A vibrant, new, affirming, eloquent, and passionate voice...
(Tim) Troubled by a February 1 piece published by Carolyn Custis James in one of Christianity Today Inc.'s forums, a reader writes:
(In this article, Ms. Custis James) speaks of women finding their "voice" in the church, comparing us to Hillary Clinton and quoting statements such as: "It meant Boaz, through Ruth's leadership, discovered a whole new ever-expanding realm of obedience to God." This causes me concern, as I am not sure where such statements come from.
Titled "When a Woman Finds Her Voice," Ms. Custis James' article is 672 words. Her bio is 100 words. Think about it: One hundred words to tell the world who you are. Her bio's one eighth of her article. I'm assuming readers know evangelical stars write their own ad copy, so picture Ms. Custis James deciding to say this about herself, publicly:
Carolyn Custis James ...is a vibrant new voice with a biblical and affirming message for women. Her vision is eloquently and passionately articulated in her books...
Is there even one reader who would write this about himself, sending in ad copy that puffed his own words as "vibrant" or "eloquent?"
I thought not.
Taking Senator Hillary Clinton as her role model, Ms. Custis James quotes Sen. Clinton saying to her constituents, "Over the last week I listened to you; in the process, I found my own voice.” Ms. Custis James reports she is "personally fascinated" by Sen. Clinton's newfound voice, but also that she herself is "troubled by the notion that it is actually possible for us, like Hillary, to do a lot of speaking, teaching, writing, communicating, not of politics, but of the gospel (sic) without finding and employing our own voices."
Since, like all the other evangelical luminaries, Ms. Custis James is out there hawking her wares, readers must continue to be warned against Ms. Custis James' product while those in authority must consider our failure to expose such self-promotion and rebellion against Scripture. How is it that Ms. Custis James continues to grab for herself such a wide forum within the conservative reformed church?
Is it really the case that Ms. Custis James is in danger of not "finding and employing her voice?" This question reminds me of the many Sundays I sat in worship during my childhood years listening to a solo by a woman who thought she had a voice, but didn't. Her vibrato was wide enough to drive a Mack truck through--and flat, to boot. It was horrid, our church was filled with musicians including some from the Wheaton Conservatory, but the congregation continued to be subjected to this woman's voice year after year. Sunday morning corporate worship was held hostage to one woman's ego, and no one had the guts to yank her off the stage.
Back a few years, Elisabeth Elliot Gren wrote that "the evangelical church is filled with a bunch of emasculated men who can't say 'No' to a woman." How true.
So where on earth did Ms. Custis James come up with the notion that she was in danger of not finding or using her voice? To the man holding a hammer, everything looks like a nail. And to Ms. Custis James, everything looks like another opportunity to fill the world with women's voices--particularly her own.
It would be an interesting exercise to rewrite the New Testament exhortations to women in a way that brought them into comformity with what Ms. Custis James claims are the true biblical priorities for women. For instance, 1Timothy 5:9,10 might look like this:
A widow is to be put on the list only if she is not less than sixty years old, having been the wife of one husband, having a reputation for good words; and if she has led other women to find their voices, too; if she has been willing to forsake her kitchen and the mundane work of cooking, cleaning, and washing feet for the more needed work of calling women out of such bondage, to speak to the church an affirming message for women, with a new, vibrant, eloquent, and passionate voice. (NOT 1 Timothy 5:9,10)
Ms. Custis James wants women who will give themselves to "tapping into the rich perspectives God has given us as women or drawing out of our personal histories with God."
Tap into? Rich perspectives? Drawing out personal histories? With God? What's needed here is a Scriptural example, and Ms. Custis James has one for us.
Ruth the Moabitess is "a woman who found her voice" and "her 'own voice' emerges out of her richly complex perspective." "(A)nd in using her own voice (Ruth) becomes a powerful agent for change in Israel."
