A Response to the Danvers Statement

A Response to the Danvers Statement is an article authored by R.K. McGregor Wright in February 1989 in the 4th volume of the Journal for Biblical Equality published by Christians for Biblical Equality International advocating for the egalitarian position in opposition to the complementarian position of the Danvers Statement created by the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood.

About the Author

R. K. McGregor Wright, Th.M., Ph.D.

Aquila and Priscilla House Evangelical Study Center

Robert K. McGregor Wright is, with Julia Castle, co-director of the Aquila and Priscilla House Evangelical Study Center. He studied at London Bible College and received the B.D. from London University in 1968, after several years as a high school teacher in Australia. He studied with Francis Schaeffer at L'Abri in 1969, following which he came to Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (Th.M., 1971) where he met and married Julia Castle. After several years working in Christian publishing companies, they came to Denver and have ministered there together since 1976, including as founding directors of Friendship International (ministry), a ministry of Bear Valley Baptist Church, from 1978 to 1985, and now through the study center. Ministries of the study center include preaching and teaching in local churches and providing classes relevant to laypeople in the evangelical church in America today, including developing a Christian worldview, cults, and other apologetic and theological issues. Bob's interests are teaching and writing on apologetics, new religions, and historical theology. He completed his Ph.D. in 1989 in the joint doctoral program of Denver University and Iliff School of Theology in the area of historical theology with a thesis on the High Priesthood of Christ in the theology of John Owen, a puritan leader of the seventeenth century.

The Occasion

The center-spread of the January 13 Christianity Today in 1988 contained a paid advertisement for a newly-formed "Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood" together with a reprint of their principles of rationale and purpose. This Council has been formed in reaction to the successful spread of biblical egalitarianism in recent years. It represents precisely the kind of conservative reaction which one would have expected to the recent questioning among evangelicals of traditionalist stances on feminism, gender roles and the idea of equality among men and women in matters of Christian ministry and opportunity. Indeed, the surprise is that something like the Danvers Statement did not appear long ago. Two reasons may be given for this late appearance.

First, the subject is highly divisive. It is a type of controversy which touches individuals very deeply in their views of themselves and of others, and so threatens to alter patterns of life not seriously questioned before. The original hope of the traditionalists was that, since their position was so "obviously" the teaching of Scripture, only someone giving up the inerrancy of the Bible would be open to change on this sort of issue. This evaluation turned out to be premature, however, and the last fifteen years have demonstrated that inerrantists have been willing to reform their adherence to traditionalism in the direction of a more fully Biblical view of our freedom in Christ.

Secondly, it says much for the success of biblical "feminist" views of the Bible that not only are so many otherwise doctrinally-conservative evangelicals now sympathetic with it, and are thinking of themselves as "biblical egalitarians," but soundly orthodox seminaries such as the Conservative Baptists' Denver Seminary and the Evangelical Free Church's Trinity Evangelical Divinity School now have faculties clearly divided over this issue. The Danvers Statement therefore seems to represent a belated attempt by the traditionalists to conserve their losses and to consolidate their dwindling but still considerable resources.

A first reading of the published Statement soon reveals that while it contains no real answers as such to the problem of sex-based "roles" in the Church, it does define the problem in a clear and straightforward manner from the traditionalist standpoint. The Statement reveals the fears and queasiness of the traditionalists, warns us against the frightful dangers supposed to be inherent in notions of "biblical equality," and sets forth what its compilers would like to see done about it.

Methodology

By way of response, I shall comment on each of the ten Affirmations in turn. The commentary represents a position rather than a fully-argued case for.a position. As such, it is primarily critical, and seeks only to show the weaknesses of the traditionalist stance by examining their own summary statement of it. Other papers have considered two related questions. In the first place, we have in fact had evidence of women's leadership in the Bible all the time, much of it hidden behind prejudiced translations. In the article "Hierarchicalism Unbiblical" (see this Journal, volume 3, 1991, p.57) I asked whether the traditionalist understanding of the issue has not really been captive to an unbiblical world-view. Since I hold to the Chicago Statement on Inerrancy, my position assumes that the ultimate issue is what the Bible actually teaches, and not how we can evade what the Bible teaches, based on some recently-discovered cultural conditioning, or some supposed conflict present to the conscience. That conscience, as Martin Luther is reported to have put it at Worms in 1521, is "captive to the Word of God." He was merely echoing Paul (2 Corinthians 10:3-5).

