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Nor is Covenant College alone: Dallas Theological Seminary hosts feminist...

by David and Tim Bayly on February 13, 2006 - 6:06pm

The egalitarian/feminist tide inside once-staunch bastions of Biblical Christianity continues to flow. If you're keeping score you can add to Moody, Wheaton, Columbia Bible College, Covenant College and Seminary, and--with the advent of the James family--Reformed Seminary the once-proud bulwark of masculine preaching, Dallas Theological Seminary (DTS).

Undisclosed to the public on the DTS web site was the fact that the speaker for this year's W.H. Griffith Thomas Memorial Lectureship chapel series would be a prominent proponent of egalitarian feminism. Though the lectureship itself was thoroughly celebrated on Dallas's site, the fact that this year's speaker would be feminist theologican Alice Matthews was concealed in public announcements and alumni mailings prior to last week's chapel series.

Despite Matthews's role being hidden from public view, it was clearly announced on campus privately. Here's one such announcement from a campus ezine:

W. H. GRIFFITH THOMAS MEMORIAL LECTURES | February 7-10 Dr. Alice P. Matthews, Distinguished Professor Emerita at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, is the speaker for this series of messages in chapel February 7-10, 2006. Her series title is, "Are Men from Mars and Women from Venus? Some Building Blocks for a Biblical Anthropology of Gender." She will be available to meet with students during the afternoon on February 7-9. Contact Megan O'Bryant in the Academic Dean's Office (214-841-3680, mobryant@dts.edu) to set up an appointment.

Chapel attendance is still mandatory for Dallas students. Do you suppose conscientiously Biblical students who objected to the Matthews sermons were excused from the chapel series?

Do you suppose Dallas will be informing alumni of this lectureship? Perhaps it's a scheduling issue, but I notice there is still no mention of the Matthews series on Dallas's chapel webcast page.

What surprises me most about this is the cowardice of it. The last thing I'd normally accuse Chuck Swindoll of being is a coward. On the positive side, perhaps the fact that they've attempted to hide the offense speaks of a lingering conscience at Dallas.

Tags: 
Evangelicalism
Feminism

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Comments

Submitted by Steve Henderson on February 14, 2006 - 12:53am

DTS alum checking in. I had heard about this before the lectureship, whether in alumni mailings, haven't seen it as something cloaked in secrecy or cowardice. It's not surprising either. The seminary hasn't been at the vanguard of a complementarian perspective. There are a number of areas in which I'd say DTS and others have taken a weak position which ends up harming the church. In the same way, the PCA fallback position "the BCO forbids women elders and pastors" doesn't equip the saints and ends up harming the church.

Keep in mind that these lectures are not always preaching to the choir. Bruce Metzger delivered them many years ago. Others who fall short of confessional standards have done so. Even (gasp!) non-dispensationalists have done so.

Suggestion to you if you want to assist in a solution: contact John Hannah at DTS, get his perspective. He's still connected to the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, so that might have some weight.

As an alumnus I certainly want the seminary to hold fast to a complementarian position. It seems to me that in this issue, unlike others that are matters of interpretation (e.g., eschatology, church polity), Biblical authority may hang in the balance on the outcome, since the "Paul was wrong" notion keeps coming into play. That seems to underlie many of the cultural shifts associated with egalitarianism. Ultimately the suggestion is that Paul was wrong, or if not really "wrong," he needs to be re-interpreted and contextualized, or his trajectories traced so we can live the way we want.

That in itself is a good reason to reject the egalitarian position.

Submitted by Chris Atkins on February 14, 2006 - 3:50am

It's truly remarkable to observe the inevitable left-ward drift in institutions...including our seminaries. Why don't we ever observe an institution becoming more conservative? Or, when we do observe it, why is it the exception and not the rule?

If the PCA, writ large, is going to continue to "fall back" on our BCO position on women's ordination, while simultaneously neglecting our call to shepherd the flock in the Bible's commands about the roles of men and women in the home and in the church, then, friends, it cannot be too long until we jettison the BCO's requirements for ordination. The BCO is based on scripture, and if we reject what scripture says about men and women, then the BCO will eventually follow.

