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“Kaitlin Hardy Shetler and the Basis of Authority”
Categories: M. W. Bassford, Meditations
I think this was the only time in my life that I ever willingly clicked on a Facebook ad. It was from an organization called Authentic Theology, and the title was, “"Interview--Female Church of Christ Preacher, Poet Who Reached Millions, Kaitlin Hardy Shetler". Well done, adware! That’s the sort of link I’m going to click on!
Anyway, for those disinclined to read the article, the deal is that last December, Shetler posted a poem or short sermon about Mary breastfeeding Jesus that ended up critiquing churches that exclude women from the pulpit. Churches of Christ, that means you!
The poem/sermon attracted many thousands of shares. In another article, the writer for Authentic Theology notes that it attracted more attention on Facebook for 2019 than all (other?) writers from the churches of Christ put together. Apparently, even atheists found its message inspiring, which might be a tell of some sort.
The poem/sermon ain’t half bad, and though I did not find its message inspiring, I did find it fascinating. Abstracted out, the point of the poem/sermon is this: Mary’s unique experience should entitle her to preach, and men who have not had similar experiences should not silence the voices of those who have. In other words, personal experience is the source of authority and truth, and no one has the right to keep the one who has had the experience from preaching their truth.
No wonder the poem aroused such widespread enthusiasm (though not among members of churches of Christ)! That’s the postmodern credo in a nutshell. To the postmodernist, truth is not external and objective. It is internal and subjective. It doesn’t matter what my DNA says. If I feel like a man, that’s what I am (note that at the end of the interview, Shetler puts in her plea for acceptance of trans people too).
If we’re going to accept experience as the foundation of moral reasoning and the basis of moral conduct, then yes, Shetler is exactly right. There is no reason why my experience should be privileged above my sister’s experience, my wife’s experience, or anyone else’s experience. It’s an injustice to keep women out of the pulpit.
If. And therein lies the rub. I, along with everybody else who belongs to a church of Christ and has considered the matter at all, do not believe that truth is internal and subjective. Instead, I believe that it is external, objective, and epitomized in the word of God, which is inspired, infallible, and authoritative until the end of time.
Part of that truth is 1 Timothy 2:12. Despite the valiant efforts of folks like Craig Keener to prove otherwise, the text means what it says, and it says that women don’t get to exercise authority over men in a religious setting. Doesn’t much matter how I feel about it. If I want to please God, I need to do what He tells me to do.
It is interesting and telling that in her sermon/poem, Shetler doesn’t engage with this argument. Reasoning from a standard doesn’t resonate with her, any more than determining religious practice by studying the livers of sacrificial animals resonates with me. Instead, she describes the opposition as “ministers who say women are too delicate to lead.”
That makes for a nice rhetorical contrast (women face the burdens and indignities of childbirth and breastfeeding, but they are “too delicate” for the pulpit), but it doesn’t reflect the actual arguments made by me, anyone I know, or, I suspect, anyone Shetler knows. I don’t think she’s intentionally building a strawman, though. I think it’s the best experience-based argument against women in the pulpit that she can come up with. If we’re playing rhetorical ball on her ball field, that’s the scrub that comes trotting out for the away team.
Of course, the decision to emphasize experience over revelation is fraught with consequences. Toward the end of the interview, Shetler expresses the hope that in the churches of Christ of the future, women will be church leaders as fully as men, preaching, teaching, and everything else.
What she does not see is that such a decision would kill the churches of Christ, and indeed the entire Restoration Movement. We’re the people who do Bible. We’re the people who follow the pattern. Once we start ignoring one part of the pattern, there’s no point in holding to any of it. Once our experiences rather than the Bible become our guide, those experiences, which are common to the world, will make us indistinguishable from it.
Maybe the churches of Christ in the United States are doomed. I don’t know the answer to that. Only God does. This I do know, though: If we fail because we held fast to the word until the end, God will be honored by that.
If we fail because we exchanged the word for the world, He will not be.