Commentary

"1. Both Adam and Eve were created in God's image, equal before God as persons, and distinct in their manhood and womanhood."

Since this first statement merely asserts the obvious, that God created a distinct male and female in Adam and Eve, one might be tempted to. pass on to No. 2. But the word "distinct" is ambiguous and the words "manhood" and "womanhood" are in fact synonyms for the highly dubious notions of "masculinity" and "femininity." In what senses are the sexes "distinct" apart from sex itself? These terms are heavily freighted with hidden presuppositions and cultural prejudices about how people "ought" to behave. In fact, there is nothing very clear about these distinctions which is not either a physical (sexual) difference, (different gonads and so hormones, etc.), or a culturally-induced difference which may or may not be in harmony with what God wants for a particular individual. The question of what counts as "truly masculine" or "truly feminine" soon comes to a head with the introduction of the term "roles" in the next statement.

"2. Distinctions in masculine and feminine roles are ordained by God as part of the created order, and should find an echo in every human heart."

There are at least four distinguishable points made here, all of them false.

First, there is no Biblical doctrine of what constitutes "masculinity" and "femininity" in Scripture (see Boccia, this volume). This Article merely notes that there are "distinctions" without telling us what they are. This conveniently allows the traditionalist reader to read in his/her prejudices about what is "right" for males and females, and so creates the illusion of much more agreement with the statement than actually exists among those who would be traditionalist in principle.

Second, the Bible indicates almost nothing but sexual differences as being part of the gender structure of the original "created order," i.e., as being essential to human nature as created before the Fall. There is no way, for example, of showing that the mention of male dominance in Gen. 3:16 is anything more than a prediction of how male sinfulness would actually manifest itself after the Fall. In other words, the verse is a prediction of how sin would work itself out, not a prescription for post-Fall redemptive behavior.

Third, we notice that the unbiblical idea of "roles" is smuggled in at this point. This term is a French word derived from the term for a small scroll containing the part for an actor to speak in a play. The actor/actress adopts the words and behavior of the otherwise pure abstraction of a "character" in a play in order to create the illusion of reality. This is fine for the theater, but disastrous in real life.

Historically, with the development of psychology and then psychiatry in the early part of this century, the idea of a "role" or identifiable "part to play" by an individual in society, became a helpful and widely-accepted notion in explaining why people behave the way they do as social creatures. Coherent and secure behavior is greatly enhanced when one has a model to observe and follow, and it gives a clearer picture of what it would mean to act in a certain way. It is now universally understood that people look for "role models" in order to secure their own self-image. People do behave this way. The problem comes to a head when we ask for a biblical basis for claims about a particular role.

At no point however, does the Bible set up anything remotely resembling "masculinity" or "femininity" as worthy or standard patterns of life. The notion of individuals adopting "roles" as a means to holiness, thereby copying external socially-conditioned abstractions in order to create the illusion of spiritual security, is in fact singled out by Jesus himself for the strongest condemnation in the Bible! The Greek word hypocrisis is used to describe this way of life. To look for a "role" to follow in order to give one meaning in life may in fact be simply to systematize the principle of hypocrisy, and to elevate patterns not even found in, the Bible to the level of key principles of sanctification. When Paul invites us to copy him as he does his Lord, it is moral character that is meant, not a "role." Again, to govern one's life by trying to meet "role expectations" may be nothing more than to live after a systemized hypocrisy. It is dangerous to make the behavior of others one's reference-point. As J. B. Phillips paraphrased Romans 12:1-2, "Don't let the world around you squeeze you into its own mould..." Role-playing is a form of play-acting, and may be just a pious form of hypocrisy. There is no reason to think of it as a key to personal holiness.

The fourth point tries to get the reader to equate superficial gender distinctions with humanness itself, the crowning absurdity of the traditionalist case. These culturally conditioned distinctions only "find an echo" in those human hearts which are already committed to male supremacy theories of human relations.

