By John Bloom

Sheri Klouda’s lawsuit against Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth was dismissed by a federal judge on Friday, and the news coverage [1] made it sound like she was a disgruntled ex-employee filing a nuisance suit. The facts are a little bit more inconvenient for the seminary and for Dr. Paige Patterson, the president, and they’ve been extensively parsed on the blogosphere over the past year so that there’s little doubt about what happened:

[2]

In 2002 Dr. Klouda, a graduate of Criswell Bible College in Dallas, was hired to teach Hebrew in the Department of Theology. She was told this was a tenure-track position.

In 2003 Dr. Patterson became president. She went to him to ask him whether she should be worried about his well known opposition to women in the ministry. He said she had “nothing to worry about.” She pointed out that she had freely signed all Baptist faith statements, including the parts about women, and that she didn’t regard this teaching position as a pastorate—did he? He said no, he did not.

In 2005 it was time for her to be considered for tenure. The administration wouldn’t allow any tenure review to take place.

In 2006 her teaching contract was not renewed. The reason given was that they interpreted a verse in 1 Timothy to mean that no woman can be in any position of authority over a man, and therefore there’s no way for a woman to teach in the Department of Theology because almost all of the students are male.

In 2007 she suffered a series of financial setbacks related to her having to move herself, her invalid husband and their three children to a small college in Indiana while being unable to sell their house in Fort Worth.

She reluctantly filed the lawsuit, and only at the urging of many Baptist pastors. She was not surprised when it was thrown out by the judge, who cited the university’s right to use Biblical reasons to hire and fire faculty.

This still doesn’t answer the moral questions:

1. Why did they hire her if she was precluded from working there by a scripture that had existed for 1,850 years prior to her hiring?
2. Why did they tell her it was tenure track if it wasn’t?
3. Did they lie when they said she was not fired, simply “denied tenure”? You can’t really be denied tenure if there’s no tenure review in the first place. I mean, if you’re gonna fire her because of 1 Timothy, then fire her because of 1 Timothy, don’t make up some b.s. reason later.

Normally our policy here at The Door is to avoid quoting scripture, because the practice is so subject to abuse, especially when the purpose of the quotation is to justify some opinion. But since Paige Patterson is currently the highest-ranking Southern Baptist scholar in the world, this situation calls for some Talmudic dispute, don’t you think?

Paige Patterson once gave me a Bible, by the way, and he wrote on the flyleaf, “Lean not on your own arm of understanding.” Let that be our motto as I say this to Dr. Patterson, brother in the faith:

1 Timothy 2:12 says that a woman should not “usurp authority over a man.” This is the scripture you’ve used to deny this woman a place in the lecture halls of the seminary. But let’s go to the complete passage:

“Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve.”

This is not the voice of God, as in Leviticus. This is the voice of a man called “Paul” by the writer, but we don’t really know who it is. Scholars are 100 percent agreed—even the male scholars—that it’s not Paul who wrote this, because the letter has been dated no earlier than the year 120. Therefore, even though it’s written to Timothy, it can’t be the same Timothy who traveled with Paul, for he, too, is dead by 120. In the first collection of Paul’s letters, in the year 200, these so-called “pastoral epistles” (1 Timothy, 2 Timothy and Titus) are nowhere to be found, and their relevance, not to mention their authenticity, is still being debated throughout the 3rd century. Thirty-six percent of the words in them appear nowhere else in the letters of Paul, and more than half of those words appear nowhere else in the New Testament. (For example, this is the only place you find eusebeia, the Greek and Roman word for “proper religious behavior” toward the gods, instead of what Paul would have undoubtedly used—faith.) So this letter is obviously written for a particular purpose, and it’s intended to preclude women from teaching the Bible in a particular situation, and later on—at least two centuries later—it’s finally approved by the church fathers as scripture.

And as to usurping authority over the man: A teacher is a servant, Paige. She puts herself at the service of all those theology students. You would see this better if you would observe a first-grade class, but I can assure you the principle is the same at the graduate level. Sheri Klouda was usurping no authority by her tutelage.

Bottom line: In order to read this passage as “All women are to keep their mouths shut at all times,” you’ve got to believe that Paul believed that.

So let’s look at what he said. My turn to pick a scripture. One that we are certain was written by Paul:

“For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. And if ye be Christ’s, then ye are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” (Galatians 3:27-29)

I don’t think I have to parse that passage. I think, in fact, that your eyes will just sort of naturally zero in on the part of it that’s pertinent to this situation. But since you’re not just a servant of the word but a student of it, we should go further.

We should ask the question: Why would the church put the name of Paul on the Pastoral Epistles? Why would they be addressed to Titus and Timothy, two deceased people who were known to be beloved associates of Paul during his lifetime? The answer seems obvious, but I’ll go ahead and say it: Because, at a certain point, two or three generations after Paul was dead, people were using the words of Paul to justify wildness, possibly even heresy.

The Pastoral Epistles were attributed to Paul so that the church could enforce discipline. Even though they’re supposedly personal letters, they read like a rule book. I don’t mean to say that they’re inauthentic, because they were eventually included in the canon, but they were not part of the early zeal of the church, and they were certainly not written by any contemporary of Jesus. They were put together in response to various out-of-control situations, some of them apparently engineered by women. This was housekeeping.

Now let’s look at my book, Galatians. When you read one of the authentic letters of Paul, what do you feel? You feel many things, but you never feel under the law. What I feel is a breaking and a “breaking loose,” a movement inward and outward at the same time. I feel the power of the verse that you penciled into my Bible, the breaking away of my stubborn arm of understanding. And one constant through these amazing passages is the presence of women. It’s a woman who greets Paul at his first church. It’s women who maintain the churches he leaves behind. It’s a woman who carries the “letter to the Romans” ... to the Romans. And in that letter to the Romans, I think you’ll also agree, Paul declares his personal hatred of rule books.

Before you answer, Paige, lean not on your own arm of understanding.