Interview with Naomi Dawson || Author of She Needs 

It is my observation and experience that in the church, it is not only that women may not put themselves forward or have confidence, but correspondingly church leaders have different standards for engaging women and men and will not use a woman in a role unless she exceeds the gifts and requirements of the role or task, where they will accept a man, who has only some of the gifts or experience needed. So even when women do put themselves forward they do not get hired or used, where a far less qualified/gifted man will get opportunities, almost unquestioningly.

I haven't read the book so don't have a full insight into this. I'm also a bit of a weird woman in that I'm a scientist, extremely confident and pushy, I've worked as a teacher and a church worker, and now I'm full time at home with my children home educating. I was converted in a complementarian church and have always been in them since. I have never felt constricted in any way, anything I've asked to do (led children's work, started and led women's ministry, worked on tackling cultural issues, working on PCC, leading from the front, and being on mission teams) I've been "allowed" to, and I've been asked to do stuff as well as volunteered. I have no doubt some churches are stifling women's roles under the guise of complementarianism but I'm also sure, from my own experience, that women can flourish in such settings. I'm pretty sure that a lot of the issues of assuming there's some kind of "ceiling" for women in those settings is because we think preaching from the pulpit is the most important role, and everything else is of secondary value and importance. I've appreciated the sermons I've heard for sure, but I've learnt as much or more from Bible study groups, informal conversations, praying with others etc. It's sinful hierarchies of the roles that make women feel inferior IMO. As to meeting the opposite sex alone, this was something I was told not to do as a church worker. It's not to do with something being wrong with women! I always thought it was because men had no self control, rather than women being the problem! 😅 It's protecting the church from both false allegations and real problems of sexual infidelity. So I think it's of value? I don't know. These days with so many sexual issues in the church (both same sex and opposite sex) maybe no one should ever meet anyone 1:2:1 out of sight of others! But then how could you ever deal with anything sensitive?! I used to think egalitarian churches had it wrong biblically (thinking they'd just rejected Paul's writings) then I read a book explaining that side of the argument and now I think it's definitely one bible believing Christians can hold confidently. Although I'm still myself complementarian, it'd be the first belief I'd be willing to change or move on, and not a hill I'd die on. I don't personally think though that egalitarian churches solve the problem of women not being in stuff, or not being felt to be valued. The problem is sin, and the valuing of some parts of the body more than others. It may still be the case in a church where women preach and lead that e.g. serving in the creche is considered lesser, and that the gifts women often have aren't trained and appreciated. Any church can fall into thinking our value is linked to our service or gifts. I read once that in a completely sex segregated society such as Saudi Arabia, there are many jobs for women, as women are only allowed to go see a female doctor, or a female lawyer etc. So there are all these professional roles held by women. (I don't know if this is actually true about Saudi BTW so don't come back to me about it). The point is, I think there are maybe more possibilities for women where there are specific women's and men's ministries, which is more likely in a complementarian church. Where those ministries don't exist, there a less teaching roles and if a man happens to do them then women have reduced teaching opportunities. In a similar way, research shows that in a mixed sex situation, women are much less likely to speak or volunteer their thoughts or opinions than in a single sex environment. There should be single sex ministries in my opinion, not just for having more teaching roles, but if we value women's voices (especially the more reserved ones, rather than the outspoken pushy ones like me) then we should have those, as well as mixed sex ministry. I have to say though, that as someone who's spent her whole life teaching young people and children, for Nay to say "no teaching roles except children and youth" rubbed me up the wrong way massively! CYP are just as much a part of the congregation as adults and while we continue to view teaching them as "not real teaching" that doesn't require theological training, we are doomed.

So glad I watched this! Ooooh how I can relate to this. I studied theology in the States and then married in Germany. The possibilities to teach were very limited, mirco managed, and fraught with power dynamics (the three “ghosts”, child, usurper, temptress… OMG!!) that I stoped going to church years ago. I found it was easier to create my own gatherings and ministry outside of traditional, pastor centered empires. That also hit home with the watching less capable men move all the way forward in their careers after college, while I seemed to keep moving backwards. Too many competent women who have been sidelined from teaching/preaching/leading ministries (and not just by men, but by other women too!). I am writing a book about Authority in the church and how it is misunderstood and misused to keep women in a subsidiary role to men. Thank you to the author for putting this out there. I feel less alone! Every bit helps. -Lee

Thank you, Glen for airing this subject. Naomi is right, we need gift based ministry, and theology to back it. 'Christians for Biblical Equality International' is a great resource. Plenty of sound theology and gracious debate. My life was transformed after my husband discovered them, due to having been in too many non-egalitarian churches.

