World Wide Support for “Male Headship Doctrine” Swells
by Jack Hoehn
“Male Headship” is a newly prominent doctrine by some leaders in Seventh-day Adventism. A lot of things happening in the world at large could be seen as giving them support. (Unless you listen to Jimmy…)
By Jack Hoehn, June 30, 2014
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| photo © 2008 r e n a t a | more info |
In a stunning series of recent events the doctrine that God intended for males to be in charge of this world in both religious1 and secular arenas has received serious support. Not only did Seventh-day Adventist leaders in the Southern African-Indian Ocean Division want their church to eliminate all ordination of women to any office in the church or any teaching positions2; at least five other Seventh-day Adventist Divisions at least favored keeping women in ministry from full ordination. Perhaps this somewhat surprising position in a church founded by a woman prophetess may now be increasingly supported by many in the wider world who agree that women need to be kept in their place as much as possible.
Mormon’s Male Leaders Agree
June 22, 2014 – “The Mormon church excommunicated the prominent founder of a Mormon women's group, Ordain Women announced Monday afternoon. Kate Kelly's former church leaders in Virginia notified her of the decision after weighing the high-profile decision overnight…. She was shocked to find out earlier this month from her bishop that she is facing excommunication from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, of which she is a lifelong member. The leader of Ordain Women is accused of apostasy, defined as repeated and public advocacy of positions that oppose church teachings… Kelly's group drew rebukes from church leaders in April when they marched on church property in downtown Salt Lake City's Temple Square. The women asked to be allowed in a meeting reserved for members of the priesthood, which includes most males in the church who are 12 and older. Church leaders had previously told the group they wouldn't be let in and warned them not to disturb the faith's biannual general conference that weekend.”3
Catholic Church’s Male Leaders Hold the Line
There have been many reasons the male leaders of Catholicism have offered in the past for denying women ordination as priests. In a 2011 talk, Dr. John Wijngaards listed some of them.
- Women may not touch sacred objects.
- It is not becoming for women to have the clerical tonsure.
- Women are not created in the image of God.
- Women are less intelligent than men and highly unreliable. (This last reason, incidentally, was still part of the Church's official Canon law until 1915.)
More recently, Biblical and other traditional reasons have replaced the above to bolster the Catholic hierarchy’s objections to women’s ordination:
- Paul did not allow women to teach men (1 Timothy 2:11-15).
- Women should be subject to men (1 Corinthians 11:2-16).
- Only a man is a perfect human being and can thus properly represent Christ (Thomas Aquinas).
- Christ was incarnated as a man; in fact, maleness is an essential ingredient of the Incarnation in God's plan of redemption. (Pope John Paul II)
And the last Papal pronouncement on the matter, forbidding ordination of women, focused on three less-Biblical and more-church-traditional reasons:
- Jesus appointed only men as apostles.
- In doing so, Jesus established masculinity in the ministry as a permanent norm that has to be followed by the Church.
- This norm of having a male ministry has been confirmed by the constant and universal Teaching of the Church throughout Tradition.4
So even though the reasons change, the fact remains, men must rule in the Catholic Church.
Sunni Muslim Men Take Serious Action
Those of us who are not Muslim may not realize that the events in the news for the last few weeks are founded on a serious religious battle for supremacy, not only in Iraq with the ISIS rampage, but throughout the world, as serious religionists confirm their fundamentalist ideology, including the headship of men.
According to Time magazine, the following are all Sunni religious actions taken to hold the line against any modernism, including feminism.
“It’s the reason Boko Haram has kidnapped hundreds of Nigerian schoolgirls, and why Taliban fighters sliced off the ink-stained fingers of elderly voters who had cast ballots in Afghanistan…”
“Holy war inspires the al-Shabaab radicals who took credit for massacring at least 48 Kenyans in a coastal town on June 15, and explains why suspected al-Qaeda fighters in Yemen riddled a bus full of military hospital staff the same day.” “The Sunni fighters of ISIS would cheerfully kill and die, if necessary, to erase (sacred Shi’ite shrines) blasphemous existence. What army would rather raze a few shrines than seize a capital city?”
“So begins another Iraqi civil war, this one wretchedly entangled with the sectarian conflict that has already claimed more than 160,000 lives in Syria. Poised to join the fighting is Iran, whose nearly eight year war with Iraq in the 1980s cost more than a million lives. To Americans weary of the Middle East, the urge is strong to close our eyes and, as Sarah Palin once put it so coarsely, ‘let Allah sort it out.’”
“The civil war of Muslim against Muslim, brother against brother, plays out in the same region that gave us Cain against Abel. George W. Bush spoke of the spirit of liberty, and Obama often invokes the spirit of cooperation. Both speak to something powerful in the modern heart. But neither man—nor America itself—fully appreciated until now the continuing reign of much older spirits: hatred, greed and tribalism. Those spirits are loosed again…”5
With eyes closed or eyes open, we see religious men willing to fight for male domination to the death. Keep those burkas in place at all cost.