This is an appropriate place to comment on the opening explanation of the key terms in the recently-published official exposition of the Danvers Statement, Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. On pages 31 to 59 John Piper claims to define the two terms Manhood and Womanhood "according to the Bible." Then, on the very first pages (pp. 35 and 36) of the defining process, the logical blinders come down. He immediately begins a logical retreat from coherence by warning the reader that attempting to define one's terms is "a risky business." But why, pray tell? He clearly feels some responsibility to clarify this foggy issue. What possible "risk" could he be running by defining his central terms clearly? Only, it would seem, the risk of exposing the fact that these terms are themselves not biblical ideas at all, or worse, that he does not himself really know what they mean. Piper soon shows us, however, that he knows exactly what he himself "means" by these terms. That is, on the following thirty pages, he displays exactly what connotations they are capable of evoking. Next, we are warned that the following descriptions will not be exhaustive. No definition is "exhaustive." A definition is merely supposed to be a simple limiting description of its subject, distinguishing it from other (perhaps similar) things in its class. Finally, just before the serious business of definition is to begin, we are treated to two highly deflating qualifications: We are told that he merely wants to "get at the heart" of these notions, and then that he hopes to "at least" get at "an indispensable aspect" of them.

These limiting warnings amount to an admission that real definitions will not be attempted, and the following pages soon confirm this impression. Neither of the "definitions" of "mature masculinity" and "mature femininity" that follow are definitions at all. They are merely claims that "at the heart" of each notion is something or other that exists "in ways appropriate to a man's (or woman's) differing relationships." Logically, this is merely to say that masculinity and femininity differ in the ways in which they differ. Presumably, the following thirty-page exegesis and commentary on these odd "definitions" are supposed to rectify the tautology, but this does not happen. In the definitions as given by Piper, the only clearly identifiable distinction is the assertion that the man has a "responsibility to lead" while the woman is to "affirm" the "leadership from worthy men." Even the statement that women should affirm the leadership of worthy men seems somewhat arbitrary, since men presumably, should also "affirm the leadership of worthy men." Who would want to claim that evangelicals should affirm the leadership of the unworthy? However, since this is the very point at issue with the egalitarians, one has a right to expect that this point "at least" will be fully established from Scripture, that males may only accept the leadership of males. Piper seems to sense that this is the touchstone of his attempt, and elaborately subdivides explanation of what "to lead" means for the man, into no less than nine headings in the course of which no less than eighteen Bible verses are referred to. In the corresponding explanation of what "affirming" male "leadership" means for Womanhood, only one more verse, the phrase about Eve being "a helper suitable to" Adam is quoted on page 49, and no exegesis is attempted there.

Not a single one of Piper's verses says that men should always lead women, much less that women should never be in a leadership position. This is the minimum requirement of the task Piper had set himself on page thirty-five. Even Piper's own minimalist promise is not fulfilled. Of course, this means that Piper's two key terms, the very "heart" of the entire 566-page monolith, not only remain undefined, but that the essential "indispensable aspect" also remains unfounded in the Bible.

These considerations alone amount to the evacuation of the fundamental content of the whole project from the outset. Biblical egalitarians should be properly thankful for what is virtually a logical expose by John Piper of the vacuous distinctions at the foundation of the traditionalist vision. The present writer was rather startled to read such a disappointing exegetical effort from Piper, after reading with profit and delight his excellent treatise on pauline predestination in Romans 9. The difference seems to be that the doctrine he wanted to exegete from Romans 9 actually exists in the texts treated, while the doctrine he wants to get from the Bible on male supremacy does not. I have not seen so clear a case of the difference between exegesis and eisegesis in the writings of one single evangelical scholar for a long time. We now continue with the Danvers articles.

"3. Adam's headship in marriage was established by God before the Fall and was not a result of sin."

This statement has no Biblical support, but simply presupposes the validity of a traditionalist exegesis of such verses as Genesis 3:16, Ephesians 5:23 and 1 Corinthians 11:3. That Adam was the "federal head" of the race (including Eve) may well be true in some sense (without accepting the more speculative elements of historical "covenant theology") but this is because he was the origin of our humanity and acted on our behalf, in a sense as our representative. It does not follow that Adam was always to be "in authority" over Eve, or that because Adam was made before Eve, they were not equal in their marriage in status and responsibility. Danvers uses the term "headship" without defining it, leaving the traditionalist reader to read hierarchical prejudices into it as one wills, thus skewing the results.

"4. The Fall introduced distortions into the relationships between men and women. In the home, the husband's loving, humble headship tends to be replaced by domination or passivity; the wife's intelligent, willing submission tends to be replaced by usurpation or servility. In the church, sin inclines men to a worldly love of pawer, or an abdication of spiritual responsibility, and inclines women to resist limitations on their roles or to neglect the use of their gifts in appropriate ministries."

