The coming June synod meeting promises to be a turning point in Christian Reformed denominational history.

The key proposal on the synod agenda will not seem to be very significant. We may expect to see its importance minimized by especially its promoters. The assembly will be asked to approve opening our churches’ governing consistories to women—not all of them, but only those churches who wish to do so—Why not approve of what some of them are already doing? Let’s try to keep everybody happy!

What makes this issue supremely important is the fact that contrary to the plain teachings of the Bible, our churches’ creeds and our church order, our churches’ delegates will be asked to approve this radical change. The decision, if or when it passes, will officially show that neither the Bible, nor the Reformed creeds, nor the accepted church order any longer determine the faith or practice of our churches.

It is plain from even the juggled statistics of those who are industriously promoting the change that if it were submitted to a vote of our members or congregations it would get the support of nowhere near a majority. (A report in the January 23, 1984 issue of The Banner stated that “only 36 percent favor women as deacons, 26 percent as elders and 23 percent as ordained ministers.” And even these statistics influenced by the prejudices of their compilers, are likely to be high rather than low.

How can this proposal be driven through the churches’ synod despite the fact that it violates the conscience of most of the church members? Let’s reconsider a few of the factors that are working for it.

1. We are soon to see the last of a series of long and ostentatiously scholarly reports on the subject. (They tend to get constantly longer.) Their majorities have repeatedly tried to show why the plain teachings of the Bible on the subject of who is eligible for office in the Lord’s church should no longer be obeyed in our changing society. There is nothing new about this style of argument (or “hermeneutic”). R .C. Sproul once observed that this manipulation of Scriptures to contradict what they really taught was the tactic our Lord encountered and corrected when He was tempted by the devil (Matt. 4:1–11). It also characterized the teaching of the religious leaders who were His most persistent critics (Matthew 23). 2. The executives who manage the denomination’s business have been moving policy in this direction. They become steadily less accountable to the churches and their members. A prime example of this executive irresponsibility is seen in the way in which the churches’ official publication The Banner, which is supposed to be a means of officially promoting the churches’ gospel testimony in the church and world, is recently being misdirected to undermine, contradict, ridicule, and reverse the testimony of the church at this key point. This kind of public self-contradiction of our churches’ agencies has not escaped the notice of observers outside as well as inside of the denomination. Rev. G. Van Baren headlined his observations in the March 15 Standard Bearer (the unofficial paper of the Protestant Reformed churches), Banner Blasts Official Church Position. Van Baren remarked that “One would have reason to expect that an official publication of a denomination would set forth the official position of the church it represents. One would expect that it would maintain the church’s position over against those who oppose it. One would expect that those who disagree with the official position of the church would not be given a forum in the official paper of the denomination. One might expect all of this—but anyone reading the Banner the past year or so, would find that it is not true there. It seems that the Banner and its editor take a certain pride in presenting both sides of an issue—and at times weighted against the official position of the church which it represents. “The Christian Reformed Church Order states in Article 30 . . . The decisions of the assemblies shall be considered settled and binding unless it is proved that they conflict with the World of God or the Church Order.’ One would think that an article of this nature would make it inappropriate (to say the least) for the official church paper to present a position contrary to the established and binding decisions of the church. But that is being commonly done.” The article proceeds to show by quotations from the January 23 Banner how “in a rather heavy-handed way the official paper of the CRC blasted the position of the CRC on women in office.” Our attention is directed to the way in which the Banner dismissed Biblical objections to the proposed change.

Not all of those who want to keep women out of the consistory are led by ancient male prejudice. Many of us are genuinely convinced that here the Bible draws the line. And when God says no, let no one say yes.

The church would be well served ifwe who say that the Bible allows women to hold office in the church frankly admit that we have made a hermeneutical decision: we have decided how to interpret certain Bible texts. One should not try to make these texts say the opposite of what they seem to be saying to the ordinary reader.

There is no doubt in my mind that Paul was prescribing a restricted role to women in the service of worship when he wrote I Corinthians 14:34 and I Timothy 2:12.

However, the reasons for the restriction were local, cultural, and therefore temporaL Paul could appeal to what was in his day a common moral judgment . . . . But when such an appeal can no longer be made, the special apostolic prescription is also removed . . . . Today our efforts to hold back female members might discredit the church.

(We ought to observe that the reasons Paul advances in both passages are plainly not “local,” “cultural” and “temporal,” but Creation and God’s law—the Banner editor on obviously false grounds, defends his “hermeneutical decision.”) The Standard Bearer points out that in the same Banner “a story is presented by James C. Schaap meant to show the silliness of old people who still childishly hold on to the idea that women ought not to serve in office” and “another article is presented showing that certain biblical texts don’t really mean what they seem to say . . . .”

In a basketball game a player would not long remain on a team if he insisted on throwing the ball in the wrong basket. Even a ball game is too serious a business for that kind of nonsense to be tolerated. When in our church paper such nonsense is permitted to become editorial policy, is it surprising that our church testimony to the gospel is discredited?

This kind of persistent misleading propaganda in our churches’ official publications is a very effective tool to override the conscience of the churches. Van Baren’s remark seems appropriate: “One is almost forced to conclude that there is an element in the C.R.C. convinced that when the percentage of people, though this be a minority, is large enough, it is time to move forward and force the rest to ‘rethink’ their beliefs in the light of the changed official position of the church.”

3. Our college and seminary (if not with the unanimous support of the faculties, with little or nor detectible opposition) have generally encouraged this anti-Biblical, anti-confessional movement. The Banner cited the statistics already mentioned to show that “with each increase in educational level, there is an increase in approval of women in the ordained offices. College graduates approve two to four times more often than do persons without a high school education.” These conclusions of this Calvin College conducted survey should surprise no one. Four to seven years of consistently one-sided education on this issue may be expected to have a noticeable effect, especially when grades and faculty recommendations are needed by the students. And if that were not enough to influence the church in dealing with this issue, it must not be forgotten that the seminary faculty also have in synod practice always been the privileged advisors of each synod committee! 4. The synod will meet in June with perhaps a third of the delegates present for the first time and most of the delegates lacking the time to study and draw independent conclusions about an agenda of hundreds of pages. It will be manipulated by tactics, parliamentary and otherwise, only too familiar to any who know our synods, into approving what the committee reports recommend. In that way the church may, in this case, take a long, decisive step in a direction that violates the Scripture, its creeds, its church order, and the consciences of most of its members.

This has happened before, and it will happen again—unless there is an awakening of many members and consistories who begin to realize how and in what direction they are being influenced and they resolutely refuse to be misled into rejecting the Word of God and compromising their consciences. Could such a thing happen? It did a few years ago among our brethren in the Missouri Synod Lutheran Churches. Let us pray that the Lord may give us a similar awakening.