Wild Women 101: A Dialogue Between Dennae Pierre and Jennifer Bell

Because we had so much to say, we’re launching a series. This is the first in our series of blog posts on you-know-what.

Jennifer:  Oh, wow. Well, there are about a million different topics we could touch upon. The challenges Christian women face in terms of marriage, career, kids, the Church. Relationships, our understanding of feminism, our sense of personal vocation. Yeah, I’m all over the place. But where is our place? I think displacement may really get to the heart of it. What does the Church do with women?  

Some contextual info: we’re both married moms with jobs. We’re women with opinions. You’re pretty vocal. From the beginning, I sensed you might be trouble. I liked that about you. What kind of challenges do women in the church, the Church with an upper case “C,” face?

Dennae: Ha. Well, there are so many topics you just listed that I would love to talk about . . . but let's just start with your last question. What kind of challenges do women in the "C"-church face?

I always like to answer questions like that by acknowledging that my church experience is in a particular part of the world and within a particular tribe or "stream" of Christianity. I don't want to speak for all Christians in America or the world. I will start by discussing broad categories that I think women struggle with and then narrow it down to our own particular context: complementarian reformed churches in America.

Jennifer: I’m going to interrupt you in order to ask you to define complementarian reformed. What is that?

Dennae: Well, it’s a broad category; for simplicity’s sake, I am talking about the group of Christians who may be likely to associate themselves with groups such as The Gospel Coalition, Acts 29, Desiring God, Together for the Gospel, etc. There is a lot of diversity among those churches in how they articulate and work out different theological aspects but there is unity on some specific doctrine.

One of those unifying factors is a theological position called “complementarianism,” meaning the office and role of “elder” is to be held by an elder-qualified male only. The other view (which is not heretical, and good Bible-believing folks hold this view) is egalitarianism. Egalitarians would approach the passages of Scripture that discuss qualifications for an elder with a different hermeneutic resulting in the conclusion that the office of elder is not restricted to men, but can include women as well.

Jennifer:  I know you’re wanting to move on, but I really think this needs clarification. We’ll get in trouble if we presume mutual understanding here. I’ll skip the reformed stuff, only for the purpose of our discussion. But: we’ve got complementarianism on one side, and egalitarianism on the other, right? I won’t ask you to prove to me that egalitarianism is not heretical, but I will ask you to explain what complementarianism looks like in a local church.

Dennae: Simply speaking, “complementarians” look at passages on eldership and say that Scripture teaches that only men should be elders in a church. However, where there is unity on male-only eldership, there is great diversity in how this plays out in each local congregation.

One church may apply the Scripture to mean women can’t teach a co-ed Sunday school class (or offer any real leadership to the church besides perhaps women’s ministry and children’s ministry). Other churches may hold that women can teach co-ed groups in any setting other than Sunday morning.  Still other churches will welcome a guest in to preach on a Sunday morning (think Joni Eareckson Tada).

It all depends on how that local church works out what only an elder can do.   

Jennifer: Thanks. You were saying . . .

Dennae: I think women worldwide face all sorts of challenges and, unfortunately, many of these same challenges get imported into the church.

Women in America are still viewed as less intelligent, more emotional, and less capable than men. On top of these deeply embedded beliefs, our sexualized culture leads to women to be constantly viewed through and weighed against the tainted lenses of a pornographic culture. Sexuality is our power. It's easy to buy into that and use it in the workplace, in our marriages, and in the church.

Culture is like a river that carries everyone downstream, without anyone even realizing it; and Christians get swept up into it. I fear that often we take the biblical call for husbands to lead and women to submit—or male eldership—and import all of our cultural baggage (and idols) before asking what these texts really mean.

I could come at this from a thousand angles. But one angle we can look at this from is by asking some important questions. How does our cultural idols cause us to poorly apply Scripture to gender? To roles within marriage? To leadership within the church?

How is a woman who God has gifted with leadership abilities to use those gifts within her church and within her family? And in regards to her vocation, either by necessity or desire, how do pastors equip and release her to do this well? Because too often the norm for women who work within the church is to feel guilty or ostracized for making decisions that allow them to faithfully obey whatever calling God has placed on their lives.

Jennifer: Oh, there’s too much here, Dennae—is it because we’re women, prone to free-association and multi-tasking?—so let’s attempt to do some very rudimentary work here. First, let’s define complementarianism. Second, and this one may be tough: how do you define womanhood? And, related to this, we might ask: How are men and women different? What is unique about women? If we can first answer these questions, we’ll probably be able to take up the challenges better.

