There’s lots of conversations about Complementarianism these days. It may have started with Rachel Held Evans’ blog post “Will the Real Complementarian Please Stand Up?” which outlines and hotlinks to all the arguments about complementarianism you could ever want.
To define the term, Complementarianism is the belief that God has specific expectations regarding gender roles and that men and women are “complements” to each other as they both are better at certain things. Oddly enough, leadership of the household is the man’s quality. How unexpected!
While I appreciated the brutal honesty of Rachel’s piece, I’m not post-evangelical so I don’t fit into her tribe of folks. More to my persona, I resonated with what the more academic Dr. Richard Beck wrote in response entitled “Let’s Stop Calling It Complementarianism” which I think names the issue more to my kind of thinking.
Dr. Beck claims that to call it “complementarianism” actually falls short because there really are two forms of complementarianism that are intertwined. The first form is simple division of gender roles:
Generally speaking, complementarianism has two parts. The first part is that, according to complementarianism, a man and women are endowed with certain gifts and skills that, when combined in a heterosexual marriage, “complement” each other, two puzzle pieces that fit together to make a whole that reflects the image of God.
This aspect of complementarianism–that a husband and a wife “complement” or “complete” each other–isn’t inherently hierarchical/patriarchal because there are egalitarian arrangements where this sort of thing happens all the time. The Apostle Paul’s famous body metaphor for the church comes to mind. We can also think of any team or organization where our various gifts, skills and interests are lined up in a way that is “complementary”–you do that and I’ll do this because I’m good that this and you are good at that–to get the best result for the group.
Here we see that perhaps the best form of complementarianism is this one: just saying that men and women have certain gifts. While the science may or may not work out, it is generally recognized. And it doesn’t mean that a woman with power saw skills can’t be partnered with a man who likes to clean the kitchen. It just means that the best form of a relationship is with another who complements you (and compliments you on occasion). I’m not supporting this belief, just reporting on its best form in my view.
Sadly, this form is not complete without the second half of the belief system…and that’s where the problems really lie. Dr. Beck continues:
If that is all complementarianism was naming then it would be well named. But that’s only half of the complementarian position.
The other half of the complementarian position is this: men and women have different gifts that combine to reflect the image of God and God created the man to have the gifts of leadership. That’s the critical part. That is, when God divided up God’s nature between the genders God gave the attributes of leadership to the male, putting him “in charge.”…
It is this additional bit, that God gave the gifts of leadership to men rather than to women, that carries us well past the boundaries of what might properly be called “complementarian.”
Dr. Beck argues for a better term called hierarchical complementarianism, basically naming that it sees men as better equipped than women based on gender rather than gifts.
Specifically, it distinguishes between the sort of complementarianism that egalitarians believe in, what might be called relational complementarianism, from the kind that hierarchical complementarians believe in, a complementing that isn’t organic to the relationship (the relative gifts of the husband and wife) but is, rather, a fixed and preordained power-relation with men placed in leadership over women.
This is why hierarchical complementarianism is a form of patriarchalism. Hierarchical complementarianism is founded upon the belief of ontological ineptitude. To say that men and women are “complements” of each other and that men are given the gifts of leadership in this arrangement is to argue that women are ontologically inept when it comes to leadership. That is, women are permanently lacking and incompetent in leadership spheres (ineptitude) because of the kinds of beings they are, namely women (ontology). That is the belief at the heart of hierarchical complementarianism–ontological ineptitude–that reveals its patriarchal nature.
Thinking of the female pastors in my life (and I owe the entire existence of my ordained ministry to several women), the word “inept” doesn’t figure into their stories of their ministries in the slightest.
I can’t find anything that gives an official United Methodist position on complementarianism specifically (other than that we ordain women, so that should answer that question…). But there’s this section of our Book of Discipline that gives theological warrant to how we view the different ministries of the church:
¶ 130. The Unity of Ministry in Christ—There is but one ministry in Christ, but there are diverse gifts and evidences of God’s grace in the body of Christ (Ephesians 4:4-16). The ministry of all Christians is complementary. No ministry is subservient to another. All United Methodists are summoned and sent by Christ to live and work together in mutual interdependence and to be guided by the Spirit into the truth that frees and the love that reconciles.
Even though female pastors are vastly vastly shamefully underrepresented in the Top 100 United Methodist churches, all ministries are–using Dr. Beck’s terms–functionally complementarian: we have different areas of ministry and missional concern due to the nature of our relationship (our connection). It is in our connection and our seeking to overlap a little but give independence and interdependence to the parts that make us a coherent whole with no ministries greater than others.
