Who Invented Patriarchy?

Equal to Serve, by Gretchen Gaebelein Hull (Revell, 302 pp.; $14.95, hardcover); Call Me Blessed, by Faith Martin (Eerdmans, 180 pp.; $8.95, paper). Reviewed by Phyllis E. Alsdurf, former editor of Family Life Today, and coauthor with her husband, James, of Battered into Submission.

Among contemporary works calling for woman’s equality in the church and home are two that distinguish themselves by their careful treatment of Scripture, well-reasoned arguments, and nondefensive presentation. Similar in tone and style, Equal to Serve and Call Me Blessed are written by two women who share an unshakable confidence in their equal standing before God.

The Problem With Patriarchy

A forthright “biblical feminist,” Gretchen Gaebelein Hull, in Equal to Serve, speaks to the myriad objections raised by her traditionalist friends: mutual submission won’t work because someone needs to be in charge; women in leadership will destroy the home; Scripture teaches that women are to be in submission and men are to be “head.” These concerns, and a host of others, are ones that Hull has faced for years. As a Bible teacher, she has found that the church has often been eager to use her gifts as long as she not threaten the men or aspire to any church office.

Hull describes this double standard as an attempt to sugar-coat the concept of male supremacy in more palatable terms. “Patriarchy is institutionalized discrimination,” Hull charges. “It marginalizes and depersonalizes half the human race.… Is there any question but that we need a Christ-like society instead of a patriarchal society?”

She examines the fruits of patriarchy in the lives of Old Testament figures such as Abraham, Isaac, Samson, David, and Solomon, and concludes that patriarchy is an unjust and sinful system, not God’s perfect will. “Scripture portrays human discord and discrimination—not because these things are God’s ideal,” Hull claims, “but because Scripture is so accurate. The Bible is a true record, and that means it truthfully records sinful actions and false philosophies.”

Looking at biblical examples of leadership, Hull reasons: “if there is only one ‘exception’ [to the only-men-can-lead rule]—only one Deborah or Huldah or Phoebe—that single case undermines the traditionalist position. If there is only one woman commended by the text for a nontraditional action, we must draw the conclusion that the Bible does not teach role playing.… Truth cannot have exception. Truth must be unchangeable.”

In the chapter “The Forgotten Woman and the Invisible Man,” Hull considers Mary and Joseph, who, exemplifying servanthood, step out of prescribed roles in order to answer God’s call. Hull argues that the example of Joseph challenges men to question whether they would find it difficult to hold a secondary role to a woman. “Remember, too, that if God had wished to teach a ‘chain of command,’ He would not have called Mary directly, but would have sent her call through Joseph.”

Continually harking back to careful examination of the biblical text, Hull concludes that Christian leadership in the home belongs to both husband and wife. The call for mutual submission is not the “subtraction of wifely submission, but the addition of husbandly submission,” she says. “In decision making within marriage, the ‘one’ who makes the decisions should be the ‘two become one.’ ”

Hull’s challenge to the church is to stop teaching that “biology is destiny” and instead give women an equal opportunity to serve. Traditionalists will take issue with her position, but Hull’s conciliatory tone and eagerness to fairly engage even the most entrenched member of the opposition makes it clear that she speaks not from bitterness but out of a deep desire to strip away cultural baggage that clouds our understanding of Scripture. You may disagree with her conclusions, but with her spirit you cannot argue.

Head And Heart

Similarly, in Call Me Blessed author Faith Martin meshes head and heart, serious scholarship with personal reflection. At the same time as she sets out to answer the question “Is the subjection of women a natural working out of God’s perfect will or the result of sin?” Martin also traces the development of her own sense of personhood. It is a successful marriage of the personal and the analytical.

The author begins by noting that from the beginning woman’s purpose was no different from man’s. “Woman was created to carry the image of God,” Martin asserts, and then she shows how much Western folklore has crept into the sparse biblical account of Creation.

Tracing the Oriental roots of Hebrew culture, Martin interacts with portions of Old Testament law that many—feminists and traditionalists alike—would just as soon gloss over. She takes the long view of patriarchy from Abraham down through Jesus, citing evidence of a gradual accountability to God entering a patriarchal legal, economic, and social system.

