Link to Part 1 and Part 2

As I noted before this series of talks is in a group on the Redeemer website.  In this part I’ll treat Tim’s response and a Q/A session with Tim and Kathy and then a panel discussion. Again I found the whole thing quite fascinating.

Importance for Redeemer

Tim makes it clear early in his presentation that he feels this is a crucial part of Redeemer’s DNA. This is not something that they want to see go away or as some people will expect that they “move beyond” their position.

Tim makes a very interesting observation early on both camps.

• Egalitarians don’t want to talk about the difference between maleness and femaleness because they’re afraid it will be used to preclude women from something.
• Complementarians want to talk about the differences but tend to express the differences through lists. Lists of things that are permitted or forbidden.

What Redeemer has done is that the Bible gives a principle, though hard to define (the lists are not in the Bible) that in the home and in the church a principle of authority is laid down that somehow there should be male authority in those two places without giving specifics. “Inside the home, where you women have chosen the men you are doing this with, and inside the church, where you women have chosen the men you are doing this with (the pastors), what you do is you work out what that principle of authority will be.”

PVK processing this idea

• I think if you want to understand what the Kellers are trying to do at Redeemer what Tim Keller said early on in this section is crucial. Keller, as is often true, is looking for a third way to deal with a stalemated conflict, in this case the egalitarian-complementarian antithesis.
• There is a very real sense in listening to this (although I’m sure the Kellers would disagree) that what Kathy takes Tim gives away. She comes across as the hard liner (Paul) and he comes across as the peace maker (Barnabas). Fascinating.
• She establishes the principle: no female ordination to authority positions, he nuances it “no lists”. And this “no lists” things will get softer, fuzzier, and more contextual as the presentation progresses.
• The huge hole in the argument continues to be the segregation of this principle exclusively to home and church which again, is found nowhere in the Bible despite all the language about “cherry picking”.
• Tim also opens up another interesting hole when he articulates that women have a choice about home and church which is true in our Western, individualistic culture but isn’t true in many times and places around the world. Women don’t always get to choose their husbands nor their worshiping communities.
• The final application of the principle is for them finally worked out contextually without any Biblical lists, every church and every home somewhat different. That is where the NOM principal (whatever a non-ordained male can do a woman can do) comes in. The problem is that this begs the question and later in the panel this will be increasingly flexible or mushy, depending on how you feel about it.
• I think the observation that Egalitarians don’t want to talk about gender differences is only half right. I here many Egalitarians want to talk about the contribution women can make and sometimes try to highlight what contributions women bring to the table, they don’t want to talk about what contributions men can make out of fear of sounding chauvanistic. In practice I’m not sure how far apart this is from the Keller’s resistance to list making.

Relational Generosity

The second key observation Tim Keller makes here is how our natural sinfulness exacerbates the conflict. Again, this is a classic Tim Keller move. Both sides then:

• Impute motives to the other side
• We insist they hold to consequent positions that they don’t hold to.

In many ways this discipline of relational generosity I think stands at the heart of Tim Keller’s ministry and the reason he can grow a church in a community that holds positions quite different from his own. When I listen to Tim Keller’s sermons and watch how other people react to his teaching I think this is central to why his ministry has the impact it does. This principle of relational generosity allows there to be a conversation even if both sides are polarized and chafed raw over these issues.

Intentional Inclusion of Women

Redeemer in the past had formal, structural policies to intentionally include women in the church:

1. Always had an empowered staff with many women, the board doesn’t micro-manage the staff.
2. An empowered laity: lay persons could teach and lead and represent at various levels.
3. Expanded diaconate: deacons and deaconesses

Attitude Trumps Policy

In Presbyterian churches pastors have a lot of power and are key to making sure women don’t feel put down. The attitude that women should be “permitted” to do certain things they should be “pursued” to do certain things.

He tells the story of a woman who became a Christian in the church but couldn’t join because they didn’t ordain women. She did see, however, that in the church she grew up in which was structurally open to women was still cold to women. If there was an idea that a woman had if she wanted to see it go forward she needed to get a man to back it. This is a really crucial point.

Pastors training are against them in listening to women.

Keller then talks about ways in which Redeemer needs to improve since their transitions to a collegiate model.

Again, this section I think shows how in these ways Redeemer though taking a very counter cultural stand makes it possible for many women to be a part of their congregation and exert influence within it.

More Yet To Cover

I was hoping to get further but I didn’t. I just covered the stuff in Tim’s presentation. I’ll have to do a posting on the last piece later.