There can be no doubt that the Fall caused all sorts of distortions in the created pattern. This is called the "curse" in the Bible, and we notice with delight that one of Isaac Watts' Christmas carols points out that redemption will finally extend "far as the curse is found" (Joy To The World!, 1719). But Ephesians 5:23 is capable of far better treatment than that assumed in the statement "In the home..." would allow, for to presuppose a hierarchical background to the idea of a husband's being the "head" of his wife in a manner analogous to the way Christ. is the head of the Church | leads to disaster. Verse 21 supplies a prior context for the mutual submission of verse 23 which logically eliminates hierarchy altogether, and ethically conditions both the "headship" and the "submission." The absurdity of reading exclusive role-playing characteristics into these verses may be exposed merely by asking, "Is it seriously claimed that a wife should not love her husband as Christ loved the Church, nor give herself for him? Or that a husband not reverence his wife?" Ephesians 5 is about holiness, not hierarchy, and there is no place for "roles" suggested by these verses. The arbitrary nature of the thought behind this fourth article may be further exposed by noting that (varying the language of the Statement) "sin inclines the sinner to either domination or passivity, to either usurpation or servility, and toward a worldly love of power, abdication of spiritual responsibility, and neglect of their gifts in appropriate ministry." The concept of "roles", is a nest of problems, and the wise will not treat, it as a mystical clue in answer to the exegetical, understanding of personal relationships.

As for "In the church...", once again there is no verse in Scripture to justify the notion that males and females have distinct and immutable "spiritual responsibilities" based on sex, although there are several verses which have been so interpreted traditionally, in violation of the plain statement in Galatians 3:28. We notice again that the cogency of the Statement depends wholly on an undefined but traditionally prejudiced understanding of the term "roles" when referring to gifts of teaching and leadership.

"5. The Old Testament as well as the New Testament, manifests the equally high value and dignity which God attached to the roles of both men and women. Both Old and New Testaments also affirm the principle of male headship in the family and in the covenant community."

On the contrary, the OT and NT never give roles any "value" or "dignity." Only persons can have such qualities if the question is the status of men and women. It is humanness which has dignity, not the abstractions of masculinity or femininity. And the so-called "principle" of exclusively male leadership is nowhere defined in either Testament. Rather, numerous exceptions to it are found throughout the Bible, from Sarah and Deborah in the OT, to Phoebe and Phillip's daughters in the NT. The mere existence of these exceptions shows that God recognizes no rule of "roles" in this matter. "Roles" considered simply as patterns of behavior grow out of the obedient use of gifts by individuals led of the Lord, and are never presupposed by themselves as if they were to be adopted as standards or patterns of conformity. Gifts, and not abstract "roles," determine paths of obedience.

The term "covenant community" is another trap, since it may suggest the Reformed "Covenant Theology" which equates the Church of the New Covenant with Israel under the Old, thereby encouraging a reading of OT patterns into the life of the Church, including the male-dominated patriarchalism of the OT cultural background, which is never treated as a spiritual standard in Scripture, not even in the OT itself. The OLD Testament patriarchalism is no model for the Church of today under the NEW Covenant. Even the traditionalists are beginning at last to realize this.

"6. Redemption in Christ aims at removing the distortions introduced by the curse. In the family, husbands should forsake harsh or selfish leadership, and grow in love and care for their wives, wives should forsake resistance to their husband's authority and grow in willing and joyful submission to their husband's leadership. In the church, redemption in Christ gives men and women an equal share in the blessings — of salvation; nevertheless, some governing and teaching roles in the church are restricted to men."

This last sentence produces a curious logical dilemma: Either some "governing and teaching roles" are not "blessings of salvation," or "an equal share" in the blessings is the same as some blessings being "restricted to men." How these conclusions are to be made compatible with such verses as Ephesians 1:3 and Galatians 3:28 is not made clear.

Two "distortions introduced by the curse" specifically responded to in the NT are, (1), that in the Church there would no longer be "male and female" in Christ (Galatians 3:28), as there had been under the imperfectly-redeemed Old Covenant order, and, (2), that in the home we must be continually "submitting (our)selves one to another in the fear of God" (Ephesians 3:21). No doubt the idea of mutual submission is unintelligible on the traditionalist's hierarchical basis, but this only illustrates the power of tradition to evacuate the text of Scripture of its natural sense.

