The TPUSA Women's Leadership Summit

Last year, I criticized this event pretty harshly, simply based on the name and speaker lineup. I enumerated a number of problems which can best be summed up in saying that it was an exercise in feminism, teach teaching women to be boss babes instead of biblical women - i.e., home-focused, gentle and quiet, etc.

At that time, a number of people rebuked me, pointing out that the conference was very heavily focused on motherhood, marriage, and the domestic arts. I listened to some of the messages, and ended up retracting my original post, realizing that I was heckling Charlie even as he was working so hard to advance the Gospel- and a basic biblical view of the household and family and marriage.

My foot doesn’t taste very good, so I don’t want to repeat the same mistake here. Scripture tells us to listen first and talk later. Certainly, I don’t want to be the man criticizing the man (or woman) in the arena, unless I have strong Scriptural grounds for doing so. I would encourage all of my brothers and sisters not to jump on condemnation bandwagons just because it is the cool thing to do among your preferred internet tribe.

This is why I am not interested in nitpicking TPUSA‘s halftime show, or going full guns-blazing against this conference. I’m thankful for an organization that seems to be seeking to honor Christ, and while I may disagree on some of the applications, I’m glad that they’re in the fight. (Plus, it’s not my job to police the wives of other men.)

All that being said… I’m still very skeptical of this conference, and others like it, for at least a few reasons:

Is This Really What Paul Had In Mind?

While some on the hyper-patriarchal bleeding edge spread too little exegetical butter over too much applicational toast when it comes to Titus 2, basically restricting women from discussing theology at all, at the same time it’s pretty obvious that Scripture assumes a basic discipleship structure, and it is gendered.

The clear biblical expectation is for the men to be the spiritual leaders of their communities – including of the women in their communities. Women are to be shepherded by male pastors, and are to be discipled by their husbands.

While this certainly does not preclude discipleship and sharpening among sisters in Christ, the pattern of going away for intensive cultural and theological training by a bunch of young women is very far from the textual ideal.

“If they desire to learn anything, let them ask their own husbands at home; for it is improper for a woman to speak in church.” (1 Cor. 14:35)

Deborah Didn't Build a Movement

“I will certainly go with you; however, the fame shall not be yours on the journey that you are about to take, for the LORD will sell Sisera into the hand of a woman.” - Deborah, Judg. 4:9

When topics come up, regularly, the same few biblical heroines are brought up- Deborah, Jael, etc.

The egalitarians bring them up as a proof texts to show that women can do anything and nobody should have any questions about any of it… Which is silly. These women are obvious exceptions to an obvious rule.

The hyper-patriarchy guys respond by dismissing these characters as examples of things that were necessary back then, but basically should never ever happen again, often making statements that would condemn these biblical heroines if they were alive today.

I would encourage us to think a little bit more carefully about these heroines of the faith.

Jael is an incredible biblical character. Talk about strong womanhood. But she was not an independent boss babe. She was a homemaker who used her homemaking implements to strike down an enemy of God.

Further, her actions were only necessary because of a failure on the part of Barak, the man that God had raised up for this military action.

This is no condemnation of Jael, who is very praiseworthy. The blame rests with Barack for his abdication.

But note that we have no record that after this incident Jael made herself a tactical belt full of tent pegs and started a militia.

Deborah herself was legitimately a prophetess and a judge in Israel. It is worth noting that she was not just a judge; she was actually a prophetess of God. This already puts her in an exceptional category. This isn’t just something that you want to be when you grow up; it’s something that God brings upon you.

Even still, when God called for an act of civil and military leadership, Deborah sent for a man. And she was happy to hand him the reins, and when he did not take the reins courageously, she rebuked him.

Nor at any point did Deborah start a political party, theological conference, or military division made up of the mothers of Israel.

So while I think a good argument can be made, for example, that when Allie Beth Stuckey was first bringing the Bible to bear on politics, and none of the “Christian conservative” male political pundits were doing this, perhaps she was filling somewhat of a Deborah-style role.

But there’s not a single example in Scripture of any of these exceptional heroines becoming permanently installed as figureheads for movements of women.

"Leadership" and the Cultural Moment

The choice of title for this conference is instructive. It is a “Women’s Leadership Summit.”

Now, we should all be able to agree that any and everyone can and should lead in some way or another.

But “leadership” has a clear connotation, and words do actually matter. Is “leadership” the thing that we should be encouraging our young women towards?

Does Scripture encourage women to think as leaders?

Compare this terminology with Biblical values like:

- submissiveness (Eph. 5)

- teachability and not exercising authority over men (yes, this is stated specifically in the church context, 1 Tim. 2:11)

- obedience, gentleness, and quietness (1 Pet. 3)

- a focus on loving husbands, children, and homemaking (Tit. 2)

Our culture has a pretty good idea of what it looks like for women to be in positions of leadership… and it does not look like the words on the list above.

I would further ask if what is modeled in the conference advertisement that started this post matches the words on the list above. Be honest.

More Is Caught Than Taught

I think this is perhaps the most important point in this conversation.

When I talked about this conference last year, many folks pointed out to me that the ladies at the conference repeatedly emphasized the importance of marriage and family. And this is good, as far as it goes.

But we need to remember that a student becomes like his teacher (Luke 6:40).

So when we see a women’s conference that is headlined by a CEO and two high-powered political pundits, with TV stars, activists, athletes, and politicians on the speaker lineup, we need to recognize something.

No matter what is said about how wonderful marriage and family and Titus 2 are, that speech says less to all of the young women in attendance than the glamorous shimmer of the gorgeous culturo-political “leadership” that is displayed on-stage.

Again, it is worth noting that Titus 2 specifically calls for older women to disciple younger women. All one must do is look at the poster above to realize that that is clearly not what is happening here.

If we really want our young women to grow up to be the kind of cultural leaders that God designed women to be, then we should want them to be learning from the kind of women that the Bible lifts up as exemplars, and learning the kinds of things that the Bible tells those women to teach.

“Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. Then they can urge the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God.” - Titus 2:3-5

This probably won’t happen at a conference or over Instagram; it is certainly hard to imagine a speaker lineup like the one below effectively encouraging women to be busy at home (while modeling the exact opposite), or telling their audience to be obedient to their husbands.

I mean… Let’s just be honest.

No. We need our ladies to be inspired by Godly, gray-haired saints at our local church who have a massive collection of grandchildren, who honor their husbands, and who have a gentle and quiet spirit.

Those ladies shape culture in seismic ways.

These are the kinds of ladies that we should encourage our young women to look up to:

“Your adornment must not be merely the external—braiding the hair, wearing gold jewelry, or putting on apparel; but it should be the hidden person of the heart, with the imperishable quality of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is precious in the sight of God. For in this way the holy women of former times, who hoped in God, also used to adorn themselves, being subject to their own husbands, just as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord; and you have proved to be her children if you do what is right without being frightened by any fear.” - 1 Pet. 3:3-6

God grant that we would have legions of warrioresses like this raised up in this nation.

To The Ladies In The Audience

I recognize that this is an unpleasant perspective to hear, and you’ve probably been heckled rudely by people on the patriarchal edge plenty enough times to make you ready to dismiss everything that was said.

I would simply ask you to prayerfully consider the Scriptural arguments that I have enumerated here and to discuss them with your husband.

I have a lot of respect for many of the ladies on this list; they’ve done a lot of great things.

I think they have a huge opportunity to do another great thing here and to actually model the return to Biblical family priorities that they’ve been talking about for years.

I’m not pretending to know exactly what that return would look like, but I don’t think it will look like this conference.