Southern Baptists Toe the Line – Except for Jimmy
In the face of such forceful support of male headship, what is wrong with Jimmy Carter? After all, the 39th president of the USA is often classed as the least-successful president of the 20th century. (I recognize he has to fight Herbert Hoover or the Seventh-day Adventist mothered-and-brothered Warren G. Harding to gain that place.) In his new book, A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence, and Power, President Carter writes the following:
“In 2000, official action of the more conservative Southern Baptist Convention leaders soon made it clear that Southern Baptist women would no longer be serving as deacons, pastors, or chaplains in the armed forces, or even as professors in some Convention seminaries if there were male students in the classroom…”
“I had no doubt about the sincerity and good intentions of the participants, but my wife and I began to question whether our beliefs were compatible with those adopted and later mandated by the Convention. The change that was most troubling to us was an emphasis on a few specific Bible verses about the status of women and how they would be applied in practical terms, including one that called for wives to be ‘submissive’ to their husbands…”
“Rosalynn and I decided to end our affiliation with the denomination to which I had been loyal during the first seventy years of my life…”6
Worse than that, daring to challenge the unity of his church, Jimmy Carter writes a book disputing the Bible basis for “male headship theology” in Christianity; the genocide of girls in China; female rape in the USA and South Africa; female slavery and prostitution in India, Europe, and the USA; spouse abuse of women everywhere; child marriage and dowry deaths; and genital cuttings. Think of it! He places church policy in such vile company as that! What is wrong with this man, to link “male headship” with the obscene?
Perhaps he has been too heavily influenced by the likes of Dr. Alison Boden, dean of Religious Life, Princeton University, whom he approvingly quotes:
Propagated with appeals to idealized heritage, immutable sacred history, and paternalistic care for the religiously ignorant, their rights-denying actions must be exposed for what they are—formal policies for the retention and augmenting of power by those men who already have it.
The ethic of Jesus Christ proclaims the radical equality of human value. The ending of the subordination of women—and of all who are dominated—is critical to the building of the reign of God on earth as it is in heaven.”7
Really? Now who are Seventh-day Adventists going to listen to; the Mormons, the Popes, the Muslims, and the Southern-Baptists? Or to that do-gooding, peace-making, homeless-sheltering, Bible-reading, peanut-eating Jimmy?
Who indeed?
1Gerry Chudleigh. “A Short History of the Headship doctrine in the Seventh-day Adventist Church.” Spectrum, Volume 42, Issue 2, Spring 2014, pages 80-95.
2Southern African-Indian Ocean TOCS Position paper, page 3.
3CBS/AP June 23, 2014, 1:28 PM—Salt Lake City.
4https://www.womenpriests.org/teaching/newfocus.asp
5Michael Crowley. “The end of Iraq.” Time, June 20, 2014.
6Carter, Jimmy, A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence, and Power (Simon & Schuster, 2014), 21, 22.
7Dr. Alison Boden, quoted by Jimmy Carter, Ibid, page 24.
Thank you, Jack, for this food for thought. You just can't quit stirring the pot, can you?
Needless to say, I approve, as my pervasive mission throughout the spectrum of my life
is "stirring the pot."
Thank you, Jack, for this food for thought. You just can't quit stirring the pot, can you?
Needless to say, I approve, as my pervasive mission throughout the spectrum of my life
is "stirring the pot."
The equal, fair treatment of women in this world is a male responsibility. I've decided it's time for this man to man up. God told Adam and his sons to "rule" as the sun rules the day and the moon rules the night. I'm done with the rulership teaching that says men have to be the boss, instead of men being the source of light and health and love and respect for our equal partners in this world. Male headship brought some stability in a world of rebellious sinners, it is not suitable for a world of saints preparing for our Creator's return. I don't believe in sameness, but I must believe in equality if I am a Christian man, especially one whose church was founded and directed by a God ordained woman. I want to be head of equality, head of respect, head of opportunity, head of fairness, head of learners, head of service, head of self control, head of mutuality, to the gender that was created as the final step in a progressive creation. It was a "good" world with Adam, it only became "very good" with our Eve. The reign of sin and the reign of men must now end together, the kingdom of God is at hand.
For some time now a co-worker and I have been studying the Bible together over lunch and recently we have been reading through the book of Acts. There is an amazing similarity between the visceral and volatile reactions people are having today to the idea of ordaining woman and how the Jews fought against the Gospel going to the gentiles. The Jews disputed both what Paul and the other apostles taught the Gentiles and even disputed that God had sent them. But that didn't keep them from doing what God had told them to do.
