Author’s note: A previous version listed Ahmaud Arbery as among those being killed by police. This was incorrect. His name has been replaced.
This has been long overdue.
Over the past few years, I came to change my views on the ordination of women. I used to say that only men could be pastors or elders. No longer.
I still feel wrong even saying that out loud. It had been so ingrained into me for most of my life that the ordination of women fell squarely outside of the bounds of what it meant to be an orthodox Christian.
I used to have a pretty binary view of the church. There were Christians who were “Bible-believing Christians,” and there was everybody else. I of course was a Bible-believing Christian. I wasn’t quite sure what “everybody else” did—I just assumed they were people who had somehow swayed from clear biblical teaching, probably because they were being susceptible to critical race theory and feminism or something like that. Anyway, the ordination of women clearly fell in the camp of “everybody else.” So I never seriously entertained it.
But one day, I crossed the line. And over the past year or so, I’ve been having many one-on-one conversations with folks to share about my journey.
I’ve decided that I’m going public. I’m sharing about what brought me here, in order to tell others who are going through similar journeys that they are not alone, and to be a resource to those who are curious enough to explore this themselves.
To be clear, I won’t be giving a full theological argument for my stance. That might be for another time. If that’s what you’re looking for, check out Paul and Gender by Cynthia Westfall, Partners in Christ by John Stackhouse, and Zondervan’s Two Views on Women in Ministry, co-written by Linda Belleville, Craig Blomberg, Craig Keener, and Tom Schreiner. Another great resource is Marg Mowczko’s website, https://margmowczko.com.
In this post, I’m simply laying out how I, a pastor at a Southern Baptist church, came to be on board with female pastors. Strap yourselves in.
Beginnings, Baltimore, and Black Lives Matter
In college I became Reformed. If I were to sum up Reformed theology, it would be that God is bigger than I realize. He is powerful and sovereign, and there are things about him that I do not understand. I spent countless hours reading or listening to Tim Keller and John Piper, and I am forever indebted to them for shaping me and my theology.
Besides being Reformed, I was a pretty run-of-the-mill conservative Christian. I affirmed the inerrancy of Scripture and the exclusivity of Christ’s salvation. I studied the Bible daily to learn about God. I sought to be bold in my evangelism. And I was staunchly complementarian. I believed that only men should be pastors or elders.
I was also pretty politically conservative. I had voted Libertarian in 2008 and Republican in 2012.
My only possible fault, back then, was that I was an old-earth creationist. I was at an Ivy League school, and I was too indoctrinated by the scientific consensus on biology and geology and archaeology. But that didn’t seem to be a huge deal, even in many conservative circles.
After college, I worked in college ministry for a bit, and then in 2013 I started working at a Southern Baptist church in Baltimore. I had never identified as a Southern Baptist before. I didn’t care much about the South. But I didn’t mind too much, as I was pretty aligned theologically, and I understood that Baptists were really into local church autonomy, so what happened at the national level shouldn’t impact me too much at the local level.
But regardless of the denomination, I loved the church. There was such an amazing vision for the whole gospel to infiltrate people’s lives, to reconcile groups of people together, and to bring about citywide healing. Being there changed me.
One thing in particular that I loved about this church was that it was theologically nuanced on the issue of race. It taught that—as shown in Acts, Galatians, and Revelation—God’s creativity and beauty were reflected by the witness of a diverse church. In this light, I started to become exposed to pastors, authors, and scholars who were outside of my Reformed circles, and they often explored aspects of theology that I had never encountered before: Soong-Chan Rah, Eugene Cho, Michael Emerson, John Perkins, etc.
My theology on race started to change. But perhaps the thing that impacted me the most was the thought, “How come I never saw this stuff in the Bible before?”
How did I not make the connection that the story of Esther is about ethnic genocide? How did I not see that the way Potipher’s wife accused Joseph had uncanny parallels to the way white women during Jim Crow would accuse black domestic servants of sexual assault? And how did I not see that the way Boaz looked out for Ruth had implications for how we are to treat immigrants today?
