Confusion About Leadership

The most recent Christian Reformed study committee to deal with the troublesome questions about women’s eligibility to serve in church offices had to study the Bible’s teaching about the “headship” to which God had called men. Although the questions about this matter had arisen in connection with church offices, the committee also had to study the bearing of men’s Biblical headship on women’s proper role in other areas of society. The majority of the committee found that man’s headship “is a creational norm recognized in both Old and New Testaments” and that “God gave woman to be man’s fitting helper for the whole of human life, and that she should render her service and exercise her gifts in a way which acknowledges the headship of the man.”

The synod first declared that this Biblical headship principle “means that the man should exercise primary leadership and direction–setting in the home and in the church.” This was violently opposed by a strong minority and the next day they succeeded in defeating a motion to declare that this headship of the man implied that women should not be admitted to the offices of minister, elder or evangelist. Subsequently the synod also declared that “there is insufficient scriptural evidence to warrant the conclusion that a headship principle holding man’s rulership/primary leadership and direction-setting over woman is a creation norm extending over the whole of human life.” The synod first enunciated a Biblical principle and then proceeded by contradictory decisions to virtually nullify it in church and home as well as more broadly in society in general!

John Knox’s Biblical Conviction

Discussion of these matters is by no means as “new” as the promoters of the recent change and confusion routinely assume. Dr. Louis Praamsma, our outstanding church historian , writing in the September 3 Christian Renewal, on “Calvin on Women” calls attention to discussions and a difference which developed between Calvin and the famous Scotch Reformer, John Knox , regarding the practical questions of how they should deal with the cases of the existing rule of women in society. Knox , who as Reformer was followed by “almost the entire population of Scotland” and led it to become “a Presbyterian country,” was opposed especially by Queen Mary Stuart who sought opportunity to persecute the Reformed church. He early found himself faced with the question whether God’s ordinances permit a woman to rule over a country and be its legislator. As one of Calvin’s “most faithful adherents” he in 1554 visited him in Geneva and then the Reformer Bullinger in Zurich to obtain their advice. Dr. Praamsma pointed out that both of them advised him that although government by women was “certainly not the original rule,” when God in His providence permitted such an anomaly to arise Christians should submit to this established order. Calvin, although in principle in agreement with Knox ‘s objection to women’s rule, was inclined to moderation. He also hoped that Queen Elizabeth in England might be won to support the Reformation and he dedicated his commentary on Isaiah to her.

Knox, the Reformation leader of his country, confronted by the intolerable efforts of queens to prevent the people from believing and obeying God’s Word, could not be satisfied with the moderation counseled by the other Reformers. Instead he had his First Blast Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women secretly printed in Geneva in 1558. The irritated Queen Elizabeth declined Calvin’s dedication of his commentary to her and the death penalty was pronounced on anyone in England who owned Knox’s Blast. Knox’s book was even forbidden in Geneva! Dr. Praamsma finds it regretable that Knox lost his temper and did not follow the requested advice of the other Reformers.

Knox’s explosive little 63-page book makes interesting reading.

“I am assured,” he wrote in quaint Old English spelling, “that God hath reveled to some in this our age, that it is more than a monstre in nature that a Woman shall reigne and have empire above Man. And yet with us all there is suche silence, as if God therewith were nothing offended. The naturall man, ennemy to God, shall fynd, I knowe , many causes why no suche doctrine oght to be published in those our dangerous dayes. First, that it may seme to tend to sedition. Secondarilie, it shall be dangerous, not onlie to the writer or publisher, but also to all such as shall reade the writinges, or favor this truth spoken: And last, It shall not amend the chief offenders, partilie because it shall never come to their eares, and partlie they will not be admonished in such cases.” Knox could not find real prophets or apostles who permitted their course to be governed by such pragmatic excuses and self-serving arguments. “Yf any think that the empire of Women is not of such importance, that for the suppressing of the same any man is bounde to hasarde his life; I answer, that to supresse it is in the hand of God alone. But to utter the impietie and abomination of the same, I say, it is the dutie of everie true messager of God to whome the truth is reveled in that behalf.” “I say, that of necessitie it is that this monstriferouse empire of Women . . . be openlie reveled and plainlie declared to the world, to the end that some may repent and be saved.”

