Mars Hill Bible Church opened its doors in February of 1999 with a stated desire to exist as a "church where scripture would be taught in a new way, a way that would reach a changing culture."
Gary Knapp and his wife, Becky, were among the first members of the Grandville, Mich., church, which now numbers more than 1,000 members and some 10,000 weekly attendees. Knapp taught an adult Bible class at Mars Hill and led a small group in the church for more than two years.
In those early days of church plant exhilaration, Knapp did not dream that within four years Mars Hill's desire to engage the Gen-X culture would result in no small capitulation to the feminism incipient within that very culture. On June 9, 2003, Mars Hill amended its constitution and statement of faith, opening all offices-including that of elder-to women. Today, the church has two women serving on its eight-member elder board.
Mars Hill's original constitution/confession of faith clearly set forth-in Section 6.400-the traditional view that Scripture limits the office of elder to males. Thus, Knapp said the winds of change blew in like a sudden storm on a clear day.
"During the annual church meeting in September of 2002, (Mars Hill pastor) Rob Bell mentioned in a very tangential way that the church board and he were looking into the issue of women in church leadership," Knapp said.
"It was not mentioned again until we received a letter in early April of 2003. The letter stated that the church board had decided to include women in all church offices. Furthermore, the letter stated that it wasn't really asking for our permission to make the change but merely our approval."
Mars Hill is congregational in polity requiring a two-thirds vote to amend the church constitution.
A vote took place after a series of Tuesday evening gatherings of the congregation, called the "Areopagus Meetings," during which Bell presented leadership's rationale for moving toward egalitarianism. Three such meetings were initially planned, but due to the overwhelming number of questions from those who attended the first three, a fourth was added, Knapp said.
"I think the congregation had exhibited considerably more reaction to this proposed change than the board expected," Knapp said. "Given the response of people during the Tuesday evening sessions, it was clear that many people were disturbed by the proposed change."
Knapp said the Areopagus meetings revealed that the new vision was not necessarily that of the board of elders but of pastor Bell.
"I learned later that the board really didn't hammer out their position after corporate study and discussion but essentially rubber-stamped what Rob had presented to them," Knapp said. "In fact, one board member essentially said, 'We're here to support Rob and do what he wants to do.'"
Knapp, who holds both a master of divinity and master of theology, formed a committee along with several other complementarians to oppose the change. The committee also sought to articulate a biblical view of gender roles, a view held by the majority of Christians throughout church history, a view limiting the office of elder to males.
The committee got permission from Bell to organize a meeting to present the traditional view, Knapp said. Members wanted to enlist as guest speaker Wayne Grudem, member of The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW) and author of numerous books on gender roles.
However, Knapp said other church leaders later balked on the logistics of such a meeting; the group could neither advertise it nor invite an outside speaker. A church leader phoned Grudem to inform him of Mars Hill leadership's stance.
"I was asked by people who opposed the by-law change if I would be willing to come and speak," Grudem said. "I said yes in principle, but details had to be worked out.
"I got a call from a member of the pastoral team who made it clear to me that I was not welcome to come, and I told him I had no intention of coming without the permission of the church leadership. So that died."
The committee went ahead with its meeting with another speaker. Advertised largely by word-of-mouth, the meeting did not garner a large attendance. Four days later, the congregation voted and the egalitarian bill became church letter.
"Would it have made a difference if we had been able to have Dr.Grudem speak?" Knapp said. "I think it would have, provided we could have advertised it effectively. But as Rob Bell said after the results of the vote were in, 'I will never ever stop teaching what I am teaching.' So it would merely have been a matter of time before the church finally capitulated to his point of view, or until he decided to leave."
Grudem says the approach of Mars Hill leadership in bringing in egalitarianism is fairly typical.
"Suppression of any alternative point of view is probably the most common way for an egalitarian viewpoint to be advanced in a church," Grudem said. "Mars Hill [followed] that pattern exactly."
What happened following the vote seems to typify the obfuscation with which church leadership pursued the change: a final vote total and percentage was not made public. Only later were several members able to wrangle a percentage out of church leaders, Knapp said. The constitution change appears to have passed by the slimmest of margins, he said.
"Several people had to call (Mars Hill executive pastor) Doug Childress personally to finally obtain the 68.5 percent figure-after being strongly questioned as to why they wanted to know," Knapp said. "The actual number of votes cast has never been given."
Steve Sebastian was another Mars Hill member who opposed the change. He phoned church offices on the day following the vote and received the increasingly familiar run-around. Sebastian believes his vocal opposition to the church's move to egalitarianism led to his ostracism by church leadership.
