I plan to share with you soon a brief analysis and reaction to the theological views expressed by illegally ordained Joanne Cortes.
But in order to understand the significance of the views she has expressed, first I’d like to offer you something that will be a real help in navigating the whole question of women’s ordination and its associated problems. And I can think of no better help for this than to summarize the issue for you via Margaret Elizabeth Kostenberger’s 2008 book, Jesus and the Feminists (254 pp., Wheaton Il: Crossway Books, 2008).
Kostenberger’s volume is explicitly focused on the hermeneutics—the methods of biblical interpretation—employed by the advocates of the different feminist theological positions. She drills down through the works of eleven prominent representative feminist theologians and one-by-one analyzes their theological positions and the hermeneutical reasons for them. Kostenberger breaks these down into three categories of theological feminism.
Radical Feminism, Reform feminism, and Evangelical feminism. These are lengthy terms so I shorten them to RadFem, ReformFem, and EFem positions.
RadFem
Dr. Kostenberger has several degrees and teaches at Southeastern Baptist theological Seminary. Let’s look first at the RadFem position.
In simple terms, radical feminism, rejected the Bible and Christianity as unusable because of their male patriarchal bias. Instead, it focused on feminine religious experience as a key to interpretation.(p. 22)
RadFem says that the Scripture itself is biased, or culturally conditioned or compromised. On that basis RadFem takes away authority from the Bible. How do RadFems reapportion authority? Kostenberger says,
Radical feminism’s substitution of women’s experience for scriptural authority does not adequately consider scripture’s own claim of being divine self-revelation. As a result, Christianity is replaced by a pagan or even occult form of religious expression and experience.(p. 216)
From the external source, Scripture, the movement is to the internal space—the subjective space of human thought and feeling.
ReformFem
Let’s shift to ReformFem. Kostenberger describes the ReformFem position:
Reformist feminism essentially rejected Christian tradition about women and used the Bible as it means to reconstruct a ‘proper’ positive theology. However, the Bible itself was not seen as inerrant or authoritative.(p. 22)
So ReformFem thinkers come at you from the Bible but it is a selective coming at you from the Bible. Some parts are neglected or disqualified in some way, while other parts are highlighted or, more commonly, substantially reinterpreted. But these people come at you with a straight face as though they are Bible Christians like you are, as though they take the Bible seriously as you do, and interpret it in the same way that you do. While we have a few open RadFems in the Church, we do have some ReformFems. In Kostenberger’s conclusion to her book, this is what she says about ReformFems:
Closer to the middle is reformist feminism, which is characterized by a certain degree of ambivalence towards scripture. Tradition and other reasons cause interpreters in this feminist category to retain the idea of scripture as a useful source for theological formulation. Large portions of Scripture are questioned through the use of a hermeneutic of suspicion. On the one hand Scripture is mined as a source, while on the other, it is rejected as unacceptable in light of feminist presuppositions. As we have seen, many reformist feminist interpreters are well aware of this tension, and they describe it as paradoxical since they struggle with its legitimacy.(p. 216)
Be alert to these expression of these kinds of ideas—that the Bible is paradoxical on certain points in the women’s ordination discussion.
EFem
But most of the pro-women’s ordination traffic in our church comes to us from EFems, people who are evangelical feminists. Listen to Kostenberger’s description of the EFem position:
The third movement, evangelical feminism, rejected a critical stance towards scripture. Evangelical feminists said that nothing in the Bible should be rejected, and scripture was seen as teaching complete male – female equality.(p. 23)
So, depending on what your theological position is, there are only certain moves that are “valid.” If you come to an Adventist and you try to make RadFem moves, where there is practically an entire rejection of Scripture as being poisoned by patriarchy, you won’t get very far. So people who wish to change our views typically do not come to us as open RadFems. They almost always portray themselves, or even see themselves, as EFem. Kostenberger on the EFems:
Evangelical feminists, similar to many reformist feminists, are virtually united in their belief that Jesus practiced egalitarianism, despite the fact that all members of the 12 were men, and Jesus affirmed traditional marriage. Some argue that redemption in Christ supersedes the patriarchalism characteristic of the Old Testament, allowing them to go beyond what Scripture actually teaches to what they think the Scripture might have been pointing to. Others contend that God’s intentions were egalitarian from the beginning.(p. 217)
According to Kostenberger,
On the one hand, they share with these groups the conviction that feminism is a given, a nonnegotiable. On the other hand, they differ in their claims regarding the nature and authority of scripture. Rather than adopting an attitude of rebellion, like that of the radical feminists, or suspicion, like that of the reformist feminists, they profess to affirm the absolute trustworthiness of scripture in the canonical configuration of the Protestant Bible. Yet they are still faced with the challenge of justifying a scriptural feminist viewpoint.(p. 217)
In other words, she is saying that whereas ReformFems simply treat the Bible loosely, the EFem position is in a sense the most difficult position of all, because its advocates are coming to us as Bible people; they are the most constrained by Scripture even though in practice their teaching usually has a subtle deconstructive spirit.