So, the article by Ms. James in ByFaith should be a wake up call to those of us in the PCA who hold to a complementarian view. If that is not enough to convince you, read the comments on the article at the PCA website.

Submitted by Jeffrey on February 14, 2006 - 4:52am

Well said. It saddens me that so many wolves have crept into the fold of the PCA; to the point they do not have to creep anymore. They now just pound their chest with all their "credentials" and proudly walk right through the front door.

To the deafening silence of cowardice.......

Submitted by Fr. Bill on February 14, 2006 - 5:39am

Another DTS alumnus checking in here.

There are two points of interest in what is reported here: (1) the apparent decision to keep the identity and topic of the lectureship hidden from alumni and the general public; and (2) the certain decision to give an egalitarian partisan in the comp-egal controversy a platform in an ostensibly complementarian seminary.

Concerning the first point, ...

I learned of the lectureship while on campus in late January for an ordinary trip to their library (I live only 30 miles away from the campus). Returning to my office, I searched DTS' website for further information, as I found the news incredible. Whether there was anything there or not, I can't say (proving negatives is notoriously difficult). I can testify that I am a very savvy web surfer, and that an hour's searching with a broad-band connection turned up nothing for me.

I contacted my source for verification. This person provided me a copy of a digital document distributed to students and staff announcing the lectureship. This document, I confirmed, is not available to non-staff, non-students, or to alumni.

Draw what conclusions you will about intent to keep this lectureship's speaker and topic low. I tried to learn about it via public avenues and came up empty. I have also checked the latest alumni newsletter which I receive. It does mention that the lectureship is being held February 7-10, but it says nothing about the topic or the speaker.

Concerning the second point, ...

Steve Henderson points out that not all Griffith-Thomas lectureships are "preaching to the choir," and cites Bruce Metzger's lectureship as an example. Metzger did, indeed, deliver the four GT lectures in 1992 on this topic: "Translating the Bible: An Ongoing Task." The titles of his lectures were as follows:

"Important Early Translations of the Bible"
"Theories of the Translation Process"
"Persistent Problems Confronting Bible Translators"
"English Translations of the Bible, Today and Tomorrow"

Now, DTS did not at that time (nor even now, I think) have an institutional dog in the hunt for the best theory and practice of making Bible translations. And Metzger's survey of Bible translation projects past, present, and future did not do much more than give a satisfactorily erudite exposition of this subject for a seminary audience. Whether Metzger subscribed to DTS' doctrinal statement was essentially irrelevant.

It is quite another matter when Alice Matthews gives a lectureship on gender theology to the student body of a school which I supposed (wrongly??) was in the complementarian camp. Steve Henderson claims they are weakly so. I am asking about this of people I know in the faculty. But, even granting that DTS is weakly complementarian, what are they thinking? Might DTS consider asking Roman Catholic apologist David Armstrong to deliver a GT lectureship with the topic "A Biblical Defense of Catholicism?" If not, why not? And whatever reasons are set forth, why do they not apply to Alice Matthews defending egalitarianism?

The point: it is irrelevant that previous GT lectureships have not been delivered by "members of the choir," if this phrase means all those who subscribe in every jot and tittle to DTS' theological standards. It is highly significant when DTS sets before its student body a committed partisan who champions a heterodox theology that is (supposedly) in direct conflict with what DTS tells its supporting public are its convictions on a sharp contemporary controversy.

Submitted by Steve Henderson on February 14, 2006 - 6:08am

Yo, Bill.

Thanks for the update. Agreed on the fact that they wouldn't use the lectureship to present Vatican dogma. And agreed that this lecturer is in a wholly different category than Metzger. My observations only to point out to non alums that the event isn't a premill, dispensational, cessationist, Amyraldian lovefest.

So, yes, it's a big deal when they invite someone like this to speak. If it's intentionally a secret, it's a bigger deal. If there's simultaneously active misrepresentation of DTS as complementarian, then it's even a bigger deal. Since she's speaking about a "Biblical Anthropology of Gender" it could be an even bigger deal. Have to listen to the podcasts if/when they become available.

