Introduction

"Since one is 'called of God' to the office, one does not simply choose to be a minister as one would choose to enter a profession. One must be called and the call must be confirmed by the church. The question, then, is whether God calls women, as he does men, to be ministers in his name. Let those who scruple only consider what it has cost the church not to use the talents of the woman. Let anyone consult the hymnbook and see what women poets have taught the people of God to sing and then ask what it would mean if such women were allowed to move beyond the relative anonymity of the hymnal to the full visibility men have had in the church as evangelists, preachers and teachers."¹

Sola Scriptura! is a battle-cry of the Reformation. It is a critical principle: the Bible, and the Bible alone, is the criterion of Christian truth. But what are we to do when what the Bible says seems unclear? Again, the Reformers had an answer: interpret Scripture by means of Scripture. But (to sharpen the question) what are we to do when the Bible seems to speak with more than one voice?

When we raise the question of the ordination of women to the ministry of word and sacrament or, more generally, of the proper relationship between men and women in church and society, do we listen to Genesis 1, where God creates both men and women in God's own image, or to Genesis 2, which at least allows for, if it does not actually imply, the subordination of women to men? Do we take our stand with Galatians in rejecting divisions between Jew and Gentile, male and female, slave and free, or with the "subordinationist" advice of Ephesians or Colossians or the Catholic epistles?

Of the many writings on this topic, the one which for me, at least, addresses it most helpfully is the book published a quarter of a century ago by Paul K Jewett, then Professor of Systematic Theology at Fuller Theological Seminary, from which we quote above. In an intellectual tour de force, Jewett first reads the Bible, subordinating the "egalitarian" texts to the "subordinationist" ones - and then re-reads it in the opposite sense. It is difficult to argue with his conclusion that the latter reading is to be preferred.

But no one was ever converted by an argument. In a celebrated letter to the general assembly of the Church of Scotland in 1650, Oliver Cromwell implored them: "I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken." But not even Cromwellian eloquence could move them.

It is, in the end, a question of discernment; to our commentaries and concordances we must add prayer and fasting. But some of the stories in the articles that follow may help us in proving what is the will of God.

Can a theology, however scriptural, really be right which leads to a Zambian woman being greeted with hostility when she joins an otherwise all-male theology course - and also dares to join in the arguments? Can a theology, however biblical, really be right which leads to a Mexican woman crawling on her knees up the chancel of her church to retrieve her Bible?

Ordinarily, Reformed World appears only in English. Exceptionally, we are publishing this special double issue also in French and in Spanish. Publication in three languages was made possible by a grant from the Netherlands Reformed Church, to whom we are deeply grateful.

Páraic Réamonn

Notes