What a Shame: Silence, Women, the Church

Last updated on: September 30, 2015 at 8:48 am by Anne Kennedy

What a Shame: Silence, Women, the Church 2015-09-30T08:48:16-04:00 Anne Kennedy

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Yesterday I said a couple of things about the task of the preacher and failed to properly link Matt’s sermon on I Corinthians 14:34 where Paul most insensitively commands all women everywhere to be silent in church. I commend the sermon to you, and encourage all Christians everywhere to try to work out the difficulties in this text. What are we to do about Paul commanding women to keep their heads covered when they prophesy in chapter 11, and then, three chapters later, commanding them to be silent? Did he forget what he said earlier? Does silent mean something other than silent? What is he going on about?

Option one, let’s not worry about it and have no women speak ever, is definitely safe, if unappealing. Shrouding oneself in the safety of legalism is always a beckoning call, for the truly believing Christian. Isn’t that what Adam was trying to do, when he told Eve not even to touch the tree? Better to obey God than to not obey him, and if you’re not sure, pick the safest option, so the theory goes. That God does this all the time–commanding rest, love for your enemy, considering everyone better then yourself–without defining the outer most limits of every practical consideration has exasperated generations of Christians who want to just know what they have to Do. Quickly, just tell me, I’ll just do it. Don’t bother me with how I should Be, tell me what to do. So, can I eat meat sacrificed to idols? Yes or no? Come on. Tell me. Should I get married and move to Bhutan? Come on, give me a sign, quick, I’m busy. At which point the scriptures dig in their heals and refuse any quick clear guidance. You’re supposed to read and struggle and try to work it out and then obey, not merely in your perfect action, but in the attitude of your heart. And that stinks. So all of us, whether we like to admit it or not, like to add stuff to make it easier. No woman anywhere should ever wear _____, just to be safe. Don’t ever drink a glass of wine, because safety. And let’s not worry about women covering their heads by just not having them speak ever.

Option two, who cares anyway, is also tempting. It is hard to work out anything the bible says. Paul isn’t around to consult anymore and also, he said so many offensive things, maybe this can be added to the rubbish heap of rejected bible passages. Really, much of the church is here already. Women, who have decided they are going to speak, and who have reworked Jesus into something more palatable, chucked this out of the bible but kept going to church anyway, until lots of the men got tired and left, which is probably better for everyone.

No, while both of these options are alive and well in the church today I don’t like either of them.The third option, that Paul is talking about a particular kind of speech, in a particular moment in worship, is harder to draw a clear line around, but I think is actually more devastating, in a good way, and relevant to where we find ourselves in this post post modern, post Christian, weirdly feminist landscape.

Examine the context of the chapter. Paul has been bashing at the Corinthian church about their abuse of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and about their failure to do anything right, for at least three chapters. If you want to get tired of talking about Spiritual Gifts, go through chapter fourteen with a fine tooth comb and you’ll eventually decide you don’t care any more. Prophecy, Tongues, everyone doing whatever it is they feel like doing at the moment they feel like doing it, it’s like some ghastly word picture of a TBN hour. It must have been crazy. I wonder what their visitor retention rate was. Finally, toward the end of 14, Paul tells them what their worship should look like. Not craziness, but rather order. Only a couple of prophets, only a couple of tongue speakers, only One translator, and then, and what would this actually look like in common worship, the prophets weigh and judge what the prophets have said. In other words, it must have been that sometimes a prophet here or there would stand up and say something Not On Task, something that needed a correction.

So it seems possible that women were participating in this portion of the festivities. Having prophesied with heads uncovered, they joined in in the public weighing of other prophecy, taking authority, governing the words spoken. But instead of nodding and saying, of course, let us consider the implications of such an action. Matt painted a pretty nice picture of what it would have been like for Apollo to be corrected publicly by Pricilla, rather than in private together with her husband. Imagine it for a moment. Apollo is preaching along, and Pricilla realizes that he’s not going to divulge the full gospel, and so before he even has time to sit down, she rises to her feet and explains to him why he’s wrong, in front of everyone.

And thus we have the very helpful introduction of the word Shame. It is shameful, it is humiliating when this kind of thing happens. And, and here is why this is culturally so relevant at this particular moment, it is more shameful for a woman to do it, than for a man to. In fact, it is not shameful for a man to correct a man in front of other people, but it is shameful for a woman to correct a man in front of other people. If I was going to channel Doug Wilson, I would say it was the kind of thing that would make her ugly.

I know we’re not supposed to notice the shame and humiliation when a woman publicly rebukes and corrects a man. I have stood quiet in the Weiss checkout line and turned my eyes away as a woman talked first to her child with the uttermost measure of condescension and then turned and talked to the man standing next to her in the same dulcet tone of voice. He turned away and pretended he didn’t hear her, but I sort of wished he’d said, “don’t talk to me that way.” But if he had, she would have taken offense, and she’s not ever supposed to receive offense or accept rebuke. That’s the job of the modern man. To accept it and be silent.

If the modern Christian woman chafes and feels that life in the church is unfair, she might remember one single man who did hold his tongue, who, as a sheep before the shearer is silent, did not lift up his voice, but emptied himself, even unto death on a cross. There is no shame, no humiliation in taking the lowest place and giving honor to another, even a man, even if he doesn’t deserve it. Maybe the women could imagine the men in their churches to be like Jesus, and they could try to treat them like that. It might be a stretch, but I think it’s been tried before with pretty good results.

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