Complementarianism as a church? Sure, it can work functionally. But as a hierarchy, it falls into the same trap as gendered theologies: way short of how God’s gifts are manifested and way short of the call for all to follow Christ who did not lay out different tracks for men and women and who is equally followed by both genders without regard to special hierarchical powers, regardless of the patriarchal historical context.
So even in its best form, complementarianism is just simply patriarchy. While the academics can call it hierarchical complementarianism or ontological complementarianism, I think we’ll just stick with calling it patriarchy.
Thoughts?
(Photo: “Man and Woman in Red” by epSos.de, shared under Creative Commons license from Flickr)
yes, agree…. another piece to the conversation– is the assumption that complementarianism is all about a man and a woman: in relation to work/ministry… but seems to me: it is all flowing from Biblical interpretations of marriage. I mean, a cord of three strands — could never be two women and the Divine… right? G-D “designed” marriage and made it.. hierarchal.. didn’t S-he? All this can be discussed and reimagoned once we begin to think about the way we interpret these ancient texts, I think. … and begin to see a projected path… a trajectory…as opposed to a retrofit.
Jeremy–I see where you’re driving, but for your argument to have a foundation to it, you’d need to outline why concepts like “hierarchy” and “patriarchy” are inherently evil or at least corrupt. I would wonder whether you’d see “matriarchy” as similarly evil, and if so, what you would propose in its place. “Equality” is not truly an equivalent term, in that it does not denote the rule of something. But if by that we would mean some type of authentically egalitarian rule of the household, then I don’t think it is practical; in my own experience of marriage, my wife and I mechanically splitting tasks (of whatever nature) 50/50 would be cumbersome to the extreme. (I’m not sure what you’d call what we do other than some form of pragmatic complementarianism. We never sat down and divided up our duties and responsibilities. We just fell into them over time. And we have gravitated toward what we prefer, what we are gifted at doing, etc. In all of that, there are some things I do primarily, some things she does primarily, and some things we share.)
.
I’d ask a similar question about your view of hierarchy as a concept, and if anything I think the outright rejection of it is even more problematic. Do you really think hierarchical relationships are to be rejected out of hand in all instances? I ask that in a serious way, because I don’t think I’ve ever been in a complex educational, ecclesiastical, or professional setting that did not have a leadership or administrative structure that was hierarchical to some degree or another. That doesn’t mean any of them were hierarchical in an authoritarian or even tyrannical way (except maybe high school football), but the hierarchies are nevertheless present. I’d argue that they are necessary for much of anything to get done. Now, that said, I think the primary hierarchy I’ve experienced in my own life within nuclear families has been a hierarchy between parents and children. I don’t know that I would ever refer to the spousal relationships I’ve experienced or seen in my own extended family as hierarchical in any meaningful sense, and I tend not to think that the clunky language of hierarchy does justice to the unique relationship that married couples inhabit. I would rather prefer to speak of a shared form of life, with its own internal coherence, that is dependent upon each member of the couple exhibiting those virtues necessary for the family to thrive. Making such a suggestion, of course, would not limit us to a rigid structuring of what those virtues are and how they are expressed–either “equally” or in some other arrangement.
.
The last thing I’d mention—and I apologize for rambling, it’s just that you are the second person to present me with this interesting issue today—is that we would need to be clear about our referents when making assumptions or claims. When the language of equality is bandied about in whatever setting, it typically arises out of the account of the human being that we get from Enlightenment liberal notions of individual moral autonomy. Those notions inform modern beliefs about universal suffrage, the validity of emotivist choice in the realm of moral value, and, yes, the egalitarian constitution of the marriage relationship. We’d live in a very different society if we didn’t operate under such liberal democratic assumptions, so much so that I don’t think any of us could reasonably say we’d prefer it otherwise. But that doesn’t mean that liberal individualism is *always* the the best way to conceive of *all* social arrangements which we experience or encounter. It is possible to make an argument to the contrary, but that argument does not proceed by invoking terms that it is assumed we all know to be wrong and using them as shibboleths. But, then, speaking of shibboleths—at what point does the Scriptural witness come into play in any of this, anyway? If we want to think about what possibilities there are besides the default standard of what liberal individualism offers us with any seriousness, we have to consult those sources. For Christians, I would suggest that an engagement with Scripture is not a bad source to include.
