Liberal Christian View

Passages Supporting Liberal Views

As mentioned in the previous section, one way to determine if certain teachings were meant to be transcultural or culture-specific is if there are any inconsistencies throughout the Bible. If there are inconsistencies, it is hard to argue that those teachings are transcultural.

Most Biblical scholars believe that women wrote parts of the Bible including:
• Miriam (Exodus 15:20-21)
• Deborah (Judges 5)
• Elizabeth (Luke 1:42-45)
• Mary (Luke 1:46-55)
• Anna (Luke 2:38)
If women may never have authority over a man throughout time and women wrote parts of the Bible, how can men submit to the Bible as authority?...
Even if scholars dispute the authorship of the Bible, there are clear passages that women were prophets and leaders including:

• Miriam (Exodus 15:20-21)
• Deborah (Judges 4:4)
• Huldah (2 Kings 22:14, 2 Chronicles 34:22-28)
• Isaiah’s wife (Isaiah 8:3)
• Anna (Luke 2:38)
• Junia (Romans 16:7)
• Priscilla (Acts 18:26)
• Four unmarried daughters (Acts 21:9)
• Women (1 Corinthians 11:5)
• Women (Titus 2:3)

When Deborah was the leader of Israel, there were no kings during that period. In fact, the office of Judge was the highest in the land involving both spiritual and political responsibility. There was no separation of church and state as there is in the U.S. today. Prophets spoke the word of God with authority. Peter says in Acts 2:17-18 that “your sons and daughters will prophesy” and continues that “both men and women will prophesy.”

Who were the primary witnesses of the most important event in the Bible, the resurrection of Jesus Christ? Women. The Gospels reveal that Mary Magdalene and Mary, mother of James, are the ones who find the empty tomb and are instructed to tell the disciples. Women were responsible for explaining one of the most important messages of the entire Bible.

Lastly, the most compelling passage for an egalitarian society is Galatians 3:26-28, “So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female.”

Rebuttals to Conservative Views

1 Corinthians and 1 Timothy
Conservative theology of a complementarian or patriarchal order is primarily based on the interpretation that passages in 1 Corinthians and 1 Timothy are transcultural, not culture bound.... Transcultural means that the principles are timeless and, therefore, are relevant today as they were written in those passages.
Culture bound, on the other hand, means that the author of those passages was addressing the situation at that time and that the passages need to be understood in context.
Both conservative and liberal theologians believe that the way to determine if passages were meant to be culture bound is if there are direct contradictions within the Bible. Below are the passages in 1 Corinthians and 1 Timothy that create the most controversy. While conservative theologians sometimes disagree with each other, the majority of conservative Christians believe the passages in red are transcultural while the passages in green are culture bound:

1 Corinthians 11:3-16 (NIV) Transcultural³ But I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God. 
Culture Bound⁴ Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head. 5 But every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head—it is the same as having her head shaved. 6 For if a woman does not cover her head, she might as well have her hair cut off; but if it is a disgrace for a woman to have her hair cut off or her head shaved, then she should cover her head. 7 A man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God;
Transculturalbut woman is the glory of man. 8 For man did not come from woman, but woman from man; 9 neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. 10 It is for this reason that a woman ought to have authority over her own head, because of the angels. 11 Nevertheless, in the Lord woman is not independent of man, nor is man independent of woman. 12 For as woman came from man, so also man is born of woman. But everything comes from God.
Culture Bound¹³ Judge for yourselves: Is it proper for a woman to pray to God with her head uncovered? 14 Does not the very nature of things teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a disgrace to him, 15 but that if a woman has long hair, it is her glory? For long hair is given to her as a covering. 16 If anyone wants to be contentious about this, we have no other practice—nor do the churches of God.

1 Corinthians 14:34-35 (NIV)
Transcultural³⁴ Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says.
Culture Bound³⁵ If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church.

1 Timothy 2:9-15 (NIV)
Culture Bound⁹ I also want the women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, adorning themselves, not with elaborate hairstyles or gold or pearls or expensive clothes, 10 but with good deeds, appropriate for women who profess to worship God.
Transcultural¹¹ A woman should learn in quietness and full submission.  12 I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet. 13 For Adam was formed first, then Eve. 14 And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner.
Culture Bound¹⁵ But women will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety.

You do not need to be a theologian to see that conservative Christians seem to be cherry-picking which verses should be considered transcultural and which verses should be culture bound. The next section will provide evidence of contradictions to rebut the claims of those passages being transcultural.

What was the context in which Paul wrote 1 Corinthians and 1 Timothy? In the passages above, Paul was addressing the churches of Corinth and Ephesus, respectively. It is important to understand why Paul wrote what he did.

Most theologians believe Paul wrote 1 Corinthians in approximately 55 AD. Corinth was a major cosmopolitan city, and many considered it the most important city in Achaia. The congregation of the church in Corinth was mostly made up of Gentiles. In 1 Corinthians 11:3, Paul was establishing the order of beings on earth; the verses do not denote superiority. In the exact same sentence that Paul says, “the head of woman is man,” he also says, “the head of Christ is God.” If Paul meant men are superior to women that would imply that he also meant God is superior to Christ, but Paul understood God and Christ were equal as part of the trinity.

Most conservative Christians acknowledge that the writings of head coverings are culture bound. In Corinth at that time, women with short hair were labeled prostitutes. The fact that so much of 1 Corinthians 11 is culture bound should send strong signals that the intentions were to teach about the broader message of authority.

In 1 Corinthians 14:34, Paul uses the word “submission” not to denote inferiority but to denote the gender roles in Corinthian culture during that time. In Corinthian culture, women were not allowed to confront men in public. Because of the new freedom women felt from the Christian doctrines emphasizing equality, Paul wanted to remind them that they still needed to adhere to the cultural norms of their time.

While these gender roles are misogynistic by today’s standards, in the Corinthian culture at that time, women were expected to cook and clean while only men received formal education. Paul still believed in the equality of all men and women but believed that their roles could be complementary. Arguably, Paul believed that Corinthian women must be in submission to men in spiritual teachings the same way men must be in submission to women for domestic chores. Paul’s broader message was for people to not use Christianity as an excuse to do anything one pleases.

Even conservative Christians today will agree that women need not “ask their own husbands at home” in order to learn. It is inconsistent, therefore, to believe the preceding sentence is transcultural.

Many scholars believe 1 Timothy was written in approximately 64 AD after Paul sent Timothy to the church in Ephesus to counter false teachings there. The church in Ephesus was similar to the church in Corinth, whereby Paul was granting women even more liberties than the cultural norms of those times. Women were not allowed to study in Ephesus, but Paul was saying it was okay to do so as long as they did not abuse their rights and blame their insubordination on Christianity.

If anything, Christian doctrine was more liberating for women during those times. Both Corinthian and Ephesian cultures were extremely misogynistic, but Christianity highlighted that God viewed both men and women as equal. Paul wanted to restore order and make sure that women did not use their faith as an excuse to do whatever they pleased.

The Gospels
Conservatives will claim that all of Jesus’s disciples were men and that if he wanted women to teach, he would have at least had one woman. The composition of his disciples needs to be taken into context of who were the credible people to deliver his message at that time. The disciples were also all Jewish. This same argument would preclude Gentiles from church leadership.