Tag: Complementarian

Complementarianism, Mailbag

The Mailbag: What if men “just show up” at women’s events?

Michelle Lesley

Hello! I believe as you do, about women “Pastors” and not usurping authority or teaching over men. Some women, such as Priscilla Schirer (sic) just as an example, who speak to thousands are considered as unscriptural because men are often present. Now I do know some encourage male attendance but what if they don’t but men show up? That’s not really in their control, right? What would you do if men attended an event you’re speaking at? I mean this sincerely, just wondering how this could be handled. Thank you!

This is a great question I’ve received a number of times, so when I was recently asked again by this reader, I thought I’d just drop my answer right into the ol’ Mailbag!

There’s a foundational understanding I need to lay before answering. There are three types of women with public speaking/teaching ministries:

  • Those who know what Scripture says about women preaching and teaching the Bible to men and strive to obey it.
  • Those who know what Scripture says about women preaching and teaching the Bible to men, but don’t care and choose to disobey it.
  • Those who don’t know what Scripture says about women preaching and teaching the Bible to men.

You’ll find women like Susan Heck, Martha Peace, Doreen Virtue, Amy Spreeman, and me in the first category.

You’ll find about 97% of today’s most popular women’s speakers/teachers, like Priscilla Shirer, Beth Moore, Lysa TerKeurst, Christine Caine, Jen Wilkin and so on, in the second category.

Women in the third category don’t know Scripture well enough to be teaching anyone, so you shouldn’t follow them for that reason regardless of whether they teach men or only women.

When confronted about their sinful practice of teaching men, those “second category” women often cry, “We can’t help it if men just show up!” as though they’re helpless victims of men choosing to attend their women’s conferences and there’s nothing they can do about it.

Hogwash, baloney, and poppycock.

Those women are not helpless victims who have unwittingly had men foisted upon them. They’re rebels against Scripture who are perfectly fine with preaching to men. In fact, Priscilla Shirer and most of the other aforementioned examples of “second category” women, have preached the Sunday sermon in a church multiple times. Don’t tell me they didn’t know men would be present in the Sunday morning worship service!

So when they try to present this “helpless victim of men showing up, otherwise I would have obeyed Scripture” scenario, they are lying to you. They are totally fine with preaching to men, and they will blasphemously twist Scripture to try to make you fine with it, too.

So, understanding that foundation from the get go should help us reframe the way we think about this scenario of men showing up at a women’s event.

How do “first category” women handle this situation? Well, being one, I’ll be happy to explain.

First, before you ever embark on a teaching ministry, you study the Scriptures, come to a biblical understanding of the role of Christian women, and you make a Holy Spirit empowered decision of the will that you’re going to obey Christ regardless of the cost. That’s just what we do – about everything – as Christians. It is the essence of the Christian life.

Next, you make it abundantly clear in all aspects of your ministry that you hold the biblical position of the role of women and that you, emphatically do. not. teach. men. I kinda feel like anybody who’s been following me for more than five minutes knows that about me.

Next, when you create your event speaking information and materials, you again make it explicitly clear that you only teach women. The very first sentence on my Speaking Engagements page says:

“I am available to speak on Biblical topics at women’s conferences, workshops, retreats, breakout sessions, and other women’s events.”

If that’s not clear enough, my event planner FAQs document, which discusses the issue further, is also linked on that page, and my speaking engagement request form requires that the pastor of the church hosting the event be familiar with my theology, especially on hot button issues like the biblical role of women.

When I receive a speaking engagement request, I check out the requesting church. If it’s a church that has female “pastors” or allows women to preach or teach men, my husband (my events coordinator) will specifically address that with the church’s event planner during the booking process.

In ten years of event speaking, that has happened once, and I did not speak at that church’s event. (They weren’t asking me to teach men at their event, but I’m not going to give the appearance of tacitly endorsing a church that allows women to pastor, preach, or teach men by accepting their invitation to speak.)

I have bent over backwards to make it perfectly clear that I only teach women. The “second category” women don’t. In fact, they make it perfectly clear that they’re fine with teaching men by accepting speaking engagements where they already know men will be in attendance, such as preaching the Sunday sermon, or contracting with Lifeway Women, which welcomes men at their women’s events.

