Tags: Southern Baptist Convention, Baptists, female pastors, Conservative Takeover

Bruce Ware is a theologian who seems to have all of these problems.
I’ve read quite a few papers and several books by Ware and I have never been very impressed with much of what he has to say. Though highly revered amongst his Calvinist associates, his arguments usually fall short of being persuasive and often beg the question.
Recently Ware presented a paper at the annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society in Washington, D.C. where he again defended his position of the “eternal subordination of the Son,” a Trinitarian model he has often used as basis for his complementarian view of women in the ministry (or out of ministry if Ware were to have his way). I intended to hop on this morning and criticize his position, but then I discovered a criticism written by Susan Arnold, a Denver Seminary student, on her blog.
Susan did such a spectacular job of tearing Ware’s premise apart (not difficult to do, but she did it succinctly) that I decided to post her article here (with permission, of course) instead. Thanks, Susan! Below is her criticism of Ware’s “academic” paper and I also encourage you to check out her website, The Philosophical Pastor.
The following is a special guest essay written by Susan Arnold. As always, the opinions expressed in our guest essays do not necessarily represent those of Josh Crain or the other essayists involved with this site. All of that aside, enjoy!

Trinity For Sale? by Susan Arnold

This proof of the relationship between Jesus and the Father has become a critical foundation for a “biblical” view of the eternal subordination of women to men.
Think about that.    The “logic” goes like this: 
Jesus eternally submits to the Father ergo women eternally submit to men.
It’s a curious syllogism. Philippians 2:3-8 does not apply only to women. Ephesians 5:21 tells us that submission is mutual. 1 John 2:6 says that anyone who abides in Christ walks in the same manner in which he walks, not just women…  I could go on.
Are we to say, then, that whatever we theologically determine the Father is or does in relationship to the Son, applies to men in relationship to women?  I again wonder, where does this leave the Holy Spirit in this apparently only binitarian back-door apologetic for the subordination of women? It’s hard to see how such front-and-center attention would be given to defending this “eternal relationship” Jesus has with the Father, were there no felt-need to defend a male’s eternal place at the top of the authority pile. It’s a rather self-serving theological effort, and one that does  seem to have paid off for Ware.
But Traditionalists are not the only ones tweaking “proofs” from Trinitarian doctrine. An Egalitarian defender’s mind-bending logical disputation of the subordination of women swings to the other side of the pendulum. Where does it end? Do we really grasp the Trinity so well that we can intellectually and systematically dissect the Holy being of God, and apply our conclusions about God’s nature toward the defeat of our theological enemies? Perhaps it is believed that while some might dare be “unbiblical,” no one would dare be “untrinitarian,” sort of like moving from dynamite to nuclear weapons.
As the CBMW and the CBE duke it out, I find myself becoming less and less interested in who “wins” this one. The whole matter is devastatingly beyond the papers exchanged in the halls of academia. Women and men today still need to hear the Gospel of the Kingdom. The Holy Spirit is not left out of this picture, and is still at work in those who follow Jesus, advancing the Kingdom despite all the wrangling going on about who gets to be king.
And has it been forgotten….in that Kingdom, Jesus is King, eternally. Would anyone care to defend that eternal relationship as metaphorically applying to women?
Ha! I doubt it!
Anyway… what of this attention to trinitarian doctrine as of late. Does anyone really want to place the Trinity in our service this way? A comparatively meager creaturely understanding of this unique and Holy nature of Yahweh, placed in service of a ubiquitous need to figure everything out so we can do something with it, seems a little bit like a 5 year old who decides he is competent to drive the SUV to the corner store for a candy bar.
Stephen Seamands, author of Ministry in the Image of God, (IVP 2005) claims that we are experiencing a “Trinitarian Renaissance,” a “resurgence of interest among theologians in the doctrine of the Trinity.” (p.15) I wonder… why?

Tags: Christianity