While this book is for the average reader, Martin herself is clearly no average reader. She gives an excellent overview of current scholarship on male-female roles and of the treatment of women in the Old Testament, frequently interspersing her analyses with common-sense illustrations culled from daily life.

Like Hull, Martin addresses the argument that women leaders in the Old Testament were “exceptions to the rule,” and contends that “Scripture presents these few women leaders without apology, without rebuke to the men who followed them, and without any expression of inappropriateness.… Oftentimes Old Testament exceptions are a prophetic sign of what will become the New Testament ‘rule.’ ”

In the chapter “God in Our Image,” Martin cautions against trying to understand human sexuality in theological terms. Those arguing both sides of the issue—either for the masculinity of God or on the flip side, his androgyny—fall prey to one of the common myths of our day: that we can make God in our image. Such fuzzy thinking is as dangerous as any of the pagan mythologies Paul warned against, says Martin.

She demonstrates repeatedly how translators have allowed culturally bound interpretations to creep into their work on passages pertaining to women. “Women need to be reminded that even though the original words of Paul are inspired by the Holy Spirit, translations of Paul’s words are not.”

Martin moves easily between a scholarly examination of critical passages and the many personal glimpses she gives of herself as a young woman whose father treated her as equal to his sons. Consequently, the conclusion she reaches in this tightly argued book comes as no surprise to the reader: “For all its potency and long history as a reputable doctrine, the principle of male authority is elusive when one searches Scripture; in fact, it cannot be found there at all.… The teaching that God’s perfect plan places women under the authority of men has been brought to Scripture—not found in it. It is a false teaching inserted into Christian theology by a male-dominated culture in love with authority.”

A Father’s Legacy

“He was always puzzled about the treatment of women,” said Gretchen Gaebelein Hull, in a phone interview from her New York City apartment, referring to her father. “And, as will happen with men of integrity, he began to reevaluate the issue later in life when my sister and I had some sad experiences of discrimination.” The late Frank Gaebelein was a noted evangelical theologian, founder of the Stony Brook School, and sometime co-editor of CHRISTIANITY TODAY. Hull sees her father as an important influence in her life.

Hull describes her mother as “very bright and achieving,” a 1918 Vassar graduate who was clearly her father’s equal. “My father had the utmost respect for my mother, for her mind. They were an equal team. I never saw him demean my mother. And he was inordinately proud of my intellectual achievements as well.”

Graduated from high school at the age of 15, Hull studied philosophy and history at Bryn Mawr and did graduate work at Columbia University. While she acknowledges that having a supportive father “makes a tremendous difference,” Hull claims that it was the biblical emphasis in her parent’s home that set the tone for her life. Because she has always held a “high view of Scripture,” Gretchen Hull said her study of women’s role was approached from that same perspective. “I grew up in a home where the Bible was central,” she said. “I grew up with people who considered all human beings of value and wanted all of God’s truth.”

Hull’s husband, Phil, senior partner in a prominent law firm, came into their marriage “with absolutely no baggage about women. He is secure in his own right. He wanted an intelligent friend and companion as well as a Christian.” A very involved father back in the fifties when such was not the norm, he was “secure enough in himself to change diapers,” she said.

Frank Gaebelein’s legacy of treating women as equally gifted, equally called, has “spilled over into my own children,” Hull noted with pride. “My children are quick to say how much it meant to have two involved parents. They all have egalitarian marriages.”

By Phyllis Alsdurf.

The Puzzle of the Soviet Church, by Kent R. Hill (Multnomah, 417 pp.; $15.95, hardcover); Keeping the Faiths, by Paul Steeves (Holmes and MeierlThe Committee for National Security, 240 pp.; $14.95, paper). Reviewed by Brian F. O’Connell, director of the Peace, Freedom, and Security Studies program of the National Association of Evangelicals.

Is the Soviet Union still the “evil empire”? This four-decade-old view of the USSR as the West’s main adversary often allowed for easily understood, albeit simplistic, black-and-white explanations. But under Gorbachev’s four-year tenure, the Soviet Union has set out on the road to change. Glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring) have replaced détente, economic determinism, and peaceful coexistence in our political lexicon.

