Women’s Work?
Split Image, by Anne Atkins (Eerdmans, 256 pp.; $8.95, paper); Neither Slave nor Free, by Patricia Gundry (Harper & Row, 150 pp.; $13.95, hardcover); and A Cord of Three Strands, by Linda Raney Wright (Revell, 256 pp.; $10.95, hardcover). Reviewed by Phyllis E. Alsdurf, former editor of Family Life Today, and coauthor with her husband, Jim, a forensic psychologist, of a forthcoming book on wife abuse in Christian homes.
“Keep clear of all jargons about men’s and women’s work and go straight to God’s work in simplicity of heart,” Florence Nightingale is paraphrased as saying. And getting on to “God’s work” is the abiding passion of these three authors, each committed to seeing women’s gifts unleashed for the work of ministry.
British author Anne Atkins builds a convincing case for her contention that it is in the area of work that male and female were most created to be together. “Eve was not primarily created to be the man’s friend or lover. First and foremost she was his colleague; his ‘helper’, not his sweetheart. So segregation at work is the most serious form of segregation.”
By limiting men and women to different spheres of work—women to home and men to the world of business—both areas become impoverished, she says. “Governments run along masculine lines. Homes are dominated by femininity. Business standards conform to men’s ideas. Children are moulded and shaped by women.”
An actress and wife of an Anglican minister, Atkins examines three areas of work—breadwinning, homemaking, and child rearing—and she concludes that “the Bible does not suggest different work for the sexes.… We play our respective parts by doing the same work in different ways.”
With regard to women’s work within the church, Atkins takes a fresh look at difficult passages like 1 Timothy 2:11–15. (The heart of Paul’s message, she says, is “let a woman learn.” Paul sees Eve’s deception as the “inevitable result of ignorance.… The solution is obvious. Let women learn.”) And she concludes that “there is no part of a church leader’s work which, on theological grounds, a woman cannot do. We find God commissioning women to rule, judge, command, proclaim His will, correct, reprove, teach and train. It is hard to see what is left out.”
Calling for more shared leadership within the church, Atkins questions the very concept of ordination. “Instead of ordaining women,” she observes, “perhaps we should question the ordination of men.”
Atkins makes a compelling argument for her thesis that the Bible teaches the full equality of men and women. The sexes are different, equal, and to be interdependent, she claims. Examining those differences, Atkins concludes that “sexual distinctions, like racial ones, do not mean we should discriminate. They do not indicate that we should behave or be treated differently in any way.” Rather, they mean “we need one another.”
Finally, Atkins chides the church for its apathy toward sexism and its reactionary distortion of the secular feminist movement. Reasonable and biblical though her presentation may be, she will no doubt alienate some with her conclusion that Christians should support the feminist cause. “We are in agreement over the aim [sexual equality];” she says, “we must encourage a godly pursuit of it. Christians have a vital contribution to make to feminism. The fundamental principle is biblical. It is only Christians who will make the out-workings of it biblical too.”
Reinventing The Church
Labeling herself “an optimistic realist,” author Patricia Gundry offers a hope-filled perspective for those committed to the full participation of women within the church. “Wonderful progress” has been made in the move toward equalizing opportunities for women in the church, she says. “What we are trying to do is keep the body that is the Church healthy and whole—to make it more whole than it has been since the first century. We want to restore its female components, not because they are female, but because they are people.”
Having laid out her arguments for women’s equality in previous books, Gundry here focuses on the process of change. Neither Slave nor Free is a handbook for change making written by one who is a firm believer in the progress of events. And the steps she outlines for instituting change have been drawn from her own, often painful, experience as a spokesperson for Christian feminism.
Speaking frankly about her husband’s firing from the faculty of Moody Bible Institute because of her stand on women’s rights, Gundry discusses techniques for reducing stress, learning from one’s pain, and using anger in a positive manner. The book, more pragmatic than philosophical, includes chapters on specific methods for communicating with those who wield the power and strategies for implementing change personally, relationally, and institutionally.
In a chapter addressed “to the church hierarchy,” Gundry speaks to leaders who want to change and makes some predictions about those who do not: “Not only do men and women leave sexist and repressive atmospheres, taking their gifts and resources with them, but the omission of the ministry of women impoverishes any church or organization in which they cannot fully contribute.”