It is worth noting again that the "some governing and teaching roles" which are here said to be "restricted to men" are not made clear in this Affirmation. Biblically, they cannot be made clear, as the progressive collapse of traditionalist assumptions about exegeting 1 Timothy 2 and 1 Corinthians 14 has vividly demonstrated. Not only can they not be clearly exegeted from Scripture, but they cannot be practiced consistently either, even when they are sincerely assumed to be biblical. For example, a friend in a traditionalist church recalls how at a meeting in which a woman missionary from the foreign field was to give a report on progress there in church-planting, it was decided by the (male) elders that as "women can't speak in church services" the missionary could not make her report in person, but they could hear her on a tape-recording! Or again, a woman can teach Classical Greek to the language majors in a Christian liberal arts department, but she is not allowed to teach Koine Greek to the (male?) theology majors in the same school. Or again, women can prepare the elements for Communion, but they can't serve them to the saints. Or, a woman can teach Mathematics to male students, but not New Testament Introduction. The absurdities are endless, and because they are absurd, they are also degrading to Christian women.

Another potential trap is the introduction in this Article of the word "authority." What Bible verse even refers to, let alone defines a "husband's authority" over against his wife's? The Biblical emphasis is always on responsibilities rather than on rights. It's no accident that there are no biblical references in the Danvers Statement, and the doctrinal statement of Christians For Biblical Equality should be contrasted with it at this point.

"7. In all of life, Christ is the supreme authority and guide for men and women, so that no earthly submission - domestic, religious or civil - ever implies a mandate to follow a human authority into sin."

This article may be thought of as a waiver designed to obviate an important error which is often derived from hierarchical notions of human relationships. It is sometimes concluded from the notion of a hierarchy that the lower elements on the hierarchy have no recourse past the next highest element. But the disclaimer expressed in this Article is not enough to remove this difficulty. The problem remains that if a wife must always. submit to her husband (and never vice versa, since Ephesians 5:24 says "in everything") in the same way as she submits to Christ, how can it be argued that she can ever disobey him? It has often been taught (e.g., by the Jesuits in the past) that the grace and merit of obedience absolves one of other (lower?) responsibilities. Some evangelicals teach this today in the shepherding cults, and this is all based on the unquestioned assumption of Chain-of-Being hierarchical notions of how things have to work. If these structural assumptions are questioned at any point, however, the whole fabric collapses. Ethical Structures tend to necessitate the corresponding ontological structures required to support them, and the presupposition of a hierarchical ontological structure to reality will inevitably affect the way we relate ethically.

"8. In both men and women a heartfelt sense of call to ministry should never be used to set aside Biblical criteria for particular ministries. Rather, Biblical teaching should remain the authority for testing our subjective discernment of God's will."

Article 8 is another disclaimer intended to obviate the objection that if God does not want women in leadership, (i.e., in pastoral or teaching positions), why does he so consistently give them the gifts so necessary to fit them for such positions? The secular world admitted this absurdity decades ago, amid much conservative reaction and resistance. (Is it not "obvious" that no decent Christian woman would want to be a medical doctor?) Much of the evangelical Church reacted with anger to this, instead of speaking the whole liberating counsel of God with a prophetic voice, as Paul had instructed them in Galatians and in Acts 20:27.

Nevertheless, these two Articles (7 & 8) remind us correctly that there can be no finite absolute authority, and that our final reference-point is Christ, not our spouse, and that the Bible is indeed the authority for testing our subjective discernment of God's will. Likewise, we should not assume that the traditionalists are necessarily free from cultural bias when they try to define for us what "femininity" and "masculinity" consist of, much less that our desire to reform the Church in this area is just another attempt to adjust Christianity to secular feminism. Of course, it's no such thing. Historically, at least some evangelicals have always been way ahead of their brethren in the matter of recognizing and promoting female gifts and ministry.