I’ll give you a little info on my own “plight” as a woman. I feel like I experienced two distinct phases. First, I was single. I was headstrong, very education-oriented, and struggling with my place within the church. While displacement comes to mind, I felt—most sincerely—that the general attitude the Church had about me was that I was uncontained. I had no man, and that was a problem. No one quite knows how to handle the single woman! Should you talk to her, if you’re a guy—or will everyone get the wrong idea? Should you ask her to babysit for your kids or invite her over to make a pie? Is it okay to get into a debate over politics with her? Is such intense conversation with a woman—an uncommitted woman, a woman not on reigns—dangerous? I felt, mostly, like I had a great big NO! sign over my head. I can name the Christian guys on less than three fingers who persisted in friendship. Second, I got married (at thirty-four, when I already had a career as a mediocre college prof), which meant—Thank God!—I was now contained. Christian men spoke to me more, but they rarely said much of substance. In this second phase, the marriage phase, I have spent a lot of time struggling with vocation and identity. I always wanted children, so that wasn’t the issue. But I never felt like motherhood was, well, my true calling. I felt horribly alienated and totally depressed during the baby years—like your classic post-partum thing. The other Christian moms were wary of me, and I of them. Breastfeeding killed me. I failed at all things baby. There were medical traumas with both of my kids. I finally mustered up the courage to tell my husband I didn’t want to homeschool, even though I was a teacher (more failure). In one very dramatic confrontation, I announced to him, “I’m a Christian first, a woman second, and a writer third.” I may be off-base here (still working on this stuff), but I persist in my thinking. I should say that my husband supported me eventually (!).

But here we are. You’re turn. Would you address those initial questions?

Dennae: Thanks for the illustration on free association. :) Just kidding.

You said a lot there that I would love to unpack.

Jennifer: If you insist.

Dennae: First, single or married, men and women seriously struggle to relate well to each other within the church. Scripture tells us very clearly to be brothers and sisters, but it is rare to be able to have that type of deep, authentic, intimate brother-sister friendship within the church (part of this is because we haven’t answered some of the questions I first listed).

Second, it sounds like you had a very specific mold of what it meant to be a good mother/wife.  I would love to talk more about that as it seems shaped by a very specific view of “motherhood.” That sounds like a difficult experience.

Last, I resonate with the idea that what we are first is not a woman, but I don’t know that I would even put “woman” as the second category of what I am.  But there is too much there so I’ll punt those topics to the next part of the series.

Jennifer:  Remind me, because I’d like to hear your ordering or categorization of self.

Dennae: Let’s just start with your question: How are men and women different? What is unique about women?

Honestly, Jennifer, the question in and of itself is part of what I find so challenging about where the church is at in this discussion. We have filled bookshelves with scholarly writing on this topic. We have approached it theologically, psychologically, and sociologically. There are a lot more brilliant people than myself who can talk about the differences. Part of what I want us to start asking is: how are we the same? How is our obsession with the differences preventing women from using the gifts God has given them?

A lot of our answers to the differences between men and women are very culturally rooted. The problem with this is that when we make broad, blanket statements such as “women are nurturing” and “men are assertive,” we alienate the men that God made to be nurturing and the women God designed as more assertive.

What does it mean that a man in our church is more in-tune to his children's emotional needs than his wife is? What does it mean that I do not multitask?  We assign western majority cultural values to gender. That may be helpful to the men and women who fit that specific mold, but it’s going to be very alienating to those who do not.

There are a few important differences between men and women, but they are few. The main differences in my mind are as follows: Women are physically vulnerable, and weaker than men. Because of the upside-down nature of the Gospel, I believe our weakness is our strength. Our weakness gives us the potential to be some the best leaders and a great gift to the church, insomuch as we are able to embrace this Gospel idea that our power is in our “weakness.”

Jennifer: I’m wondering if you could give an example of this?

Dennae: A personal example: I don't turn off my leadership gifts in my marriage. In fact, when I tried that early in marriage in attempts to fit into whatever I thought headship/submission was, it didn't go so well.

In my home, I am clearly weaker physically than my husband. I have to trust him for safety, protection, and provision partially because he has a physical strength that I do not have. Learning to depend on another human being teaches you a valuable lesson as a leader. I lead by bringing vulnerability and weakness into our conversations, decisions, and plans.

