If there is anyone who still doubts the militancy with which “our” seminary advocates feminism, he should listen to Dr. Melvin Hugen. The professor is at the forefront of a small but powerful legion within the Christian Reformed Church, a battle-ready group of men and women whose self-appointed task is to change the way the CRC folk read their Bibles. Even more seriously, be and his hermeneutical clones are training the future crop of ministers for our denomination. This article is a critique of Hugen’s speech, sponsored by the Committee “for” Women in the CRC and delivered on the hallowed seminary grounds last April.
He is direct and refreshingly forthright about his beliefs. He pulls no punches, setting forth his position very clearly from the outset:
“I am in favor of having the CRC open all its offices to females as well as males, the office of elder, deacon, evangelist, pastor, teacher, preacher—all the offices. I am personally convinced that the Bible not only permits this, but that closely examined it actually teaches that we ought so to do. To be faithful to the teaching of Scripture we ought to open the offices regardless of gender. It is required of us. It is really our obligation and, eventually, as a church, we shall have to go that way.”
So much for the myth of open-mindedness. It is tragic that his theology doesn’t share the quality ofhis dogged zeal.
Hugen’s descent to his current convictions was gradual. He traces his musings on this issue back to August, 1958 when, as a student in Amsterdam doing his dissertation, he began to wonder why marriage seemed to have a different significance for women than for men. The authors he read seemed to account for it on the basis of intrinsic differences in male/female personalities. When he looked into their sources and footnotes for substantiation of their hypothesis he found that the authors referenced each other, or offered no substantiation at all.
He was also troubled by the seeming inability of his sources to define which characteristics were distinctively male or female, and their acknowledgment that there were, in fact, exceptions to the rules within each gender. This led him to wonder, “What if it isn’t so? What if there is no such thing as gender-based personality . . . but only human personality?”
In 1958 he gave no thought to some of the implications of his questions. At that point he was curious only about why marriage was claimed to be more important for women. He was not then concerned with “women’s role in society in general or even in the church.”
But that would not remain the case. Without describing his journey in detail, Dr. H. insisted “I got from where I was then to where I am today with no new hermeneutic.” His four-point hermeneutic be summarized as
1) taking the words and statements of the Bible with utmost seriousness. One may ask what they mean, but not if they are true;
2) consider the context;
3) compare Scripture with Scripture;
4) consider “how a given passage fits into the unfolding revelation of God and the developing kingdom.”1
When he continued to ask questions about men and women he discovered one text that became a turning point for him: Acts 2. It “seems to lay the groundwork for the regulation of the church and the role of many peoples within the church,” Hugen said, “Peter stood up in the crowd to interpret and explain to them [what the outpouring of the Holy Spirit] meant. The very first thing he said was, ‘Youths, slaves and women have a different role in God’s Kingdom because of what happened here.’” Hugen emphasizes, “According to the Scriptures the very first meaning of Pentecost itself that the Scriptures tell us about is this: That prophecy will now come from young men, women, servants, slaves as well as from elderly men.”
“As we read on in the New Testament that is what we find: young people, slaves, daughters of Phillip, Priscilla and others, all prophets of Jehovah.” Rugen is struck by what he perceives to be a recurring theme, the new kingdom roles of these four groups: Youths, women, slaves and Gentiles. The significance of these four groups, however, only began to “strike” him when he noticed the treatment they were afforded in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. Paul is then (astonishingly!) enlisted by him as his ally in advocating the opening of all offices to women.
I was surprised to hear that many who heard this speech were nearly or fully persuaded by it. After hearing the speech myself, I’m dumbfounded. The only way to be a feminist, as I’ve suggested, is to reject the finality and sufficiency of Scripture. Was it Hugen’s charm, smile, or manner that hoodwinked these dear folks? I’m lost. It could not have been his argument. Though, of course, if you grant each of his unproved premises, it is a very short step to feminism:
1) There is no justification for believing in intrinsic differences in male/female personalities.
2) Pentecost means the equalization of access to all ecclesiastical functions by all individuals in all groups.
3) Such eradication is the ultimate purpose of God in order to unite the cosmos in Christ.
4) The “barriers” to be eradicated are analogous to those in the master/slave role which, in time, has been abolished in Christian countries (i.e., all subordination is equivalent to bondage and calls for liberation).
5) The inequality of women must and will give way, in time, to their “full participation” in Christ, which specifically means their entitlement to office.
The only problem with this “best case” is that every single position is wrong—contrary to Scripture, contrary to three of his own hermeneutical principles. I am sorry that space does not permit a detailed refutation of Hugen’s abominable handling of the Holy Word of God. Let the following considerations suffice for now.
