Turek, A Conservative Liberal Evangelical

https://sermons-online.org/frank-turek/what-does-the-bible-say-about-female-pastors    

I found this remarkable because Turek suggests he agrees with the 'traditional view' - that women can't be 'senior pastors' but apparently can be 'pastors' or teaching with authority in every other sense. They can 'do anything else' Turek says which means women can preach, teach, and presumably administer sacraments and all the rest.

This is not the traditional view - not by a long shot. This is a theologically modernist or liberal view that attempts to compromise with feminism - even while ignoring other passages (such as 1 Corinthians 14) which is clear that in a normative setting, women are not even supposed to speak in church.

The prophesying in 1 Corinthians 11 is (I would argue) charismatic and thus has passed way. It was part of the signs and wonders associated with the establishment of the Church and apostolic authority. And besides, what Evangelical women speaking in church have their heads covered?

That's a rhetorical question of course.

Koukl's view is clearly mistaken and exemplifies (what I consider to be) his typical mishandling and sloppy exegesis of Scripture. If he would simply read on past the artificial chapter division, Paul makes it clear the purpose of 1 Timothy is to help establish correct behaviour and order in the Church. His attempt to narrowly focus on husband-wife relations is a red herring and another attempt to evade the issue which contemporary middle-class and acculturated Evangelicals find uncomfortable and embarrassing. It can be dismissed out of hand.

Just as some who have argued for patriarchy have misappropriated the Trinity, Turek does the same in order to justify his (what is essentially) egalitarian view.

As I've written before the response to those who (in a controversy from a few years ago) used the Trinity to justify patriarchy was often just as bad - many were revealed to be effectively modalists who attacked any kind of economic relationship within the Trinity as subordinationism, thus demonstrating a very reductionist and a-historical understanding of the doctrine.

Even the marriage analogies break down in an egalitarian framework. Turek's thinking has little room for the help-meet language found in the epistles, the idea that the woman is for the man, in subjection to him, etc.

And his argument begs the question regarding 'senior pastors' - what is that? Where is that in Scripture? There's no such thing. In fact, no one really ever heard of such a thing until maybe forty or fifty years ago. Once again it's Evangelicalism borrowing from Madison Avenue and corporate models along with flow-charts of officers and bureaus. These churches today have huge staffs with a pastor of this and a pastor of that - pastor to seniors, worship pastor, visitation pastor, pastor of communication and media, pastor of counselling, pastor of Christian education, etc. ad nauseam. These are made up offices resting on the premise that the Scriptures are not sufficient in the realm of ecclesiology and the Church most innovate and come up with all manner of programs, ecclesiastical offices, and liturgical novelties in order to remain 'relevant' in the modern world.

If Paul had just had video screens, a head-worn microphone, and some proper lighting - just imagine what he could have done!

But seriously these approaches effectively argue the Bible is insufficient when it comes to the life and structure of the Church and the Christian life. The Church therefore needs to turn to the outside (to the world) to glean from its wisdom and thinking in order to craft a functional and pragmatic Church order.

As such, many of the arguments made by Christ and the apostles in term of the Christian life and how we relate to the world make little sense. The ethics are strange, the emphasis in terms of the Church, the language regarding the sacraments and piety are foreign. And as such, the writings of the Early Church are also confusing and potentially offensive.

Like Rome, the Evangelicals innovate and come up with their own traditions, which like Rome are always evolving. At least Rome can make a theological argument for what it does and ground its innovations and tradition into some kind of argument. Evangelicalism just gets carried along by the current of pop culture, the latest fads, and whatever the current 'research' suggests in the realm of self-fulfillment, psychological need, and materialist-driven medicine.

1 Timothy 2 teaches women are to be silent and not to teach. It's not that complicated. Again, because the contemporary Evangelical church is about 'relevance' and numbers, the idea that you're going to teach that women are to be submissive, shamefaced, silent, and help-meets comes across as not just extreme in our culture, but insane. They will lose the majority of their congregations where many (probably most) of the women are career women. Increasingly they've even embraced the shameful 'stay at home dad' or house-husband model.

