|
LESSON 90.
WOMEN MUST PREACH AND TEACH.
732. Penance has no purpose excepting to expiate guilt.
When women are taught that they must take a specially lowly
position; that they must meet their husbands’ sensual
demands with unquestioning obedience (see Lesson 14); that
they must be silent in Church; that they must go veiled;
must not teach or preach; that they must have no part in
Church government,¾and
all because Eve sinned, they are taught to do penance, and
they are taught thereby that in some sense guilt adheres to
them. The teaching of all these things (whether acknowledged
or not), is precisely what Tertullian dared to say, namely,¾“God’s
verdict on the sex still holds good, and the sex’s guilt
must still hold also.”
733. Now the question is, Will enlightened women accept
this as “the gospel” men should preach to them? They will
not, of course, if they honor their Savior as One who made a
full and sufficient atonement for the sins of the whole
world.[3]
Nor will they pass under the control of the incompetent or
unworthy simply because such may be males. And so
long as the Church endorses such teachings, by practicing
the custom of the male management of all its affairs, just
so long will it see its more enlightened female membership
diminishing.
734. There was a time when in civil government and every
department of life men governed, but that day is passing
everywhere, excepting where its existence is most
incongruous,¾in
the Church; for long ago it was written, “If ye have
respect of persons, ye commit sin, and are convinced
[i.e. convicted] of the law as transgressors” (James
2:9). When the rule of the male was universal, woman could
accept membership in a
Church without a change of status. She cannot, today. An
invitation to identify herself with any religious
society which carries with it the inference that she will
turn backward into servitude will be declined with
increasing frequency, in days to come. And this attitude on
the part of Christian women may not be justly ascribed to
pride and want of sanctity. No mature human being has a
right to yield unquestioning obedience to other than God
Himself. The competent have no right to accept the
leadership of the relatively incompetent,¾and
women have fully demonstrated the fact that they cannot all
be reckoned as less competent than men. Nor must the more
righteous accept control by the less righteous.
735. But far and above all this, NO CHRISTIAN SHOULD
EVER DISHONOR THE ATONEMENT OF JESUS CHRIST, nor can a
Christian do this without sin. There is no place in this
whole world for a Christian to seek to please God by doing
penance. The acceptance of penance is a denial of the
sufficiency of the atonement for our sins. We women
refuse that attitude towards Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ’s
atonement did not fall short of reaching Eve, by any means.
736. But again the question, “Why should Eve’s female
offspring suffer for the sin of Eve more than her male
offspring? every human being is the child of Eve.” No
possible answer is forthcoming excepting that in some
obscure sense the female is Eve’s special
offspring, or seed, or at least so reckoned by God and man.
Ah, now we are getting to the point. Who else is the
special Seed of the woman? Jesus Christ. We women are
put in a class by ourselves because we are specially related
to the first woman; and we find Jesus Christ in that same
class with us. But if the class to which Jesus Christ
belongs¾the
special Seed of woman¾is
to be in perpetual dishonor, there can be no doubt as to
what spirit teaches this,¾not
the Holy Spirit, the real teacher of the Word and Expounder
of it, but the spirit of Anti-christ,¾for
“even now are there many anti-christs” (1 John 2:18).
And is it not worthwhile, sisters, for us to rise up and
challenge this lying spirit which has gone forth into the
world,¾this
denial to woman of the full benefits of the Atonement?
Nay more: It is not enough to say this is worthwhile,¾“Woe
be it unto
[us women] if we preach not the gospel, for just to
the extent that these
other matters are taught Christ, more than woman, is
dishonored; and the world may perish for want of a
knowledge of the fullness and sufficiency of the
atonement of Jesus Christ unless we women challenge this
false doctrine, by exhibiting in our lives the results of an
atonement with no sex limits on it.
737. Again we ask, If one only expression, “Let the
women keep silence” (1 Corinthians 14:34), which readily
admits of a qualifying interpretation, is allowed to pass as
forbidding one half of the human family forever from
proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ, why may not other
like expressions silence the other half forever? As samples
we cite Habakkuk 2:20, Let all the earth keep silence
before Him;” Jeremiah 8:14, “Let us enter into the
defenced cities, and let us be silent there: for the Lord
our God hath put us to silence . . . because we have sinned
against God.” Zechariah 2:13, “Be silent, O all
flesh, before the Lord,”¾
etc.
