Quote:
Margaret Barber, Peace Wang, Dora Yu, Jessie Penn-Lewis, Madame Guyon, Ruth Lee, Elizabeth Fischbacher, Mary McDonough, a certain "Miss Groves" (a co-worker of Barber)...
- Robert Govett, D.M. Panton, John Nelson Darby, Father Fenelon, Brother Lawrence, Evan Roberts, Andrew Murray...
|
All of these were admittedly influences; men as well as women. But perhaps the "one ministry per age" model, which hurried in so closely behind the "one church per city" idea, subsumes the argument of the role, influence, or place of women within the church. The "one ministry" model might allow women to have influence, to teach and to preach, in the wild and disorganized years before the "Seer of the divine revelation in the present age" was fully revealed. In other words, in the leadership vacuum what else could they do but function? God didn't like it, but God overlooked it, temporarily. But once the True Leader emerged, then the weaker sex could take their proper place, quiet and subservient. So you could simultaneously honor the firebrand Dora Yu and forbid any new Dora Yu from emerging from within the assembly.
The key is how you tell the story - if you tell the story right, you can both honor the past and disregard it. But one needs to be selective with history: acknowledge, even loudly, those whom are recognized as examples. Martin Luther's case comes quickly to mind, as does Paul's. But what about all those blank spots, like the "Pre-Nee years"? And what about John Wesley and Jonathan Edwards, ministering simultaneously? And what to do with the apostle John, who both preceded Paul and outlived him, perhaps by decades? Was John ever subservient to Paul, and then perhaps Timothy as Paul's hand-picked successor? Or was it usually just the "wild west", with women speaking, and teaching, and so forth? Where would Jessie Penn-Lewis fit in, today?
Really, the story has to be spread pretty thinly to survive. Don't dig too much. And it may not address the role of women in a satisfactory way... but I couldn't think of any other LC exegesis which even came close.