Judge For Yourselves

This made me laugh (thanks to Steve F). In my opinion, there is exactly one legitimate reason for not allowing women to be ministers in our culture, namely that the New Testament explicitly forbids it. While this isn't a big deal to me personally, I recognize that there are many people who for very good and honest reasons feel that such Biblical commands still apply to us today. As long as they follow these commands gracefully and apply their principle of interpretation consistently I won't argue with them.

But I probably will argue with them if they try to explain why this is still a good idea. I've heard all sorts of sweeping generalizations about the genders that attempt to explain why women ought not to "teach or have authority over" men. As far as I'm concerned, none of them hold water. (See the parody linked at the start of this post.) But as long as they can admit that their practices are based on their submission to the authority of scripture and not some empirically discernible and eternally applicable principle ("the very nature of things"), I certainly understand and respect their position.

My final caveat would be that if you're going to take Biblical authority seriously and you want to make judgments about what is and isn't cultural, it seems to me you ought to make an effort to understand the culture these commands originated in. And whether you're a traditionalist or not, if you want to tell other people that what they're doing is wrong because the Biblical laws regarding homosexuality or head-coverings or what have you very definitely are/aren't cultural and therefore don't/do still apply, you'd better be absolutely certain you know what you're talking about.

Case in point: a Messianic Rabbi explains his historical understanding of the passage that requires women to wear head-coverings here. I'm certainly no expert on first century Jewish culture, so I have no idea whether he's right. (And frankly, it's not a big issue for me.) But it annoys me that of all the Christians I've talked to who feel strongly that head-coverings are not cultural and must still be worn, none of them seemed to have any knowledge of the purpose and practice of head-coverings at the time of Paul's writing.

But perhaps I've just talked to the wrong traditionalists, or asked the wrong questions. I would be grateful if someone who disagrees with the Rabbi's understanding of head-coverings in the first century could present a historically informed argument for the timelessness of this command.