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Progressive Christian Leaders’ Wives Allowed Behind Pulpit, but Not Behind Wheel

AVENAL, CA – Christian activist Jim Wallis preached a fiery message Wednesday night at Avenal Baptist Church in California, imploring American churches to allow more women in the pulpit. He then hopped inside his ’89 Vanagon and told his wife to “button it."

Wallis is among a large bloc of progressive Christians who still make their wives ride shotgun.

At the counter of the Get ‘n Go, off Route 78, Wallis explained: “Jeanette is a Proverbs 31 woman and all, but I just get real nervous when she drives. You know, she’s kinda skittish on freeways. Not that I have anything against women drivers in general. I’m just saying, for our situation, it doesn’t work.”

Having a woman behind the wheel doesn’t work for a lot of Christian liberals, according to a recent Barna survey. Ninety-eight percent of so-called forward-thinking Christian men refuse to share the wheel.

Pastor Karen Ward, of Church of the Apostles in Seattle, says the stigma of women drivers has prevented her from getting married. “I’m just looking for that man who is confident enough in Christ to let a sister hit switches and roll with that three-wheel motion. These guys ain’t havin’ it. I don’t understand. They’re the bride of Christ, and He let’s them drive.”

Tony Campolo, a popular speaker who has led the charge on many social justice movements within the evangelical church, supports Wallis in his stand against Christian wives taking the wheel. “Entrusting thousands of souls to a woman preacher is one thing, but tooling us Campolos around town is serious business.”

Even the emerging church—a hotbed for iconoclastic spirituality—sees the issue as the last frontier in boundary-crossing discipleship. At Cedar Ridge Community Church in Maryland, Pastor Brian McLaren recently preached an eight-week series of sermons on the vehicular headship of men.

At a roundtable discussion following the series, McLaren, a longtime champion of progressive Christianity, was emphatic about his conservative stance against taking a back seat to his wife. “Well, I think the church is a wonderful place for social experiments,” McLaren said. “My Dodge Dart isn’t.”

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