Oh, John Piper! Why do you insist upon having such a limited, perverse view of men?
I can only assume that you must, because you are objecting to women having any influence over men in a position where you and other men are aware of our femininity.
I’m married to a man; I have two brothers and a sister who were all raised alongside me by a man and a woman together. Until his death I had a treasured grandpa who let me sit with him on the tractor, who let me stand beside him while he slopped his hogs and who greeted me with such effusive hugs that he insisted he’d “squeeze [me] till [my] tongue stuck out.” I have dear uncles who practice medicine, healing the bodies of the sick–both male and female bodies. Those uncles see a lot of naked women in the course of their work.
None of the men I know are rapists or sex-mad fiends who are unable to control their sexual impulses in the presence of women. None of the men I’ve befriended over the last few years as a writer have sent me emails overflowing with their inability to continue speaking to me unless I sexed them up.
I wonder why it is that you think men are so very unable to control their sexual urges. Why is it that you think I need to stick to writing, to sitting behind a desk, to lurking in the shadows. Are my breasts that ripe and wonderful? Is the mere suggestion of my vagina, lurking down there somewhere under my panties and blue jeans and Disneyworld T-Shirt, so completely enthralling? Surely not. If you’ve met me you know I inspire more thoughts of things like pie and thick novels about dragons than I do sex.
But even so, how is a man’s inability to control himself my problem, John Piper? Let me explain.
I love cheese. When I see cheese it makes me want to bury my face in the joyousness that is fermented milk and rennet. Yet I have never once in my life called up the manager of Kroger and said “please make sure that you drape black cloth over all the cheese displays. I’m coming to market today and that cheese better not be visible or I will steal some. It’s your fault if I put cheese in my purse without paying, your fault if I have a frenzied meltdown in the deli and down and entire tub of cinnamon goat cheese in an instant.” No. You see, Mr. Piper, I have learned that if I want the cheese I pay for it. I take it home and eat it politely. The cheese I don’t choose gets to live free and unmolested. If I steal cheese, that’s MY fault. If I have a cheese-centered meltdown, that’s either my fault or a fault I share with my ineffective psychiatrist. Not that I have a psychiatrist, but if I were 43 years old and unable to shop for cheese without a frenzy I should think I would have crossed paths with a psychiatrist eventually.
Your problem is not with women, Mr. Piper. Your problem is that you have a far lower opinion of men than pretty much anybody else.
Just Another Pretty Farce 
Or possibly Piper is just now hitting puberty? I have no brothers, but I have a male husband, friends, and cousins, and sometimes they confide things in me. One of the things that one of these male persons confided is that when he first hit puberty he absolutely could not help having sexual thoughts and responses to women — on the street, on the subway, in classrooms, anywhere. He regarded this as a problem and an embarrassment, but it passed in a short time. I have confirmed with other male persons that this experience is a fairly ordinary one for their sex. So perhaps Piper is writing from the midst of his own hormonal changes. If not, he’s stuck there, which is sad for him, but which also is his problem, and he ought not try to make it other people’s.
Although the topic was largely on how a woman should be allowed to have authority over men, I do think you are right on about the sexual implications of only invisible women being allowed authority. It’s just weird. These are the weird doctrines we get ourselves into when we’re stuck on legalism.
I repeated myself and my thoughts responding to you in my thoughts responding to Dr. Hamada. I’m sorry to not address you individually.
Katherine, I respect and admire you. But I think you are putting words in his mouth and attributing meaning he did not intend. I listened to his 5 minute podcast and not once did he mention sexual attraction or distraction. He is talking about spiritual authority structures. To sexualize his meaning does a disservice to you, your audience, and to the message he is communicating.
Omar, I’m not trying to be flip. I know it comes off that way perhaps.
I know that Piper is talking about spiritual authority structures; I’ll say first off that he and I agree on some things, disagree on others. This is an area where we disagree.
I know that in that message he wasn’t OVERTLY addressing sexuality, but that is the only reason, full stop, why a woman is unacceptable in a church leadership position. Culturally we have little in common with the Jewish Christians Paul was addressing when he described his guidelines for women participating in worship and study and leadership. His positions (Paul’s) are actually revolutionary in that he was talking to people who were used to MAKING WOMEN WAIT IN THE OTHER ROOM during worship. For Paul to say “there is no reason why women can’t worship alongside men” is a step in the right direction. But the Jewish tradition of keeping women separate was so that the women wouldn’t provide sexual distraction during a time that was meant to be focused on God.
All instances of women being sequestered during worship and blocked from positions of spiritual authority have their roots in this same belief about sexual distraction.
I personally believe that if you are in a Church denomination that has historically not had women in pulpit positions you need to go with that. It’s why I’m not a pulpit pastor in a Mennonite church. But I don’t hold that women can’t teach men in any capacity. That’s a waste and a misinterpretation.
As for spiritual authority the Bible is clear that women are to submit to their husbands, not to every man. Submission is a facet of an intimate relationship that involves the man also submitting fully to the Spirit and God’s directives.
We also choose which spiritual authorities we place ourselves under. If I accept membership in a congregation I willingly place myself under the authority of deacons, elders and pastors. If those people are men I will submit to them in spiritual matters, per the Bible’s instruction.
But this business of women not being any kind of spiritual authority for men, especially in teaching capacities, is rooted in sexuality and sexual taboos and is much more of a grey area than folks like Piper make it out to be. And in their quest to preserve a certain folkway for the modern congregations they are disrespecting fully half of their fellow believers.
Gee, I’ve taught while perceptibly female in front of classes full of young Orthodox men. Having been hired by an Orthodox institution to do precisely that. Don’t put this kind of rejection of female authority on Judaism, thanks.
I’m meaning the historical, regional Judaism practiced by the people who were the first converts to Christianity.
Sorry, I should have been more precise. You’re correct.
Pardon the brevity and the typos. This was sent from my iPhone.
Paul said these things in context to Timothy who was trying to form a new religious organization that included Jews of varying sects, Pagans who worshipped in sexual ways with temple prostitutes, etc.
Paul is teaching how to assimilate former temple sex workers into a Christ-following congregation along with former Jews who had women behind screens in the temple. It’s a juggling act that isn’t applicable in the modern Christian church.
Pardon the brevity and the typos. This was sent from my iPhone.
He’s not talking about being distracted by sex, but he doesn’t think that women should have positions of direct spiritual authority over men, i.e. face to face, according to 1 Tim 2:12. He’s making a distinction though between indirect authority or teaching and that. It would be more about gender, and the example he uses is a female drill sergeant. I think he believes that male-female relationships simply can’t flourish when the woman is in that kind of direct spiritual authority.
I don’t know much about that. I don’t think your average church has a strong concept of the pastor’s spiritual authority over the flock, so in practice it wouldn’t change much. When it’s just teaching, doing services, and counseling, there wouldn’t be much of a difference by gender. I don’t know what a church would look like if say 60% of the pastors were women, to match the ratio of believers, though. I don’t know if despite this, it would create a different atmosphere and theology.
I’d also be a little cynical and say that the spiritual authority is not a nice thing women are denied, but a responsibility men have so we don’t self-destruct and slack. It would be all too easy to let women take over that too, but I don’t think it would help us or even them as opposed to put all the burdens on them, same as single parenthood.