This past Spring, I read two books with a similar theme: women in the church, and a third book that brought clarity to both.

I started with Bible Truth About Women: What They Don’t Tell You (Affiliate link). I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I enjoyed it. I got the hard copy and highlighted so much good information. Lydia Grace Kaiser, the author, takes her time exploring her own questions about women’s positions in church (or lack thereof), exposing translation and interpretation inconsistencies, deceptions, and traditions while answering “how Jesus would have members of his body operate in partnership, not hierarchy.” Although it is scholarly, it is easy to understand. One thing I especially liked about the book is that it lists 20 misleading tactics used against women at the front and categorizes them; then, throughout the book, she highlights examples of each tactic. I definitely recommend this book if you want a better context for how to read the Bible.

The second book I read (listened to on Audible) was From Genesis to Junia: An Honest Search for What the Bible Really Says About Women in Leadership (Affiliate link), by Preston Sprinkle. I had heard of Preston Sprinkle and knew he circled the Reformed crowds like me (before), but I wasn’t very familiar with him. In this book, he takes you on his personal journey, starting with his complementarian background. Each chapter examines different biblical arguments, laying out his study of Scripture, historical context, and reasoning as he shifts to a more mutualistic (egalitarian) view of women in the church, specifically in leadership. While he does mention Wayne Grudem, founder of The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood and an early pioneer of complementarianism, and disagrees with him, Sprinkle fails to address Grudem’s view of the Eternal Subordination of the Son (ESS or EFS). Grudem believes that Jesus is eternally subordinate (submissive) to God, creating a hierarchy within the Trinity, and he uses this as a basis for complementarianism and how women are to be subordinate, not only to their husbands, but to all men. I think Sprinkle missed an opportunity to show some of the roots of this belief system. I still think it’s worth reading, though.

As I read a book by a woman on women in the church and listened to an audiobook on the same subject by a man, I noticed how similar some of their conclusions were and started wondering why. Why wasn’t this subject discussed more? Why was it often explained as the “plain reading of scripture”? Why is this considered a secondary or tertiary issue when it affects so many so much? Meanwhile, the same people call for nuance and open discussion on other “pet” passages that serve themselves. I started thinking about questions my female friends, who believed in complementarianism, would ask, including: if these different translations and interpretations are up for debate, why wouldn’t our pastors and elders share the truth of it? Why aren’t there more sermons on this subject, or women actually preaching? My conclusion was two-fold:

1) There is no incentive for these men to bring women into the “Boys Club,” lose their status, power, and authority, and have to answer to women for their behavior, which is sometimes against women.

2) The American church system is a hierarchy that’s been woven together and does not represent or reflect the early church and, more importantly, does not represent what the Bride of Christ, the true Church, really is.

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I listen to a lot of long-form content—a lot of YouTube, some podcasts, tons of interviews, books, etc. I love to listen while I’m doing other things. One of the first channels I started watching/listening to several years back, when I was trying to figure out what was going on with church, was Cults to Consciousness, hosted by Shelise Ann Sola. She interviews firsthand survivors of those who’ve escaped cults, high-control groups & people. It is fascinating, and I love hearing the similarities in people’s stories, even when they come from vastly different backgrounds. Shortly after I finished reading those two books, I listened to an interview with Shelise and James Luceno, a former fifth-degree member of the Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO) secret society. And what has been so profound to me is that spiritual abuse looks the same in all of these hierarchical systems. Here’s a bit of the interview that resonated with me:

James: “…And things of that nature really only became apparent to me once I rose up into a leadership position and once I got a look at that level of toxicity, the toxicity at the lower levels started to make a lot more sense to me. And I realized that there was no way to reform this organization. It was functioning as intended…”

Shelise: “Yeah, it was part of the system itself.”

James: “Exactly. It was not something that was a flaw of the system; it’s something that’s baked into it, and that is something that the leaders of the organization spiritualized and tried to rationalize using spiritual language…”

Here’s the interview (you can find the quote after the 6-minute mark)

 

My last book recommendation is Pagan Christianity? (Affiliate link) by Frank Viola and George Barna. I read this after the two other books and after listening to the interview above. It validated my perspective on the problem with viewing church as a system rather than a people. It is, hands down, the best book I’ve read on the fundamental problems within the church system. It covers the origins of its practices, how those practices were implemented, the outcome of those practices (what we know today as “church”), and how we can choose something different. If you can only pick one book to read (or listen to), I implore you to choose this one. It will change the way you think about what you know as “church” today, and that’s a good thing.

I’ve read so many books on specific problems within the church system. These books, articles, and blogs can name the problems, point to faulty use of scripture, wrong doctrine, and expose abuse, but almost all of them seek to reform a system that Jesus and his disciples never prescribed in the first place; that is, the institutionalized church (aka the American church). What if the solution isn’t reforming broken systems, but excusing ourselves from them to be part of what we already are? The Body of Christ. The Church.