If a speaker makes it clear that she only teaches women, event planners don’t usually ask her to speak at co-ed events. If a planner for a co-ed event somehow manages to miss the speaker’s clearly stated information, it’s the responsibility of the speaker to find out about the event and turn down those that invite men to attend. An invitation to speak at an event is not a subpoena. The speaker is absolutely free to turn it down. And if the event is unbiblical (such as a co-ed event for a female speaker), she has a biblical responsibility to turn it down.

When potential event attendees are familiar with the speaker and her position on the role of women, and the event is advertised as a women’s event, men generally get the picture that they’re not welcome or wanted and they don’t show up.

And these days, I request security at my events. It’s security’s job to intercept anyone -whether that’s an armed attacker, a protester, or a man who wants to attend – who shouldn’t be there and could endanger the women attending or disrupt the event.

That being said, this scenario of men just showing up to attend a women’s event actually happened to me. Once. In ten years of event speaking.

I was asked to teach a couple of breakout sessions for women at a doctrinally sound co-ed conference. The host organization and I were in complete agreement that only women would attend my sessions, and that was indicated in all of the publicity materials.

About five minutes after I started teaching my first session, a couple of young men wandered in and took seats near the back. I continued my opening remarks for a minute or two, hoping they’d look around, get a clue, and leave.

When they didn’t, and it had become obvious that they were there as attendees seeking to be taught (not looking for their wives, running the sound board, or some other legitimate reason), I stopped teaching, and as gently and kindly as I possibly could (because I didn’t want to embarrass them or make things more awkward than they already were), I said something along the lines of,

“Hi guys. I’m so honored that you’d like to hear me teach, but I don’t teach men, and this session is for women only. You might enjoy attending Brother So & So’s session. It’s right down the hall.”.

And they immediately and apologetically – with no hint of offense – stood up and and left, and I continued teaching the women. No big whoop. They just didn’t know any better, but I was able to teach them without teaching them!😀

(I did, however, as soon as that first session was over, track down the host of the conference and asked him to announce in the next plenary session that my remaining breakout sessions were for women only!)

I wasn’t a victim. There was a kind, loving, and biblical way to handle the situation, and I handled it. Those “second category” women? They don’t, because they don’t see men in their audiences as any sort of an issue.

The bottom line in this situation is that if you want to obey Christ in your ministry, you’ll make that your top priority and He’ll give you the grace to do so. If you don’t want to obey Christ in your ministry, you won’t. Those “second category” women don’t want to obey Christ, or they would.

If you have a question about: a Bible passage, an aspect of theology, a current issue in Christianity, or how to biblically handle a family, life, or church situation, comment below (I’ll hold all questions in queue {unpublished} for a future edition of The Mailbag) or send me an e-mail or private message. If your question is chosen for publication, your anonymity will be protected.

Discernment

The Troubling Trajectory of Jen Wilkin

Michelle Lesley

There’s a lot more to Jen Wilkin than meets the eye. Over the last 15 years, she’s become a popular Christian author and speaker whose books and Bible studies are used by hundreds of Southern Baptist churches (and churches in other denominations) across the U.S. 

Yet, at the same time, Jen’s positions on a variety of biblical and social issues have stirred up a tempest of controversy, which discerning churches and individuals should be aware of…

In case you missed it yesterday on social media, you can read the remainder of my debut article, The Troubling Trajectory of Jen Wilkin at Center for Baptist Leadership.

Additional Resources:

Jen Wilkin (The “Troubling Trajectory” article {above} and the podcast episode {below} are both linked in the “Additional Resources” section of this article.)

Talk Back: Jen Wilkin and The Gospel Coalition (A critique of more of Jen’s remarks on the TGC podcast episode mentioned in the “Troubling Trajectory” article {above})

Lifeway Women

Popular False Teachers & Unbiblical Trends

Complementarianism, Rock Your Role

Sinners and False Teachers: The Women Who “Pastor” and Preach

Michelle Lesley

It’s a question someone asked me a long time ago:

“Are female ‘pastors’ and preachers false teachers, or are they just sinning?”

“Whoa, Nellie! Hold up just a cotton-pickin’ minute, there!” That question is probably a little stunning if you’re a professing Christian who’s never before encountered the idea that God prohibits women from being pastors, preaching to men, teaching the Bible to men, and holding authority over men in the gathering of the Body of Christ – the church.

Sorry to have to rip that Band-Aid off. I know it stings, but He does.

