Missionary stories can be highly exaggerated. Since the audience does not kn ow all of the circumstances on the foreign field and the missionary does not have the time to tell the details of the whole story, it is easy to jump to triumphal conclusions. According to missionary stories, the world should have been evangelized a long time ago. Watch out for missionary stories!
Feminists in the Christian Church have often appealed to missionary women in an unwarranted way. In CR circles we hear about the ladies who taught and preached in the jungles of Africa, the mountains of China and churches in Latin America. The logic goes: “If women can preach on the mission field, they can preach in the CRC in North America.” This reasoning does not do justice to the mission situation.
Evangelizing under a palm tree to anyone willing to hear is different from being a pastor in an organized CRC church. Helping a mission church, which has no baptized members nor leaders, get going, is different from being president of consistory. The fact is, in Latin America CRC missions, the women who have taken authority roles in the church and leadership training of men in the church have not succeeded. This is not only due to the Latin macho society but to their conflict with the way in which the Body operates.
However, in the practice of many of the sensitive cross-cultural missionary women (and this is the majority), when the Word had been planted and the churches began to grow , the norms of creational, social and ecclesiastical order were allowed to take their course and men were urged to take up their responsibilities in the Church. Behind the unbelievable success of the Chol and Tzeltal Indian movement (Reformed Church of America and National Presbyterians) in southern Mexico, lies the unheralded story of two Wycliff ladies who trans lated the New Testament into the Indian language at the beginning of the work and were instruments in spreading the gospel. Although they were far better equipped in Bible translation, Biblical theology, Bible interpretation, teaching, preaching and counseling than the newly converted Indian men, yet, they followed solid Biblical principles of headship and gave the responsibility of leading the church to the men. This movement which started in the 1950s now numbers in the tens of thousands.
Behind the authentic mission stories often exist an underestimated missionary woman: The missionary wife who follows her husband’s dreams, vision and calling into strange cultures and who bears, rears and cares for missionary children in a fo reign land having to prepare them to live in at least two worlds: the send ing church culture and the receiving church culture, the single missionary lady who has such a hard time getting on the field and then has to live with the unpleasant effects of lack of family and easy social relationships—Of these fine people feminists have little to say. Yet, these women account for more than half of the Protestant mission force today.
Denominations and mission agencies would do well to honestly evaluate the facts of the role of women in missions. The CRC attempts to experiment in Latin America in broadening the role of women in the offices and work of the church are very disheartening. Forced marriages, broken homes, split churches, time–consuming hassles between national men and missionary women, all lie in the wake of forcing the issue. Surely, women have taken leading roles, but look what has happened to those churches. Surely there are churches who ignore Biblical headship principles, but then also take a look at the separations, closings and witness of those churches. And I don’t think I’m exaggerating.