It was a different way of reading the Bible.
Another thing that started happening was that I started to become less theologically tribal. Instead of saying, “These are the solid pastors, and I will only read those,” I came to be open to reading everybody. I came to believe that every Christian leader was a mix of right and wrong.
It was a different way of learning. Instead of just blindly consuming what was given to me by an older, wiser mentor, I was exercising wisdom and discernment, through the Spirit and through prayer, to decide for myself what was right and what was wrong.
Around this time, I started developing close relationships with people who were very much outside of my prior circles. People who lived in halfway houses. People who were undocumented immigrants. People who had prison records. All of these relationships had the effect of challenging my political assumptions.
Another thing was that I started to be friends with people who were born and raised in urban black neighborhoods. I started to learn about how black people viewed Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X, and why Trayvon Martin’s death mattered.
By the time Freddie Gray was killed in the back of a police van in 2015, I was showing up at Black Lives Matter protests in Baltimore. I don’t think I made a sign that year. I didn’t yell or scream or anything like that. I just attended, listened, and learned. I just felt that this community was in pain, and I needed to be there in solidarity. Because it seemed like that’s what Jesus would have done.
Moving to the Margins
When Donald Trump started dominating the news cycle in 2016, I could not believe that so many Christian leaders that I had looked up to were endorsing him for president. His policies, let alone his character, seemed so antithetical to the gospel. And I kept wondering if it was them who changed or me who changed.
It was around this time that I started to read about prominent Christians shedding old labels. People stopped identifying as evangelical, or as Southern Baptist, because those groups no longer accurately represented them.
That seemed a bit over the top for me at the time. I did start to see myself more and more as an ideological minority within evangelicalism, but it still seemed like we agreed on the major issues. I understood that evangelicalism had its problems. But there were still a lot of good evangelical leaders whom I respected, so I continued to carry that card. Plus—it’s easier to bring about reform from the inside than from the outside.
In 2015, someone told me to check out the Bible Project. I was hooked. Eventually I started listening to the Bible Project podcast. And this led me down all sorts of rabbit trails. N. T. Wright. Michael Heiser. John Walton. I continued to swallow the good and spit out the bad. And my view of Christian theology continued to expand.
I started to write for Reformed Margins in 2017, a now-semi-defunct website where Reformed ethnic minorities would write about issues that mattered to them. I wrote about race and justice and politics and manhood. I never thought that anything I wrote was revolutionary. I saw myself as living out the tradition of the apostle Paul to Athens in Acts 17—contextualizing the unchanging gospel to address today’s values and concerns.
One day, one of my fellow Reformed Margins writers shared with me that he was a closeted egalitarian. He believed in female ordination. I was surprised. He had gone to Westminster, which was a pretty conservative seminary, and he seemed to be pretty aligned with me theologically on most things. At the time, I didn’t have any pastor friends who were egalitarian (or so I thought—later, I found out that I actually had many pastor friends who were, but I had just wrongly assumed they weren’t).
I was curious. I asked him for some book recommendations, and I skimmed through two of them. I remember thinking, “Wow, some of these arguments are actually pretty good. I wonder what the conservative responses to these would be.” But I never took the step to read the theoretical responses. I just assumed that I was right and they were wrong, and one day when I had time, I would look into why I was right.
By 2018, the #MeToo and #ChurchToo movements were taking off. I became more and more distraught over the sheer number of people who had suffered quietly and immensely under abusive men in power. I also started to meet and meet more people who weren’t actively attending church because they had “church hurt.”
Hearing these stories had a compounding effect. It felt like a splinter in my heart that wouldn’t go away, and it was getting larger and larger. I wanted to apologize on behalf of the church to all the people who were hurt, but it felt like anything positive I could do paled in comparison to all of the pain that the church had already caused. I was pouring water into a jar with a hole at the bottom, and the jar was leaking faster than it was being filled.