Still, Gorbachev is facing severe challenges. Many observers are skeptical that glasnost will be anything more than ephemeral. One criterion for determining the genuineness of these changes may be the degree to which religious restrictions are relaxed. The link between atheism and communism has been promoted by Soviet leaders since the 1917 revolution. Changes in this area—whether in legal policy or enforcement—would indicate some shift in direction.

Two-Way Glasnost

Two new books help us understand religious life in the Soviet Union: The Puzzle of the Soviet Church, by Kent R. Hill; and Keeping the Faiths, by Paul Steeves. Neither claims to have all the answers; both hope to identify the appropriate questions to ask in measuring changes in Soviet religious policy.

The Puzzle of the Soviet Church has the most engaging content, weaving stories and anecdotes about persecuted religious leaders into the background of Soviet history and current policy. Hill’s inside portrayal—he was in Moscow as a Fulbright scholar—of the Siberian Seven’s five-year ordeal to emigrate from the Soviet Union is an unusual and gripping introduction. He uses the drama as a case study for one of his two main concerns: How should Western Christians respond in helping Christians behind the Iron Curtain? To that end, he also includes a healthy appendix of organizational resources.

His second objective is to appraise religion under glasnost. Nearly half the book is devoted to this task, including a significant section about where glasnost has yet to reach. While acknowledging many positive changes, he advises caution.

In encouraging glasnost to be a “two-way street,” Hill calls for repentance by the Western church for its failure to respond to the sufferings of fellow believers in the USSR. His critique of Western actions for the persecuted is broadly ecumenical and includes Billy Graham, the National and World Councils of Churches, the Baptist World Alliance, the Lutheran World Federation, and the Assemblies of God. According to Hill, “the Soviets have proven to be particularly adept at manipulating some of our best leaders.”

Though well-documented and footnoted, The Puzzle of the Soviet Church is written for a popular audience. To Hill’s credit, the book is both scholarly and readable, a rare combination. Perhaps it is because Hill, a former professor at Seattle Pacific University, has been forced to land the airplane of ideas in his current position as head of the Washington-based Institute on Religion and Democracy.

Intentions Versus Reality

Paul Steeves, director of Russian Studies at Stetson University in Deland, Florida, has written a more modest book. Perhaps “edited” is more accurate since nearly 75 percent of Keeping the Faiths is drawn from other books and articles. But this is one of the strengths of the book: that it allows the reader to interact directly with a variety of people and viewpoints, historical and current.

His overview of religion in the prerevolutionary period can be helpful in gaining a new appreciation of contemporary Russian culture. While the breadth of content is not nearly up to par with The Puzzle of the Soviet Church, its presentation and format far surpass Hill’s book. The combination of text with maps, charts, photographs, cartoons, and sidebars make Keeping the Faiths extremely reader-friendly.

Steeves errs, however, by making no clear distinction between Russian and Soviet policy toward religion. He states that the general pattern of government restriction on religion was “only slightly” altered after the 1917 revolution, though conceding that “the details were different.” His own statistics, buttressed by Hill’s more detailed analysis, demonstrate otherwise. Synagogues, mosques, and churches were closed by the tens of thousands; clergy of all faiths were liquidated; monasteries and seminaries were destroyed or used for nonreligious purposes. There is little question that the church was better off under the czarist regimes.

The emphasis in Keeping the Faiths is more on the registered church community and their “difficulties” with church-state relations. There is only brief coverage of unregistered or underground believers. Hill is more nuanced: The persecution of the underground church and their distinct problems, including a discussion of Baptist leader Georgi Vins, is covered in detail. Still, Steeves’s general conclusion concurs with Hill’s, namely, that caution is in order in interpreting the changes that glasnost and perestroika might provide for believers in the USSR.

Two years ago, Stanislav Levchenko, the highest ranking KGB official ever to defect, told me that the biggest problem the West has in dealing with Soviet religious policy is an inability to distinguish between intentions and reality. These two books increase our chances of developing that ability, and they help us determine what changes are necessary for a true glasnost to exist in the Soviet Union.