What would the church be like today if the apostles had not obeyed God's instruction and taken the Gospel to the Gentiles? I can't imagine it. Obeying God changed world history. What will the church be without the ordination of women? Look at our presently pathetic performance at promoting the Gospel and you see the future. Just as God shook-up the people who claimed to be His followers by sending the Gospel to the Gentiles, He is shaking-up the church today so we will actually do the job He has given us to do. So it seems likely neither the church or the world will be the same because of it.
Who has the conviction of Jimmy Carter who severed his 70-year connection with the church he worshiped and taught? Living out one's convictions is the only demonstrable act that words can never convey.
Agreed. Leaving your church after that many years is a dramatic, if not traumatic, experience requiring significant motivation. Unfortunately over the past couple of decades I've been surprised by how many people I have seen make the same decision regarding their relationship with the SDA Church. I count two brothers in that number.
'Now who are Seventh-day Adventists going to listen to; the Mormons, the Popes, the Muslims, and the Southern-Baptists? Or to that do-gooding, peace-making, homeless-sheltering, Bible-reading, peanut-eating Jimmy?'
Seems male headship is a doctrine of 'Babylon' – the world's confused religions. And I thought Adventists claimed to be tasked with leaders others out of Babylon. So why are we heading to join them?
Loved the Catholic point about tonsores. They are after all actually the ancient clothing of Greek (pagan) philosophers.
Steve, I agree that women would not look good in tonsures. But then neither do men! I hope we don't follow Babylon back to that custom for either gender, while some eagerly wish us to go back to only men in charge of the church…..
Some SDA ultraconservatives are so worried about Jesuits infiltrating the Adventist church, while they charge forward with strong support of all male headship, just like the Jesuits!
That movement is like the recently freed slaves from Egypt voting to go back there! We've suffered from exclusion of women from full ministry far too long, why now do we want to vote to go back to Rome, al-Qaeda, Mohammed, and churches that used to preach it was God's will for slaves to be held by white Christians?????
Adventism is a movement forward or we are not Adventists. This backsliding is so pathetic.
Agree. I am skeptical of Jesuit conspiracies, but assuming they are true, the clear evidence suggests Jesuits have control of the conservative side of the SDA Church, trying to bring us back to the age-old teachings of Papal Rome!
We do agree here! LOL I have thought for some years now that if Jesuits were to infiltrate our church to influence its teaching to align with the papal thinking this would certainly be the way to do it. LOL
Oh, and I would suggest fundamentalist side of the church rather than conservative.
Yes you are right – fundamentalist. I personally like the descriptor "Sevy-Taliban"
Jimmy Carter was a grossly inadequate POTUS. But he is a great CHRISTIAN man.
Similar comments have been made about Ford and Bush and Hoover.
Isn't it ironic that these gents would make great friends and neighbors but did not fare so well at running the country?
As a president of a European country of his era, such as Sweden or Switzerland, Jimmy Carter would have been highly regarded for his gentle, peacefloving ways, his high IQ and his wide span of technical as well as general knowledge. This was the nature of this introverted Nobel laureate.
It has been widely noted that those Americans who seem to do best politically in the Oval Office are often intellectual mediocrities who make up for their shortcomings by exercising uncommon skill in relationships and projection of grandiloquence and charisma. The latter was not Mr. Carter's strong suit, which may explain his better success outside the Beltway than within it.
Certainly, Mr. Carter was in part elected to try to help Americans recover from our long nightmare with Mr. Nixon…. Mr. Carter played a role, he was a caretaker….and in that role in my opinion did an admirable job. I applaud my family members who voting for him; personally I preferred Mr. Ford "who was not a Lincoln" by his own admission…..
Maybe we are seeing the tendency to "revert to the mean." And in this case, "mean" does not mean average. It means mean.
Thank you, Jack, for every word of your opinion piece. The line "… critical to the building of the reign of God on earth as it is in heaven" defines our duty so clearly.
Why Jimmy Carter's leaving is not the best option for me. I am not rich or famous enough for my leaving to help promote people using women as per God's calling. So all I could accomplish is giving those against WO a greater percentage of the church populous. Those who leave the church, in my opinion, usually lose church members' serious consideration of their convictions and comments. The ultra antis would be just as happy if all of us left, even the rich and influencial and if we do, they win.
I personally don't think the headship group is swelling. On the contrary, many of us who once supported having only men in charge have changed our understnding.
There is a clear divide. Based on the recent votes if an anti group had not splintered off into group 3 (who still, by the way, believe in headship. They just believe that rewording it to "leadership" makes it more acceptable.) the majority vote would have been against WO.
We can be grateful for the 3rd group, who, while they are still clearly male headship people, are just as alarmed as pro-WO proponents are at the ultra/fundamentalist mentality of group 1.
I tend to agree with you about the actual size of the "headship" group. Who heard of them until recently? Perhaps they are merely the ones screaming the loudest, so they're getting the most attention.