.
At any rate, thank you for getting me thinking about something that I do not do often—even in the daily ins and outs of my own marriage and family life.
Andrew, just like many complementarians, you’ve made the mistake of focusing on the first half of Richard Beck’s conversation: complementarianism as functional. Functional ones, where you make decisions together or based on your relative gifts, are not problematic per se. The problem is that if you believe that men are given the gift of leadership and women are not, then that ceases to be a functional one and becomes the dark other half of the complementarian conversation.
The key term from Richard Beck’s column is the term ontological: pertaining to one’s being. Ontological hierarchies are always negative: saying that women can’t be engineers or boxers, women can’t be pastors, men can’t be stay-at-home dads, blacks can’t be executives, gays can’t be schoolteachers…all those say that regardless of expressed gifts that they are unable to do those roles because of their gender or other genetic makeup that is unchangeable. Hierarchy is not the issue so much as the ontological status of those who are at the top of the hierarchy. And hierarchy based on that the ontological status of women is insufficient for them to be leaders is called patriarchy. And yes, I would call it bad in all its forms.
I note that you mention marriage a lot in your response…I don’t have a particular focus on a relationship’s mutual decision-making. While I question the wisdom of relationships that rely on men as the “spiritual head” of the household and that “the man says it and that’s how it is,” to each their own. But when such family relationships are attempted to be codifed into how a group or society or entire denomination values the different genders, then I have a problem.
As Beck shows convincingly (in my opinion), you cannot have a functional without an ontological complementarianism. I think you’ve focused on the wrong end of the equation by focusing on the hierarchy piece and neglected the ontological piece altogether. Any claim that a woman is unable to be in a hierarchy because of her being a woman is not sound theology, in my opinion, because people are able to follow in their whole beings, and I’m pretty sure that women don’t have to grow a penis to be like Christ.
That’s the entire critique of complementarianism: it’s about ontological status as a prerequisite for hierarchy, not a condemnation of hierarchy itself.
Jeremy—You are drawing some distinctions in your reply that are helpful. I would say that particularly about hierarchies based on ontological status, about which I would clearly agree.
.
I’m still a little confused about what you (and Beck) are suggesting about the slippery slope from a functional to an ontological (or hierarchical) complementarianism—namely, that “you cannot have a functional without an ontological complementarianism.” In the excerpts from Beck and from your own argument, that seems to be based on the view that God only gives gifts of leadership to men and not women. Why must we come to that conclusion? My guess is that Beck (whom I have not read independently) is making an argument from Ephesians 5. But if that is the case, then to suggest that one must *necessarily* slide into an ontological complementarianism appears to be based on a very selective, out-of-context reading of that passage.
.
I rarely venture into the waters of this issue, because the battle lines seem to be so sharply drawn. The word “complementarian” itself seems to be good and right and natural to some, while it is complete anathema to others. My sense is that those who are most well known as outspoken complementarians—usually hyper-conservative doctrinaire Calvinists like Mark Driscoll—have co-opted the word in way that makes it seem unredeemable to some. I get that. But my reading of the egalitarian language of most Methodist folk does not strike me as fitting with most people’s actual experience of marriage, or of the biblical witness about the mystery of the love between husband and wife (which, after all, is presented as a type of the love between Christ and the church). If the issue of whether a couple can live into a pragmatic complementarity without slipping into an ontological complementarity is dependent on whether the spiritual gift of leadership is or is not given solely to the man, then what is stopping us from robustly affirming that it is given to the woman as well? My own wife exercises leadership in our family in many crucial respects, and I take her guidance / oversight / counsel of both my children and me to be very much a gift of God.
Hi Jeremy,
Of this term, I’ve never heard, not even a word.
I do recall a friend from high school who told me that a man MUST be the spiritual head of the household. She didn’t learn to drive until she was 21 because her father forbade it. I always thought she was a nut. Now she’s in a messianic christian commune, which some would call a cult. She doesn’t do a lot of thinking for herself. Sad.
I’ll throw this word on the heap of other words I’ve learned and forgotten, those multi-syllabic theological constructions which end in ism.