His most serious problem has followed him from the beginning of his feminist journey: his methodology. When seeking to answer the question of why marriage seemed to be more important for women than for men, Dr. Hugen did not go to the Bible for answers. Instead be foot-noted and cross-referenced himself into the land of confusion. Why he did not go to Genesis 1–3 I am unable to say. Did he believe, in 1958, that it was “primeval history” which corresponded to no factual actual historical reality? I don’t know. I do know that if he had, he would have found the solution to his problem.
In Genesis God teaches as plainly as it could be taught that man, i.e., the male of the species, was created to have his identity in terms of his labor in the world, and woman was created by God to have her identity in terms of her husband and children. Period. That this is unpopular does not make it unbiblical nor does it make it untrue. I wonder if the Professor of Pastoral Studies simply encourages our new wave of ministers to tell single women in their late thirties and early forties, e.g., that they are not experiencing peculiar stresses?2
Two indisputable proofs confirm the truth of the proposition that marriage and family have a vastly different significance for women than for men. Firstly, the custom tailored curse visited by God upon our first parents for the original transgression was qualitatively different for each.
The man was cursed in terms of his calling: labor, working the ground. The woman was cursed in terms of her calling: husband and children (Gen. 3:16–19). This is so amazingly plain, only seminary professors could fail to see it!
But inspired apostles saw it. Therefore, our second confirmation is the bold statement of GOD through Paul in Corinthians 11:8, 9, “The man is not of the women; but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman, but the woman for the man.”
You can rant and rave and hold seminars and conferences, you can stand on your head and stand synod on its ear, but you can’t change history, you can’t change reality. If you try, you find yourself fighting against the Lord of both. Hugen, apparently, is unafraid.
According to him, Pentecost means that women may “speak God’s Word with authority, power, reliability, accuracy, faithfully, expecting to be heard and obeyed.” What part of that is “Pentecostal?” Anytime any being spoke the Word of the Lord accurately they ought to have been heeded for the Word’s sake. Witness Balaam’s donkey. But what bearing has that on the question of ordaining women to ecclesiastical office? Absolutely none. Might we not, on this basis, expect a “Committee for Jackasses in the CRC?” (I will resist the temptation to make reference to the composition of the committee under discussion.)
His treatment of Acts 2 suffers from serious problems. Dr. Hugen seems unable to grasp just what is presented in Scriptures to be normative and what is presented to be exceptional. A problem like that is exacerbated by neglect of the Genesis creation record and compounded by what he doesn’t see (or doesn’t mention) in Acts 2.
Why did he fail to mention that Jesus Christ, the head of the church, appointed 12 male apostles, and not one apostle-ette? Are we to imagine that Almighty Christ was afraid of the repercussions, or that he was accommodating his program to culturally accepted mores? Jesus explodes that hypothesis on every page of every gospel narrative!
Why did the professor neglect to point out that it was an apostle who preached the authoritative interpretation of the wind and the fire and the languages? If Hugen were correct, it would have been more artistic and perfectly effective if a woman had preached the Pentecost sermon.
Again, Peter spoke as a representative, not of the 120 but of the Apostles. There’s one of those hateful, hierarchical distinctions again. “Then Peter stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice and addressed the crowd” (Acts 2:14). None of the church officers at Pentecost were female and none were ever to be. This is consistent exegesis, taking into account words, context and the whole of revelation, presupposing no contradictions.3
Why doesn’t Hugen explain verse 22, in which Peter apparently lapses into pre-pentecostal sexism by narrowing the audience to whom he appeals: “Men of Israel,” he says. And again in verse 29: “Brothers.” After his sermon, when the Spirit convicted the hearts of the hearers, they asked Peter and the Apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” (v. 37). What? Not “Persons?” Not “Humans, what shall we do?” And why does Hugen fail to point out that after conversion the thousands of believers “devoted themselves to the Apostles’ teaching” (v. 42). The teachings, wonders and signs belonged in all authoritative interpretation to 12 male apostles. Hugen’s “authoritative women expecting to be obeyed” is a product of his agenda and imagination, not Scripture.4
Furthermore, some 30 years later, this same Apostle of Pentecost (expecting to be heard and obeyed) commands women to “be submissive to your husbands . . . like Sarah, who obeyed Abraham and called him her master.” This is incapable of being reconciled with the fanciful egalitarian interpretations of our seminary professors.
Moving past Pentecost, Hugen sees the central mystery revealed in Ephesians as God’s plan to unite all things in Christ. This eternal plan requires that “Christ [come] into the world for the very purpose of breaking down the dividing walls of hostility and to unite all persons in Himself. He does this for Jew and Gentile, parents and children, masters and slaves.”5 The “central” idea of Ephesians, for Hugen, is the way in which relationships within the Kingdom have been “fundamentally changed.” These new relationships were a mystery until the New Testament, but now these new relationships have been made known by the Holy Spirit to God’s holy apostles and prophets, and after centuries, finally interpreted for us by the faculty of Calvin Seminary and the Committee “for” Women.
