The Fear of Woman Is (NOT) the Beginning of Wisdom

Being technically right can still be wrong

Dr. Albert Mohler, the president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, a provocateur who can be depended upon to set the internet alight even when he’s not trying to do so, is technically right. In a recent chapel message, which was subsequently posted under his name on the social media site formerly known as Twitter, Dr. Mohler challenged his male students with the common caution, “You will never have sex with a woman not your wife if you are never alone with a woman not your wife. That,” he said, “is simple math.”

Well, math or not, it’s technically correct.

And yet it’s also technically correct that you, male pastor, will never genuinely pastor a woman not your wife if you are never willing in some away to be alone with a woman not your wife. I don’t know if that’s math or psychology or pastoral wisdom. But it’s a simple truth that I want to revisit in the light of Dr. Mohler’s comments and their resonance throughout the evangelical world.

Dr. Mohler was responding to the revelation of the long-standing affair of another prominent evangelical pastor and conference speaker. Much that he said resonated with me. I agree that we should respond with outrage as much as with sadness. Such behavior does grievous damage to the church, to the reputation of the gospel, and to the faith of many Christians. Anger in the face of this is appropriate.

I agree, as well, that everyone in ministry should greet every such revelation with a due amount of fear. The path to destruction is apparently as broad and as easily traveled as Jesus said. Dr. Mohler is right to encourage patterns and habits in our lives that adequately guard against any of us taking that path. Patterns and habits can serve us. I meet with women in public places. My wife has access to my schedule and has the freedom to tell me if she sees any concerning patterns. I have friends who are encouraged to ask me direct questions touching any relationship in my life.

But the rule that a male pastor should never be alone¹ with a female congregant is a misguided response with troublesome pastoral consequences.

The making of such a rule is a conventional fundamentalist response to sin. Attempting to avoid forbidden things such rules forbid things otherwise permitted, which is problematic in its own right. But further, rule making like this accepts as true the fallacious assumption that rules are effective deterrents against sin. Sin, Jesus reminds us, arises from the heart.² Sexual sin is a heart problem, not a scheduling issue. And as bold as this rule sounds, it seems to have done little to stem the tide of pastoral sexual indiscretion over the fifty plus years of its existence. All it has done is to leave the women in our churches functionally without shepherds.

The day before that news broke I spoke with a young woman who had moved to a different city and was preparing to join a church. Though there was much about this church she appreciated, she lamented feeling unnoticed and unknown. She realized that there was no way in which the (male) pastor or any of the (male) elders of this church would ever come to know her. These men would seek out conversation with her husband, and her husband had been made to feel like it was okay for him to reach out to these elders. But any of that was off limits for her.

Jesus didn’t delegate the needs of the woman at the well to another, or postpone her needs until he could take someone else with him, or make her feel awkward by inviting a third party into the conversation. He scandalized his disciples and others by sitting alone with a woman, a woman with a history in fact. This is something our rules would never permit. He pastored her and did so without fear and with great compassion. We have congregations full of those in need of such a shepherd. We should be willing to shepherd them all.

Some of Mohler’s critics have suggested that men who adopt this rule see themselves as barely controlled animals who will sexually assault a woman at the first opportunity. That’s egregiously unfair, and these critics should know better. It is wisdom to recognize the deceptiveness of the heart. Without due care, compassionate pastoral concern can too easily become the kind of emotionally intimate connection that leads to behavior no one is seeking. To be aware of this is to be wise in recognizing the subtlety of sin. But it is the fear of the Lord that is the beginning of wisdom, not the fear of the woman.

If I never step foot in a pulpit, it’s technically correct to say that I’ll never preach heresy.

And it’s technically accurate to say that the safest way to prevent gossip is to never talk to anyone.

I’ll never get drunk if I swear off beer, wine, and spirits.

This is all simple, fundamental, math.

But none of it is wisdom.

Pastors need to pastor the whole church in the same way and with the same attention and compassion. We can’t do that if we make it known to half our congregation that we see them as dangerous and off limits.

That’s not technically wrong.

It is wrong.

1. The implication of “alone” for most precludes a male pastor meeting a woman unaccompanied even in a public place. And, of course, this ignores the multiplicity of ways in which sexual immorality can be a temptation.

2. “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person.” (Matthew 15:19, 20)