Then this:
(Ruth's) words reach the ears of Boaz, a man who knows how to listen. He listens to this new voice—this female (and) foreign voice that dares to reinterpret Jewish law. ...Boaz, through Ruth’s leadership, discovered a whole new ever-expanding realm of obedience to God.
It's possible I'm wrong, but this appears to me to be nothing other than an elitist power grab based upon the remaking of every woman of Scripture into a rich, educated American feminist who thinks submitting to her husband, raising her children, and being silent in the church are relics of the past.
It's bad enough that Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia, Campus Crusade, Christianity Today, Reformed Seminary in Orlando, Covenant College, and a host of others are providing Ms. Custis James her bully pulpits. But it's even worse when one stops to consider all the churches around the country that invite this woman's rebellion into their womens ministries Bible studies, allowing this toxin to poison the sheep under their care.
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Comments
Pr. Tim,
I went to the CT forum, following the link you provided. I notice that the comment you quote is no longer there. What follows James' flummery is a long line of comments, only one of which might be construed as faintly critical. It was posted today. I wonder how long it will last.
This stuff is apallingly bad. Madison Avenue couldn't possibly surpass this for slickness, for perverseness, for turning God's Word upside down and inside out.
But, even more apalling is the free rein (soon to be a free reign?) James has to push this propoganda within the PCA. It sounds like what I'm used to reading from egalitarians within the PCUSA, or the Methodist Church, or the Episcopal Church. Can no one detect the reek of sulphur?
>But, even more apalling is the free rein (soon to be a free reign?) James has to push this propoganda within the PCA. It sounds like what I'm used to reading from egalitarians within the PCUSA, or the Methodist Church, or the Episcopal Church. Can no one detect the reek of sulphur?
No, they're too obsessed with Doug Wilson...
Fr. Bill said, "This stuff is apallingly bad"
I'm not sure which is worst - Mrs. James's tripe or the haggis-comments which follow.
Kamilla
Article:
(In this article, Ms. Custis James) speaks of women finding their "voice" in the church, comparing us to Hillary Clinton and quoting statements such as: "It meant Boaz, through Ruth's leadership, discovered a whole new ever-expanding realm of obedience to God." This causes me concern, as I am not sure where such statements come from.>>>>
Doesn't she know that Boaz is a picture of Christ, our Kinsman Redeemer? It seems to me that these she-wolves are getting more bold in their denial of the Lordship of Christ.
Jesus is their real Enemy, and they mean to bring Him down. Well, these easily deceived females - whether they are of the male gender or female, or whatever - have really become the voice of Satan. Who needs snakes anymore when the enemy has empowered females to do his bidding?
Has anyone noticed this article appears as part of "Gifted for Leadership: A Community of Christian Women"?
Kamilla
Well, not to get off topic too much, has anyone read the "TransgenderMoment" in the February edition of CT? It's under the header of ethics... or at least that's what's on page 54 in the middle of the page. I'm only saying this because way back we use to have someone on the old Complementarian List that David moderated who worked at CT... wonder if there's still anyone who has a complementarian thought in that magazine, or who views Biblical Manhood and womanhood as being taught in Scripture?
I'm certainly disturbed by both Carolyn Curtis James and Mr. now Ms? Nemecek, who was a Baptist Pastor for two decades? But I'm more disturbed by the publishing house CT, as it seeks to do what with the Christian Community that it writes to?
How did we get to this place in Church History?
Dear Ralph:
The first step is to go back to the Fundamentalist-Modernist debate in the early part of the 20th century. We lost.
Fundamentalists came out of the loss licking their wounds but determined to go on. They formed new denominations, new associations, new mission organizations, new Bible camps, new magazines, new radio programs, new Bible schools and seminaries for training pastors and missionaries.
Some of the young people brought up in this mixture grew up and got advanced degrees from leading secular universities. They moved away from Fundamentalism and formed what became the evangelical coalition. They were determined to hold to Fundamentalist doctrine (especially inerrancy) but to leave behind all the bad stuff (the mistrust, the separatism, the anti-intellectualism, etc.).