All prior divisions “which gave certain rights to some people and denied—them to others . . . need to be overcome.”5 Karl Marx himself never envisioned such radical egalitarianism as that which Hugen advocates. “All the divisions of humankind that have separated humans with dividing walls of hostility need to be overcome.” The devilish part of his Scripture handling is here most evident. Of course no one is in favor of escalating hostility (except antithetical hostility) in the Name of the Gospel. But the question is, “how is hostility to be removed?”
The speaker’s answer is the elimination of distinctions. This kind of socialistic utopianism is the polar opposite of our Calvinistic faith. Our God is Three Persons yet One God, ontologically the same in substance, equal in power and glory. But the “economic Trinity” reveals functional subordination among the Persons of the Godhead! (1 Cor. 11:3 and many other passages). Ours is a faith that marvels at the distinctions in reality, that seeks to understand the mutual interrelatedness of all that is created, and worships with profound reverence the Author of these distinctions. Above all, we adore our God as the Ultimate Discriminator in sovereignly determining to save His elect by grace through Christ alone. It is not true that God doesn’t discriminate. He sovereignly discriminates everywhere, but always on the sole basis of His mere good pleasure and in accordance with His infinite wisdom.
Communism is built upon a worldview which sees distinctions as hindrances to unity. Differences between classes and genders must give way to something savingly new and one in time. Salvation is not sought in a new creation but a new class structure. Thesis and antithesis meet in synthesis. The blurrier the better. A distinguishing God such as the One revealed in Scripture and Whose dealings are recounted in the Canons of Dordt is anathema to that worldview. All this is to say that behind egalitarianism, both political and ecclesiastical, is theological heresy. And heresy ordinarily begins with the mishandling of Scripture.
Hugen sees Ephesians as teaching that God’s plan is the destruction of all barriers. He recognizes that the wall of hostility that existed between Jew and Gentile, though so directed by God before Christ, is broken down in Christ. He then wrongly extends this, making anti-heirarchicalism the governing context of Paul’s letter. All authority becomes suspect. Instead of masters and slaves, “here comes a new revelation through Paul that says each of you has to be subject to each and every other one of you . . Masters, serve [your slaves] with fear and trembling.” The Bible does not say that.
Hugen’s greatest offenses in that awful speech lie in his horrendous treatment of this most divine Book of Ephesians. When I was a new Christian I merrily memorized the whole book, word for word. Ah! What a letter! What glory flows from the pen of St. Paul, that holy man of God. Jehovah’s thoughts and will are unfolded line after sublime line.
But no sooner are they unfolded than Hugen & Co. enfold them in cryptic, ridiculous interpretations that fit the passage like a procrustean bed.7 In fact, we ought to call the hermeneutic of the seminary, “Procrustean Hermeneutics.” If the bed’s too large, stretch the sleeper; if the Scriptures don’t support your pet doctrine, stretch them until they do.
Ephesians falls naturally, like most of Paul’s letters, into two main divisions, doctrinal development (chapters 1–3) and practical implications/applications (chapters 4–6). This letter has rightly been called “The Epistle of the Church.” Paul labors to impress upon us the church’s great blessedness, her eternal origin, her infinitely high and holy calling, her inheritance and power (chapter 1). He then develops her composition: sinners saved by grace (2:1–10). These sinners are Jews and Gentiles who together now form one body, the New Israel, the rising holy temple of God! (2:11–22). In chapter 3 Paul informs us with all apostolical authority that the intent of God in forming the church was that through her, the manifold wisdom of God might be cosmically displayed. He concludes the section with a heavenly prayer and doxology.
How Dr. Hugen manages to miss the fact that a major section has been concluded at this point is beyond my understanding. Without acknowledging the transition inherent in the text, the professor fabricates his own: “Paul’s sermon is not over. He doesn’t stop with Jew and Gentile. All divisions . . . need to be overcome. Walls between masters and slaves, parents and children, husbands and wives.” In other words, Hugen has enlisted Paul as a comrade in his equalitarian dream world.
In fact, what God says through Paul in these letters is far more beautiful and far more covenantal than Hugen even begins to glimpse. For Hugen the letter is horizontal in its central theme. In fact, every word is Christcentered, revolving around God’s covenant with us through Him. Covenant means relationship. Paul begins his letter by telling us of our eternal relationship to God through Christ, how that relationship found us in time, and what the effect of Christ’s coming had on the character (makeup) of the people of God (Jews and Gentiles). Paul defines her relation to Christ her head, her relation to non-Israel (in which relation Christ is again central), each member’s final relations (where Christ continues to be central), her relations of commerce (Christ still central), and finally her place under Christ in the gigantic cosmic war for Truth and Righteousness (6:10ff).
