Why Do Resources for Women Seem Like “Christianity Lite?”

1. I agree with the thesis of the article. I would add that IMO most of the mass-market stuff available for men is “Christianity Lite” too.

2. So why, when women are often the ones usually creating resources for women (think “Beth Moore”), are women often denied access to the very theological training that would potentially give the resources more “heft?”

3. The church I belong to is complementarian; I am complementarian. Having gotten that out of the way…

4. Why does fundamentalism systematically deny women admittance to programs such as the M.Div? Are there any fundamentalist seminaries that would admit women to an M.Div program? Seminaries do not ordain, and churches individually have every right to exclude women from holding pastoral positions, so what really is the problem with permitting women to gain advanced theological training if they feel led/called to it?

5. Wouldn’t permitting women to complete more rigorous theological programs be a good step to providing more “heft” to women’s resources? (Are there any fundamentalist “Beth Moore’s” out there?)

6. At the church I belong to, our Director of Women’s Ministries does have an M.Div (languages and all…) from an evangelical seminary. She oversees or personally conducts Bible studies & women’s conferences for the 750 or so adult women at the church. Her intent in earning her M.Div was always to serve in exactly the type of role she has. Ask her, and she’ll tell you that she believes her M.Div studies are invaluable in helping her fill her role.

Are there any fundamentalist seminaries that would admit women to an M.Div program

It is my understanding that both Central and Faith admit women to an M.Div. program and substitute some requirements such as homiletics/preaching with other classes.

[Brenda T]

Are there any fundamentalist seminaries that would admit women to an M.Div program

It is my understanding that both Central and Faith admit women to an M.Div. program and substitute some requirements such as homiletics/preaching with other classes.

Thanks Brenda, that’s good to know. Do you know if any women are in the programs currently, or how many might have earned an M.Div at either school?

The current online catalogs for both seminaries indicate the information I provided above.

Regarding Faith, I know some have been in the program (and graduated) but I don’t know actual numbers.

[Brenda T]

The current online catalogs for both seminaries indicate the information I provided above.

Regarding Faith, I know some have been in the program (and graduated) but I don’t know actual numbers.

Thanks again, Brenda, I learned something. Page 43 of Central’s online catalog says precisely what you say about women entering the M.Div program there. I guess I’ve just never encountered any @ Central; I’ve known women who were enrolled in the M.A. programs there.

Faith’s catalog p. 53 (point 6 under goals) expresses a similar guideline.

I took a look at MBU’s catalog. For women undergrads in the Bible Dept., they appear to offer degrees in:

• Biblical Counseling
• Biblical Languages
• Missions

The Seminary does accept female students - I remember taking ST4 with a female student. Their statement on female students in Seminary is:

The Seminary provides education and development, both academic and practical, for men (and, within the confines of biblical restrictions of local church leadership, women) who are called by God into leadership ministries in Baptist churches as pastors, evangelists, missionaries, and leaders in other biblically based ministries, such as Christian camp work, the chaplaincy, or teaching.

It does indeed appear that women, if they are so inclined, can take substantive courses and obtain degrees in Bible and theology from MBU. It makes the “fluff” we find in Christian bookstores (for both men and women) all the more pathetic and inexcusable.

I do think there is a stereotype out there that women can’t take Bible courses or even obtain degrees in Bible at Christian universities or Seminaries. That is wrong, at least from what I’ve seen.

I’ve learned in this thread that there are fundamentalist seminaries that admit women to their M.Div programs, with certain restrictions. That was news to me.

Is this a fairly recent turn of events? Or is it just that few women have ever enrolled in such programs? Are there still fundamentalist seminaries which don’t admit women to M.Div programs, or which don’t admit women to any of their seminary programs?

I personally know two women with M.Div’s, including the Director of Women’s Ministries at my church (whom I mentioned above). The other serves in a parachurch missions organization. (That’s all I’ll say about her, since their ministry is a sensitive outreach to Muslims.) I’ve also met a few other women M.Div’s, but never any who have received their degree from fundamentalist schools (evangelical seminaries in every case).

Does anyone here know (or know of) women who have M.Div’s, D.Min’s, or the like from fundamentalist schools?

FWIW, Westminster splits its MDiv into a pastoral track that is men only and a general track that allows women: http://www.wts.edu/academics/programs/divinity.html.