It’s the church, not the stork, that breeds leaders

THOMAS W. GILLESPIEThomas W. Gillespie is president of Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton, New Jersey.

A schoolboy was at his desk composing a report for his class. At a loss for an appropriate introduction, he laid down his pen and sought out his mother who was in the kitchen preparing supper. Without warning, he asked, “Mother, how was I born?”

Mother, of course, was aware that this question about human reproduction was inevitable, but she was not about to deal with it while she was cooking dinner. So she put him off with the old saw, “The stork brought you, dear.”

The boy nodded and moved to the living room where his grandmother was knitting. Again without warning, he asked, “Grandma, how was my mother born?” Being a product of the Victorian era, this dear lady was not about to touch that one.

“My dear child,” she explained, “the stork brought your mother.”

“Grandma,” the boy persisted, “how were you born?”

“The stork brought me, too,” she responded.

He thanked her and returned to his desk. Picking up his pen, he began his report with these words: “There hasn’t been a normal birth in our family for three generations.”

I tell this story as I speak to churches and campuses across the country because I am convinced that the ordinary church member suspects that the stork brings our ministers. In other words, the reproduction of ordained ministers of the gospel from generation to generation is a subject shrouded in mystery. Most lay people never give the matter a second thought. After all, whenever a church needs a new minister there seems to be no shortage of candidates. Moreover, most seminaries and graduate schools are full of students. Church members simply assume that God in his providence continues to call people to this sacred task. But how God does this is a mystery. It is the theological equivalent of the stork explanation of human reproduction.

Ministers—On Purpose

In no way do I wish to question or challenge the crucial and sometimes mysterious role played by God’s call in the process that leads people into ordained ministry. That is absolutely central to my understanding of the ministry, and no one should undertake the work of the ministry without a strong sense of divine calling. What I do wish to question and challenge is the common assumption that God’s call to the ministry is primarily effected without benefit of the intentional role of the church.

As an ordained minister of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), I serve within a theological and ecclesiastical tradition that has recognized three public offices: minister of the Word, elder, and deacon. Any member of a Presbyterian church is eligible to be elected to each of these offices, and each officeholder is inducted by the rite of ordination. Yet there is an incredible incongruity in the manner by which people are called to these offices. With regard to the offices of elder and deacon, our Book of Order provides for a nominating committee in each church, charged with presenting to the congregation nominees for vacancies on the session (our board of elders) or the diaconate. This committee prayerfully considers the special needs of the respective “boards” of the church, agrees upon candidates, and then invites them to consider their nomination as a call of God through the voice of the church. Not every nominee, of course, receives an inward, divine confirmation of this public call, and some decline nomination. But many do accept and are nominated, elected, trained, ordained, and installed. In these instances, then, the church relies upon a public call confirmed by what John Calvin called the “secret call” of God.

When it comes to the office of the ministry of the Word, the process is mysteriously reversed. We Presbyterians rely exclusively upon the secret call of God to raise up the future ministers of the church. Perhaps a pastor here or there will encourage a promising person to consider the ministry as a lifelong task. But to my knowledge, this is not the practice of any church session or of any congregational nominating committee. Instead, we sit back and wait for the Lord to speak to those he would call to this sacred office. Once that secret call is heard, of course, the candidate is subjected to a rigorous examination of the authenticity of that calling. It is tested by the session and the presbytery. Then the candidate must graduate from an accredited college and seminary. And then comes the standard ordination examinations given by the denomination. Finally, if all of these ecclesiastical and academic hoops have been successfully negotiated, the candidate is examined and ordained by the presbytery. In other words, the secret call is confirmed by the public call of the church to a specific place of Christian service. This process, I believe, is not peculiar to Presbyterians. With variation and adaptation, it is the working principle of most Protestant denominations.