Then came 2020.
The Reckoning
In mid-2020, reports of sexual misconduct regarding famed apologist Ravi Zacharias shook the Christian world. I had heard Zacharias speak live before, I had read one of his books, and I had watched dozens of his videos on YouTube. He was probably the evangelist and apologist that I quoted the most.
Zacharias was added to an already-long list of Christian leaders I once respected who had some sort of moral failure—C. J. Mahaney, Bill Hybels, Steve Timmis, James MacDonald, and Mark Driscoll. More on Driscoll later.
A few bad apples are to be expected in every batch. But the more bad apples there are, the more it is natural to wonder if it is the tree itself that is bad. “Make a tree good and its fruit will be good, or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad, for a tree is recognized by its fruit” (Matthew 12:33). I became more and more concerned about the state of the evangelical church in America.
Then George Floyd was killed by police. His name was added to another long list of names—black people killed by police—Stephon Clark, Elijah McClain, Breonna Taylor, etc. In response, I wrote an article about Asian American complicity in racism on Reformed Margins that somehow garnered over 200,000 views.
What struck me the most about that experience was the number of people who tried to shame me or condemn me, whether it was through public comments or private messages. Many of them were Christians. It was as if I was blaspheming. Almost every time someone called me out, I would reread my article and wonder, “Was this really that bad? Are we reading the same things? Why are they so angry at me?”
I often wondered, “How is it that you and I agree on so many things theologically, but we are in such different places when it comes to the issue of race?” It soon became apparent that this same line of questioning could be applied to all sorts of issues, including the issue of gender roles.
Then, at the start of the following year, January 6 happened. Christian flags and Confederate flags were waved side by side during the storming of the Capitol Building. Naturally, the secular media highlighted what they saw to be an alliance between far right extremists and evangelicals. I began to realize that being an “evangelical” was becoming more and more confusing. Theological conservatives often insisted on self-identifying with the term, but it often didn’t mean what most people think it means. And this shift in definitions isn’t without reason.
A Ligonier survey recently revealed that 43% of self-identified American evangelicals do not believe Jesus is God. On the other hand, 94% of self-identified American evangelicals believe that sex outside of traditional marriage is sin, and 91% believe that abortion is a sin. Clearly, the term “evangelical” has become more of a political term than a theological term.
After that came the Atlanta spa shootings in March 2021. The shooter said that he had a sexual addiction that was at odds with his Christian faith, which is why he intentionally targeted massage parlors that had loose associations with prostitution.
Two weeks later, I attended a Stand for AAPI Lives rally that was hosted by the Asian American Christian Collaborative, and one of the speakers boldly asked (I’m paraphrasing because I don’t remember the exact quote), “We keep denouncing toxic masculinity in the church without addressing the root of toxic masculinity. Do you not see that toxic masculinity is the direct result of a patriarchal theology?”
I had heard that argument before, but I had previously dismissed it as an example of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. But that day, something inside of me thought, “Maybe there’s something there.” Maybe a theological system that calls men to lead and calls women to submit inevitably creates systems that devalue women.
But I couldn’t just change my mind on an issue because it makes practical sense. I was a Bible-believing Christian. The only reason I would change my mind is if the Bible told me to.
So I decided that I would investigate what the Bible has to say about the issue, and to do so with an open mind.
And that’s what I did.
Getting Out of the Way
Throughout 2021, I read a bunch of books, blogs, and articles on the ordination of women, and I did so with the same mentality I had when I first encountered those resources on race. I tried as best as I could to not have any agenda. I just wanted to seek God’s will.
And the more I read, the more I saw that egalitarianism had a pretty strong biblical case. It wasn’t airtight. There were still a few problem passages. But what I realized was that complementarianism, or at least my version of it, also had problem passages.