But why not go all the way? Why not the PhD? I know that’s open to women at WTS; from what I remember, that’s always been open to women at BJU as well.

but maybe it is for other schools. The M.Div. is the highest degree Faith offers. You might be interested in this Faith publication from 1987.

http://www.faith.edu/resources/publications/faith-pulpit/message/why-sh…

Love the conversation here. Just a couple of additional thoughts that didn’t make it to the article:
1. I agree with Larry that a lack of theological training perpetuates the issue among women. Mike asked about Ph.D. programs—it’s purely anecdotal, but I’ve had two friends who were dissuaded from pursuing Ph.D.s at a fundamentalist school. It wasn’t disallowed but leadership questioned “why” they would need it and how they would use it. Still, in my experience, conservative evangelicals are more reactionary to women in seminary than fundamentalists. Because they are smack in the middle of the church gender wars, conservative Es are more suspicious of what a woman is trying to “say” or do by pursuing a seminary degree.
2.I’d also suggest that teachers like Beth Moore end up going parachurch because local churches usually don’t have paradigms for them to use their gifting. So women who could train other women end up going outside the local church to use it. If think about women w/ prominent ministries (N.L. DeMoss, Beth Moore, Kay Arthur), they are not attached to a specific church; it’s not this way with men who often use their pastoral ministry as a base for broader ministry. I’d love to see churches hiring trained, gifted women to “pastor” their women with the same alacrity that they hire young 20-somethings to pastor their youth groups.

I think we can and should be creative in our efforts to find legitimate roles for women to fulfill in our churches that do not violate Scripture’s clear teachings. I read the following excerpt from an article, written by a female minister, that underscores this point. The woman minister related the following story of a 50-yr old woman speaking to her Pastor about ministry opportunities:

So she went to her pastor and said, “My children have left home, we have enough income so that I do not have to work and I would like to give my life in meaningful service. What could I do in this church?” Do you know what he said to her? “Every Tuesday we have a need for someone to lick the envelopes for the church mailing and we could really use some help with that.” That woman walked out of her church very depressed. Is there nothing that the church has for an older woman to do but win the cook-off contest at the church potluck? Did God put minds and energy and gifts in these women, only for it to be wasted?

• Rev. Roberta Hestenes, “Jesus and the Ministry of Women,” Priscilla Papers PP04:4 (Fall 1990), 5.

​​Susan Hunt, a Pastor’s wife and author, issues a desperate plea for a return to authentic Biblical discipleship of women within the church, specifically in light of Paul’s commands from Titus 2:3-5. She said, “scores of evangelical women are functional feminists because the world’s paradigm for womanhood is the only one they have heard.”[1]

• Susan Hunt, “Women’s Ministry in the Local Church,” Journal of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood JBMW 11:2 (Fall 2006), 37.

I know we’ve gone a bit off track here with the thread, but I’ll make an attempt to pull it back. Do Bible Colleges, and/or Seminaries teach women what they can do in local church ministry? Or, only what they can’t? I’m not sure. What is the message the young women in Bible College’s are getting?

Just a brief word from an instructor at one of those terribly backwards seminaries that don’t graduate women. According to Wikipedia, the Master of Divinity degree is “the first professional degree of the pastoral profession.” This is the traditional view of the M.Div., recognized broadly within the academic and ecclesiastical communities, and that’s how we view the degree. We have the very focused mission of training the next generation of pastors and church planters, whether domestic or abroad, and every class we teach is directed narrowly to that end. We see our mission as that of committing truth to faithful men who will in turn teach others (2 Tim 2:2) in a vocational/professional context (v. 3).

We are neither suspicious of nor threatened by women who want to learn, and we allow women to take a majority of our classes (homiletics is out). But our mission is to train pastors and church planters, and that mission has a very narrow clientele.

I know this offers no direct answer to the central question of this thread (though indirectly it does, perhaps), but since the thread has diverged a bit, I thought a good word was in order.

Two CE schools in Minnesota that are just a stone’s throw away from each other admit women to their M.Div. programs (University of Northwestern - St. Paul and Bethel Seminary).

Clarification: Northwestern refers to itself as conservative evangelical while Bethel calls itself strongly evangelical.

• Larry got it right above … theres’ a lot of “lite” literature (men and women). A lot of “how to” books


• I think this thread moved the wrong way about MDivs … reading and studying the Bible is not rocket science. (MDivs are good - not anti-seminary or anti-education!”


• Bookstores are filled with “lite” stuff because of supply and demand (the economic argument)


• Meanwhile … I am thankful for a very smart wife (graduated Math 4.0 from Florida State). What is she currently reading? Delighting in the Trinity (un-lite)