And if the institutional church persists in denying avenues of ministry to women? “Why not circumvent the obstacles entirely and re-invent the Church along more vital, even more biblical lines?” challenges Gundry. Perhaps, she conjectures, Christian feminists will end up like Martin Luther, who set out only to institute a few reforms but was forced to leave the Roman Catholic Church altogether.
“If we are the church we do not need permission to minister,” she claims. “We will be doing all the things you can do in the pulpit, doing them long and well, before we can all officially stand there.”
An Unbeatable Combination
Perhaps one important sign of the kind of progress that Gundry assumes is evidenced in the publication of A Cord of Three Strands. The author, a long-term staff member of Campus Crusade for Christ, uses examples from within conservative ranks—women like Vonette Bright, Evelyn Christenson, and Ruth Graham—to support her conviction that mutuality, rather than hierarchy, is the biblical model for marriage and ministry.
Clearly, she says, the “go ye” of the Great Commission includes women as well as men. “In this first and foremost overview of God’s plan for evangelism and discipleship in the New Testament, the command is for all. Women would be among those who are made disciples, baptized, preached to, and taught—and among those who would, in turn, make disciples, baptize, preach, and teach.”
Man, woman, and God are “an unbeatable combination,” she says, “a cord of three strands” that will not easily be broken. Thus, the important issue in marriage is not one of proper roles but of how husband and wife together and under God’s authority can help reach the world for Christ.
A mature Christian marriage, Wright asserts, is the fruit of individual spiritual maturity on the part of both parties. “There are no shortcuts. There have only appeared to be some shortcuts, in the form of rules and roles.”
Wright responsibly considers the various problematic passages with respect to women’s roles, noting that from the Old Testament to the New “the thread between men and women is distinctly one of commonality, not difference.”
Examining the biblical grounds upon which women have been denied access to leadership positions within the church, Wright concludes that for the monumental task of world evangelism, “we need every Christian working at full capacity. We need to be free of unbiblical restrictions.”
With common sense and an abundance of real-life anecdotes, Wright separates the cultural and biblical messages on women’s roles in such a way that even the more conservative forces within the evangelical world should sit up and take notice.
Fine-Tuning The Faith Message
The Health and Wealth Gospel, by Bruce Barron (InterVarsity Press, 204 pp.; $6.95, paper). Reviewed by John A. Baird, Jr., vice-president, Eastern College, St. Davids, Pennsylvania.
“Hermeneutics, unlike algebra, offers no scientifically verifiable set of right and wrong answers,” writes Bruce Barron in the appendix that concludes this surprising book about the controversial Faith movement—a movement that proclaims divine healing, prosperity, and “positive confession.” The emphasis from the book’s ending is evident from the start of this ten-chapter volume, as a thoughtful Presbyterian charismatic claims the middle ground between unabashed supporters and hostile detractors of Faith teachers who have shaped the belief of millions.
Barron takes a moderate approach, using words such as balance, compassion, good and bad. Yet he never flinches from forthright talk about the extremes of this interdenominational emphasis of Pentecostal origin. The reader discovers an early test of convert allegiance forced those with poor eyesight to throw away their glasses. Then come the frightful facts of more than 90 early deaths among the members of one group, and the revelation that one Faith leader could not escape a withered leg and even contributed to the death of his infant grandson.
The author pays particular attention to five radio and television ministries from Arkansas, California, and Texas. He describes the deeds and the doctrines of Kenneth Hagin, Kenneth and Gloria Copeland, Charles Capps, Jerry Savelle, and Fred Price. Hagin, as the Faith movement’s “central figure,” receives the closest scrutiny and the highest marks.
Many Christians completely reject the movement, but Barron is not among them. He notes the superficial and subjective Bible use, but he applauds a stress on the Word, recognition of Satan’s existence, and the evangelists’ desire to increase their listeners’ faith.
The book builds toward a powerful close with advocacy for “fine-tuning” the triple gospel of healing, prosperity, and “positive confession” to balance the extravagant claims of the Faith teachers with the realities of life through careful and thorough Scripture study. The author urges those outside the movement to realize its members include nonextremists, and to encourage these moderates to repudiate the “abuses that discredit Christianity.”
