Women should now also be ordained as ministers, elders and deacons. That is the unanimous recommendation of Deputies Men/Women appointed by synod of the Reformed Churches of the Netherlands (RCN aka GKv) in a long report addressed to RCN synod 2017 which will begin sitting in January.[i]
The report places synod before eight options but recommends that as office bearers women should form part of consistory and as such hold positions of authority over men. The speed with which women are to be introduced into the office is to be left to the freedom of the local congregations.[ii]
This deputyship was appointed after a similar deputyship likewise reported to synod in 2014 that it was Biblical and reformed to allow women to be office bearers. However, Synod 2014 appointed new deputies with the task to study the matter further, and we now have their lamentable recommendations which clearly deviate from what Scripture says.
The Bible is very clear about the position of women in the church. In 1 Timothy 2 we read, âLet a woman learn in silence with all submission. And I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man, but to be in silence. For Adam was formed first, then Eve âŚâ
But the Reportâs deputies show that they donât believe these and similar âsilence textsâ apply âfor all times and all peopleâ. Â Nederlands Dagblad (Netherlands Daily) interviews with deputies indicate that they prefer to focus on the many Bible passages that speak about the work of women. Â It was, says one deputy, a Jewish custom in Paulâs days for girls not to be educated and Paul was therefore quite progressive in saying that women should allow themselves to be taught. As far as the deputies are concerned the church has made a sort of doctrine about what women may and may not do. [iii]
When asked what has led to the changed views, the deputies point to two factors. First is the churchâs attitude to society around it. A churchâs openness to society around it will sooner or later lead to it being influenced by important societal themes such as women in office, homosexuality, divorce and the churchâs âsong cultureâ. Second, these outside influences sometimes throw a new light on the Bible so that one exclaims, for example, âHey, there are places where the Apostle Paul also mentions women speaking in church.â
Speaking about why he changed his position on women in office, former EIC of Nederlands Dagblad, J deVries, now a synod deputy, said that his previously held position began to grate on him. âYou feel uncomfortable when you see such a discord between the churchâs position and that of society. Sometimes that is based on conviction, but in this case I questioned its usefulness for the Church. It is a double loss: you donât use womenâs gifts and it affects the way outsiders look at the church.â[iv]
During the last decades in the Netherlands one âreformedâ church federation after another has accepted women in office, according to emeritus religious studies lecturer Dr G Dekker of the Free University. He considers it inevitable that the RCN will have women in office because thatâs the way society operates. âYou canât have equality of women in all areas during the week and not on Sundays,â he adds.[v]
Another academic, who had traced the emancipation of women in two other âreformedâ federations, says that he knows many Free Reformed women who are active in church and now that the church shows a greater openness to society and to other protestant churches there are âimpulsesâ that lead one to take a new look at the Bible.[vi]
Evidently these academics and the deputies feel that the churchâs position on women in office is determined by cultural factors. For example, the deputyshipâs chairman said that the Church Order and Belgic Confession donât explicitly say that office bearers must only be men; it was just assumed that women would not give leadership. But, he added, âthis shows how great the influence of culture isâ. In other words, it is cultural context and not the Bible that kept women out of office.
Whilst the RCN report appears to be at pains to show that deputies want to adhere to the Bible, one detects in deputiesâ comments a concern with cultural influences, what is politically correct and âwhat worksâ. Such concerns are typically post-modern and reflective of the ânew hermeneuticsâ. New meanings are obtained by looking at all the social and historical factors that may have influenced the writer (even inspired Bible writers such as Paul) and then reviewing the text with the values one has adopted as a result of oneâs own context. When this method of interpreting a text is applied to the Bible, the Truth of Godâs Word is placed on shaky ground. It leads to a loss of confidence in what God has revealed in His Word and works to rob us of our faith in His promises and directives.
Fortunately a report is not a synod decision. The RCN synod 2017 will need to decide whether to accept the Reportâs recommendations. However, if synod 2017 rejects the recommendations (as it should) it faces several challenges. First, this report and the report to previous synod have been given wide media coverage and condition RCN members to accept women in office. Second, those women who already have been appointed office bearers in the RCN (by congregations that have âjumped the gunâ will need to be turned out of office). Third, the RCNâs efforts to unite with the Netherlands Reformed Churches (âBuitenverbandersâ), which already have women in all offices, will be seriously undermined. This is what happens when synods donât give clear Scriptural leadership and nip errors in the bud.
Allow me to conclude with some pertinent observations by Rev Ken Wieske on his Facebook page. Commenting on the Report he writes:
âFor thousands of years, the catholic Church has, in accordance with the Word of God, been served by ministers who are men. This goes back to the Old Testament and ultimately to the Garden of Eden.
The Dutch Reformed Churches Liberated [RCN] have been served with a Synod report which finds that the Bible has âroomâ for a new concept for leadership in the Church. All offices should be open to women.
This is not a surprise, but it still leaves us profoundly sad. This report is one more awful, heart-rending evidence that these Churches are riddled through with the cancer of the new hermeneutic, which looks to the World instead of the Word in order to find out Godâs will.
Although it is couched in all kinds of fancy language, the basic message is this: we do not believe the Word of God. We will take what the world believes, what the world practices, what the world approves, what the world values, what the world promotes, and we will find a way to make the Word of God approve of our worldliness. And ââ literally ââ to hell with the consequences. This applies to the matter of women in office, to the way that homosexuality and haemophilia is dealt with, to the question of divorce and remarriage, the question of origins, and so many other things where after thousands of years, the Church is suddenly discovering that the Bible can be made to support the spirit of the age. After all, it is shocking to think that we might somehow be set apart, be different from the world in our attitudes and practices when it comes to the most basic things in human life, such as gender roles, marriage and sexuality, and our understanding of origins. It will certainly be a lot more comfortable for unbelievers to join the Church if there is no need to go through any radical change in worldview; if the Church is so worldly that the unbeliever can feel right at home. Kyrie Eleison!
The report has not yet been adopted by the Dutch Synod. May God still grant a miraculous change of heart, and a return to the Word of God.â[vii]
We echo that prayer: âMay God still grant a miraculous change of heart, and a return to the Word of God.â
J Numan
[i] http://www.gkv.nl/organisatie/deputaatschappen/mv-en-ambt/
[ii] âRapport: ambt moet open voor vrouwen in GKvâ (Report: office must be opened to women in RCN), Nederlands Dagblad, 1st November 2016.
[iii] âGod roept mannen en vrouwenâ (God calls men and women), Ibid.
[iv] âWaarom de vrijgemaakte vrouw ineens wel mag prekenâ (Why the Free Reformed woman may now suddenly preach), Nederlands Dagblad, 5th November 2016.
[v] Ibid.
[vi] Ibid.
[vii] Rev Ken Wieske, Facebook. Used with his permission
