Popular Campus Apologist Makes Absurd Argument for Women Pastors
Cliffe Knechtle is not a household name—and perhaps for good reason. He’s the theological equivalent of a lukewarm casserole…unoffensive, vaguely familiar, and utterly forgettable unless it gives you food poisoning.
Knechtle has spent the last several decades roaming college campuses armed with a Bible in one hand and a shrug in the other, offering drive-thru theology to wide-eyed undergrads who’ve never read Romans without a study guide. He calls it apologetics. The rest of us, at least for some of it, call it compromise with a side of condescension.
In one particularly embarrassing theological drive-by, this time speaking to members of his church, Cliffe decided to reinterpret Scripture in a way that would make even the most hardened feminist theologian blush. In a recent video, he waded into the clear and direct waters of 1 Timothy 2 and 1 Corinthians 14 and somehow managed to drown in the shallow end.
His thesis?
That when Paul says, “I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man,” he doesn’t actually mean that. No, no—according to Cliffe, Paul was just offering some local color commentary for Timothy, who happened to be pastoring in Ephesus—a city that, Cliffe assures us, was swirling in confusion over gender roles because of the goddess Diana.
Apparently, the apostle Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, was simply trying to manage a cultural misunderstanding with a little PR finesse. Nothing to see here. Just Paul being diplomatic. Move along.
But wait—Cliffe’s tale gets better. According to him, women weren’t educated back then, so of course Paul wouldn’t let them teach. Not because of any God-ordained order of creation, mind you, but because they just didn’t have enough schooling. If only they had finished seminary and learned a few Greek declensions, well, maybe then Paul would’ve let them stand behind the pulpit and preach the gospel to the men who were supposed to be leading.
It’s almost poetic in its absurdity.