That coalition grew and grew and grew without anyone noticing in the wider world until Jimmy Carter burst on the scene in the mid-70s and started calling himself "born-again" as he ran for president. Chuck Colson was converted around this time and wrote a biography with that title. This sent secular journalists to their dictionaries and contacts: what's a born-again?
Since then, the evangelical coalition has gotten bigger and bigger and more and more "influential".
But all has not been well in Zion for some time. Some of the same issues that split Protestant Christianity in the late 1800s and early 1900s are now splitting the evangelical movement. The surface issues are sometimes a little different but the underlying issues are the same.
That's a good way to start trying to understand what is happening today.
I am glad that you men and women are sounding the alarm, and are not allowing this to go totally unnoticed. I praise God for you. It just upsets me and wants to make me cry like a girl to see this kind of thing going on - and no one dare stand up to it.
Imagine how women are treated for joining the "dark side" of patriarchy, even Biblical patriarchy as you guys so carefully and beautifully define it.
This may not be appropriate, but I know that some from that group read your blog, and comment on it - but usually on other people's blogs, and usually extremely negative. If someone dares to read this blog and be encouraged or enlightened, they are shouted down pretty fast. I know by experience...
I am talking about some who have done a decent job of exposing some of the errors of Gothardism, especially as it has developed through the years. One of these men even wrote a book critiquing those errors. However, I have NEVER seen these same good folks even say one, word of criticism or warning against the very real dangers of religious feminism.
Their silence on this issue is deafening, and quite disturbing, frankly. They are not silent in seeking to shout down anyone who dares to speak out about the feminist errors. Why do they NEVER say even ONE WORD against these blatant heresies? I don't get it, does anyone else?
They say that they are against extremes, Scripture twisting, man-centered theology, and teachings that would damage the flock of God. Well, I'd say that Ms. James has certainly crossed a line in there somewhere and deserves a bit of attention. One post? One blog article? One word even? How about it?
David,
I'd focus your analysis this way:
1. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Protestantism's leadership was captivated by two concepts: Darwinian evolution (including its counterpart in the shift in geology from catastrophism to uniformitarianism), and the so-called "higher criticism" of Biblical texts. Without these two ideas capturing the hearts of Protestantism's leadership, particularly in its seminaries, the modernists would never have appeared within the walls of the Church.
2. Your outline of Fundamentalist efforts to re-invent its lost intitutions (particularly its seminaries, publishing houses, and mission agencies), is spot on.
It is critical to understand the beginnings of modern evangelicalism as a reaction against the combativeness and insularity of second and third generation fundamentalists. The original evangelicals (Henry, Okenga, et al.) knew exactly what they were doing and why they were doing it.
I agree that the appearance of Jimmy Carter and Chuck Colson provoked the mainstream media to take notice of what they formerly had ignored. However, I do not agree, if you're suggesting that the new attention from the media was the major influence in corrupting evangelicalism and turning it into the religious Circ du Soliel common across the land on Sunday morning.
Evangelical Protestantism in the second half of the 20th century fell in exactly the same way that Protestantism fell in the second half of the 19th Century: its heart was captured by world dominating ideas that are fundamentally anti-Biblical and hostile to the gospel. In the 19th Century it was Darwinism and the zenith of post-Renaissance rationalistic hubris. In the second half of the 20th Century it was sexual egalitarianism and the zenith of modernist individualism.
The beachhead in both defeats is found in the seminaries. Soon after these were well-infected, the contagion spread to the publishing houses and denominational and mission agencies. That is why Grudem's recent book catalogs so completely the capitulation of American evangelicalism's institutions to the egalitarian cause. That is why modern evangelicals virtually identify evangelism with modern marketing techniques aimed at consumers of religious products and services.
And, this is why I am so pessimistic about the near-term prospects of the PCA, from what I read here about what goes on in its training institutions which are filled with the pastors and mission executives who will take their place and assert their agenda within the next decade.
