The fall public meeting sponsored by the Committee for Women in the Christian Reformed Church was held in the Calvin Seminary auditorium on October 26. This organization was established to get church offices opened to women and its meeting gave an interesting introduction to one of the most aggressive pressure groups operating in the denomination. It featured a panel of 4 speaker s consisting of Joy De Boer, Joan Flikkema, its executive secretary, Professor Harold Dekker of the Calvin Seminary faculty, and Dr. Louis Vos of the Calvin College Bible department.

The Panel

First Joy De Boer expressed her frustration, anger, and feeling of injury that the denomination’s June synod had not made more progress in getting church offices opened to women. She commented on the lack of women delegates at the synod, the patronizing or sometimes joking way in which delegates spoke on the issue and the frustrating delays of repeated committee reports, but thought she saw some faint indications of progress in realizing their long promoted aim.

Professor Harold Dekker of Calvin Seminary proposed to make some observations not particularly Biblical or theological or even ecclesiastical, but practical and political. In speaking about politics he did not intend to use the word in an unsavory sense. Having been involved in church synods for a number of years (Seminary professors are synod advisors.) and now also having served on the local city council for a decade, he observed that the dynamics, methods and procedures were much the same in both areas. He‘d learned his politics in the church. In civic matters the political character of the operation is more frankly recognized, but he thought that the political character of church bodies ought to be more openly acknowledged -both, in their political maneuvering to be considered ministries of God.

Regarding synod from this perspective, he noticed that there is little change of mind at synod by advisory committee reports on long–debated issues. Procedures determine the outcome. At the last synod’s dealing with the women’s issue there were no substantive decisions. Synod officers have a decisive role; they opened the way for the suggestion of another study and postponement. In the synod’s moving in this direction neither side was ready for a showdown. They saw the risk of losing and possible serious damage to the church, by defections or possibly a split. The danger of a split Dekker thought was exaggerated, but the fear was there. Perhaps the conservatives had the votes, but the outcome was a stall. Professor Dekker’s advice to the women (and he stated later in the discussion that he had been in sympathy with their cause for 20 years) was to become more frank ly political in their campaign for women in office. If procedures and leaders determine decisions we must deal with these matters in personal relations as well as in a Biblical and theological manner. If you do this, men may respect you the more because they do it all the time. One must “lobby” in the same way people do in the city council. The decision to have another study committee on the principle of “headship” he saw as more political than theological, just as when the city council does not want to make a decision it may resort to a similar stall. Ultimately, Dekker expected a political decision, perhaps for local option and a further erosion of the unity of the denomination and of its authority. That has been the direction in which the church has been moving.

Joan Flikkema, executive secretary of the organization, called attention to the existing wide diversity of practice within the denomination. While some churches do not even have women voting at congregational meetings, one church in Chicago, one in Grand Rapids and one in New Jersey have had them preaching. She saw the issue as simply one of discrimination against women, who equally share the image of God, a discrimination like that against the blacks. She saw too much apathy. She insisted, citing some prominent Roman Catholic clerics, that sexism is sin. She was confident that the battle for equality will be won because the Holy Spirit will compel the church to acknowledge and use women’s gifts.

Dr. Louis Vos, professor of Religion and Theology at Calvin College, encouraged the women with his vision of a bright future for their cause. He observed that no synod in the last 10 years has said that women may not serve as deacons or even as elders or ministers. Synods have officially left Scripture texts out of consideration and have never disciplined members of their committees who stated that there were no Biblical objections to women in the offices. He saw a growing awareness of the roles women have had in our churches’ missions and a growing sense of guilt because women were not getting their rights (on the part of the “conscientious!”). He called attention to the important 1972 (and 1973) synod report on t he nature of office, which he thought ought to be cited more than it has been in the women’s cause. (This is the report, prepared by a committee of which Dr. Louis Vos was himself a member, which synods criticized as failing to do justice to the “authority” of church offices!) In this bright future for women he saw “separatist” tendencies on the part of those who disagree, citing especially the “deplorable” development of a body of men establishing a new seminary holding a principle of no ordination for women. He saw the synods running out of plausible excuses for further study and delay in giving women their rights, and assured them that the Spirit of Pentecost would have the women prophesying.

Discussion

The ensuing discussion produced some interesting exchanges between panel members and their hearers. As was apparent also at this meeting, the women‘s issue did not seem to be getting widespread or general interest and support among the students. The conservative shift in society may make it seem dated. It was suggested that getting a woman preacher such as Mrs. Rienstra to lead chapel, as has been done, might help to arouse interest.