The lectures will also, naturally, be published in BibliothecaSacra in 2007.

My analysis of a "weak" complementarianism at DTS is based on efforts to energize faculty during the 90s on the issue. Only Elliot Johnson was visible. Wayne House had left. Most others were interested, but not actively engaged. Still others seemed to be quietly moving toward some semi-egalitarian position. "Quietly" is the key word.

Since Alice Mathews has been a visible name around DTS since my time there in the 70s and 80s, I suppose I'm not surprised. Often connected with Haddon Robinson.

While I'm wondering... do you think that the traditionalist listeners to Radio Bible Class (perhaps traditionally more of a lovefest of the aforementioned variety) realize that one of their key teachers embraces an egalitarian position so aggressively? I corresponded with RBC in 1993 about this issue, but got nowhere.

Submitted by Fr. Bill on February 14, 2006 - 8:24am

"While I'm wondering... do you think that the traditionalist listeners to Radio Bible Class ... realize that one of their key teachers embraces an egalitarian position so aggressively?"

Steve, I don't know. I don't listen to RBC. No reason why not, other than that the medium doesn't work for me very well, for anything.

So, in utter ignorance of what this key teacher says, I'd guess (on other data) that the traditionalist listeners don't hear any 800-pound egalitarian gorillas coming through the radio. My reason for guessing also explains what Chris noticed a few comments above: "It's truly remarkable to observe the inevitable left-ward drift in institutions...including our seminaries."

Inevitable is an interesting observation from two angles. First of all, I wrote John Hannah as you suggested (no response, yet) and I blamed you if his email inbox began to fill up (!). And, when I wrote him, I included these words:

"Pertinent to my interests here is something I find in my notes from a class I took from you sometime in the '70s, namely that the orthodoxy of seminaries typically lasts 50 years before they go off the reservation theologically. Interestingly, my wife (who took an MABS about seven years later) also took a course from you, and she has the same notion in her notes from your class. These come to mind as I look at Alice Matthews getting a Griffith-Thomas lectureship and note that DTS is now 82 years old."

Second, while it is rare, it is not unheard of for seminaries to be "reclaimed" from the ravages of whatever the current wind of doctrine is blowing out of their formerly orthodox windows. I was just entering DTS when the Missouri Synod Lutherans cleaned house at Concorida Seminary in St. Louis. And, the 90s saw the Southern Baptists begin the tedious but critical redemption of their church (and, in some cases, such as Southeastern Baptist Seminary under Albert Mohler) their seminaries.

Not all can be reclaimed, of course. But if the PCA has men of the caliber of Preus (Lutheran) or Paige Patterson (SBC), they might just succeed in keeping their seminaries within the bounds of orthodoxy. May God be pleased to raise up such men, to strengthen their efforts, and to confirm the work of their hands.

DTS, as an independent seminary accountable to no ecclesial structure at all, is far less subject to redemption when it wanders off the reservation.

Fr. B.

Submitted by Valerie (Kyriosity) on February 14, 2006 - 9:04am

Bill -- just a small correction: Al Mohler is at Southern, not Southeastern. The SBC has very creative seminary names, eh? ;-)

Submitted by Fr. Bill on February 14, 2006 - 9:38am

Thanks for the correction, Valerie.

Whatever the school was named, Brother Mohler had the mixed blessing of being God's man to do the janitorial service there. Truly a case of the one who is first getting the tasks no one would wish to have.

This is why those who are grateful for the PCA, including folks like me who are outside it, pray that God will bless them with their own versions of Mohler, Patterson, and Preus.

Fr. B

Submitted by Valerie (Kyriosity) on February 14, 2006 - 1:17pm

Absotively, Bill. Didn't mean to detract at all from your point!

Here's a confession: I had applied to and was accepted at Southern in 1989 or '90. I am so glad the Lord prevented me from pursuing those plans, and eventually deeply changed my thinking about men's and women's roles.