A recent example of a conservative reaction which "set aside Biblical criteria for particular ministries" was the decision of the Reformed Presbyterian Church Evangelical Synod (which I belonged to when living in Grand Rapids) to abolish the office of deaconess in their Churches, in flagrant disobedience to Scripture which not only lists the qualifications of women deacons in I Timothy 3 and Titus 2, but even names a female deacon in Romans 16:1 and does not even distinguish her function from that of a man by using such a female form as "deaconess," (diaconissa) which never occurs in Scripture. �"9. With half the world's population outside the reach of indigenous evangelism, with countless other lost peoples in those societies that have heard the Gospel; with the stresses and miseries of sickness, malnutrition, homelessness, illiteracy, ignorance, aging, addiction, crime, incarceration, neuroses and loneliness, no man or woman who feels a passion from God to make his grace known in word and deed need ever live without a fulfilling ministry for the glory of Christ and the good of this fallen world."

What this Article amounts to in practice on the traditionalist basis may be illustrated by an experience I had in a local church. Some years ago several large and relatively conservative assemblies here in the Denver area withdrew from the United Presbyterian denomination (mostly liberal today) because the denomination issued a mandatory directive that their churches must set about ordaining female elders as soon as possible. These local Presbyterian churches had for decades put up with a denomination which had abandoned the Westminster. Confession of Faith and substituted a neo-orthodox statement in its place (in 1967), and ordained men who denied not merely predestination and eternal punishment but even the deity of Christ. Only when required to ordain a woman did this last leaden straw break the traditionalist camel's back!

I attended one of these Evangelical Presbyterian churches in 1986 one morning with some friends, and witnessed there the "consecration" or "commissioning" of a young woman to the foreign mission field. At one notable point in the service, the elders, deacons and a woman member involved in the education program of the church, joined in a circle to lay hands on this missionary about to leave for a life of what would amount to a life of evangelism, teaching and church-building on the foreign field. Afterwards, I approached the senior pastor and thanked him for the delightful service. I then commented that it was certainly a Spirit-led advance which would induce a church which had once been willing to abandon its own denomination rather than submit to ordaining a female elder, to ordain a female apostle and send her off to Africa as a fully supported representative with the church's blessing! Needless to say, he tried to make the (traditionalist) distinction between a male "ordination" and a woman's mere "commissioning," but of course this unbiblical distinction did not prevent me from recognizing an ordination when I saw one.

The point is that the NT refers to two classes of apostles. The first type was with the Lord in his ministry, or at least saw him in his resurrection body, being "sent" (apestello) by Him directly. John and Paul fit this category. The second type was sent out by churches on missionary tasks at a distance, Silas and Barnabas being of this second category. So that morning, I witnessed the ordination of a woman apostle whether the senior Pastor there was able to recognize it or not. This experience illustrates something already pointed out: Even when they are determined to take the question of "biblical roles" seriously, and seek to practice them in the local church, the traditionalists have no hope of doing so consistently, and finish up with randomly-chosen contradictions, amounting to whatever the local leadership decides, and whatever the long-suffering women in the situation will let them get away with.

"10. We are convinced that a denial or neglect of these principles will lead to increasingly destructive consequences in our families, our churches, and the culture at large."

Finally, as a clincher to remind us of all the frightening results which will befall us if we do, not maintain a male-supremacist church, we are warned that we biblical feminists will be responsible for the destruction of our families, our churches and the "culture at large" (whatever that is) if we "neglect or deny" the traditionalist status quo. Let me state flatly that I not only deny the traditionalist stance as unbiblical, but that I am conscience-bound not to neglect it, either. Rather, some of us will probably spend the rest of our lives trying to reform it one way or another, in terms of the whole counsel of God, and let God take care of the consequences.

THE RATIONALE:

1. The widespread uncertainty and confusion in our culture regarding the complementary differences between masculinity and femininity;

2. the tragic effects of this confusion in unravelling the fabric of marriage woven by God out of the beautiful strands of manhood and womanhood;

3. the increasing promotion given to feminist egalitarianism with accompanying distortions or neglect of the glad harmony portrayed in Scripture between the loving, humble leadership of redeemed husbands, and the intelligent, willing support of that leadership by redeemed wives;

4. the widespread ambivalence regarding the values of motherhood, vocational homemaking, and the many ministries historically performed by women;

5. the growing claims of legitimacy for sexual relationships which have Biblically and historically been considered illicit or perverse, and the increase in pornographic portrayal of human sexuality; 6. the upsurge of physical and emotional abuse in the family;

7. the emergence of roles for men and women in church leadership that do not conform to Biblical teaching but backfire in the crippling of Biblically faithful witness;

8. The increasing prevalence and acceptance of hermeneutical oddities devised to reinterpret apparently plain meanings of Biblical texts;

9. the consequent threat to Biblical authority as the clarity of Scripture is jeopardized and the accessibility of its meaning to ordinary people is withdrawn into the restricted realm of technical ingenuity;

10. and behind all this the apparent accommodation of some within the church to the spirit of the age at the expense of winsome, radical, Biblical authenticity which in the power of the Holy Spirit may reform rather than reflect our ailing culture."

