More Cowbell: John MacArthur, Beth Moore, and Complementarianism
Screenshot: Reformation Charlotte
We need more cowbell, according to legendary producer Bruce Dickinson. And what Bruce wants, Will Ferrell and John MacArthur provide. In the famous SNL skit, the scantily clad Ferrell prances around the studio beating his modern-day gong, much to the chagrin of the band. Ferrell drowns out the other instruments because Bruce has a fever and the only prescription is more cowbell.
Similar to Will Ferrell, John MacArthur gave us more cowbell at the Truth Matters Conference.
MacArthur was on a panel with fellow pastors, and they were asked to play a word association game. When asked to respond to the phrase “Beth Moore,” MacArthur replied, “Go home.” Many in the crowd appreciated it, but some online did not. He went on: “There is no case that can be made biblically for a woman preacher – period, paragraph, end of discussion.” When another pastor was asked the same question, he replied, “Narcissistic.”
Instead of issuing a gentle answer to engage with Mrs. Moore, MacArthur lobbed a cheap shot to incite his base. He didn’t make a point but rather a gong-like sound due to his lack of love (1 Cor. 13:1). Essentially, he banged the cowbell and drowned out the band.
In this instance, the band is a legitimate disagreement that has been ongoing for years. This disagreement revolves around women’s role in the church. A 2011 survey found that 77 percent of Christians think women should be allowed to preach. Among Southern Baptists, that number is 64 percent. Like MacArthur, some believe women shouldn’t preach based on 1 Tim. 2:12. They believe women fulfill a vital role in the church but that they should not preach to the church (Acts 1:12–14, 9:36–42, 16:13–15, 17:1–4, Rom. 16; 1 Cor. 16:19, 2 Tim. 1:5, 4:19).
Hannah Anderson beautifully captured this in a recent post: “We want you to understand that male is not the default setting for human existence. That being female was not an afterthought or a derivative.
We want you to understand that we [women] happily defer to you, but not easily. That submission is a sacrifice we gladly offer, but it is a sacrifice nonetheless. It is a sacrifice precisely because we are equals. And deferring to you in our homes and churches requires a strength that only God can provide.”
But some disagree with Anderson and MacArthur, pointing to the significant contributions women made in the biblical narrative and continue to make today (Acts 18:24-26, 16: 13-15, Phil. 4:2-3, Luke 8:1-3). John Dickson, in his book Hearing Her Voice, argues that we have misinterpreted “teaching” in 1 Tim. 2:12. “There are numerous public-speaking ministries mentioned in the New Testament—teaching, exhorting, evangelizing, prophesying, reading, and so on—and Paul restricts just one of them to qualified males: ‘teaching.’”
Recognizing the distinctive differences between men and women, Craig Bloomberg notes: “But if we never allowed women to preach sermons, and then turned out to be wrong, how much good in the world might have been left undone, how many people left untouched by the encouragement and conviction that their messages have brought about?”
Both sides make valid points in their legitimate attempts to understand and put in practice the biblical narrative. To a certain degree, you might even say they’re a band trying to make the sound of God’s kingdom come down here on earth. But today we are still talking about that cowbell. Contra to Bruce Dickinson, I don’t think we need more cowbell. We don’t need gold records but loving disagreements.