"I and approximately six others that I know of called and requested to audit the ballots because we were told during the meeting that we could audit the ballots after the meeting. However, when people went to do that, the doors were locked and there was nothing to see.
"I asked Doug (Childress) on a phone call, exactly when we cold see and recount the ballots. He said that he was going on vacation and that I would need to submit my request in writing to the church and to call his secretary. I did that and I also tried to get hold of a staff member [who is a] friend through the office.
"Now I am told that all staff members received an e-mail that stated that I had been trying to reach various people on staff and that no one is to receive any calls from me for any reason."
Sebastian says during the Areopagus sessions, he began to detect that leadership in general and Bell in particular was nonplussed if not antagonistic toward the opposition.
"One young man came up (to a microphone during one of the meetings) and said that he disagreed with what he had just been taught and Rob (Bell) sarcastically and high-handedly put him in his place," Sebastian said. "That did not go over well.
"On the second night of the Areopagus, they had pulled the [microphones] and were not going to allow any questions. The head elder said that the leadership felt that the questions were counterproductive and gave an apology for Rob's behavior. Rob also offered a tearful apology and said that he never imagined that this teaching would be met with such opposition and that it 'freaked him out.'"
What drove Bell's seemingly abrupt ardor for egalitarianism? Sebastian said it apparently stems from Bell's drinking deeply from the well of a radical new hermeneutic proposed by William Webb in his 2001 book Slaves, Women & Homosexuals: Exploring the Hermeneutics of Cultural Analysis.
In the book, Webb proposed a new method of biblical interpretation he calls a "redemptive movement hermeneutic." Among other things, Webb argues that passages on women in ministry should be read trans-culturally in such a fashion that overturns traditional beliefs about gender roles in ministry. The upshot of the new hermeneutic for Bell is that giftedness, not gender, determines one's fitness to hold a church office.
Sebastian approached Bell following one Sunday evening service and suggested that he ditch his fascination with the so-called redemptive movement hermeneutic and get back to preaching the Scriptures. Bell's response surprised Sebastian.
"He burst out laughing and asked me in a sarcastic tone if I knew how we came to have the canon of Scripture. [He] belittled the process by which the canon of Scripture was decided upon by suggesting it was absurd that 300 men in some meeting could accurately tell us what books should be included," Sebastian said.
"I stated to him that I did not believe that the general Mars Hill attendees were aware of the major paradigm shift [as to] how all Scripture is interpreted to the point of having to restock the church library. He responded by affirming my statement and thanked me for 'getting it.'"
Zak Lahring was also a member of the committee opposing the change. Lahring and wife Shawn were outraged at the manner in which the issue was handled.
"During the entire thing, they tried to quash the opposition," Shawn Lahring said. "Publicly they told people that they would be able to voice their opinions and get their questions answered regarding the issue during the Areopagus meetings. But when people did that, the response was always, 'thank you' and no answers were given. The traditional view was not discussed."
On the evening of the vote, leadership ratcheted up the pressure to help ensure a positive outcome, she said.
"The pressure regarding the vote was incredible," Shawn Lahring said. "On the night of the vote, people were told, 'we just want to tell you what your 'yes' vote means. Your 'yes' vote may mean that you totally agree with this new direction of Mars Hill. Your 'yes' vote can also mean you aren't really sure about this new direction of Mars Hill but trust Rob Bell and the leadership. Your 'yes' vote can also mean that you don't agree with the new direction…but you trust Rob Bell and the leadership.
"Your 'no' vote means that you don't agree with this direction for Mars Hill and don't trust Rob Bell or the leadership.' Now, honestly, what do you think those who didn't even know about the opposition would do? If I were a new believer/member and didn't personally know my Bible, I would have voted 'yes' myself."
Leadership from Mars Hill did not respond to interview requests by Gender-News.com. Lahring said this is hardly surprising, given the sleight-of-hand with which church leaders pursued the female elder issue.
"I'm not at all surprised," she said. "They would have to be able to truly defend their position and or course, they can't and they know they'll just embarrass themselves...the only good thing to come out of this is that a lot of people woke up and went back to Calvary or to other places where they teach the Bible is sufficient."
Knapp has not returned to Mars Hill since the vote. The Lahring and Sebastian families also left, as did others, Knapp said. Mars Hill's change does not reflect a biblical engagement of the culture but represents a capitulation to the subjective whims of postmodernity, Knapp said.
"Despite how [some] might define and understand postmodernism and the church, I think the classic definitions apply to Mars Hill and churches like it," Knapp said.
"Truth for them seems to be more subjective and experiential than a product of a worldview developed by means of an interaction with God's Word, an interaction that often requires rigorous exegetical study and a measured reflection upon the results of that study."