The rot was already well planted at Dallas Seminary back in the early 70s when I enrolled there, at least four or five years before anyone ever heard of Jimmy Carter outside of Georgia.
So, history in American Protestantism is repeating itself. Today's patriarchalists face what the original Fundamentalists faced: the loss of their religious institutions to the spirit of the age, while they are escorted outside to take up another program of rebuilding what they have lost for the second time in a mere 100 years.
Dear Bill:
"In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Protestantism's leadership was captivated by ... Darwinian evolution ... and the so-called "higher criticism" of Biblical texts."
Exactly. Evolution and Higher Criticism.
"However, I do not agree, if you're suggesting that the new attention from the media was the major influence in corrupting evangelicalism ..."
Didn't mean to imply that the media attention was the major factor. It did help corrupt us, but it wasn't the major influence.
"Evangelical Protestantism in the second half of the 20th century fell in exactly the same way that Protestantism fell in the second half of the 19th Century: its heart was captured by world dominating ideas that are fundamentally anti-Biblical and hostile to the gospel. In the 19th Century it was Darwinism and the zenith of post-Renaissance rationalistic hubris. In the second half of the 20th Century it was sexual egalitarianism and the zenith of modernist individualism."
Exactly. Well said.
"So, history in American Protestantism is repeating itself. Today's patriarchalists face what the original Fundamentalists faced: the loss of their religious institutions to the spirit of the age, while they are escorted outside to take up another program of rebuilding what they have lost for the second time in a mere 100 years."
Precisely.
To Fr Bill - it's worth remembering that in one respect the Southern Fundamentalists screwed up as well: and that was in race relations. During the 1960s they were slow to recognise their cultural prejudices to do with race relations were just that, prejudices; but it has left them with a situation where they have almost no reach into the African-American community. I remember talking to someone from a Fundamentalist listserv to pick him up on this and his reply was, "sadly, we're pretty white".
I suspect though, that any look into church history will show the constant battle not to succumb to the spirit of the age. Once upon a time, it was acceptable for Christians to burn Unitarians at the stake, or behead others because the people didn't agree with infant baptism. In either case this reflected the spirit of the age, although not the problems with the seminaries that we have been concerned with in this thread.
So, while feminism is the enemy at the moment, other generations have had to fight higher criticism, slavery, Catholicism ... take your pick. It just seems to be 'the nature of the beast'.
>To Fr Bill - it's worth remembering that in one respect the Southern Fundamentalists screwed up as well: and that was in race relations.
Of course lots of fundamentalists weren't southerners.
Ross,
Were you entirely correct in your surmises, liberal Protestantism would not be as white as you claim for conservative/fundamentlist versions of the faith. But, Protestant Christendom -- fundamentalist, evangelical, or liberal -- all are "pretty white."
I see this every month in the local meeting of pastors in our small North Texas town: black pastors present at about 25 percent of pastors attending. However, they represent only about a third of the black pastors in our community, who mostly excoriate them for conniving with whitey by attending the meetings.
I should add that these meetings were inaugurated about a year ago at the behest of one white pastor and two black pastors! Once the invitations to gather monthly went out, some black pastors began attending, but far more white pastors did. In this case, the racial mix is purely the result of self-selection.
Whatever is going on here, it is not confined to the fundamentalists or evangelicals. The liberals, and the black leadership generally, appear to be invested in the racial status quo, though likely for differing reasons.
Meanwhile, the Egalitarian Captivity of Christendom has taken blacks and whites alike into its grip. Indeed, the black community generally across the land is a de facto matriarchy, a situation that white evangelicals are beginning to mimick, largely for the same reasons that this obtains among blacks: the disappearance of marriage, the absence of men in the engines of culture, and the emergence of women as leaders in home, church, and society.
David, speaking as a fundamentalist myself, it's sadly true that racism isn't just in Dixie, and never was, and that northern fundamentalists have nearly as big a problem as the southern variety.
