124 FEMINIST VIEWS THAT UNDERMINE SCRIPTURE
argue that. Often the sins of pride and a refusal to be accountable to any-
one are mentioned in reports of a male pastor committing ministry-
destroying and life-destroying sins. Surely those are serious sins as well,
and they are also violations of the Bible’s standards.
But with these women pastors, the most obvious, evident sin is that
of disobeying God’s directions that a woman should not “teach or...
exercise authority over a man” in the context of an assembled church
(1 Tim. 2:12). And that is why I believe there is a connection between
women being ordained and exercising leadership as pastors and tragic
results in their personal lives.
Why then have such tragic events not happened to all women who
have become pastors or elders? We cannot know the full answer in this
life, but part of the answer is the same thing we must say regarding God’s
apparent continued blessing on those who are disobedient to Scripture
with respect to other areas of life. In his great patience and grace, God
does not always withdraw his blessing and bring discipline to our lives
immediately when we disobey him: he is “slow to anger” (see Ex. 34:6;
Ps. 103:8-9).
And what shall we say about the “experience” of blessing on a
woman’s ministry? We seldom see the full story. But if a woman goes on
serving as an elder or pastor, I believe she is dangerously straying out-
side the will of God, and outside of his protection.
C. WHAT DOES HISTORICAL “EXPERIENCE” REALLY DEMONSTRATE ABOUT
WOMEN’S MINISTRIES?
Arguments based on experience are seldom conclusive. Even today, in
the strongly egalitarian popular culture of the United States, by far the
largest and most successful ministries (by any measure), the ministries
that seem to have been most blessed by God, have men as senior pas-
tors. Even those few large evangelical churches that have women as part
of their pastoral team (such as Willow Creek Community Church) usu-
ally have a man (such as Bill Hybels) as the senior pastor, and men do
most of the preaching. Evangelical churches with women pastors are few
in comparison to the large number of churches that have only men as
pastors and elders.
This fact should not be lightly dismissed. If it really were God’s ideal