We know from passages like 1 Timothy 2:11-3:7 and Titus 1:5-9 that women who do those things – and the men who allow or encourage them to – are in sin, because when God tells us not to do something, and we do it anyway, that’s sin. It’s the very definition of sin.

Women who “pastor,” preach, teach Scripture to, and hold authority over men in the gathering of the Body – and the men who allow or encourage them to do so – are in sin.

But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet.

…appoint elders in every city as I directed you, namely, if any man is beyond reproach, the husband of one wife…

1 Timothy 2:12, Titus 1:5-6 (Excerpted)

And no, that command wasn’t just Paul’s personal, human opinion, or a command that was only for the Ephesian church at that time, or because the women of that time were uneducated, or teaching false doctrine, or more easily deceived, or any of the other man-made arguments against what Scripture plainly says.

And no, it’s not OK for a woman to violate that command simply because she has her husband’s and/or pastor’s permission, or that she’s under his “authority” or “mantle” or “covering”. No one has the authority to tell someone it’s OK to do something God has said is sin. Where God says “no,” no mere mortal has the right to say “yes”.

And no, it’s not all right for a woman to preach to, or teach the Bible to men in any gathering of the Body just so long as it’s not the 11:00 a.m. worship service on Sunday morning inside a church building. God places no such exceptions on His command. The church is the gathering Body of Christ regardless of what time, which day of the week, what size the group, or which type of venue in which they meet. Christians are the church. When Christians are gathered for worship and instruction in the Word – in the worship service, in adult Bible study and Sunday School classes, in parachurch organizations, at Christian conferences, concerts, rallies, and other events – the church is gathered, and biblically qualified men are to lead and teach them.

When God clearly commands us in His written Word not to do something, Christians say, “Yes, and amen, Lord. Please help me flee as far away from that sin as I can get.” Christians do not search high and low, far and wide for any possible exception, loophole, technicality, or exemption that would allow us to put one over on God so we can continue doing what our flesh really wants to do, all the while deceiving ourselves into believing we’re not actually sinning. You might fool yourself and others, but you’ll never fool God.

Christians do not search for any possible exception, loophole, technicality, or exemption that would allow us to continue doing what our flesh *really* wants to do, while deceiving ourselves into believing we’re not actually sinning.

Now why do you call Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’
and do not do what I say?

Luke 6:46

So, yes, without a doubt, women who become “pastors,” preach to men, teach the Scriptures to, or exercise authority over men in the gathering of the Body – and the men who allow or encourage them to do so – are sinning.

And a pastor who allows a woman to do so is not only sinning, he is also biblically disqualified – either temporarily or permanently – from pastoral ministry thrice over, because he is failing to hold to the trustworthy Word as taught, he is failing to give instruction in sound doctrine that only biblically qualified men may fill these roles in the church, and he is failing to rebuke the woman who is contradicting the sound doctrine of the biblical roles of men and women.

He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it.

Titus 1:9

So, violating God’s command against women “pastoring” and preaching is a sin, but does it make the woman who does so a false teacher? After all, if a woman committed adultery, or became a homosexual, or even killed someone, we would say she was sinning, but we wouldn’t call her a false teacher, would we?

Well, we might, in a sense, if she continued openly and unrepentantly doing those things while simultaneously claiming to be a Christian – and not just a Christian, but a Christian leader for people to look up to, learn from, and follow.

We would say that her behavior and example are lying to everyone and teaching the false doctrine that adultery, homosexuality, and murder are not sins, and that someone can be a Christian – even a good Christian leader – while openly, unrepentantly, and continuously committing these sins.

Further, her behavior and example are teaching everyone who sees her that if you come to a command of Scripture that you don’t like, it’s perfectly fine to disobey or ignore it.

Try to imagine your pastor standing in the pulpit on Sunday morning and saying, “Good morning, church! While you’re getting your Bibles out, I’d just like to let you know that if you come across a command of Scripture you don’t like, you are free to disobey or ignore it. In fact, doing whatever that command tells you not to do isn’t even a sin! Do it all you like! You’ll still be a Christian in good standing with God and with this church!”.

How long do you think it would take before your elders and/or deacons bodily hauled your so-called “pastor” out of the pulpit and firmly planted his posterior out on the curb?