Here’s the way theological systems work. Every single one has their “proof texts” and their “problem texts.” The “proof texts” are the biblical passages that you appeal to in order to explain why your view is right. The “problem texts” are the biblical passages that make you go, “This one might make it seem like my view is wrong, but here’s how I can explain away this problem.”
Long story short, I came to see that the affirmation of female ordination had at least as many proof texts as the non-affirmation of female ordination. And while the affirmation of female ordination had some problem texts, so did the other side. I wasn’t sure what to do.
But there were other factors. There’s the fact that ordaining women was a minority view for most of history. Did I have enough confidence in the egalitarian position to stand against most of Christians throughout history? Of course, this isn’t a deal breaker—Baptists in the 1600s and abolitionists in the 1800s asked similar questions. But I certainly didn’t have the conviction those folks had.
And then there was the fact that I was a pastor at a church that had a constitution that only extended the office of eldership to qualified men. Adopting this position would potentially mean that I would lose my job.
Meanwhile, the evangelical church continued to unravel.
In mid-2021, Russell Moore and Beth Moore were functionally chased out of the Southern Baptist Convention. At the time, both of these figures represented “the good guys” in the SBC for me. It was as if the SBC was a large ship that was sinking, but there were many good men and women who had dedicated their careers to patching it up and making it seaworthy once more. And that gave me the confidence to stay committed to the SBC.
But when they both went overboard, that’s when I started to wonder if I should stay.
Shortly afterward, Christianity Today’s “The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill” podcast was released. That was the podcast that documented the rockstar popularity of Mars Hill Church, founded by Mark Driscoll, as well as its subsequent demise. In my college days, I read The Resurgence every week. That was a website started by Mark Driscoll which connected Reformed theology to just about everything under the sun. In my post-college years, I was also really into all of the Mars Hill bands—Ghost Ship, Citizens, King’s Kaleidoscope, etc. I wouldn’t say I loved Driscoll—I felt that he was too vulgar and careless for me. But I thought he was a genius, and also a great communicator.
I had known that Driscoll had left the church in controversy, and that some people were hurt. But I didn’t realize how massive the pain was. Hearing the audio clips of Driscoll objectifying women, and hearing the testimonies of those who had been excommunicated, on the other side of #ChurchToo, was eye-opening. And seeing the tremendous disaster left in the wake of Mark Driscoll’s ministry again caused me to reflect on that question I heard at the rally: “Do you not see that toxic masculinity is the direct result of a patriarchal theology?”
By August 2021, I knew what I had to do. I needed to step down from being a pastor.
My public reasons for stepping down were that I felt that I was burning out, and that I needed to focus on spending more time with my family. Those were certainly true. But they were just part of the story. The actual reasons were many.
One significant factor was that I was questioning whether I wanted to be working for the church at all. Not my local church in particular, but the institutional church at large. It just felt like the whole institution was corrupt from top to bottom. It was an evangelical industrial complex. Christian nationalism was on the rise. Elders were protecting the reputation of their beloved pastors and covering up scandals left and right. Money was being mishandled and wasted. I didn’t want to be a part of it anymore.
And another factor, of course, was that I was becoming more and more open to the idea of women’s ordination, and I felt at odds with the other leaders at our church. I wondered what I would do if I found out that a woman in our congregation felt called to go into pastoral ministry. I felt in my gut that I would support her. Or at the very least, I wouldn’t stand in her way.
After Peter ate with the Gentiles, fellow believers from Jerusalem criticized him, believing he had defiled himself. In Acts 11, Peter gives his account of his encounter with the Gentiles, and he concludes, “So if God gave them the same gift he gave us who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to think that I could stand in God’s way?”
That’s how I felt. I feared that by remaining at a church that only ordained men, I was potentially standing in God’s way. So I stepped down to get out of the way.
Finally Embracing the Label
At the time, if I had to choose a side, I still would’ve defaulted to complementarianism. But I think I did out of the fear of man. I didn’t want to disappoint people. I didn’t want people I respected to look at me and say, “This guy has compromised. He isn’t on our side anymore.”