A practical example: I can't tell you how many wives express frustration over how rare their husbands "lead them in prayer" or "initiate romance or sex." Those are very vulnerable acts; why can't the gift of being a weaker vessel (literally) teach us to identify with the weak and initiate things like these more often?

Jennifer: Ha! This kinda cracks me up, because I totally remember the new wife-routine and thinking stuff like, “Do I say something? But I’m not supposed to say anything.  So then what? I wait around till when? Should I say something?” But you’re right: our ability to be vulnerable, to go out on limbs, is a strength.

Dennae: Women know that we may be attacked anytime we go hiking in a desolate place, and women know that we have no power to make men look into our eyes instead of looking up and down our bodies. . . We are aware of our dependence on others for much of our safety, and even our accomplishments.

Attaching oneself to someone stronger than oneself is a great leadership quality. It helps you build strong teams and get much more accomplished. Also, living this every day allows us to remind the Alpha males in our lives that no matter how confident they are in themselves, to truly be great they need other strong leaders around them.

So what then does it mean to be uniquely male?

Quick example: Men have a physical strength and because of that strength they are born with power. Again, the beauty of the Gospel is that God gave up His power for the sake of the weak. Scripture tells us on almost every page that those “with” are to steward their power for the sake of the vulnerable, the ones “without.”

I also think that, within the home, there is a difference between “fathering” and “mothering,” as well as “husbanding” and “wifing” (like my made-up words?) but, even then, I think we have to be careful what we assign to each category. Cooking is not necessarily connected to motherhood; car maintenance is not necessarily connected to fatherhood.

But let’s ask the important question: how are we the same and what does this matter in the life of the church? While complementarians and egalitarians disagree on who can be an elder, they agree that the Spirit of God gives gifts freely to the church without regard to gender, ethnicity, or wealth. God has given leadership gifts, pastoral gifts, preaching gifts to men and to women. The skills it takes to run a household, run a Fortune 500 company, homeschool, start a business, be a social worker, write,  or lead have been given to both women and to men.

If we are going to take a complementarian approach to Scriptures, meaning the role of elder is reserved for men, then let’s be honest in saying that this excludes women from one of about ten thousand things a woman can do to serve her city, church, family, and world (by the way, it also excludes a vast majority of men within the church).

So if it is only excluding women from one thing (elder) out of the 10,000+ things we can do, why then does it feel as if women like us are excluded from so much more? Why does someone like you feel like being head-strong or career-focused is not something that aligns with what it means to be a woman? Why are our Christian brothers told they must be non-emotional, scientific thinkers to be a man?  None of those things really have anything to do with being a male or a female.

Jennifer: Good points, Dennae. Let’s do a part two, immediately.

But, first, I would like to ask you to summarize and give us takeaway points on the biblical justification for complementarianism (because the easiest way for Christian women to deal with their tendency to “defy” traditional roles is to reject complementarianism), and on your biblical justification for how men and women are—in some ways—the same.

Can we do this for part two?  You mentioned how “the biblical call for husbands to lead and women to submit” is often tainted by the ways in which we “ import all of our cultural baggage (and idols) before asking what these texts really mean.” What do you think?

Dennae: I can't do justice to the complementarian or egalitarian arguments in a blog post, but I will recommend my favorite book on this: Half the Church by Carolyn Custis James. Kathy Keller, the co-founder of Redeemer Church in NYC, has a little e-book that is very helpful too.

Jennifer: I love that you called her “the co-founder.” She’s Tim Keller’s wife. He’s the pastor. That would be heretical in some circles! By the way, I attended that church for a bit when I lived in NYC. No one—like no one—would remember me. I was too busy being displaced (not their doing—I had some baggage with me).

Dennae: I really don't think we fail as Christian woman because we buck against the passage of Scripture that talks about submission and headship. When we fail, it's because our lives are not yet fully transformed to the shape of the cross. Pursuing Jesus is my safe spot, and has shaped my womanhood/wifehood/mothering/ being a sister in the body of Christ. I find a lot of the advice that skips "being like Jesus" and jumps to "being a godly woman/wife/mother” to be advice that asks me to be something different than I was created by God to be.

So to summarize:

1) We who are leaders are to lead like Jesus who is a Servant Leader.

2) A woman's weakness is not her shame; it's her glory.

3) A man's power is not his own; it's to be stewarded and given for the weak.

4) I don't spend a lot of time thinking about what it means to be a woman or a man, but I do spend a lot of time thinking about what it means to follow Jesus.

Jennifer:  Thanks, Dennae! Great stuff to think about!