For the first time in 15-20 years, the Adventist Review just published an article on biblical headship that wasn’t yet another pro WO diatribe. Knock me over with a feather, as they say.
The article Headship Matters is written by Laurel Damsteegt. It accurately points out that male headship is not a societal construct but rather a biblical principle providing the pattern for both our homes and the church. God calls men to lead their families in a God-glorifying direction, thus providing His template for leadership in the church.
Mrs. Damsteegt’s article, while saying little about restless Eves or controlling women, rightfully decries abuses of God’s headship order by oppressive or passive men. In this regard it is way more balanced than a torturous veggie-feminist Review article from March titled Toxic Teaching, which sought to promote ‘equality’ by castigating one gender as kinda bad and the other as cherubic victims.
In that ‘Toxic’ article, Mrs. Schwirzer sought to characterize male headship as toxic, based on anecdotal and personal examples. She unsuccessfully claims that Adventist understandings of gender role distinctions were motivated more by Wayne Grudem, rather than fidelity to hundreds of years of plain biblical teachings on male/female role distinctions. Such generalizations are worthy of critical theory but not of the Word of God. Both Grudem and Bacchiocchi’s work on biblical role distinctions were necessary correctives to a rising wave of feminism following the sexual revolution of the 1960’s & 70’s.
The presence of bad men does not undo God’s role distinctions, nor does the presence of bad women justify mistreatment of them. God calls both men and women to love Him and walk in wisdom, accepting our distinct roles as a gift from Him.
Damsteegt’s article accurately points out that role distinctions are biblical, given to us by God Himself in order for human flourishing and protection. Leadership in the Church is predicated not just by gender distinctions, but on God’s wisdom, love and encouragement, a standard so high it excludes most men and all women (1 Timothy 3:2). There are special places for our sisters to serve in the church—places that do not include shepherds of the flock. Like consecrated men, our sisters are needed in their unique sphere. One role that the Lord has given mature sisters in the church includes encouraging younger women.
“But as for you, speak the things which are proper for sound doctrine: that the older men be sober, reverent, temperate, sound in faith, in love, in patience; the older women likewise, that they be reverent in behavior, not slanderers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things— that they admonish the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, homemakers, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be blasphemed. Likewise, exhort the young men to be sober-minded, in all things showing yourself to be a pattern of good works” (Titus 2:1—6).
What makes this article of Damsteegt’s so surprising is that the Review Magazine has been—under the management of Bill Knott since 2007—flagrantly supportive of women’s ordination. In 1995 (under William Johnsson) and 2015 (under Bill Knott), the Review published piece after piece of pro WO articles, all part of a propaganda stream intended to convince the Seventh-day Adventist church to vote to ordain women at the 1995 and 2015 GC Sessions. Fortunately they failed.
So why the change of heart now? Is Bill Knott hoping to appear objective in order to keep his position at the Review, or have others prevailed on the publishing board to run this article whether he likes it or not?
Either way, the Review could use new leadership. Here’s a pattern for that new leadership, taken directly from Laurel Damsteegt’s timely article,
“When leadership is wise and affirming, it is almost transparent. True leadership encourages, loves, and listens.”
Laurel Damsteegt is to be commended for an excellent article on biblical headship and its implications for leadership in the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
Perhaps she could write a follow-up article on the neo-pagan influences in our culture that are fueling the clamor for WO in our church. The sacred (or divine) feminine notion is huge in our culture, and to the degree that members of our church absorb culture, they are vulnerable to these neo-pagan influences.
This is the world that we Adventists are called to witness to today. It is a pagan world, struggling with the notion that there is even a distinction between male and female. The rising generation, or millennial generation is the first generation of our modern era to receive a fully developed neo-pagan cosmology masquerading as the correct view of history and demanding to be inscribed in public policy. To combat these errors, we need the mind of Christ (Philippians 2:5) and the mercy and truth of God (Psalm 57:1-3).
And keep printing truth in the Adventist Review, people are very hungry for it.
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“…that you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world” (Philippians 2:15).