One student observed that his Wisconsin church didn’t even have women voting and the whole classis was rather “backward” in this matter. He was advised to start working on his parents and the preacher. Professor Dekker suggested that one see that “the next minister has got the right idea.” And Dr. Vos suggested that one had to learn how to use the Scripture. He recalled how he had accused an elder delegate of misquoting the scripture when the elder cited the 1 Tim. 2:11 ff. passage as applying in the church. (It was ironic that, the professor conveniently ignored the fact that although the elder may have put “in church” in the wrong verse, that that whole section of 1 Timothy is explained by Paul as being his direction on “how men ought to behave themselves in . . . the church of the living God,” 1 Tim. 3:15, and the largely amused audience did not seem to realize how the professor was himself playing games with them as well as with the Bible.)

What will happen in the future? There seems to be a likelihood of local option with each church doing as it sees fit. Joan Flikkema thought the synods should have ordered that women vote. She too sees a prospect of local option but this leaves her dissatisfied. It would still foster the idea that those who oppose the movement have some credibility, some right to their view, in other words.

A student expressed his concern about the meeting. He sensed that what seemed most prominent was not what was God’s will, but what could be made to work. He was not convinced that it was God’s will that women be eligible for the ministry. Dr. Vos hastened to reassure him that of course all were concerned about God’s will. The student, however, did not see it in the meeting or the literature.

Another student saw this movement as disrupting society a nd young people getting disgusted with it as it tore households apart, showed a lack of love, fostered an atmosphere of combat, and lacked Christian humility. Joan Flikkema responded that she had long tried to be meek until a minister correctingly reminded her that the “meek shall inherit the earth!” The freshman student’s claim that the movement was disrupting society, she alleged, did not have the support of sociological statistics. Professor Dekker suggested that the price of progress is conflict.

There was objection to the way only one side of the issue was being presented. To that the retort was that in the past attempts had been made to have both sides presented, but difficulty bad been encountered in getting representation of the other side. From an argument about right or wrong the development had been toward a two-sided struggle.

Another student described bow his church in Canada had lost 18 or 20 of its founding families over this issue. Although they had much of the congregation in sympathy with them, they had left the denomination over this issue. What was a minister to do about this? Others observed that people were leaving also because women were not getting into office.

Some Conclusions

The meeting was illuminating in a number of ways. It revealed the determination of some that women, in one way or another, will be given the offices in the church. It revealed by the comparatively small attendance, I believe, something of the numerical weakness of the movement, but also revealed something of the kind of faculty support it is being given in college and seminary. Students who disagree with it may encounter opposition and ridicule, and may have their Biblical convictions eroded by the influence of their professors. Professor Dekker’s observations about the churches‘ course being politically rather than biblically determined were strikingly like the observations of John Vander Ploeg, Jr. as an elder delegate to the last synod (December OUTLOOK). There was the difference, that while Vander Ploeg was shocked by some of the politicking, Dekker regards it as normal procedure. While choosing delegates with a view to their convictions may be legitimate, the cynical disregard of Bible and creeds, and the pragmatic manipulation of rules and committees to get one’s own way, ought to be rejected as intolerable in the Lord’s church. One noted that even some of the students, new to the scene, sensed the lack of serious concern with God’s Word, and the determination to have one’s own way by tactics that are borrowed from the secular world, in a movement that has been seeking a leading role in the church.

It was striking at this meeting (as it also was in the past speeches and literature of this movement) that the speakers repeatedly assumed and assured the audience that the campaign to get women into office was the work of the Holy Spirit (the “Spirit of Pentecost,” Vos said). To this fact the somewhat weary and frustrated supporters were directed for encouragement and from it they were assured of ultimate victory. While we need not question the depth of their conviction on this point we must question its validity. Merely assuring the audience that the movement and its proceedings are the work of the Holy Spirit does not make that claim true. God’s Word warns us that we always have to “Try the spirits whether they be of God.” And the means that He has given us to make that test is His inspired Gospel. The spirit that inspires people or churches to ignore or twist the Scriptures to serve their own end, to resort to political trickery instead of honest discussion as to what is God‘s revealed will, the spirit that animates the current secular liberation movement in its effort to overthrow legitimate authority and God’s law in church and state, is not the Holy Spirit, but it is his great imitator and enemy. The Lord warned us from the point at which He began to speak of His church, of the devil‘s invariable effort to mislead the church even through deceiving the Lord’s apostles (Matt. 16:18 ff.). We will have to begin distinguishing between the two kinds of “spiritual” guidance if we are to escape our churches’ increasing “doublemindedness,” which, as James (Jas.1:6, 7) wrote, betrays an eroding faith and prevents receiving the blessing of God.