Liberating Women for the Gospel - Women in Evangelism

LIBERATING WOMEN FOR THE GOSPEL: WOMEN IN EVANGELISM
By Rosie Nixson
Hodder & Stoughton. 242 pages. £7.99
ISBN 0 340 67890 9

This book is written out of the passionate conviction that the gospel should be preached by men and women alike: that the traditional restrictions on women have served to prevent the gospel going out to 'all nations' as Christ commanded.

Rosie Nixson finds that in times of revival, traditional constraints on women's ministry have been lifted. She mentions several women evangelists whose ministries have resulted in many conversions. Despite the evident giftedness of many women, there are far more men in full-time evangelistic ministries than women. The reason for this, she thinks, must be discrimination - the holding back of women by traditionalist dogmas which keep women passive, and also the greater share of family responsibilities taken by women. Nixson suggests ways in which these barriers can be overcome. Women need to be encouraged to discover their gifts, given appropriate training and offered more full-time positions in evangelism. She suggests that married couples should do more to share out responsibilities for children in order to free up gifted wives to do gospel work.

Partly timely

There are some aspects of this book which are timely and true. It is a disgrace that many traditional churches are perfectly happy to train and support women to engage in evangelistic work overseas when they would never contemplate engaging a woman worker at home. Two-thirds of the lost souls in this world are women and children, and even the most convinced traditionalists should see that we should be training and using women to reach them! When 'evangelism' is understood as 'proclaiming the gospel' ('kerruso') there are no biblical grounds for prohibiting women from doing that. Yes, women need to be mobilised for evangelism; for most women as a part of their everyday life, and for some as a full-time vocation. Indeed, one of the disappointments of this book is that despite the promise on the back cover of 'practical suggestions on how this may be done', there are no recommendations offered of correspondence courses or colleges which offer extension training; no practical ideas of how to train women in our churches; not even a bibliography for women who want to develop their evangelistic gifts.

Confusion

But the book is confused, because the author never really distinguishes 'evangelism' from the authoritative leadership involved in the role of elder or church planter (by definition the one who plants the church at least initially takes the leadership role). She quotes the example of many women who have been successful evangelistically but does not acknowledge that some such women would have affirmed the principle of male leadership. She does not give any contemporary examples of women who are actively involved in evangelism who also believe that Scripture teaches male leadership and who minister within that framework.

The common feature of egalitarian (evangelical feminist) books such as this one is the logical fallacy of the excluded middle. Only two options are presented: repressive traditionalism where women are discouraged from using evangelistic gifts or else complete egalitarianism where women can do everything that men can do. But there is a middle way! Complementarians would strongly support training and using women in evangelistic ministries, whether full or part-time or voluntary, but would argue that the example of Scripture supports the principle of such women working in a team and in submission to the (male) leadership of the church.

Selective evidence

Nixson, however, rejects the arguments put forward in recent years by complementarians. The biblical position, she argues, must be that men and women are fully equal in all areas of gospel ministry. She sees the main flow of Scripture as endorsing men and women as 'equal in partnership' and, she says, just one single text (1 Timothy 2.11-15) appears to forbid women in ministry. She says 'the Bible has nothing to say about specific gender roles and it is not borne out by experience' (7). But she reaches this conclusion by a very selective use of biblical evidence. She does not satisfactorily deal with the absence of women elders in the New Testament; she does not consider 1 Corinthians 11.3; nor the passages concerning the non-reversible roles of husband and wife (Ephesians 5.21-33; Col. 3.18; 1 Peter 3.1-7). She ignores 1 Timothy 5.1-16 and Titus 2.3-5. Unsurprisingly, having overlooked such texts, Nixson considers the arguments that the sexes are 'different but complementary' and rejects them. Moreover, the 'experience' argument cuts both ways: many of us would say that experience does indicate that gender plays a crucial part in determining our ministry and role!

Gender quotas?

John Stott is quoted as saying that the timeless principle of 1 Timothy 2.11-15 is that of 'female submission to male authority' (221) but there is no hint in this book that Nixson would ever find such submission appropriate or acceptable. In answer to the question: 'Are the sexes really different?' Nixson replies 'not really' or, if they are, 'the differences don't matter'! She fails to take on board key works such as Stephen Goldberg's The Inevitability of Patriarchy. Nixson veers towards the 'quota' mentality (3) beloved of modern feminists, but shot through with flaws: women often don't want to do the same things as men, they are often unwilling to make so many relational sacrifices to get to the top, and who is to say they should? Crass comparisons of percentages of men and women in occupations is demeaning to those women who freely choose to work (or minister!) part-time so that they can be at home for their children.

In conclusion, Rosie Nixson rightly castigates those sections of the church which have ignored the biblical truth that Paul named women among his co-labourers and that women were among those who contended at his side in the cause of the gospel. In those situations, women need to be liberated for the gospel. But we are not liberated if we fail to live by those other sections of God's word which indicate an abiding principle of male leadership in the church as well as the home. True liberation only comes from joyful obedience to all of the revealed will of God.

Sharon James Leamington Spa