In chapter 4 Paul is not dealing with “dividing walls of hostility,” as be was in chapter 2. Rather, he very simply and beautifully works out for us the character of the relationships we must have in all spheres in order for the church to be the vehicle through which God will make known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms His eternal purpose which He accomplished in Messiah Jesus our Lord. He rejoices in distinctions, affirms them on every page and paragraph, and is as far from Hugen’s ideology as East is from West.
Paul begins by pointing out that within the body of Christ there will be unity (4:1–6) and diversity (7–11), which harmonize in bringing the body to maturity (12-16). Please note that Paul recognizes a distinction between “officers of the church” (v. 11) and the people of God generally considered (v.12). Unity does not obliterate diversity.
Having covered our relationships with each other as members of the same body, he then treats our relations with members outside the body but on the same planet, i.e., Gentiles, unbelievers. How should we relate to their values and practices? Here Paul is very emphatic about the division that must remain. We must be the “day” to their “night.” He says this distinction (we call it “the Antithesis”) is part of the very Gospel which we received (4:1–-5:20). He gives the distinction a great deal of attention.
The next set of relationships God treats through Paul are domestic and commercial: our everyday relationships. Paul moves from where he was to where he’s going in 5:21, “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” The NIV Study Bible rightly notes that this is “basic to the following paragraphs” (emphasis mine). He is certainly not calling for mutual submission of everyone to each other. Not only is the idea ludicrous and anarchic; it is altogether absent from the text. Submit “to those to whom ye ought to be subject in natural, civil or church relations . . . either for fear of offending God, the Author of all power, who commands this subjection; or so far as is consistent with the fear of God, and so in those things which are not forbidden of Him” (Mt. Poole)
That this interpretation is correct is supported by the fact that the word “submit” in verse 22 is supplied by our translators. The Greek reads (starting in v. 21), “being subject to one another in the fear of Christ –wives to the(ir) own husbands as to the Lord.” First the general command, then the specific application/explanation. “Submit.” (“Who to whom?” the church asks.) “Wives to husbands, etc.” Nowhere are husbands commanded to be subject to their own wives. This mutual submission is one of the feminists’ most successful lies. The submission required of wives to husbands is the first in a series. There follows the duty of children to obey parents and servants (employees) to obey masters (employers).
Of course Paul deals with complimentary responsibilities of husbands (love your wives), parents (note: Fathers, do not exasperate but train) and employers (do not threaten). Thus we learn how hostility is removed by Christ in all relationships: by each Christian‘s joyfully accepting his or her respective role and obeying its accompanying laws (as here) for Christ’s sake. God knows best. He has ordained functional differences. Blessed is the “person” who walks in those ordained ways.
Compare this to Hugen’s jejune prating: “Each of you bas to be subject to each and every other one of you.” Do Father Hugen’s children command him to do the dishes? Is anyone “over him” at the seminary?
Be that as it may, Dr. Hugen is absolutely correct when he observes these Ephesian ordinances governing relationships are “clear already in the Old Testament.” That apparently bores him and so he looks for some new mystery here. But the-mystery had already been dealt with and Paul is now working out the implications. Why, then, does Paul reiterate these things? Because he is instructing the New Israel in the one eternal law of God, a law which has not changed, because its Author hasn’t. The church must obey God’s law (see 6:2). In so doing she will have blessedness, prosperity and peace.
Hugen and company counsel rebellion. This article did not touch on his contemptuous treatment of 1 Timothy 2, 1 Corinthians 14 and other clear passages which forbid what he and his feminist friends want. Their hermeneutic has exactly perverted the letter of God’s Word. They are determined, don’t you see? This is not unclear. Are you equally determined? The visionaries would have us obliterate the Antithesis, the church’s hostility with unbelief. And they have clearly succeeded in fomenting hostility within. This the Lord bates (Prov. 6:16–19).
Anyone who would abuse Scripture in their fashion, twisting it, wrenching it in a desperate attempt to make it say what they wish it would say, and presenting this as Reformed(!) necessary, obligatory and inevitable must be incompetent or dishonest. There is no pretty alternative.
Hugen and company, if you don’t believe what the Bible plainly teaches, come right out like men and say, “The Bible is wrong.” As it is, you deserve more pity than respect.
Christian Reformers, how long will we tolerate these divisive ones who deny that these are confessional matters, a denial that thus far has allowed them to keep their choice seats in the synagogue? Let us rise with one voice and show them the door. They’ve made their procrustean bed. Let them lie in it.
*Procrustes in Greek mythology was a giant who seized travelers, tied them to a bedstead, and either stretched them or cut off their legs to make them fit.