But as time continued, that fear gradually withered away. Not being a pastor freed me up to explore the issue without the fear of consequences. I didn’t have anything to lose. Over the next year, I sought out people on both sides to pick their brains, and I am incredibly thankful for every single one of those conversations. I continued to read and study, and egalitarianism seemed to be more and more convincing. The only thing was that there were so many negative associations with the label.
During this time of theological exploration, one of the things I kept stumbling upon was the fact that many well-meaning Christians are completely ignorant of the theological stances outside of their tribes. They’re quick to insist that their view is the “biblical” view, even though their opponents often have just as high of a view of Scripture as they do.
It bugged me. It bugged me so much that I started this thing called Theolographs, where I graph different views of theology on Facebook and Instagram.
A lot of these folks seemed to be walking in the footsteps of many of the religious leaders in Jesus’ day. They had a certain theological grid that they were operating out of, and Jesus was often defying their expectations. From everything from hand-washing to Sabbath-keeping, they had preconceived ideas of what was right and what was wrong. And Jesus regularly fell into their category of wrong. He was so wrong, in fact, that they eventually had him crucified.
How did they miss the mark so much? Their fundamental issue was that their view of God was too small. Just because their specific community operated with certain traditions and systems doesn’t mean everybody who follows God has to do the same.
Just because most of Israel’s leaders in Judges were male doesn’t mean God only uses males. God can raise up a Deborah. He can do whatever he wants. Just because most of the apostles were male doesn’t mean God only uses males. God can raise up a Junia. He can do whatever he wants (Note: The ESV translates Romans 16:7 differently because their editors don’t want to recognize Junia as an apostle, but I think that’s a poor decision).
It dawned on me one day that the difference between complementarianism and egalitarianism was that one side wanted to put God in a box, and the other side didn’t. Identifying as an egalitarian didn’t have to be all that radical. It was just a way to say, “I don’t know, but I don’t want to put God in a box.” And so the thing that finally pulled me over the edge was the sheer recognition that God was bigger than me. It’s a bit ironic, because to me, that’s what Reformed theology was all about.
I didn’t become egalitarian because I compromised with culture, or because I lost sight of the authority of Scripture. The original seeds of this theology of an egalitarian church leadership were planted by complementarians when I was in college. They were the ones who taught me to have a big view of God. They were the ones who taught me to study the Scriptures. And they were the ones who taught me to live out my faith with conviction and courage.
Maybe one day I’ll go to heaven and find out that I am wrong. I’m humble enough to recognize that possibility.
But maybe my newfound position will one day guide me to meet a handful of women whom God has called to ministry, and my encouragement to them will inspire them to pursue that noble task. And maybe they will be used by God to do greater things in the kingdom than I ever will.
In September 2022, a pastor at a church called Grace Life Church invited me to consider pastoring there. I was initially not interested, for all of the reasons I stated above. I said I didn’t know where I stood on women’s ordination, but that I leaned toward egalitarianism.
But then he mentioned that that’s exactly where his church was too. And I perked up.
I visited one Sunday, and the preacher that day was talking about spiritual gifts, and it was one of the most humble sermons I’d ever seen. He shared about the doubts he had. He shared that he wasn’t exactly sure where he stood. It was just so honest and raw. And I loved it.
Soon afterward I met the leadership team. They were so down-to-earth. My theological openness seemed welcome there. It was really refreshing. I decided to come on board.
I recognize that the institutional church has a lot of problems. But for whatever reason, God has chosen us, people who bicker and judge and hurt one another, to be his instrument of peace, and to establish justice and righteousness on earth.
Regardless of who you are and how much church hurt you have, if the gospel of Jesus still resonates with your soul, I invite you to join us. We need you to come and help patch up this ship.
We may not agree on everything. We may not even agree on who’s fit to lead the church. But we agree that the ultimate leader is Jesus. He’s the Good Shepherd, and he has laid down his life for the sheep.