Thankfully, I think that's changing as we learn. I'm seeing a lot more black & hispanic people in my church in Minnesota, and we've got a strong contingent of asians. Praise God for that!
And to the original topic; well, it sadly does not surprise me that "evangelical" feminists would distort the Word for their own purposes. I was a member of a church torn apart by them--was not pretty to find out that a body I thought followed the Word was so willing to compromise on it.
I'm amazed anyone was taken in by the pure *cant* of Clinton claiming she "found her own voice" finally (after 32 years of public service! and a senate campaign!)
David and Fr. Bill, enjoyed your comments, and say... you're talking to the choir, and I totally agree with the assessments.
Ross wrote:"So, while feminism is the enemy at the moment, other generations have had to fight higher criticism, slavery, Catholicism ... take your pick. It just seems to be 'the nature of the beast'."
That is somewhat true, but often feminism within the church is more of a smoke-screen to something that's more internally wrong. I believe that most of the church has put too much on the social sciences, or understanding the people to whom we minister (taken, though not verbatim from page 474 of Carson's "The Gagging of God"). As with Carolyn Curtus James, such things are permitted in an attempt to reach more women, or so I think, but what has happened is that in these places where she is allowed to teach her "Voice" theology, they have compromised on real Theology.
(David W. said)"But all has not been well in Zion for some time. Some of the same issues that split Protestant Christianity in the late 1800s and early 1900s are now splitting the evangelical movement. The surface issues are sometimes a little different but the underlying issues are the same."
Right David, and I think much of it began after WWII, were women first began to do the work of men (not that that was wrong, we didn't have a choice), and as in many things, the church is about 10 years behind what happens in the secular world (religeous feminism copying secular feminism).
Speaking of Carson's work "The Gagging of God" which I took up again 2 weeks ago to brush up on another project, it was interesting to read him from pages 474 to 476 as he continued ths trend of the churches to incorporate the social sciences, especially as it was seen in Hybels vision to build a seeker sensitive church. Too often we believe that when we endeavor in such things that we are doing so with God's blessings, when in reality we are leaving the sound word of His truth to us, the Bible, and allowing all kinds of things to come in for the sake of reaching the world.
There's too much to say on this, but but in short, we are not responding in showing God's love to those we allow to compromise sound Scripture; but we are acting according to God's love when we confront that which does not correspond to His word, and speak truth.
Her biography reads like that of a motivational speaker or corporate trainer. Which speaks to what Fr. Bill said about modern marketing techniques. I hadn't heard the term agent for change (aka. change agent" in awhile.
Gary North noted in his interesting "Crossed Fingers" that one of fundamentalism's problems was it's doctrinal minimalism. The evangelicals came along and minimized it further.
Boaz is no longer to be viewed as a picture of Christ, our Kinsman Redeemer, evidently. He is to be seen as a man who was led by Ruth to hear a woman who has found her voice, much as Hillary Clinton found her voice after her time on the campaign trail.
Hmmm. Well, I guess I found my voice, too, and it sounds patriarchal in the traditional, Biblical sense. As an antidote to this new perspective on Ruth, may I suggest Mark Driscoll's excellent sermon series on that same book? His exposition is Christ-centered, and refreshing. Ms. James? Well, I guess it almost works in an election year, but really? The story of Ruth is about how a woman found her voice and was able to lead a man into a deeper understanding of the law of God?
If she weren't the wife of a seminary president, would she even have a voice over at Christianity Today? Hmmm. I tell ya'. Without their husbands, we would never have heard of either Mrs. Clinton or Mrs. James. They are actually unintentionally patriarchal.
I hope you take no offense to this, Donna L. Carlaw, but do you do anything other than read and comment on this blog. You always have enormous posts, sometimes multiple ones for a single topic. How else can you get anything else in your life done?
