270 - Women, Freedom', and Calvin

Women, Freedom, and Calvin
By Jane Dempsey Douglass
Philadelphia, Westminster, 1985. 155 pp. $11.95.

In 1931, Georgia Harkness wrote, "It is by no accident that the Presbyterian church has refused to ordain women…. Calvin would have none of it." Many with a general knowledge of the reformer may remain convinced that Calvin's views about the subordination of women are unyielding and categorical. But Jane Dempsey Douglass, Hazel Thompson McCord Professor of Historical Theology at Princeton Seminary, argues that Calvin's approach to the biblical material on women's role in the church "can be used in support of women's ordination." She does not contend that Calvin was a latent feminist;

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Calvin was "open to future change on theological grounds, but [was] far too deeply shaped by the prejudices of a patriarchal society to imagine giving up those patriarchal structures in the foreseeable future."

Douglass puzzles over how Calvin could include women's silence in church among "indifferent" matters (Institutes, IV.x.31), while elsewhere (in, for example, a sermon on Job 3:3) he observes that although woman is made in God's image, she is inferior to man: "These degrees are instituted in the order of nature." Douglass' solution is to argue that for Calvin the "order of nature is not to be set off alone, but rather interrelated with the order of the church in which the Kingdom is foreshadowed." In other words, "Conformity to the order of nature … is not an absolute command; it must always take into account God's purpose for that order." In the Kingdom of God, in the Body of Christ, the distinctions between male and female are transcended. Therefore, as the Kingdom comes in its fullness, the natural order will give way to the values of the Kingdom. For Calvin "greater freedom for women in the church is a movement in the direction of the equality of the Kingdom that will come someday-but not yet!"

1. There are several reasons why Douglass' book will become the basic study on Calvin's views on woman's role in the church. First, she goes beyond earlier works by placing Calvin's comments in the "broader context" of his "dynamic sense of order." Second, she insists upon following Calvin's own advice that his commentaries and sermons be read in light of the Institutes. This is a significant point (which some will want to debate), for Douglass contends that in the Institutes "Calvin's selection of what is important … in order to understand the Scriptures properly … virtually excludes positive teaching of the subordination of women." Third, in thoroughly examining Calvin's writings, Douglass places Calvin's thought in the context of earlier thinkers, such as Augustine and Aquinas, as well as the changes effected by the Renaissance. She recognizes that more work remains to be done on the later medieval Franciscans. Readers will especially appreciate her examination of the writings of Marie Dentiere, published in 1536 and 1539, which describe the role of women in the Genevan reform and argue that women should declare the truths God has made known to them. Finally, Douglass' analysis is informed by the recent historical examinations of N. Davis, C. Blaisdell, R. Kingdon, and others.

The author summarizes her findings: "Calvin's persistent teaching that the silence of women in church is a matter of time-bound apostolic advice rather than divine law for all time is an example of his openness to major change in the future." Such allusions to Calvin's openness suggest that Calvin foresaw a gradual transformation in the natural and ecclesiastical orders effected by the values of the Kingdom. The "natural" subordination of women will be tempered and then replaced by "oneness in Christ." However, one could argue that this description conflicts with Calvin's view of history, which expects persecutions, apostasy, and upheavals as prophesied in Matthew 24 and II Thessalonians 2,

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according to Calvin. It is precisely in those periods of unrest that God may subvert the "natural order" and raise up women to preach. Otherwise, "the order of creation by which … woman [is] subservient to man … remains the pattern according to which governing in external things (police) is organized," as Douglass' summary of Calvin's sermons on I Corinthians 11 states.

Calvin's view of history suggests that only in times of distress might God turn aside from the natural way and call women to preach. He foresaw circumstances in which the extraordinary, preaching by women, might occur-as it had in the distant and recent past. Interpreting our circumstances, unforeseen by Calvin, in the light of the biblical material has led most Christians to believe that preaching by women is now to be part of the ordinary in the church.

David Foxgrover

Rockford College
Rockford, Illinois