738. There is such an offense as handling the Word of
God deceitfully,¾as
distorting it out of semblance to common sense.
This is precisely what
is being done by those who, in the face of a world perishing
for the lack of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and in an age
when it is clearly to be seen that the present state of
Christendom is a disgrace, because of its utter failure to
meet the requirements of Christian life;
when the world is
mangled and bleeding to death, starving and rotting in its
social corruption, while male ministers of the gospel are as
frequently discrediting Christ, in their pulpits, as
honoring Him, as frequently
attacking the Bible as
explaining it,¾in
such an age as this it is pertinent
to ask the question whether women have any right to keep
silent?
“But Eve was deceived when she dealt with the
Serpent, in Eden, and can women ever be safe
religious teachers?” Review the past: The Sanhedrin that
compassed the death of Christ, over the protest of the
“daughters of Jerusalem” and Pilate’s wife; the sects of
Nicolaitanes, Ebionites, Gnostics, Ophites, Manichaeans,
Predestinarians, extreme Antinomians, Irvingites,
Agapoemonians, Mormons, and scores more, led by men; the
ignorant and stupid ecclesiastics who resorted to
imprisonments, torture, massacres, inquisitions, and
burnings at the stake, to compel men and women to renounce
the truth and accept spiritual darkness instead,¾then
tell us on what historical authority it can be assumed that
men are safe religious leaders. And why the mere fact
that Eve was “deceived” and women have led in Christian
Science, Theosophy, and modern (not ancient) Spiritism,
proves that all women are unsafe as religious leaders? This
claim lacks candor, in view of the fact that few women have
ever been allowed to try if they could lead; it is born of
ignorance and prejudice. On the other hand, think of the
millions of women who have trusted the “authority” of male
leadership in religious matters, to be hurried forward into
the ditch of spiritual darkness or unrestrained license, to
their eternal loss.
739. The statement
has been made on very high authority, in a recent pamphlet
published in England,[4]
that of 4,000 missionaries in India, Burma and Ceylon today,
not more than 2,000 believe in the Bible as the inerrant and
infallible Word of God. Are we women going to keep quiet in
the face of such facts,¾2,000
foreign missionaries weakening the faith of the
natives of India in the Word of God, rather than
strengthening it? “God
has never given to any body of men whatsoever a
chartered right to lock up heaven, and let the people perish
for lack of knowledge,”
says Dean Payne-Smith. Those who oppose the preaching
of women, and the teaching of women, are committing
precisely this offense.
It is wicked for any human being to shut the mouth of
anyone, male or female, who will sound forth a testimony to
the truth in these days of apostasy.
740. I recall an incident which my mother used to
relate, of early days in New York City,¾quite
close to Colonial times. She was, as usual on the Sabbath,
sitting in the old Dutch Church, in a pew with her parents.
The cry “Fire, Fire!” broke into the calm discourse of the
minister, and a large number of men quietly withdrew,
knowing that help was needed, otherwise sacred services
would not have been interrupted. Later, a second cry of
“Fire!” was sounded, and more men withdrew. A third cry
came, and all the men withdrew. At last an urgent cry came,
“Fire, Fire!¾and
if there are no more men the women must come!” Then the
meeting broke up, and all rushed forth to save the whole
city, for it seemed doomed.
741. A very fire of
hell is raging all about us, even though largely
unrecognized, in modern rationalism. Its crudest features
have, perhaps, found expression in Russia; its most
pervasive sulphurous fumes are stifling the youths of our
schools; its most consummately treacherous havoc prevails in
the pulpit. We women have no alternative but to help
extinguish the fire or be scorched by it, and see our
children perish in its flames. Shall we women, at such a
time as this, sit still, and remember our sex? Never!
We will brush aside the opposition of those who can think
only in terms of sex, and go up “to the help of
the Lord against the mighty.” Notes:
[3]
1 John 2:2.
[4]
“The Ravages of Higher Criticism in the Indian
Mission Field,” by W. R. Roberts: Foreword by
Prebendary H. E. Fox. Published by the Protestant
Truth Society, London, price four pence. |