Anon:
I hope you take no offense to this, Donna L. Carlaw, but do you do anything other than read and comment on this blog.>>>>
I read this blog in spurts. You can see that by my pattern of commenting. There are times that weeks go by without my looking at the blog or commenting.
Then, I am not offended by anonymous comments. They actually have little or no value.
Anon:
I hope that you are not offended by my saying that.>>>>
DL:
Did you mean to offend me? If not, then no offense is taken. Beisdes, as I said before, I have learned to put little or no stock in anonymous comments, or comments made by those who do not use their real names.
Anon:
You always have enormous posts, sometimes multiple ones for a single topic. How else can you get anything else in your life done?>>>>
I do plenty in my life. Since you object to my enourmous posts, I won't go into any detail for now.
Thank you for asking.
Donna L. Carlaw
Hillary's tears were about as genuine as Bill's swearing before the TV camera that he did not have sex with "that woman." It was all choreographed, staged, planned. Hillary actually hired a drama director to help her with her tears. She might have found her "voice," but she's still struggling to find the truth.
What surprises me the most is that Mr. James, Dr. James has not stepped up to the plate and stated that he is not in favor of what his wife is doing. Apparently, he is.
Peter Hitchens (Christopher Hitchen's brother) has some interesting comments...
http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2008/02/do-you-agree-wi.html
John,
Thanks for the link. I always enjoy Peter Hitchens's work and also recommend his book, "The Abolition of Britain" about the decline of British culture, etc. It was interesting to see it framed between two funerals - Churchill and the Princess of Wales.
Kamilla
I only came to this blog because I heard that some of you self-righteous folks were taking shots at Mrs. James. I won't come back, but I must admit, this blog cracks me up. Never have I seen a group of comments/people so prideful and impressed by their own supposed intelligence! I love it. You must be so pleased with yourselves, and yet you have not the slightest idea of your own arrogance, your own sin, your own need for the very grace which you supposedly profess. Humility is one of the great qualities of our God, revealed so profoundly at the cross, and you exhibit none of it. Not an ounce. I am saddened for those you pastor, knowing that they live under the oppressive leadership of you two which does nothing more than make God into someone without grace or compassion. Yes, you need truth, but you need the truth with love. Have you forgotten Peter's words that we are to share the gospel with "gentleness and respect?" You can disagree with Carolyn. Fine. I have no issue with that. My issue is that you do so without the slightest hint of either of those biblical qualities. And it's for for that reason that I know you will never post this.
Joe,
As you can see, the Bayly's have not taken down your comment. They are much nicer than what I would have done to you. You are the very reason why this blog is so very important...to spread the truth. You fancy-pants male feminist.
...said Joe humbly.
...and with love.
Joe, you said that "Humility is one of the great qualities of our God" and you did a good job at reminding those here about that...but did you remind Ms James of this quality? After all she is the one that boldly proclaimed she is a "vibrant, new, affirming, eloquent, and passionate voice". She also boldly declared that she has like Clinton, "found her voice"
My friend, as a pastor and am to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ. I am NOT into empowering men OR women, I am into empowering the gospel of our LORD JESUS CHRIST. In order to do that "I" have to decrease so that JESUS can be exalted. There is NO ROOM for me to find MY voice...I am looking for HIS voice to be sent through me much as a radio will only transmit the voice from the station. GOD even told Jeremiah that HE would speak through him so I doubt if Jeremiah spent one second looking for "his voice"!
I notice also that Ms James has written "The Gospel of Ruth"
What now? Are we to insert it between Luke and John????
Uh ... I'm not sure who "Nick N" is, but my wife recently called this comment to my attention. Please know that it is not Nicholas Nugent, former member of CGS, who lives in Nashville with his lovely wife and son. Unless the person who posted this comment is named Nick Newton, Nordlinger, Nagel, Niederhauser-Goofendacher, or something similar, please select another handle. Thank you.
Nicholas Nugent,
You left out Nelson. I have many fine relatives but that name, none of them by the given name of Nicholas, however.
Kamilla
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