Meant to say “messianic Jewish” community
What about paragraph 161(e):
“We affirm with Scripture the common humanity of male and female, both having equal worth in the eyes of God. We reject the erroneous notion that one gender is superior to another, that one gender must strive against another, and that members of one gender may receive love, power, and esteem only at the expense of another. We especially reject the idea that God made individuals as incomplete fragments, made whole only in union with another. We call upon women and men alike to share power and control, to learn to give freely and to receive freely, to be complete and to respect the wholeness of others. We seek for every individual opportunities and freedom to love and be loved, to seek and receive justice, and to practice ethical self-determination. We understand our gender diversity to be a gift from God, intended to add to the rich variety of human experience and perspective; and we guard against attitudes and traditions that would use this good gift to leave members of one sex more vulnerable in relationships than members of another. “
Hey, excellent! Thanks John!
Christianity, and the Judaic religion that preceded it, were differentiated from the majority of ancient faiths by virtue of their singular respect for women. Biblically, the heavenly ideal referring to the resurrected as “Neither male nor female” implies a lack of gender preference. This was not reflected in Gnosticism, which contrary to popular contemporary thought, was always extremely misogynistic (and indeed, in discarding the Old Testament and writing off the God of the Israelites as a flawed, incompetent demigod, the Gnostics also discarded the numerous protections for women one can find within the Torah, which uniquely among those early religions passed on to us, in general apply reciprocal privileges for men and women). Particularly offensive is the dreadful quote from the Gospel of Thomas (which was almost certainly not written by the Apostle Thomas, but rather by one of the disciples of Mani), in which Christ is alleged to have indicated that women must “make themselves male” in order to enter the Kingdom of God.
That said, in recent times, Protestantism in general, including the UMC, has failed to properly respect Church Tradition regarding the role of women. Patriarchy should not be viewed as evil or undesirable; indeed it is worth noting that the heads of most of the larger Eastern churches enjoy the dignity of Patriarch. Nor can we discard the Pauline epistles, which clearly restrict the ministerial activities of women in certain respects. The ministry of women is not prohibited outright; rather, the epistles appear primarily to restrict the exercise of pastoral authority over men by women. Thus, the practice in some churches whereby nuns in a convent require the pastoral assistance of a male priest to celebrate the sacraments is probably either supererogatory or misogynistic, depending on your perspective. The early Church implemented the injunctions of the Pauline epistles by actively using women in the Diaconate, but not ordaining women to the ranks of Presbyter or Bishop, and this seems to me to be a reasonable approach that is true both to the demands of the Pauline epistles, and the overarching Biblical requirement for the chivalrous, equitable and deferential treatment of women by men. Prior to the Council of Chalcedon, these women were generally widows, over the age of sixty, but the Council of Chalcedon reduced the minimum age to forty and clarified the requirement of absolute celibacy for the office of Deaconess. Historically, within the Western church, male priests were (and still are in the Roman Catholic Church) required to be celibate as well, although in the East the marriage of priests (but not Bishops) has always been tolerated. As a confessional Methodist, I feel that the United Methodist Church should begin a return to the Biblical, traditional approach to ordination, but at the same time it must be made clear that this is not an endorsement of misogyny or sexual discrimination against women, in any way, because the same Bible that limits the ecclesiastical role of women also conveys in unequivocal language the equality of God’s love for both genders, and an expectation of the same conduct on ourselves.
Whereas the United Methodist Church has gone too far in its pursuit of sexual equality, to the point of ignoring the Pauline epistles, others have gone too far in the opposite direction. I read with horror of the abuse associated with groups such as 9Marks, Sovereign Grace Ministries and so forth. “Biblical domestic discipline” and other horrors are beginning to become more common in these groups, and this must be rejected as a manifestation of crypto-Gnosticism, the pernicious heresy that seems to afflict all of Protestantism in our time.
Paul, I was really starting to like you. I like a good debate with someone who is intelligent and substantive–though long winded, but I am too.
But you are United Methodist and don’t believe in having women as clergy? Boggles my mind.
One segment that I didn’t include from Dr. Beck is this one:
If we believe Jesus reflected the image of God in God’s fullness and offers God’s salvation to all people who seek to reflect the image of God as well, then all who are called to share in that reflection don’t need to have male genitalia to do it 100%. I have no problem disregarding the weight of Tradition when it is biblically, theologically, and reasonably wrong.
