"I've said it publicly: I teach to men... that's how I understand the Scripture. ...it's just been applauded. ...and women who go, I don't want a neat Christian guy, I want a godly man.... so if you teach that, then I want to hang out here."
(Listen at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3c6ytPdZYec)
This all begs the question: what if a man wants a godly woman?
Does he have to go another church to find a pastor who teaches women biblical truth, since Chandler won't?
A lot of things can be deducted from Chandler's statement.
1. Women should be taught by their parents and later their husbands; women do not need to learn in the church
2. Women do not need to learn biblical truth because their parents and later husbands make all the decisions for them
But what about the young woman who was orphaned as a child?
What about the numerous women who will never marry?
What about widows, single mothers, and divorcees?
Who will teach these women?
Not Matt Chandler.
The assumption behind Chandler's theology is so outrageous that it almost needs no rebuttal - had it not been made into ecclesiastical law by Tertullian in the third century.
Karen Jo Torjesen describes Tertullian’s vision of the church as an essentially Roman institution.
Tertullian’s description
of the Christian community dramatically marks the transition of the model of
the church from the household or private association to the body politic. With
him the church became a legal body (corpus
or societas, the term the Romans used
for the body politic) unified by a common law (lex fidei, “the law of faith”) and a common discipline (disciplina, Christian morality). For
Tertullian the church, like Roman society, united a diversity of ethic groups
into one body under the rule of one law… Tertullian conceived the society of
the church as analogous to Roman society, divided into distinct classes or
ranks, which were distinguished from one another in terms of honor and
authority.[1]
Only those who were full members of the political
body could possess ius docendi (the legal right to teach) and ius baptizandi (legal right to baptize).
Women could not be full members and therefore they were excluded from the
clergy. But Tertullian excluded women also from the laity, for although the
laity could perform the legal functions in the absence of the clergy, women
could not.
“It is not permitted to a woman to speak in the church; but
neither (is it permitted her) to teach, nor to baptize, nor to offer, nor to
claim to herself a lot in any manly function, not to say (in any) sacerdotal
office.”[2]
There was an attempt to remove women from the church already in the third century, and the attempt, although never successful, has found a new champion in Matt Chandler. How sad isn't that.
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