If you go to any sort of halfway decent church, I’m guessing they’d get to the platform and lay hands on him before all the words were even out of his mouth.

And yet this is what happens every time a woman inserts herself into the role of pastor, or stands up before a co-ed gathering of adult Christians to preach or teach. The words may not be coming out of her mouth, but her behavior is actively teaching everyone in that local church or Christian gathering that…

  • a woman “pastoring” or preaching to men isn’t a sin (this isn’t only false doctrine, she’s also lying)
  • a woman can be a Christian – even a good Christian leader – while openly, unrepentantly, and continuously sinning by “pastoring” or preaching to men
  • if you come across a command of Scripture you don’t like, you are free to disobey or ignore it.

Why is it wrong for a (male) pastor to say these things verbally, but perfectly permissible for a female “pastor” or preacher to say these same things through her behavior and example?

Why is it wrong for a (male) pastor to say these things verbally, but perfectly permissible for a female “pastor” or preacher to say these same things through her behavior and example?

It’s not.

And this is just one more example of the wheels falling off of egalitarianism. Egalitarian. That word means “equal”. It means that women should be treated equally with men.

Well, what’s good for the gander is good for the goose. If a (male) pastor would be rebuked and dismissed for teaching such abominable false doctrine and lies about God and His Word, in an egalitarian world, a female “pastor” or preacher should be rebuked and dismissed for doing so, as well. You can’t have it both ways, e-gals. Either men and women are to be held to exactly the same standard, treated exactly the same, or they’re not.

Women “pastoring,” preaching, teaching the Bible to, and holding authority over men in the church has become a huge, complicated, sinful mess. Fortunately, the solution is clear cut: repent and obey Scripture.

For women, that means turning away from the pulpit and turning around to discover the joy awaiting them as they robustly fill out the crucial role of women in the church: discipling younger women, teaching children, serving and giving in any number of wonderful ways which don’t require them to do what Scripture has forbidden.

For men and pastors, that means being men of God, stepping up to fill those roles only men may fill, teaching the sound doctrine of the roles of men and women in the church, and rebuking those who contradict that sound doctrine.

When women and men turn from the sin and false doctrine of women taking on the roles God has restricted to men, the church will be healthier and everyone, including God, will be happier.

Additional Resources:

Rock Your Role: Jill in the Pulpit? (1 Timothy 2:11-12)

The Mailbag: Counter Arguments to Egalitarianism

Rock Your Role FAQs

Rock Your Role (all articles)

Christian women, Complementarianism, Holidays (Other)

The Mother of All Rebellions: Having a Woman Preach on Mother’s Day

Michelle Lesley

Originally published May 10, 2019

When you gaze out across the landscape of the visible church through an earthly, superficial lens, you’ve got to scratch your head and wonder, “Has evangelicalism lost its ever-lovin’ mind?”.

And the answer is to take off those inch-deep dollar store glasses, fire up the electron microscope of Scripture, look long and deep into God’s Word, and reply to yourself, “Of course it has, silly rabbit. What did you expect?”. The Bible is perfectly clear about these things and why they happen.

Exhibit A: The trend in recent years to invite a woman to preach the Sunday morning sermon in church, to the whole congregation (including men) just because it’s Mother’s Day. Not a brief personal testimony, the sermon. This isn’t anything brand new. Lisa Harper has done it at Max Lucado’s church. Christine Caine has done it. Lisa Bevere has done it. Lysa TerKeurst has done it. Priscilla Shirer has done it. And a host of other famous and unfamous women at famous and unfamous churches have been doing it for years, even at churches that normally obey Scripture and don’t let women preach.

This year (2019), Beth Moore has caused quite the stir by hiding in plain sight the fact that she will be preaching the sermon “doing Mother’s Day” this coming Sunday, presumably at the Tomball, Texas, campus of the church she attends (founded and pastored by her son-in-law Curtis Jones1) Bayou City Fellowship:

I say “hiding in plain sight” because she has given enough of an impression here that she is preaching the sermon to test the waters and see what the reaction will be, but has worded her tweet vaguely enough that if she meets too much resistance she can still decide to back out of preaching, give a brief word of biblically appropriate Mother’s Day greeting or encouragement to the ladies at another point during the service, and come back and claim with wide-eyed innocence that that’s what she meant all along by saying she was “doing” Mother’s Day. (Someone asked Beth point blank, in a subsequent tweet if Beth’s tweet meant that she would be preaching the Sunday service and Beth did not answer her. If she’s not, why not just say so? And if she is and isn’t ashamed of it, why not just say so?)