Submitted by Phil on April 6, 2006 - 5:07pm

Here is the list of speakers through the years, it is a pretty strong list.

W. H. Griffi th Thomas Lecturers
1926 Henry Allen Ironside, Litt.D., D.D.
"The Mysteries of God"
1927 Leander Sylvester Keyser, M.A., D.D.
"Miscellaneous Themes"
1928 Archibald Thomas Robertson, D.D., L.L.D., Litt.D.
"Paul and the Intellectuals"
1929 Thornton Whaling, D.D., L.L.D., Litt.D.
"The Truth in Jesus"
1930 Melvin Grove Kyle, D.D., L.L.D.
"Archaeological Themes"
1931 James Oliver Buswell, M.A., B.D., D.D., L.L.D.
"The Authority of the Bible"
1932 Henry Allen Ironside, Litt.D., D.D.
"Prophecies Related to Israel, the Church, and the Nations"
1933 Norman Baldwin Harrison, B.D., D.D.
"Personality, the Key to the Scriptures"
1934 Walter F. Macmillan
"Samson, the Judge of Israel"
1935 Carl Armerding, D.D.
"The Holy Spirit in the Old Testament"
1937 Arie Van der Hor
"The Reformation in the Netherlands"
1941 Victor Raymond Edman, Ph.D.
"The Political Theory of the Scriptures"
1943 Samuel Marinus Zwemer, D.D., L.L.D., Litt.D.
"Apostolic Missionary Principles"
1944 Frank E. Gaebelein, Litt.D., D.D.
"The Christian Use of the Bible"
1945 Henry Allen Ironside, Litt.D., D.D.
"The World Outlook According to Scripture"
1946 Charles Theodore Fritsch, Ph.D.
"Biblical Typology"
1947 Harold John Ockenga, Ph.D., Litt.D., Hum.D.
"A Modern Reevaluation of Catholicism"
1948 Peder Stiansen, Th.M., Ph.D.
"Late Medieval Church Reform"
1949 Charles Ferguson Ball, Th.D.
"The Work of the Ministry"
1950 Ren Pache, Docteur en Droit
"Ecumenicity"
1951 Allan A. MacRae, Ph.D.
"The Scientific Approach to the Old Testament"
1952 Frank E. Gaebelein, Litt.D., D.D.
"The Pattern of God's Truth: Problems of Integration in
Christian Education"
1953 Charles L. Feinberg, Th.D., Ph.D
"The Old Testament in Jewish Life and Thought"
1954 Alva J. McClain, Th.M., D.D., L.L.D.
"The Greatness of the Kingdom"
1955 Joseph P. Free, Ph.D.
"Archaeology and Biblical Criticism"
1956 Kenneth L. Pike, Ph.D.
"Language and Life"
1957 Kenneth L. Kantzer, Ph.D.
"Revelation and Inspiration in Neoorthodox Theology"
1958 Everett F. Harrison, Th.D., Ph.D.
"The Fourth Gospel in Relation to the Synoptics"
1959 Donald P. Hustad, D.M.
"A Spiritual Ministry of Music"
1960 Herbert S. Mekeel, D.D.
"The Evangelical Trend in American Christianity"
1961 Luther L. Grubb, D.D.
"The Genius of Church Extension"
1962 Merrill C. Tenney, Ph.D.
"Literary Keys to the Fourth Gospel"
1963 Edward J. Young, Ph.D.
"The Verbal Plenary Inspiration of the Scriptures"
1964 Clyde W. Taylor, M.A., D.D., L.L.D.
"The Christian in World Affairs"
1965 Carl F. H. Henry, Th.D., Ph.D., L.L.D.
"Christian Thrust at the Modern Frontiers"
1966 William Ward Ayer, D.D.
"The Art of Effective Preaching"
1967 Henry M. Morris, Ph.D.
"Biblical Cosmology and Modern Science"
1968 Frank C. Peters, Ph.D.
"The Evangelical Pastor as Counselor"
1969 Gleason L. Archer Jr., Ph.D.
"The History of Israel in the Light of
Recent Archaeology"
1970 Francis A. Schaeffer, B.A., B.D., D.D.
