritual gifts, but it’s certainly not the norm. Therefore, we should ask what we are saying when we give someone the title of pastor.
Practically speaking, in our North American evangelical context, when someone is given the title of pastor, it is conveying more than just a recognition of a spiritual gift. I would argue that when someone is called a pastor—whether a male or female—the congregation will see them as one of the leaders of the church, one of the people who teach and exercise authority and manage the church in the very way that God’s Word reserves for elders/overseers.
And even if a church has non-staff elders that oversee the pastors, most congregants will naturally look to the staff pastors for teaching and leadership, rather than to lay elders. In other words, at a strictly applicational level, when we give someone the title of pastor, we have moved beyond recognizing a gift to giving them a leadership office, whether or not we define pastor in that way.
The Application of Leadership, Straying Into Definition
It’s worth thinking for a moment about the office of church leadership laid out for elders/overseers (and to which the title “pastor”, at a minimum, points). This office of church leadership is presented as weighty and significant in the New Testament. While Hebrews 13:17 does not use the term elder, it is clear that the leaders of the church are the ones “who keep watch over your souls,” that is, over the church members. I would argue that this is a succinct definition of the role of both an overseer and a shepherd.
The verse continues by making it clear that church leaders (elders) will be held accountable before God for how they fulfill this task. This leadership and accountability is not to be taken lightly. And it gets to the very heart of how complementarianism defines the role God has given to men in marriage and church leadership. This weight, in the church, is given to those who pastor the people with the official office of elder/overseer. It is given to men who are qualified and called to that role. And it is given to a plurality of men who are called to that role in a specific church. There are no passages in the Bible that lay this weight more heavily on a key leader or senior pastor.
A Suggested Model for Application
As a result, I believe that a fair application of the biblical principles in our context would be to ensure that anyone who holds the title of pastor in a church fits the qualifications of an elder and is recognized as being in that office. Or at the very least, as with my own church, they are seen as someone who is on track to becoming an elder and is being intentionally discipled to that end (for example, in the case of a youth pastor or a children’s pastor). This practice would help us to better fit the biblical pattern.
This would also help solve the charge of sexism raised earlier: a pastor in a complementarian church is not “any male ministry staff” but rather one who meets the biblical qualifications of an elder, who fulfills the role of an elder, and who shoulders the responsibility of an elder.
In fact, I believe this application of complementarianism is also less sexist than a practice that merely limits the role of senior pastor to men. Such a practice draws a line between one kind of pastor/elder and the others, a line that is not grounded in biblical anthropology or ecclesiology and is therefore an arbitrary ceiling on how a woman can serve at a church.
If we apply this model to our example from earlier, there is an important difference between a “Pastor of Children’s Ministries” and a “Director of Children’s Ministries”. The pastor serves as an elder alongside the other elders in the church. Together they exercise authority over the church and will be held accountable before God for the task (Heb. 13:17)—a reality that should weigh heavily on them.
On the other hand, a children’s ministry director is someone, male or female, who has been delegated authority by the elders to lead this ministry, and who therefore submits to the authority of the elders as the ones who will bear responsibility before God.[5]
Conclusion
I firmly believe that the way we apply complementarianism in our churches should flow from a robust biblical definition of complementarianism. But I hope this more pragmatic approach that sidesteps some of the more tricky exegetical and controversial verses has shown that the most fair and biblical application actually lines up with a robust (or as some have called it, “narrow”) definition of complementarianism. I hope that this article will cause some to be more open to that definition as presented in other places.
I also hope that churches and denominational bodies wrestling through these issues will take a strong stand to adopt this more robust definition of complementarianism (based on a solid biblical anthropology and ecclesiology) and the application that flows from it. I am praying that God grants his church unity and clarity on this issue.
[1] To be completely accurate, there are churches that hold to a more strict form of complementarianism for themselves but feel that the other churches should be free to practice their less strict form.
[2] Stanley K. Fowler, “Can Egalitarians and Complementarians Stay Together? A Canadian Case Study,” reprinted in The Collected Works of Stanley K. Fowler: A Theologian in Service of the Church Volume 1, 146.
[3] Fowler, “Stay Together?”, 142. It is worth noting that Fowler held this position while also denying that complementarianism should be a test of fellowship. A question for another time.
[4] The concept of shepherding comes out more clearly in the NIV than the ESV, but the underlying Greek word is the same one used in other places, and the analogy of the church as God’s flock makes it clear anyway.
[5] I would suggest that if a pastor is what we call a paid elder/overseer, then a director is what we call a paid deacon. But this suggestion is only helpful for those with the conviction that the Bible allows for female deacons.