In these terms, the Danvers signatories confess their real motivation. We shall comment on each point in turn:

1. The ten points under the heading of the Rationale set forth the fears and misgivings that prompted the Danvers Statement in the first place. They speak in 1. of a "widespread uncertainty" about the male-female issue. But this is nothing but the natural result of what happens to unsound traditionalist ideas when their previously unexamined assumptions are threatened. There is "widespread uncertainty" about the Millennium too, partly because post-Millennialism is being promoted by the Theonomic Reconstructionists. There is also "widespread uncertainty" about Inerrancy because of the increasing influence of liberalism and of neo-Orthodox attitudes to the Bible. One thinks also of the "widespread uncertainty" caused by the efforts of the Reformers in the 1500s to get the Church of their day to face the issues raised by their attempt to call the saints back to the Bible as the final authority in matters of faith.

We might also reasonably ask why men and women cannot relate in a "complementary" way without having to accept the pseudo-standards of "masculinity" and "femininity," and without our smuggling non-Biblical presuppositions of hierarchicalism into our exegesis of key verses.

2. This article is propaganda designed to blame biblical egalitarians for the world's ills and requires no comment except to note that it is based on article 1, and collapses when the first Article is neutralized.

3. "Egalitarianism" is a good word, here used as a pejorative. It means to biblical egalitarians that men and women have equal dignity and spiritual opportunities because (Galatians 3:28) "you are all one in Christ Jesus." Article 3 simply makes the intent of Article 2 more explicit.

4. These confusions ("ambivalence") are caused by a fallen emphasis on the autonomism of the individual and by selfishness and lack of responsibility among the unregenerate, as well as among those Christians who let unbelievers set their agenda. They have nothing to do with a Biblical egalitarianism. The word "historically" should better read "traditionally." The question still remains as to whether a particular woman should or should not be allowed to be a police officer or a lawyer or a teacher of NT Studies in a college, or concentrate her life if God so guides her, on homemaking. These personal decisions are matters of individual gifts and calling, and can only be decided by the individual conscience as that person seeks the face of the Lord for Spirit-led guidance. The Bible by ‘itself does not settle' these questions one way or another, any more than it settles the question of whether a particular believer is to marry a particular fellow-believer or not, or whether to take the course in French or in Russian History when putting a college program together.

5. If the Bible says homosexuality is wrong (which I think it clearly does), the issue is settled ipso facto and Biblical teaching about there being "no male or female" in the redemptive community of Christ has no bearing on this fact. Galatians 5:19 is also in Galatians along with 3:28.

6. Wife-beating is a heathen wickedness much encouraged by false religion (e.g., it is countenanced by the Qu'ran) and is universal in male supremacist societies: The more male supremacist, and the more hierarchical, the more powerless and helpless are the women. A fully redemptive community hears God's prophets on the subject of justice, and will lift up the disadvantaged, and actively seek justice for them, not just pigeon-hole them and keep them back.

7. Any number of evangelical women have discovered that there is no place for them among the highly restricted possibilities of male-dominated traditionalist churches. As a result, they have often turned to liberal churches, where their gifts are recognized, and they can lead more spiritually fulfilling lives. This is the spiritual equivalent of U.S. businesses exporting American jobs to Japan. Conservative churches are the losers here. Ina church where there are 300 gifted women and only 25 jobs (and all but those involving children occupied by men), it seems obvious to me that we definitely have a "crippling of Biblically faithful witness," and an irresponsible waste of gifts to boot.