Turek is not a conservative. He calls himself one by moving the goalposts, but even as he does so he leaves open a loophole so massive you could drive a truck through it. Echoing the 'academic' Evangelicals, he posits the Scripture-twisting lie that there were women apostles. He doesn't explicitly endorse the view but the way he presents it - it's clear he thinks it's plausible. Someone being of note among the apostles (such as Andronicus and Junia) does not mean they were apostles but that they were known by the apostles and held in high esteem by them.

The only reason you'd force a feminist read on that passage (Romans 16.7) or even raise these questions at all is because you have emerged from the context of late 20th/early 21st century feminist-influenced Western culture. No one read these passages this way before - or rather, no one orthodox did so. And you wouldn't today apart from the influence of feminism and psychology. Even appeals made to Origen or Chrysostom are stretched and fail to distinguish between apostolic ministry and what we might call 'the apostles' properly speaking.

Even the Waldenses who are said to allow women preachers did not hold Turek's view. Women were active in evangelisation - like Priscilla they could teach in a non-public context. Waldensians were active in sharing the gospel - if you want to call that preaching, fine - but it's not the same thing as teaching during the church meeting - teaching (as an authority) the people of God.

Turek repeatedly makes it clear that he has no problem with women being pastors - just not 'senior' pastors. If the assumption of 'senior pastor' is dismantled, what then?

Is he then willing to say women can't be leaders in the Church? How would he then distinguish between say 'elders' and 'senior pastors'? But if he's insists on holding to the egalitarian and women leadership position he advocates here - without the senior pastor, what do you have?

You have women pastors.

And again, I argue that Evangelicalism's embrace of feminism is connected to a wider context. Rather than reflect New Testament calls to domesticity, the Evangelical movement seeking relevance, status, and power has embraced feminism. Women not only work, they are career women, leaders in positions of authority. The idea that they're going to set this aside when they come home to be wives and mothers is wishful thinking. Do you not think this attitude and ethos affects marriages and family dynamics? I know it does.

And to think these women are going to be quiet and submissive in the context of the Church gathering on Sunday morning? Such an expectation would be delusional.

Turek's position is basically a conservative liberal one. In other words, thirty years ago there were conservative liberals within the PCUSA and United Methodist Church who argued the position he holds to - though Turek pretends it is the 'conservative' view. Just a generation ago he would have been considered a liberal by mainstream Evangelicalism.

Turek has been closely associated with Turning Point USA and other Right-wing political causes. He's something of a celebrity that has frequently merged (what he deems to be) Biblical with Right-wing arguments. In fact his close ties with Charlie Kirk and apparently the very influential relationship he had with him, and the encouraging of his course of activism and alliances leads one to wonder about the very nature of Turek's faith. Like Kirk (who certainly was not a martyr) it is confused at best, fatally defective at worst. Clearly in addition to his muddled theology there is the strong influence of idolatry - all in the name of being 'conservative'.

The idolatry I speak of here is nationalism - a divided allegiance, a syncretism between the idea of the Kingdom of God with the nation. This allegiance and ideology overshadows and all but cancels out New Testament teaching and ethics, replacing the call to take up the cross with an imperative to embrace the life of the sword and the coin. The end result is the worship of power and mammon.
And yet in the end we find that in addition to being a profiteer, he's not even Biblically conservative - or dare we say culturally conservative. His views do not promote a traditional view of marriage, the family, or gender roles. He may be Right-wing, but conservative? That's questionable. Theologically Conservative? This is clearly not the case.

Turek typifies modern American Evangelicalism and its redefinition of 'conservative'. Keep moving the goalposts and comparing yourself to the progressive fringe and you can appear conservative. While he's known for pushing Evangelicals to vote and to pass 'Christian' laws, we find that not only are most Evangelicals Biblically illiterate, their leaders aren't much better.

Thirty years ago (or even twenty in many circles) Turek would have been chased out of conservative circles for such views and blacklisted - and rightly so. He obviously holds to a low and rather fluid view of Scripture.

It's not hard to see why someone like Rick Warren made the step (note I did not say 'leap') to the formal ordination of women pastors. By the time Warren did it, many Evangelicals were already there. That's why he could say it was a secondary issue as opposed to a gospel one. People that rely on the kinds of arguments made by Turek aren't going to hold that position for very long. It's flimsy and quickly collapses. Would he really object if a daughter or other female relation became a 'pastor' in say the Global Methodist Church? I sincerely doubt it.