I find myself wondering more and more why this is so. Why do we rely exclusively upon the “public call” for discerning the will of God concerning elders and deacons, but predominantly, if not exclusively, upon the secret call for raising up ministers of the Word? The question is even more puzzling for those of us who stand in the Calvinist tradition. When Calvin comes to the subject of the call to ministry in his Institutes, he devotes all of two sentences to the secret call of God. The rest of the paragraph treats the “the external and solemn call, which belongs to the public order of the Church” (IV, 3, 11). Again let me emphasize that it is not my intention to depreciate or degrade the secret call in any way, shape, or form. I am a minister of the gospel today precisely because I heard that secret call in a compelling way. My intention is rather to challenge our exclusive reliance upon this manner of hearing the call of God and to urge churches to play a greater role in shepherding young men and women into God’s service.

The Medium Of God’S Voice

Calvin has some helpful things to say about the propriety of intentionally examining the congregation in the quest of promising candidates for the ministry. In the paragraph cited above from the Institutes, he writes:

“It is even common to speak of private persons as called to the ministry, who appear to be adapted and qualified for the discharge of its duties; because learning, connected with piety and other endowments of a good pastor, constitutes a kind of preparation for it. For those whom the Lord has destined to so important an office, he first furnished with those talents which are requisite to its execution, that they may not enter upon it empty and unprepared.”

If that is the case, then why should it not be a common practice of congregations to discern among its membership those who evidence the gifts and talents that give promise of successful ministry? Who knows better than the local congregation which of its members demonstrate the spiritual maturity and human ability the church needs in its ministerial leadership?

Because local church members have nurtured their young people into adulthood, it follows that the church should become boldly intentional in inviting its college students and young adults to consider preparation for the ministry. Believers identified as promising candidates should be confronted with this possibility. They would be under compulsion only to consider prayerfully whether or not the public call of the church was the medium of God’s voice. Like those nominated as elders and deacons in the Presbyterian church, it would simply be a matter of confirming the public call by the secret cal.

Should any congregation be courageous enough to engage in such a process, let me suggest that it also look beyond those who are presently in their high school and college years. Although God continues to call people in this age group, evidence abounds that many are hearing the call much later in life. The average age in seminary student bodies continues to rise as more and more people come to our schools in mid-career. That means the pool for prospective ministers is much larger than the traditional student generation. The ministry will be increasingly a matter of a second career for many. And that is to the good, for people often bloom late in their pilgrimages of faith.

The Source Of Better Candidates

Churches sometimes complain about the quality of candidates graduated by our theological institutions. Without being at all defensive, let me point out that the seminaries and the divinity schools simply return to the churches the candidates the churches send to us. If the church wants better ministers, and it should, then it will be compelled to raise up better candidates for the ministry. One way to accomplish that, of course, is to pray fervently that God will issue the secret call in compelling ways. But another is to participate with God in the calling process by responsibly exercising the public call, a process that has been entrusted to the church.

When it comes to human reproduction, as Charles Shedd put it, “the stork is dead.” The same should be true with the serious, intentional business of raising up future faithful ministers.

The church is often viewed as a family, and one of the roles of family is to nurture young people into maturity. As young men and women (as well as older, “second-career” adults) consider choices of higher education and vocation, the church can be instrumental in providing guidance. Here are some practical ways to do this:

• Form a prayer group. Recruit other church members to meet regularly to pray specifically that God would call people from your church into Christian ministry.

• Adopt a candidate. Take inventory of your church’s young adults. Do any display characteristics of leadership and Christian commitment? Prayerfully take an interest in one young person, offering encouragement, advice, and friendship. Share your desire to see him or her become open to the possibility of Christian service.

• Develop a career-resource center. Volunteers can pull together seminary and graduate-school brochures, posters, and catalogs, as well as information from their denomination and from missions agencies. The material could be permanently located in a classroom or church library.

• Make Christian service attractive. In conversation and attitude, we often elevate professions such as medicine, business, or law to a status beyond all others. If ministry is indeed a high calling, include it in your conversations about “life after college.”

• Sponsor a ministry festival. Potential candidates for full-time Christian service need to know about the wide range of options available. Invite representatives from seminaries, graduate schools, and ministry organizations to attend a one-day focus on Christian service. Several smaller churches could cosponsor such an event.

By Lyn Cryderman.

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