One of my grandchildren’s favourite ‘playthings’ is playdough, whipped up in the kitchen with flour and water and salt and cream of tartar. And wonderful lurid food colouring! They play for hours, making cakes and snakes, dogs and sausages. If they don’t like what they have made, they merely roll up the dough into a ball and start again.
As I reflect on the upcoming synod debate over women’s ordination to the priesthood, I think that one of the dangers we can fall into is what we could term ‘playdough arguments’. This is what we get when we leave the Biblical texts behind. It’s what happens when we use the language of personal experience, personal calling, personal freedom, personal rights, etc. The difficulty with this approach is that all this becomes ‘playdough’ in the hands of whoever happens to be mixing the ingredients at the time. Personal experiences become malleable and are able to be massaged into whatever form we like. We can make them say whatever we want.
What I feel, what I have experienced, what I believe I have been called to, what seems right to me, what I think I have the gifts for, etc, are all personal to me but they are not God's authoritative and perfect word. You may listen to and empathise with me, and I may do the same to you, but in the end the responsibility of each one of us must surely be to carefully consider what our good God directs us to do in his Word. Because his Word is not like playdough " we cannot shape it anyway we want.
In Galatians 3:26-29 it is clear that men and women stand equal before God, both “sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus”, both heirs of the blessing of God first announced to Abraham. It means we are united in Christ with no sense of superiority or arrogance towards each other. It is a wonderful and true text, but it is not the only text that we need to consider for the upcoming debate. For it does not abolish differences between the genders because the parts of the New Testament plainly command men and women to act differently!
We must take seriously Paul’s directions in 1Timothy 2:11-14 and 1 Corinthians 14:33-35 where men are to exercise the authoritative teaching and pastoral responsibility in the congregation; 1 Timothy 3:1-5 and Titus 1:5-9 where men are to oversee the congregation; 1 Corinthians 11:3-16 where we see differences in the way men and women are to conduct themselves in church; and Ephesians 5:22-33 and similar passages, which urge complementary differences between the responsibilities of husbands and wives.
We may find these words difficult to accept, but we must wrestle with them. Over these next couple of weeks as we listen and read and debate and pray and finally come to a decision on this legislation, let’s make sure that we are not using the ‘playdough’ arguments. Make sure that the Bible has centre stage.