8. People threatened by newness often appeal to what to them seems to be "obvious" as the correct meaning of the Bible. Hence it was once "obvious" that the Bible legitimized slavery, and even that it taught that the world was flat. Advancing scholarship inevitably means that "apparently plain" verses will turn out to mean something else entirely, but this only shows that a fully Biblical conservatism will continually ask itself whether it is conserving the right things or merely falling back into a reactionary traditionalism. The claim that Romans 16:1 teaches that the NT churches normally had female deacons is hardly a "hermeneutical oddity." The KJV rendering of diakonos in Romans 16:1-2 by "servant" is very definitely a hermeneutical oddity, and reflects clearly the prejudice of 16th Century Anglicanism against women in ministry. Why should E. M. W. Tillyard's Elizabethan World Picture be the standard for the twentieth Century translator? �9. This is an implausible Article. Would the authors like to forbid teaching on Eschatology simply because the subject matter (involving, for example, how to unravel the Book of Revelation) is difficult and lacks "accessibility to ordinary people"? Biblical egalitarians should be reminded that they need not feel at a disadvantage merely because so many of the expounders of Scripture with whom they grew up have stood still in their fields while other areas of scholarship have advanced. Trying to relegate legitimate issues which involve questioning earlier-held traditionalist assumptions about certain texts to the "realm of technical ingenuity" is an illegitimate discouragement to legitimate enquiry. The often-expressed notion that the Bible's incidental mention that Phillip had four daughters that prophesied (Acts 21:9) is "the exception that proves the rule" is as clear a case of "technical ingenuity" as I can think of. The reference is really the exception that proves the rule never existed!

The real problem, is, that the traditionalists have finally realized that "prophesying" in the New Testament (as well as in the Old) normally involves preaching and teaching and counseling, and the general application of the Word to the life and culture of God's people, and that if this is allowed, the traditionalist case against women preachers is seriously weakened. In this instance therefore "hermeneutical ingenuity" must be employed to prove that "prophesying" is always distinct from preaching. In fact, one of the originators of the Council which produced the Danvers Statement (Wayne Grudem) having located himself in a highly charismatic church of a type which has traditionally given great freedom of leadership and preaching to women, has seen the problem clearly, and has recently published a book trying to prove that prophesying never included teaching or preaching. It might be worth remembering in this connection, that in the 1500-1600s, when male supremacy was virtually unquestioned, the Puritans held preacher-training sessions called "Prophesyings" and wrote books promoting preaching with titles like The Liberty Of Prophesying. As long as male supremacy was unquestioned, it never occurred to the Puritans that prophecy was anything but mostly just preaching, although it might have been on occasion modified in an extraordinary way by the Holy Spirit's acting sovereignly as he willed at any moment, as was the case with the inscripturizing of the Canonical books. Grudem's tour de force is an attempt to block a hole in the traditionalist fence which women preachers have always managed to get through.

10. Historical study is increasingly demonstrating that there have always been at least some evangelicals at the vanguard of movements for the emancipation of women from the arbitrary restrictions of a male-dominated traditionalism. Janette Hassey's "No Time For Silence" is a recent example (1986) To paraphrase a famous Puritan pastor as he sent some of his flock off to the New World, "The Lord hath yet more light to break forth from the history of women's ministry!" And much of this history does not particularly flatter traditionalism. Have we forgotten how bitterly the reactionary conservative clergy inveighed against even so elementary a development as allowing female citizens the right to vote? Would a modern signatory to the Danvers Statement like to argue that the women's vote is the cause of today's social corruption? Since the "spirit of the age" is still male-supremacist, and the suppression of women (in cheerful fulfillment of the prediction in Genesis 3:16) is the natural stance of all heathen cultures, I fail entirely to see how our practicing the implications of Galatians 3:28 could be rationally thought of as conformity to the spirit of the age.

Conclusions

One can only hope as the subject continues to unfold in the public forum of evangelical scholarship, that the promise of Isaiah 55:10 and 11, that God sovereignly supervises the effectiveness of His Word as He wills, will be increasingly made real in the life of Christ's Church. Reformation-minded saints must continue to pray that the light of God's Word will eventually reform the traditionalist vision into a closer conformity to the whole of Scripture. In this way "the noble Biblical vision of sexual complementarity" may be seen to be fully compatible with that life in Christ in which "there is neither male nor female" but only redeemed children of God growing more and more into the grace of mutual submission, and exercising freely the gifts with which God has wisely graced them.

In the meantime, liberal churches with their autonomist and often secularizing ideals will continue to attract serious and thoughtful modern evangelical women who have (often only after much pain during years of trying) been forced at last to the sad conclusion that traditionalist churches will continue to refuse to take them or their gifts seriously enough to aggressively make a place for them in the life of the community of grace. We have no right to pretend to "love the brethren" (let alone the whole lost world) so long as we refuse to take the needs of half of them seriously.