With openness on both sides, the Faith movement, Barron believes, may shed its shortcomings and “energize the whole of Christian experience.” Highly recommended.
Moralism Versus Realism
Christian Ethics and U.S. Foreign Policy, by Mark R. Amstutz (Zondervan, 192 pp.; $12.95, paper). Reviewed by W. Scott Harrop, a political scientist at Houghton College in New York.
Mark Amstutz, professor of political science at Wheaton College (Ill.), ambitiously hopes this general audience book will “encourage a more informed and circumspect Christian witness in the American foreign policy arena.” Amstutz thus endeavors to construct a framework for integrating biblical faith with dispassionate analysis of particular problems of international politics.
The book notably meets two challenges. First, Professor Amstutz gently corrects numerous “heart of fire” moralisms that have been masquerading as wisdom among far too many Christian foreign policy activists. Second, the book instills appreciation for the enormous complexities of foreign policy while remaining accessible to the thoughtful Christian citizen.
In arguing for the possibility of a “Christian” foreign policy, Amstutz sees no merit in contriving rigid biblical ethics for statesmen to follow in lock step. Instead, Amstutz focuses on interaction between faith and the fallen world as it is, between the possibilities of vision and the limiting lessons of experience. The call to work for the day when lion lies down with lamb is conditioned by the reality that lambs are still being shorn by the universal implications of sin.
This merging of idealism and realism underlies the opening case for “Christian realism.” Readers should particularly ponder the extensive quotations, delightfully drawn from the best of twentieth-century Christian realists such as Reinhold Niebuhr, Kenneth Thompson, and Herbert Butterfield. Amstutz’s synthesis acknowledges that states unavoidably struggle for legitimate national security interests, in light of moral claims emanating from within and among states. Power and morality thus provide dual compass bearings by which to steer the ship of state.
In the quest for guidance from moral norms, Amstutz appropriately warns against the perils of moralism, self-righteousness, cynicism, and of neglecting consequences. The moralist, for example, denies the persistent ambiguity of moral choices. “The advocate of peace at any price or the defender of free enterprise who refuses to recognize the public responsibilities for the poor … exemplify such moralism.”
Key Dilemmas
The book proceeds to introduce key dilemmas surrounding such ethical aims as advancing justice and human rights, reducing “Third World” poverty, and promoting peace. In all cases, the United States is cautiously depicted as a potential force for good. On the subject of uneven world development, Amstutz disputes the argument that a biblical foreign policy must “side with the poor” by denying God’s adherence to Marxian class preference. Amstutz likewise does not condemn international trade as an inherently exploitative process. Instead, underdevelopment is viewed more as a state of mind, and foreign aid that promotes greater prosperity is preferred over the mere redistribution of misery.
As for human rights and justice, Amstutz is content to work within the existing anarchical state system, more in skepticism of proposed alternatives than in admiration for the status of international law. Such law is depicted as in need of clearer priorities among human rights—the “right” to a paid vacation not included. Amstutz’s helpful discussion on advancing key rights can be improved by a clearer focus on the link between power and morality. As insular Americans perpetually relearn, moral pronouncement without backing is impotent; force without attention to moral sensibilities is self-defeating.
The weakest section of the book considers the “promotion of peace.” Amstutz considers only the issue of preventing nuclear annihilation, leaving little guidance on painfully contemporary conflict issues such as the ethics of covert action, guerrilla warfare, terrorism, and passage on the high seas. As for the nuclear question, Amstutz advocates a restabilized policy of mutual nuclear deterrence, albeit at lower levels. A fair assessment of the rationale for a “strategic defense” is unfortunately lacking, and no mention is made of Soviet exploitation of technological changes at the height of détente. The complaint is not about Amstutz’s position, but about his narrow argumentation.
Such reservations aside, Christian Ethics and U.S. Foreign Policy is highly commended as a continuing step toward improving evangelical competence in the foreign policy arena. Prudently constructed, Christian ethics can contribute the salt and leaven that illuminate, prod, and refine conceptions of national interests.
