Biblical Literalism and the Role of Women and Slaves

I was flipping through a book I found sitting around in my church yesterday titled Biblical Eldership: An Urgent Call To Restore Biblical Church Leadership. The book basically argues for a structure of church government that is more Presbyterian in nature, rather than congregational; ruled by a plurality of elders rather than just one top-down leader who answers to a general church board. While there's much to be said about that, I was curious to see what the author's views were regarding women in ministry. Not surprisingly, the author rejected it out of hand, and basically claimed that if we took the Bible seriously, there's no way we would even want to debate the issue. The author, like many other anti-women in ministry folks, is a particular kind of Unbalanced Biblical literalist. Unbalanced Biblical Literalists typically approach issues like this one by quoting a few Scriptures about the husband being the "head" of the wife, women being "silent" in church, etc, and claim this settles the debate once and for all. How the Scriptures applied to Christians in first century Palestine regarding social structures in society and church are the same ways they apply to everyone everywhere in 2007. Anything less is wishy-washy liberalism.

Yet, on their own terms, they are wishy-washy liberals in the way which they approach passages dealing with slavery. Even though the Bible elevates the position of slaves and calls for humane treatment, it nevertheless allows the practice. In fact, in the same sections that these Unbalanced Biblical Literalists cite regarding the subjection of women, there are passages talking about the subjection of slaves. Most of these passages directed at women are part of larger sections in the so called Greco-Roman "household codes." In the same passages where Paul is telling wives to submit to husbands he also says:

"Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, just as you would obey Christ" (Eph. 6:5).

"Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything..." (Col. 3:22).

Right before Peter tells wives to submit to their husbands, he says, "Slaves submit yourselves to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh" (I Peter 2:18).

We could go on, but my point is this: why be such pressing literalists on the women issue, but not the slave issue? People complain and object about me pointing this out, but it's a very reasonable question, one in which their own strict literalism allows no valid answer. You can't argue for the exact same applicational features for the passages on women in the name of Biblical literalism, but then fudge the issue a few verse earlier when it comes to slaves. If we are talking original meaning and author's original intent, Paul and Peter were not talking about "employer/employee" relationships. They were talking about slavery. No, perhaps it generally wasn't as cruel as the type of slavery that Americans are accustomed to learning about in their history classes, but it was slavery nonetheless, and something almost all of us today would be uncomfortable with and rightly so. The "employer/employee" application is just that, a good application, but it takes us away from the very literal, "words-on-the-page" meaning of these passages.

About 99.9 percent of Evangelicals and Fundamentalists, accept this fact today. They do not apply the passages regarding slavery in a strict literal manner. But there was a time, not that long ago in our history when the church was seriously divided on this issue. Many a preacher and laymen harped about how the church would fall apart if we ignored the "plain meaning" of the Bible and abolished slavery. After all, they reasoned, slavery was a social reality in the Bible, and the Bible never plainly directed people to abolish it. Most of us today, however, recognize that abolishing slavery outright is actually more Christ-like and that we are simply building off of the foundations of the redemptive themes found in the Scriptures and that we are taking these teachings in Scripture to their logical conclusions. Thus, we face these verses of slavery head-on in their original meaning and first century context and then we apply them to our culture. The Unbalanced Biblical Literalist has no problem when you do this with I Peter 2:18. But if you apply the same standards, which they themselves use for that verse, just a few verses later for 3:1 regarding wives, suddenly you are a flaming liberal who doesn't take the Bible seriously.

So, either fundamentalists apply the same standards of interpretation, evaluation and application to the first century household codes for women that we do with slaves, or they should just admit that they are biased on this issue. Either we go back to the glory days of slavery, or we at least attempt a "fair and balanced" application of both I Peter 2:18 and I Peter 3:1. Many are scared of doing this because they think it does an injustice to the Bible. Again, if that's the case, they are already doing such an injustice by failing to take the slavery passages in their most literal application for today. But in reality we are not doing such a thing. It's not a matter of accepting what we like in the Bible and tossing out the parts we don't like. In the case of these issues it's grasping what the text originally meant and how we best carry out those redemptive themes in the 21st century. If there's NO change in the nuance of application then it's time to round up the slaves and the head coverings back on women. Also, those of us in the West should start greeting each other with holy kisses during our congregational greeting times. No, a simple handshake won't work. If we want to be strictly literal, then it's a kiss that's needed, nothing else.

The big scare tactic here by the unbalanced literalists is the issue of homosexuality. The reasoning goes something like this, "Well if we allow women in ministry, gays will be running our nursery next! Before you know it, all of the church will be accepting homosexuality!" As I've said elsewhere, the household code passages are not even addressing homosexuality. I'm arguing for a consistent application of a unit of passages, none of which have anything to do with homosexuality. In fact, almost all Evangelical Egalitarians who support women in ministry believe homosexuality to be a sinful behavior and are not looking to open the floodgates for gay liberation in the church. But that's simply another discussion and does not carry weight in this debate, but it is a convenient scare tactic: "They don't take passages about men and women seriously, they must not take passages about homosexuality seriously either!" I suppose I could turn that around and say, "They don't take the passages about slavery seriously, so they must not take the passages about homosexuality seriously either!"

My larger point here is that to best appropriate what the Bible meant in its original context and how it applies today, quoting a few Scriptures and acting like the debate is settled is usually inadequate. Only synthesizing a well thought out Biblical theology following a logical and rigorous approach to application will best yield the Bible's guidance for today. Of course that takes more work and more thought, and it's much easier to just listen to Dobson cite a few prooftexts, but it's actually treating the Scriptures with the honor and integrity that they deserve.