by Karen Pusey

Created on: August 14, 2009   Last Updated: August 17, 2009

Paul is a pain! Controversy is his middle name. His statements on women and their place in church, that is the body of Christ, has caused such a waste of time and effort. Two opposing organisations have been set up- The Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood and the Council for Bible Equality. The first calls itself "complementarian", by which it means that men and women are equal in God's sight, but have differing roles. A little delving into their articles and conference material, reveals that they would like family life to be like the Waltons.(I must confess I have never seen that particular soap.), but I believe it to stand for "family values" i.e where Dad is the breadwinner,. providing for his family, whilst Mum stays at home, cleaning, baking, washing and ironing, removing her apron only when all these tasks are done. The second organisation, proudly proclaims that men and women are equal in every sense. God created them to be eikons of himself regardless of their sex. Women can pursue careers within and without the church. This group are "egalitarian" in outlook. Both councils are conservative evangelical in theology.

This controversy will not go away. In the Church of England it has produced an unlikely alliance between Evangelicals and Anglo-Catholics who are opposed to the consecrating of women as Bishops.

What is it all about? Paul himself seems a little unsure- in some places endorsing women's leadership, in others, against the idea.

First, our thoughts must attempt to go back to the 1stc. CE. It was a totally different world in structure, in thought in organisation- indeed in everything. Imagine a world without books that are easily accessible, without Universities as we know them, without biological and medical knowledge. Imagine a world infected with Aristotelianism teaching that women are little better than animals. Most women married early, and were worn out by frequent childbearing. They were slaves to their bodies for the most part.

It is to this world that Paul says," There is no such thing as Jew and Greek, slave and freeman, male and female; for you are all one person in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3:28). We read these words without turning a hair, yet they must have come like a thunderbolt into the ears of both men and women. In this new faith, equality was to be the very foundation of its expression. This is expressed even today in the Eucharist, where all, irrespective of ethnic origin, class or sex receive exactly the same sized

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