Women at Evangelical Theological Society

Emily Louise Zimbrick-Rogers was the 2014-15 research intern for Christians for Biblical Equality. In addition to conducting a case study of women in evangelicalism at the Evangelical Theological Society, Emily wrote a high school curriculum entitled God, Sex, and You: Who You Are and Why it Matters. She is an MDiv student at Princeton Theological Seminary. 

This is the “Discussion” at the end of her sociological analysis of ETS, which can be read in full at the link above.

Discussion

The quotes above show that the majority of women experienced an atmosphere of hostility, marginalization, and exclusion at ETS. They related this atmosphere to the institutional sexism and culture of complementarianism that permeates ETS. However, the participants noted that in spite of these discouraging forces, women continued to present papers, lead sessions, and produce solid scholarship. Only Isabelle and Karen talked about possibly not returning to ETS; the rest planned to keep coming because “presence is important,” as Anthea McCall said. Some women felt hopeful that their competent scholarship would continue to open doors, while others felt more change might come as men advocated for greater inclusion of diverse voices. Most participants saw the need for both aspects.

This project was initially about the experiences of women, but women and men participants called on men to act on behalf of and in partnership with women at ETS. Several participants referenced the New Testament cruciform community abdicating power for the benefit of the powerless.^51,52 Without the intentional, sustained, and institutional welcome from men with power and authority, then the situation for women at ETS does not look like it will change.

In this limited study, egalitarian women seemed to have more negative experiences at ETS than complementarian or hierarchical women. A related narrative, which was unfortunately beyond the scope of this study, was that egalitarian men seem to have been silenced, have left ETS, or are very marginally involved and do not take on—or are perhaps prevented from—any leadership in the organization. What also appears to be missing in this case study are the voices of women who were fearful of participating, even anonymously.⁵³ Finally, further research is especially needed to study the compounded marginalization of people of color in ETS.

Participants wondered if ETS’s current leadership and the broad consensus of ETS members wish for ETS to truly become the Evangelical Complementarian Society, or become open to shared leadership and voice legitimacy for egalitarian men and women. It remains to be seen if those affiliated with CBMW and/or the SBC will continue to dominate the nominating committee and the executive committee or if other voices will be allowed or invited in.

Women and the Future of ETS

Many of the participants explained why the situation of women in ETS matters for much more than just the few hundred women ETS members. Frances said, “I think it is a problem because the majority of evangelicals are women, so if you have this thinking body, and the primary people doing the thinking are men, you are not representing the Body.” The Southern Baptist women, who did not report any sexism at ETS, also emphasized the need for women to be active in ETS and contributing scholarship. Katie McCoy, SWBTS doctoral student and editor of the site BiblicalWoman.org, said,

 Obviously we need to see more women in academic scholarly thought. . . . We need women to be thinking through not only women’s issues, but we need women to be voices in the echo chamber, so to speak, of current issues and theological questions.

As we heard in the interviews, there were multiple layers of institutional culture and structural hurdles for women to overcome at ETS. While women planned to keep returning to ETS, many wondered about the future and if the ultra-conservative complementarians would make the space so hostile and inhospitable that they themselves could not keep returning, or if younger women would opt out and head to more welcoming environments like IBR or SBL/AAR. Cristina Richie said,

It can be too difficult and depressing and unhealthy, if you just constantly have to go over why a woman can teach, why you can even be there and be hired—it’s exhausting. . . . I hope ETS makes some changes, because I think women are going to keep leaving and finding someplace where they are appreciated.

As the participants noted, women’s inclusion or exclusion at ETS has much broader implications for the wider evangelical academy and the evangelical church than simply the comfort and welcome of a few hundred women presenting papers at an academic conference. The status and experience of women in ETS can provide a useful, albeit limited, case study of women’s experiences in evangelical biblical studies and theology. It is hoped that these findings will enable ETS members and leadership to better understand the experience of women at ETS. With greater understanding, ETS individual members, both women and men, and ETS leadership, can better determine what the future of women at ETS could or should look like.