I say “presumably” at BCF-Tomball because, even though she publicizes specific details about time and place with other speaking engagements, she has not mentioned (at least not anywhere I can find as of the time I’m writing this) the specific church she’s preaching at on Sunday, and the church hasn’t mentioned on their website that she’ll be the guest preacher. Additionally, unlike other speaking engagements Beth does, this speaking engagement is not listed on the calendar of events at her website and she hasn’t mentioned it (other than the tweet above) on social media. With all this “open secrecy” I will be surprised if the video or audio of her sermon is posted on YouTube and/or the church website.

Why all this cloak and dagger about the highest profile woman in the Southern Baptist Convention2, possibly in the entirety of evangelicalism, preaching the Mother’s Day sermon?

Because she knows it’s unbiblical. Because we know it’s unbiblical. And it doesn’t take an electron microscope to see it. It’s right there, in black and white, jumping off the pages of Scripture:

I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. 1 Timothy 2:12

It couldn’t be more clear. And for pastors who ought to know better to either fall prey to or intentionally perpetuate the serpentine seduction of “Did God really say you can’t preach?”, using Mother’s Day as an excuse to induce a woman to sin by having her deliver the sermon is a slap in the face – to God, to the church, and to women.

Using Mother’s Day as an excuse to induce a woman to sin by having her deliver the sermon is a slap in the face – to God, to the church, and to women.

What do his actions say to God? “I don’t like Your way and I won’t submit to it. I don’t trust that Your way is right regardless of what the world says. I’ll do what’s right in my own eyes.” It’s the lesson his church learns from his actions as well.

But why is inviting a woman to preach an affront to Christian women? Take a stroll down to verse 15 of 1 Timothy 2:

Yet she will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control.

Not only does the pastor who invites a woman to preach adulterate the role God has set aside specifically for men, he also denigrates one of the good and holy roles God has specifically and intentionally set aside for women: the role of literal, and spiritual, mother.

Eve shattered God’s perfect, unique design for women by allowing herself to be seduced into rebellion. But are we daughters of Eve forever doomed to bear the shame and guilt of her sin, never to have a role in building the Kingdom? Pariahs, to be shunned and shut out of God’s plan? No, praise God! Through the cross, the good works Christ has ordained for Christian women to do – including mothering our own children and being spiritual mothers to our daughters in the faith – redeem the prestige of women. Mothering, in every sense in which God intended it, raises the role of women back to its rightful place in God’s plan.

And we don’t need men – especially men who are supposed to be rightly leading God’s people – to come along and entice us to mess that all up again.

But that’s exactly what’s happening.

When a pastor invites a woman to sin by taking over the pulpit, he drags her and the women of his church right back to post-Fall Eden. He trashes the rank and repute of our God-given high and holy role of mother and implicitly says Being a woman isn’t good enough. You have to steal the role of men to be valued and esteemed. 

When a pastor invites a woman to sin by taking over the pulpit, he implicitly says, “Being a woman isn’t good enough. You have to steal the role of men to be valued and esteemed.”

Ladies, he’s wrong.

We don’t need to be second rate imitations of men in order to “count”. We need to be first rate, full throttle, take it to the limit women of God. God loves us and values us so much more than to give men a special and amazing role and leave us without an equally special and amazing, yet totally distinct, role. The God who spoke the universe into existence and planned out an unparalleled purpose for every single plant, animal, bacterium, and every other atom of the cosmos, did not leave the queen of His creation roleless. He did not bring us into being only to toddle along after the Hairy Ones trying to copy their every move. How unloving of God, and devaluing to women, would that be? Why would you want to act like a man when God blessed you with the gift of being a woman?

If, by God’s good Providence, you’ve “stumbled across” this article and you’re a woman who has been invited to preach, I plead with you: don’t buy the lie. Say no. Your Savior has a whole treasure chest of good works for you to do as a woman. You are worth infinitely more to Him as the woman He created you to be than you are to the world, or a worldly church, as a cheap knock-off of a man.

The practice of denigrating women, devaluing our God-given role, disobeying God, and darkening the understanding of the church by inviting women to sinfully take the pulpit must stop in the house of God.