In the body of his work Knox pointed out that “To promote a Woman to beare rule, superioritie, dominion , or empire above any Realrne, Nation, Citie, is repugnant to Nature; contumelie to God, a thing most contrarious to his revealed will and approved ordinance; and finallie, it is the subversion of good Order, of all equitie and justice.” Alluding to the by now familiar scripture passages dealing with the subject, Knox cited especially I Timothy 2 and I Corinthians 14, concluding, ¹ ‘These two testimonies of the Holy Ghost be sufficient to prove what soever we have affirmed before, and to represse the inordinate pride of women, as also to correct the foolishness of those that have studied to exalt women in authoritie above men, against God and against his sentence pronounced.” (Although Knox did not promote an insurrection against all queens, he would not silence the Scriptures for political expediency.)

Our Need for Bible-Believing Leaders

It is evident, as one follows Knox’s argument, that he shared with others some erroneous notions about the inferior abilities of women, but the thrust of his argument is not based on that but on the clear and unchanging teachings of God’s Word. That makes Knox‘s argument, despite some immoderate language, as relevant to the confusion agitating our churches as contemporary writings are, more relevant, in fact, than the wavering and often unbiblical reports of some of our misguided committees.

In the May Reformed Journal Professor Nicholas Wolterstorff ridiculed the majority report of the synod’s recent study committee on man’s headship by exaggerating and caricaturing it and highly praised the 35–page minority report of Dr. Willis DeBoer which tried to explain why the biblical passages dealing with the matter do not mean what they say and are so self-contradictory that no one should be bound by them. In the August issue Wolterstorff notes the synod’s erratic decisions, but reports that it at least was making “progress,” “falling forward,” as he called it, in opening church offices to women. In the same August issue Gordon H. Pols, a member of the committee majority, attempted to defend the position of the committee, highlighting Wolterstorff’s distortions and misrepresentations of the committee report. The headship assigned to the man while logically and theologically defensible, is in our time and society “culturally and socially unacceptable” and therefore “practically impossible.” The writer found himself “unable to read the Bible differently” than as teaching the principle of man’s headship for the whole of life. But since “socially and culturally we are living in a situation so far removed from the teaching of the Bible” on this “matter that we just can’t go that way any more,” rather than maintain the synod’s contradictions, he advised opening all of the church offices to women! Thus the teaching of the Word of God is first defended as in principle right and then rejected because it brings conflict with today’s culture!

Could anything reveal more plainly than this does how some of our church leaders consciously set aside God’s Word, and thus, by our own Confession (Belgic Article XXIX) are changing us from a “true Church” to a “false Church” which “ascribes more power and authority to itself and its ordinances than to the Word of God, and will not submit itself to the yoke of Christ?”

lain Murray in writing on John Knox’s principles of Reform (OUTLOOK Sept., 1979) once showed how Knox’s first principle for which he stood and which he maintained although others might waver, was the exact opposite of the disastrous policy which we increasingly encounter. It was the principle of “entire, universal obedience to the Word of God, no matter what the cost, no matter what the consequences.” “Thus whether Knox preached to Mary of Guise, or to Mary Queen of Scots, or whether he wrote to the Queen of England, it was always in the same terms. They were accountable to God; they were not given leave, as he told Mary Queen ofScots, to offend God’s majesty . . . . On one occasion the Queen’s secretary stopped Knox, when he was stand ing before the Queen . . .. ‘Stop!’ he said. ‘you forget yourself, you are not now in your pulpit.” ‘I am in the place,’ replied Knox, ‘where duty requires me to speak the truth, deny it who will.’” “. . . He wrote to Queen Elizabeth of England: ‘If I should flatter your Grace, I were no friend but a deceitful traitor, and therefore, of conscience I am compelled to say that neither the consent of the people, the process of time, nor multitude of men can establish a law which God shall approve; but whatsoever He approves by His eternal Word, that shall be approved, and whatsoever He condemns shall be condemned, though all men in the earth should hazard a justification of the same.’”

This was the kind of leadership through which the Lord gave Reformation to both the church and the society of Scotland. In our increasingly demoralized churches and society let us pray for and seek the same kind of leadership, not “culturally conditioned” but adamantly committed to God’s Word.