In analyzing the EFem position, Hear Kostenberger’s conclusion:
All in all, what we have is a cumulative case built on a week textual foundation. Evangelical feminist interpreters are in a difficult position, for unlike other feminist interpreters they cannot charge scripture with a ‘ patriarchal bias’ and substitute their own preferred paradigm. Evangelical feminist have a hard time claiming genuine openness with regard to the interpretive outcome, since by virtue of their dual commitment to gender equality and a scriptural authority they must of necessity arrive at an interpretation of Scripture that is consistent with their egalitarian viewpoint…. Evangelical feminism is generally sound in hermeneutical theory, but at times inconsistent in exegesis of specific biblical passages… has resulted in interpretations that go beyond the evidence given and particular biblical texts.(pp. 218-219)
Let me share one last paragraph from Kostenberger. See if you don’t agree with me that this is immensely insightful:
In general terms, there are certain affinities between the exegetical practice of reformist feminists and evangelical feminists, which include: (1) an effort to identify and magnify the contributions of women in scripture; (2) the reinterpretation of biblical passages dealing with women in keeping with feminist or egalitarian presuppositions; (3) the use of a ‘canon within a canon’ approach, by which certain biblical passages are elevated to normative status while others are marginalized; and (4) the characterization of authority as intrinsically negative and the substitution of an authority-less servanthood model for leadership. This may suggest that reform feminism exercised a certain degree of influence on evangelical feminist scholarship, especially in the area of exegetical practice and argumentation.(p. 219)
To summarize, there are three kinds of feminist theology: RadFem, ReformFem, and EFem. In my denomination, the Seventh-day Adventist Church, the RadFem position is simply a non-starter. You have to come at the Adventist via Scripture. The nature of the target dictates the rules of engagement. In keeping with this reality, the kinds of arguments we have especially seen virtually all stem from ReformFem and EFem standpoints.
It makes sense to me to characterize the three feminist theological positions as Radical Feminist or RadFem, encompassing more or less complete rejection of Scripture, Reform Feminism or ReformFem, which approaches Scripture with selectivity and skepticism, and the third version which is Evangelical Feminism or EFem. EFem purports to have a high view of Scripture and therefore is the most seductive. And yet all three of these positions import certain presuppositions and ideas from outside the Bible, which is why I prefer to identify them as what they are—as variations on what we should admit is indeed a set of ideas imposed into Christianity from outside. Feminism begins outside the Bible and must inevitably end, no matter how much exegetical makeup is applied, outside of Scripture. The question is, will this Church today be duped as almost every other denomination in the past has been duped.
They trusted in the good intentions and the good thinking of their administrators, presidents, leaders, and theologians. And in due course they found a way to incorporate an unbiblical teaching into their faith and practice. Today, most of those denominations have been shattered and split by LGBTQ theology.
Mind you, all we have done in this presentation is look in on the conclusions of someone who has studied these questions carefully. If these conclusions are correct (and I think they are), they will help us better understand the theological weapons which are incoming, often from our own theologians.
Friends, the Bible is sufficiently clear on this topic that as we delve more closely into the matter, I believe biblical answers will in due course swing into view. God be with you.
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Pr Kirkpatrick has been engaged in pastoral ministry since 1994, serving several congregations. He has authored books including Real Grace for Real People, and Cleanse and Close. He has been plenary speaker at symposiums and a presenter on several continents. He presently serves as pastor of the Fremont and Muskegon MI Seventh-day Adventist churches.
Every morning Larry shares short Bible devotionals for those who want to start their day with God.