I'm pretty sure "tonsure" means the way the hair is cut:
https://www.google.com/search?q=tonsure&client=firefox-a&hs=8dJ&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&channel=fflb&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=tbm4U5ubFtC9oQSt4ID4DA&ved=0CDkQsAQ&biw=1041&bih=619&dpr=0.98
Oh … Interesting teresaq …
I Googled Steve's description:
ancient clothing of Greek (pagan) philosophers.
And the listings (ironically?) mentioned Hypatia … Nice, in light of this topic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypatia
~http://ordinationtruth.com/2014/04/04/open-letter-to-angel-rodriguez/
If WO is approved it is conceivable that the church will split. The male headship principle has been clearly shown to be rooted in Scripture, gainsayers notwithstanding. Modern cultural considerations are responsible, as I see it, for the talk about equality; a leaf out of the feminist's book of action. WO is not even remotely related to equality.
No one has answered the question as to why Christ did not choose 6 disciples and 6 disciplettes. Nor why throughout the Bible the spititual headship of males is dominant.
See above link.
Maranatha
Luckily you weren't around a century or more ago. People used the exact same arguments with respect to slavery. Perhaps you'd have pushed for a split over the same thing back then?
'No one has answered the question as to why Christ did not choose 6 disciples and 6 disciplettes.'
I'll answer this one if you answer a question for me first. Why did Christ choose 12 circumcised Jews, but not a mix of 6 Jews and 6 uncircumcised Gentiles?
In choosing 12 Jewish men, was Christ suggesting all future clergy-ministers must be of the Jewish race? I think Goldstein and Bachelor are both from Jewish ethnic origins, but not sure if many other SDA Ministers are!
If we circumcise all of our pastors we can claim they are proselytes 8-).
'Maranatha'
Don't you think, with respect, it is a bit rich using this sign off, of "Come, O Lord", when you are actively trying to take harvesters out of the field?
"If WO is approved it is conceivable that the church will split."
Just as long as those choosing "to split" if WO comes to pass accept responsibility for their choice instead of blaming others.
Truth Seeker
The Seventh-day Adventist church doesn't schism. We off shoot.
And real off shooting has become less and less attractive now that YouTube makes virtual off shooting so inexpensive and convenient.
I'm pretty sure that church leaders do not offer much mind share with regard to schism, and increasingly less with regard to off shooting.
Bill, if I could press "like" like Facebook, I would to your comment here.
Dr Hoehn
<<<grin>>>
I would strongly disagree that there is a worldwide swell in support for male headship. On the contrary, there is the current swell in support for the false doctrine of female headship largely due to socio-political trends that has resulted in a self inflicted transgender feminist inferiority complex of some sort and accompanied by crowd pleasing pseudo-theology which seeks to reinterpret the scriptures and thereby appease the dictates of the secular gods and their relative humanist morality. Male headship has always been both the implicit and explicit biblical de facto standard. There is really no swell in support of male headship as such because it has always been this way. There is therefore no sound biblical basis for female headship whether before or after the Fall: not even in both the old and new testaments of the Bible. It just doesn't exist. Thus those trying to pull this off are doing some major theological gymnastics by reworking the scriptures so that it fits in with their culture driven worldviews and their vested interests. The fact that a number of Adventist theologians have bought into this culture biased reinterpretation of Scripture shows the extent of how far reaching this step towards apostasy has gone. I say this because it has opened a door for all sorts of other opportunistic falsehoods to enter the church. Without doubt the homosexual lobbyists are sitting in pole position to declare that this behaviour is also theologically acceptable and biblically sound just as they're doing with the new unbiblical female headship doctrine which is being railroaded on the church. Those men wishing to remain under petticoat government can do so if they wish but just don't claim that the Bible tells you so.
The error, or heresy if you will, is in thinking there should be any kind of human headship in God's church where it is clear we are all to be equal under Christ.
I reject your human headship, whether male or female, and claim only Christ as my Head.
Trevor, the Bible records what happened on earth and how God adapted to those sad problems, the Holy Spirit now, when we permit Him, leads us to change from what happened after the fall, to what God intended to happen before the fall. Your fear of peticoats is as tragic as the Jewish church's fear of not circumcising. Understandable, but wrong.
To quote from President Carter's Book again (I suggest you read the whole book yourself), ~~Propagated with appeals to idealized heritage, immutable sacred history, and paternalistic care for the religiously ignorant, their rights-denying actions must be exposed for what they are—formal policies for the retention and augmenting of power by those men who already have it.
"Male Headship" is as time conditioned as Slavery and Circumcision, Animal Sacrifice, Jewish Exceptionalism with Ethnic Cleansing and Permitted Divorce. They must all fall before the Second Coming of the only Head of the church.