This is the perfect example of what made me begin to seriously move away from complementarianism and toward egalitarianism/mutuality. Right down to the exceptions made for women like Elisabeth Elliot and Beth Moore. The incredible inconsistencies and finagling that is done that makes no sense.

Exceptions Made For Elisabeth Elliot Teaching

Tamara Rice absolutely nails it in The Hole in Our Complementarianism (now Wayback Machine) (bold mine).

In my second or third year of college, Elisabeth Elliot graced our campus with her presence. Of course, at the time I was starstruck. I mean … Elisabeth Elliot. So it was no surprise that our chapel, held in the gym back then, was packed from wall to wall. I distinctly remember settling in the stands with a few of my friends and watching intently once worship ended and Ms. Elliot ascended the stage.

I can’t say I noticed it immediately, but at some point I realized that the large wooden pulpit usually adorning the stage had been replaced with a small music stand off to Ms. Elliot’s side. At approximately the same moment I took note of this, it occurred to me that this woman, Ms. Elliot, was in fact preaching to us. Preaching in chapel. And a sharp little nagging began in the back of my mind.

          She’s preaching.

          She’s a woman and she is preaching.

          And this is somehow okay.

          Even though we’d never dream of letting any other woman do this in chapel.

          This is okay, because we removed the pulpit. And only because we moved the pulpit …

Yes, it was acceptable, I realized, it was okay with my sage male Bible professors (one female, who was single and only taught women—naturally) and the rest of the faculty, because the pulpit had been removed and Ms. Elliot was—perhaps—telling more stories than the average preacher who came our way in a school known for expository Bible teaching.

But, you see, this was not okay with me. Where others might have seen a gracious exception to the rules for a stately woman of faith whose story has almost become legendary in Christendom, I saw a glaring hypocrisy. Because she was clearly being given an opportunity I’d never be given. And what made it so? The fact that her husband was martyred? Her age? The fact that she had authored many popular books? What made her spiritual authority worthy of the exception? Why not my mother or your mother? Who decided this, that it was okay to make exceptions, and how did they decide it?

After that, after the hole was exposed, I noticed a lot of picking and choosing. A lot of “removing the pulpit” line-drawing/hole-patching to make things that were simply arbitrary exceptions feel more legitimate.

Amen and amen.

Elisabeth Elliot Preaching

To reiterate the point:

Where others might have seen a gracious exception to the rules for a stately woman of faith whose story has almost become legendary in Christendom, I saw a glaring hypocrisy. Because she was clearly being given an opportunity I’d never be given. And what made it so? The fact that her husband was martyred? Her age? The fact that she had authored many popular books? What made her spiritual authority worthy of the exception? Why not my mother or your mother? Who decided this, that it was okay to make exceptions, and how did they decide it?

If it’s wrong, it’s wrong.

No changing of the pulpit to a music stand is going to make it right.

Being Elisabeth Elliot doesn’t make it right.

If it’s wrong, it’s wrong.

Adherence to a view that flies in the face of reality when we see women who are gifted by the Holy Spirit is simply crazy.

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