"He Is There and He Is Not Silent"
1971 James I. Packer, D.Phil.
"The Way of Salvation"
1972 Philip Edgcumbe Hughes, Th.D.,
Litt.D.
"The Blood of Jesus and His Heavenly
Priesthood in the Epistle to the Hebrews"
1973 Jay Edward Adams, Ph.D.
"The Use of the Scriptures in Counseling"
1974 E. Basil Jackson, Th.M., Litt.D.
"Psychology, Psychiatry, and the Pastor"
1975 John H. Gerstner, Th.M., Ph.D.
"An Outline of the Apologetics of
Jonathan Edwards"
1976 John C. Whitcomb Jr., B.A., Th.D.
"Contemporary Apologetics and the
Christian Faith"
1977 Kenneth O. Gangel, S.T.M., Ph.D., Litt.D.
"Christian Higher Education at the End of the
Twentieth-Century"
1978 George W. Peters, B.D., Ph.D.
"Perspectives on the Church's Mission"
1979 Edwin M. Yamauchi, Ph.D.
"Archaeological Backgrounds of the Exilic and
Postexilic Era"
1980 Raymond C. Ortlund, B.A., B.D., D.D.
"A Biblical Philosophy of Ministry"
1981 Ted W. Ward, B.M.E., Ed.D.
"Metaphors of Spiritual Reality"
1982 Peter Toon, M.Th., D.Phil.
"Historical Perspectives on the Doctrine of
Christ's Ascension"
1983 F. F. Bruce, F.B.A., D.D.
"Colossian Problems"
1984 John D. Woodbridge, M.Div., Ph.D.
"Recent Interpretations of Biblical Authority"
1985 D. Bruce Lockerbie, M.A., Litt.D.
"Thinking like a Christian"
1986 David F. Wells, Th.M., Ph.D.
"The Debate over the Atonement in
Nineteenth-Century America"
1987 John R. W. Stott, M.A., D.D.
"Christian Ministry in the Twenty-first-Century"
1988 R. K. Harrison, M.Th., Ph.D., D.D.
"The Pastor's Use of the Old Testament"
1989 Leland Ryken, B.A., Ph.D.
"The Bible as Literature"
1990 R. C. Sproul, B.A., B.D., Ph.D., Litt.D.
"Christ as the Son of God and the Messiah"
1992 Bruce M. Metzger, B.D., Ph.D.
"Translating the Bible--An Ongoing Process"
1993 Leith C. Anderson, M.Div., D.Min.
"The Church in a Changing Culture"
1994 Millard J. Erickson, M.A., Ph.D.
"Salvation and the Unevangelized"
1995 Ronald B. Allen, B.A., Th.M., Th.D.
"On Less-Travelled Paths"
1996 Em Griffin, M.A., Ph.D.
"New Metaphors for Ministry"
1997 Alister McGrath, M.A., D.Phil., B.D.
"Biblical Models for Apologetics"
1998 Donald A. Carson, B.S., M.Div., Ph.D.
"The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God"
1999 Howard G. Hendricks, B.A., Th.M., D.D.
"Living on the Edge of Eternity: A Conversation
on Aging"
2001 I. Howard Marshall, Ph.D., D.D.
"Great Nasty Words of the New Testament"
2002 David F. Wright, M.A., D.D.
"The Making of the Early Christians"
2003 Sidney Greidanus, A.B., B.D., Th.D.
"Preaching Christ from the Genesis Narratives"
2004 Daniel I. Block, B.Ed., M.A., D. Phil.
"The Gospel According to Moses"

Submitted by bob topartzer on April 10, 2006 - 10:32am

Just received the "Connections" magazine from Biola University. Big article on the Feminizing of the church. Men are abandoning church. Services appealing to Women more than men. One part had the subject of "Girly-Man Pastors." Maybe there are also Girly-Man Seminary and college administrators (no courage for truth).

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