The Christian faith enshrines Mary at a position higher than that of any clergyman. Next to Mary, who is enshrined at the Council of Ephesus as “Theotokos”, literally “Birth Giver to God” (to reject this is to embrace the Nestorian heresy, which Anglicanism and Methodism ostensibly repudiate); next to this height of glory, clergymen are utterly insignificant. In fact I would go so far as to say that in the grand scheme of things, in the Christian faith, women hold a substantially more important position than men, by virtue of Mary, indeed, by their lack of male genitalia. The knightly codes of Chivalry in Western Europe established a system under which women were not only treated with deference, but defended against any offense to their honor or personal dignity. Compared to this, clergymen are of substantially reduced importance, thus, I interpret the strictures of Apostolic tradition (including the Pauline epistles themselves) limiting the episcopal and presbyterial office to men (and to celibate men in the case of the former), as being, if anything, compensation for the fact that the higher glory of both Mary, and implied through motherhood, is denied men.
This very minor restriction does not prohibit female heads of state or heads of government; the strict Salic law of continental Europe that historically prohibited women from assuming the throne of countries like the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg is surely biblically and theologically wrong. Why should women desire the priesthood, when they can follow in the footsteps of Margaret Thatcher and Queen Victoria, and rule nations? What is more, they are not denied the ministry; orders up to the ordained rank of Deaconness remained open to them under the early Church. Christianity, following the apostolic traditions that limit the priesthood to men, is also the least misogynistic of the ancient faiths, having granted protections to women both Biblically and in canon law not present in other religions, and having enshrined Mary to a position exceeding that of all other humans, with human fathers (indeed, the doctrine of the Assumption as adhered to by the Roman Catholics and Syriac Orthodox grants Mary a direct assent to heaven in a manner similar to that of Elijah, an honor not granted to any of the Apostles).
What is more, the application of spiritual economy allows us to derogate slightly from this regarding those already ordained; I would be opposed to defrocking all female UMC clergy. I am merely opposed to the ordination of any more female presbyters or bishops, in violation of the Pauline Epistles. I would propose that, when this restriction is implemented, it be applied only to those born in the year following the enaction of the measure, so those already in the seminary, and those children promised a pastoral career, could complete it. This would be justifiable under the principle of economia to reduce the potential for schism, and to avoid imposing poverty, hardship and humiliation upon those who were misled by the church into pursuing a career that was, from a purely Biblical perspective, inappropriate.
Lastly, it should be stressed that the male genitals have no bearing upon the restriction of the priesthood to the male gender. If we look at the Apostolic Canons, Apostolic Canon 21 specifically says “An eunuch, if he has been made so by the violence of men, or if his virilia have been amputated in times of persecution, or if he has been born so, if in other respects he is worthy, may be made a bishop.” Thus, the absence of male genitalia from a biological male, provided it was not the fault of an act of self-mutilation, as prohibited under Apostolic Canons 22, 23 and 24 (and, accusations of which contributed to the posthumous condemnation of Origen), did not preclude such a man from ascending to the highest clerical office. Since Bishops were required to celibate, furthermore, requiring functional genitalia would have been pointless anyway. What is more, Canons 22, 23 and 24 could presumably be derogated, as most of the Canons are, in the interests of economia (since the Apostolic Canons are extraordinarily strict; probably a third of all Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholics would be excommunicated if they were not offset via economia where required, for in these two churches the Apsotolic Canons remain a binding part of canon law). The Christian faith is not a legalistic one in the manner of Rabinnical Judaism, but we are still obliged to follow the commandments of the New Testament (and indeed the Old Testament still provides the means by which sin can be ascertained, in many cases, the difference being, failure to comply with the 613 mitzvah codified in the Talmud, or with the literal exegesis of the Old Testament text as practiced by the Karaites, is expected, and we can repent for these sins and be forgiven).
Anthony, you assert that Christianity/ your way of understanding it gives a high view of women that more than makes up for not being able to be clergy.
Okay, what do I, a single childless female in a country with a high crime rate, get from Christianity which Christianity does not offer you as a man? Be practical. From what you say, I can see if those good and honourable gifts from God are bigger than the chance to, if God gifts you for it, be used by Him as clergy.