Thanks for the video! I'm a bit torn, on the one side I hear the stories and the experiences relayed and of course women as our sisters, mothers and daughters need to be seen, heard and honored! On the other side, I hear a specific political agenda of egalitarianism in Nays narration that I have come to reject as unbiblical. There seems to be a leadership role God has assigned to men, and only some men at that and Nay seems to push against that. I don't see how you could get around the specific authority a husband has over his wife and the exclusivity of the elder position to men. All arguments around that, which I used to embrace, I now find utterly lacking (Mike Winger has done tremendous work here). I don't think women should always wait for a man to start in prayer as a matter of law, but I do understand how a church would make that a standard to honor the God given authority structure in the church in the face of a feminist spirit of the age. Even then it should not be seen as a denigration for women (of course it might be, if the leaders are immature), since it has nothing to do with value, but she is simply honoring the role God has given both men and women in this setting. In the same sense I know churches where, when present an elder will start praying, for the very same reason. The whole issue is cast as purely a matter of love/morality when it is a mixture of morality and theology and this mixing I find to be very unhelpful. It might actually prevent leaders to take the real issue seriously, since they can just dismiss it on theological grounds. But that would be a mistake, since of course we need to make sure women understand their value as daughters of God, made in His image and commanded to enlarge His kingdom! We need women in many ways, and as the church are weaker than we should be for a lack of female participation. Just not as elders! So female evangelists is perfectly fine, just for the record.

Some of this is the same type of discrimination you get in like engineering. Just as amazingly silly. Disappointing its so much the same in the church.

The problem with current discussions on gender is foolish binary framing. Either it’s women having full right to do whatever they wish or they have to be locked up in the house with the kids and absolutely silent and unheard in the church. There is the biblical approach, which is stated pretty plainly: Women are to prophesy while showing submission to her husband (1 Timothy 11) Woman was created for the man, not vice versa (1 Corinthians 11) There are cases where women have participated in the education of men, but it was “on the side” and in informal settings (Acts 18) Women are to submit to their husbands (Ephesians 5, Colossians 3, and many more) There are many more verses which directly frame the roles of women. A simple Bible keyword search on women will reveal this. These verses are as true as the verses directed at men and church leaders, though feminists are glad to hold men to their particular scriptures at face value while criticizing or deconstructing their own. The guest here is promoting what you can call Trad Feminism. She wants all the benefits and blessings of traditional Christian life without the responsibilities for the women laid out in scripture. Every denomination that has tried to integrate feminism (see Church of England) has imploded in on itself due to the resulting lack of masculine theological boundary setting. Women end up trying to scale their natural nurturing behavior across the whole church. Yes Jesus loved women, but he also was also not naive about the sins of women. The Holy Spirit inspired the NT authors to directly but lovingly point out the sinful nature of women (fear, gossip, slander, strife, unsubmissiveness) as well as the men. The guest has fallen into the feminist framework of seeing roles for women as oppressive when much of NT scripture is dedicated to carefully framing said roles, in ways that our present culture is very allergic too, despite the obvious negative consequences of no longer valuing said roles. We should also be careful to not restrict women beyond what scripture teaches and go in the opposite direction. Women do need exposure to rich Christian life. They bring tremendous value to the family and church so long as they are not trying to usurp or devalue the roles of men, which often happens.

How much is this topic hidebound by the contemporary zeitgeist in every age, including vocabulary meaning as actually used. Some of the conversation seems to be out of sync in this respect - still reactionary to the zeitgeist of a yesteryear in some places and parts, including the church? The spirit of undermined confidence still lingering among girls and women even in the stage of social development in human cultures? Simplistically over-generalised? The characterising of "temptresses" is possibly more a matter of an externalisation of social underdevelopment|immaturity among the males. (But that is a whole different can of worms and an active conversation among others elsewhere in the Church).

This interview is so confused and backwards. She explicitly admits she wrote the book because she looked around at the world and got envious. I’m two points in and she hasn’t mentioned Scripture once, but has brought up secular science and research several times. As they get into about sin: yes, we have a very male centric view of sin. Yes we ought to call women out on their sin more. No that’s does not involve telling them they ought to lead more. That’s how we got here in the first place.