Let us be the mothers our own children need, raising up a godly seed unto the Lord. Let us be the spiritual mothers longed for by younger women in the faith, daughters orphaned by Christian women who have abandoned them to take on the role of men. The practice of denigrating women, devaluing our God-given role, disobeying God, and darkening the understanding of the church by inviting women to sinfully take the pulpit must stop in the house of God and be replaced by strong godly women, unafraid and unashamed to flourish in the precious role our Lord has blessed us with.

Especially on Mother’s Day.

Updates to this article:

1Curtis Jones (Beth Moore’s son-in-law) resigned his pastorate at BCF in July 2020.

2Beth Moore has left the Southern Baptist Convention and is now attending an Anglican church where – surprise, surprise – she preaches from time to time.

Additional Resources:

Rock Your Role

Beth Moore vs. Owen Strahan on WWUTT Podcast
(Related links):
•Michelle Lesley’s Twitter thread on Beth’s Sunday sermon preaching
•Beth Moore’s Twitter response to Midwestern Seminary professor Owen
Strahan’s article on biblical complementarianism

Divine Order in a Chaotic Age: On Women Preaching by Owen Strahan

Complementarianism, Movies, Southern Baptist/SBC

Movie Time: Battle for the Minds

Michelle Lesley

Originally published May 21, 2019

Ladies- have you read my Mailbag article, Counter Arguments to Egalitarianism? If not, I would encourage you to read it before watching today’s movie. And if you’re new to the complementarian vs. egalitarian kerfuffle, I would encourage you to read, not only that article, but all of the articles in the “Additional Resources” section of that article as well.

Why?

Because today’s movie, Battle for the Minds, approaches the issue from the egalitarian perspective, and you need to be sure you’re firmly grounded in the biblical perspective so that “no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.”

Also, today’s movie is kind of like a homework assignment. How would you apply the complementarian apologetics you learned in the Mailbag article as well as your knowledge of Scripture to the egalitarian arguments and pronouncements being made in this movie?

Battle for the Minds was released on PBS in 1997. It presents the egalitarian viewpoint on the stage of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary’s transition from theological liberalism to biblical theological conservatism under the then-new leadership of Dr. Albert Mohler, and delves into a bit of the Conservative Resurgence in the Southern Baptist Convention around that time as well. (As an aside, I am not familiar with any of the people in the film presented as being on the egalitarian side except for Anne Graham Lotz. I’m only familiar with a few of those on the complementarian side: Albert Mohler, David Miller, and Paige Patterson.)

If you are Southern Baptist, I strongly encourage you to watch and carefully consider these events from our history in light of the battle we are now facing in the SBC concerning the role of women in the church and in the Convention. Because what Nancy Ammerman says at the 37:04 mark is correct. Since all SBC churches are autonomous, many Southern Baptists only concern themselves with their own churches and don’t trouble themselves to worry about what’s going on at the national level. But when you do this, you fail to take into consideration that what’s going on at the national level trickles down to your local church in the form of what’s being taught to your next pastor or staff member at our seminaries; the authors, musicians, and other content creators being sold (and not being sold) at LifeWay; the theology in the Sunday School and VBS curriculum your church uses, etc. It also affects the theology and ecclesiology our IMB and NAMB missionaries and church planters use and teach. And finally, the leadership and issues at the national level are the face the Southern Baptist Convention presents to the world.

But even if you’re not Southern Baptist, you will probably still find this movie informative to the way your own church or denomination is responding to the issue of the biblical role of women in the church.

A couple of things to be on the lookout for, and give consideration to, as you watch Battle for the Minds:

•Notice the amount of Scripture presented in the movie. Is any Scripture presented that backs up the egalitarian view? Is egalitarianism vs. complementarianism presented as a biblical and spiritual issue or an “our position vs. their position” issue?

•Note the sex of each person on the egalitarian side and the sex of each person on the complementarian side. Are any complementarian women presented? Do you think there were absolutely no women on the complementarian side of the issue when these events were transpiring? Do you see how the exclusion of complementarian women in this film gives the subtle illusion that a) all women are egalitarian, and b) the reason men are complementarian is because they’re sexist and trying to protect their power and position – the same argument people like Beth Moore are attempting to make today?* Do you think it was sexist to exclude women from the complementarian side?

*(Screenshot 1, 2)