But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet (1 Timothy 2:12, NASB)

In his very revealing article Engaged by the culture: Michigan megachurch goes egalitarian Jeff Robinson of Gender-News.com points out that Bell’s Mars Hill Bible Church began 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.’ ” Oh, he’s accomplishing this alright, but at the expense of clear teaching of the Bible. Those of us who have studied the results of churches and denominations who have violated God’s Word and opened this office to women can tell you further drift from orthodoxy is inevitable.

Robinson also reports that an original member of the church plant Gary Knapp never dreamed 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.” And further as of this 2004 report “the church has two women serving on its eight-member elder board.” And for Emergents who seem to be so enamored with scholastic credentials, Knapp happens to hold “both a master of divinity and master of theology.” So it should surprise no one familiar with this Emergent rebellion against the Bible that in his considered opinion at Mars Hill Bible Church–true to neo-orthodoxy:

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.