Female Pastors in Church History?

NOTE: I was wrong about the Old Catholic Church here: in recent years they started ordaining women.

Gavin Ortlund (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) is President of Truth Unites and Theologian-in-Residence at Immanuel Nashville.

SUPPORT:

FOLLOW:

MY ACADEMIC WORK:

PODCAST:

DISCORD SERVER ON PROTESTANTISM

CHECK OUT SOME BOOKS:

00:00 - Introduction

[TruthUnites]

NOTE: I was wrong about the Old Catholic Church here: in recent years they started ordaining women.

[notavailable]

Mike Winger: 11 hours
Gavin: 1 minute

[ProfYaffle]

I was convinced of complimentarianism by Mike Winger's teaching. Like him, i wanted to be egalitarian, but cannot argue for it

[dpainter]

Why can't we just say, " regardless of whether modern society accepts, this is what God has prescribed, and that's that."

[tigernotwoods]

Not to mention, women have a role in the church as teachers, as religious sisters, as theologians, as martyrs, as nurses, etc. they’ve always had power and influence and their roles.

[jonathanrocha]

Every denomination practiced head coverings for women until the early to mid 20th century. Our modern version of Christianity thinks the Church from before got it wrong, but I strongly disagree

[HaydenSF]

Totally agree on all counts. Re: examples of female leadership in church history, A. Stewart’s book “The Original Bishops” mentions that there may have been a few female bishops (basically just heads of Christian households) in rural areas, but that this died out as soon as those households connected to metro areas. From that point it only manifested in the rural Montanist communities. Your points stand regardless, but I thought that was an interesting exception.

[mcable]

The problem with this argument about cultural elitism is sometimes everyone else is wrong. Slavery was wrong in every culture that practiced it and abolishing it and calling it an evil was the right move, not elitism.

[blabberflabber]

An interesting anecdote, but, in my experience with the church in China, female pastors don't seem to only be common but might often be the norm. I largely attribute this to a deficiency of male leadership that would otherwise take that role. But it's interesting to note when you consider the question "were there female pastors in church history" and consider the reality in a place like China where women are taking that role by necessity. Perhaps it's happened before then too, in other places.

[nehertz]

Gavin, this video is an answered prayer for me! I was just agonizing yesterday over paleoanthropology and the fossil record and sitting, trying to puzzle through how it all fits together, so this could not have come at a more perfect moment for me!

Thank you for all you do! Your careful reasoning and rich knowkedge of theology and history is a diamond among the often rough landscape of modern Western protestantism!

The Lord bless you and your family richly!

[karinmartin]

John Wesley authorized a number of women to preach in the Early Methodist Church. In my early 20s, I was in a church with a narcissistic, abusive, cult like pastor. This almost destroyed my faith. As a woman in my 60s, when I recently attended churches with women preachers (Episcopal and PCUSA ). I felt more part of the church. I felt like my humanity and value was affirmed in a new way that was very liberating.

[CornCod]

Of course the Bible says "Thou shalt not suffer a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence." Its just the ancient church being biblical.

[bentonschmidt]

I think that the tradition of leadership of women in their monasteries/convents is really interesting. For example, how a Benedictine abbess even has her own crozier. Not a priestly role, but not all leadership is priestly.

[lightandperspective]

Have you not read anything on this from Terran Williams, Craig Keener, Kevin Giles, Andrew Bartlett, Ron Pierce, Kenneth Bailey (who, remember, wrote Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes), Nijay Gupta, etc? There were women serving in those positions in the fiest century. But surprise, surprise, just as Christians brought in idol veneration over time, they also brought in male leadership over time.

[violethatchell]

this is an appeal to tradition, and unless you’re catholic or orthodox I know you don’t base all your beliefs on what’s been normative for most of church history. you’re also appealing to ignorance of anything different in order to keep believing that, maybe it would be better to educate yourself on influential women leaders in church history before deciding they just didn’t exist.

[Daniel_Miller]

A lot of people say that's how we Protestants view church history - everyone got it wrong; only we got it right.

[danielcartwright]

Well it seems that the very early church had female leaders, like Junia mentioned in Romans (listed as an apostle).

[mapa]

You are wrong. Eastern Orthodox had women deaconesses which is the first form of priesthood. Only when Islam came and because the priesthood could be desecrated by rape did the office cease. It was by necessity.

[WhatGodDoeth]

notice how he argues from tradition while ignoring Priscilla, a biblical exception.

[nicolasramirez]

I love the argument that what the ancient and historic church did is correct!