I should lastly add that, to my knowledge, support of the ordination of women to the priesthood and diaconate is not a confessional requirement of Methodism. I was baptized into the United Methodist Church and am a member; I consider myself a High Church Methodist, who pines for the Methodist Episcopal Church, and not a ‘United Methodist’. I also consider myself to be Catholic and Orthodox, by way of Wesley’s apostolic succession via Erasmus of Arcadia. I adhere to the Nicene Creed, the Apostolic Creed, the Athanasian Creed, and the dogmatic definitions of the first seven Ecumenical Councils, as well as the imperatives of John Wesley. This does not in any way grant me righteousness or any improved state of morality versus the rest of the world; I would, in the manner of Kallistos Ware, deny that I have been saved, and instead propose that, like the rest of the Christian faithful, and those outside the Church who receive the grace of God, I trust that I am being saved, with the hope of universal reconciliation, but the understanding that the only act beyond God’s power is to force us to love Him. Compared to the Coptic and Syrian Christians who are martyred daily, who prior to their martyrdom lived in a state of greater orthodoxy and piety, and who fasted with greater severity than what I myself am even capable of, I am pathetic; likewise, like all members of our present depraved generation, I pale in comparison even with those Methodists of the first half of the 20th century.
Why did the Genesis Chapter 1 and 2 creation event happen? Keep in mind that the FALL of Adam and Eve did not have to happen.
In Ps 8:5 we read that man was made a LITTLE LOWER than the angels. Why would this text be in the Bible? In Jude verse 6 we are told of angels… which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation. These are those angels who followed Lucifer.
Jesus stated that on the day that He returns believers will be equal to and like the angels (Matt 22:30, Luke 20:36). If Adam and Eve had NOT fallen then at some final point humans would have been raised from a LITTLE LOWER THAN to EQUAL TO angels. It seems at this point that the original task to be fruitful and multiply is no longer necessary since the number of missing angels had been equaled, hence no need for children?
However, why go through this very complicated and time consuming process of replacing the missing angels when God could just instantly speak their replacements into existence?
The answer becomes apparent through the Bible. God is interested in RELATIONSHIPS and the relationship between God and living creation creatures and persons is important because LIFE comes from God every moment. The creatorship power and maintenance power of God is why He is in charge of the Universe. God knows how everything runs the best and so must be obeyed like the instructions for the things we have in our homes.
It is like children’s role playing, say, going shopping. The male to his family and the mother to her children illustrate God’s care of the universe. Both are using leadership skills in their roles. Together they form one big image of God. On this basis this is why women trying to be the priest or pastor are spoiling the script. Satan wanted to spoil the script by taking over God’s job. The inspiration to the male/female conflicts is Satan’s insane quest to be God, which was impossible, just as a male cannot have babies.
Interesting discussion. I’m not a Methodist so I’m speaking as a outsider.
I’ve long wrestled with this apparent contradiction. The Bible making clear that not only are women and men equal in value, there are instances of both being endowed with the same/similar gifts. Within groups, individuals often having different but complementary gifts. And the Bible also, within a culture, nation etc which Good set up, repeatedly selecting men for certain roles.
The limits appear to be our biology (eg only women bear children), and statistical differences at population level which are caused by a mixture of cultural stereotypes and extrapolation of biological limits on to a large scale. Eg only a slight handicap caused by menstrual cycle ill-health or a short career break to give birth, could over time result in a huge disparity in the number of each sex succeeding in a highly competitive field.
The emphasis of I Corinthians 7 does not make marriage hierarchical. Any such element, I’d agree, is not a major one.
What is much more apparent in scripture is the wider context; sons of Jacob, male disciples, male Jesus. These were surely God’s spoken will, rather than his permissive will.
I’m not a Roman Catholic, and single and childless, but I do see an element of truth in the commenter highlighting Mary and motherhood. Is it not possible that God elects to endow the office of Elder exclusively on men, as a kind of ‘positive discrimination’, in compensation for the fact that only women are ‘the mother(s) of all living’?
The commenter opposing this view in one sense reinforced it. ‘What do(es she), without being a mother (personally) gain, versus if she could (potentially) be a pastor or Elder?’. Well in both cases the ordination to Eldership OR to motherhood, is at God’s discretion, and doesn’t apply to every individual. But BOTH only ever apply to one sex.
At present there is much discussion of the need for women only material world spaces, for physical safety, dignity and fairness. With fewer men only spaces required for dignity and fairness.
Perhaps there is the reverse spiritually? With more need for men only preaching and authority spaces, for spiritual safety, dignity and fairness. And fewer women only spaces for dignity and fairness.
Is the whole thing actually about men’s spiritual safety? DOES it after all come back to men being TOO inclined to accept, second hand, any forbidden fruit a woman presents to them? I wasn’t thinking of a sexual activity context. Though sexual chemistry could be part of it, for all I know.