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SPEAKING FOR THE CHURCH:
The last promise that Jesus gave to his disciples was that they would receive the Holy Spirit and be his witnesses, “both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.” (Acts 1:8) Jesus did not command that we be witnesses, rather he stated that we would be witnesses. Those who belong to Jesus find it hard to be silent when an opportunity opens to speak of Jesus Christ and his redemption. Speaking for the Church means acknowledging the Lord of the Church. Speaking for the Church means speaking for Jesus Christ and his word. Belittling the redemptive work of Christ and the power of the word as revelation of that redemptive work is to proclaim that we are not a part of the Church universal nor do we belong to the Lord of the church. In fact Jesus stated, “For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when He comes in His glory, and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels (Luke 9:26). Two women in the Presbyterian Church (USA) speaking at two different women’s conferences amplify the contrast between individuals who speak for Christ and those who act like wolves attempting to scatter the sheep Jesus Christ desires to gather (Matt 12:30). Both conferences focused on women and both were mostly dominated by radical theologies. One conference, “Women and Word,” at Boston University's School of Theology in March of 2004, was reported on by Mark Tooley of The Institute on Religion and Democracy. Among the speakers were Virginia Ramey Mollenkott of the Evangelical & Ecumenical Women’s Caucus and Presbyterian minister Unzu Lee. Lee is Presbyterian Women’s Leadership Development Associate. The other conference, “Religion and the Feminist Movement,” was at Harvard Divinity School. This conference included speakers from many different faiths including goddess adherents. Virginia Ramey Mollenkott was also a speaker at this conference and writes in the EEWC newsletter, that “I was overjoyed to meet Carol Christ and Vicki Noble and to assure them that their work on goddess/women’s spirituality had been like an underground river nourishing the work of many of us in other areas of endeavor.”1 Some of the other speakers were Ada Maria Isazi Diaz, Letty Russell, and Roberta Hestenes. It is Presbyterians Unzu Lee and Roberta Hestenes who provide images of the one who truly speaks for the church and the one who speaks against the church, the one who gathers with Christ and the one who scatters The word of God and the Lordship of Christ are always the lodestone of Christian testimony. Mark Tooley writes that Lee “wondered about the effectiveness of traditional Christian spiritual practices, especially reliance upon ‘written text and preaching’.”2 Tooley also quoted Lee as saying, “Scripture is the site of our struggle,” “By giving such authority to written text, we lose our ability to intuit and listen to signs around us and be compassionate.” According to Tooley, Lee suggested that women who are using the term, “diversity” in an attempt “to expect inclusion of a pro-life perspective in the women’s caucus of the Presbyterian Church (USA), are “corrupting the language.” In all of her remarks, Lee was presumably speaking of women’s need for empowerment, but without, any acknowledgement of the Lordship of Christ. She was pushing a radical feminist agenda that was devoid of commitment to the Word of God. She was speaking for herself as well as for radical feminism, but she was not speaking for Jesus Christ or the Church that belongs to him. On the other hand, in the midst of an extremely diverse group of women, Roberta Hestenes, became, what Jesus Christ has promised to all who belong to him, a witness. True to the theme of the conference she defended her right to proclaim the word of God as a woman and a minister, nevertheless, Hestenes upheld both the scriptures and the Lord. She spoke of her youth and, “a hunger within that she had no name for, and no way to satisfy.” Hestenes spoke of her “conversion experience of faith in Jesus Christ,” which was, “utterly life shaking,” and, “transformative.” Hestenes spoke of taking the small amount of money she had and buying her first Bible. She spoke of the several ways her spiritual experience is rooted; one way is in the word of God. As Hestenes put it, “the way in which, in and through and beyond the actual words on the page I encounter God in the scripture.”3 Hestenes, simply put, displayed, during the conference, the transformative work of Jesus Christ; she was light for a city of women. The call for leaders to be faithful in speech and action in the midst of a careless and broken people is an ancient call. In a time of careless disregard for the sacredness of the act of worship, infidelity in marriage, and selfishness toward the work of God, Malachi the prophet spoke God’s words. His words were mainly aimed at the leadership of Israel because it was the leaders of that era, the priests, who could have turned the people back to the Lord. Malachi warned, “For the lips of a priest should guard knowledge, and people should seek instruction from his mouth, for he is the messenger of the Lord of Hosts (2:7). Malachi pronounced a curse from the Lord on those priests; the curse is imaged with the picture of the dung from the animals used for the sacrifices being smeared on the faces of the priests, who are then carried out with the animal dung to the place where dung was burnt (2:3). Jewish Scholar, Michael Fishbane, in Haftarot, referring to the verb “nasa’ (raise up, carry, accept) with the noun panim (face),” suggests the combination of these words, “alludes ironically to the Priestly Blessing in Num. 6:23-27. In it, the faithful priests are bidden to bless the people with divine favor (yissa’ YHWH panav; lit., ‘the Lord will lift His face’).” Fishbane lists other allusions of Malachi 2:3 to Num. 6:23-27. He then writes, “The perversity of the priests is lambasted through the very words they were given in sacred trust. Malachi’s rebuke is thus more than a prophetic critique. It is an anti-blessing—a slandering of the slanderers in their own words.”4 Joyce G. Baldwin connects the acts of these leaders to the New Testament and Jesus words to leadership in the church. She writes: God was misrepresented first by their unworthy lives and then by their erroneous teaching. This terrible possibility of causing others to miss the way called forth from Jesus one of His sternest warnings, (MT. 18:5,6,) and it is those with positions of leadership who are in greatest danger of misleading others.5Women, as well as men, in leadership, called to speak before the world whether at religious or secular conferences, or in any sphere of life, are called to faithfulness both to the church and the Lord of the church. Leadership in God’s church is a sacred trust given by the Lord of the church. Malachi, seeing the defiled offerings the people were bringing to sacrifice before the Lord, cried out with the words of the Lord, “Oh that there were one among you who would shut the gates, that you might not uselessly kindle fire on my alter! (1:10). In the mainline denominational seminaries, at women’s conferences, in places of poverty and oppression in the countries of Asia, South America and Africa the Presbyterian Women’s leadership is kindling useless fire before God, scattering the seed that belongs to Christ. Using the identity of a Christian they are speaking against the work of Christ and his word. But still, the promise is there in the word of God: Then those who revered the Lord spoke with one another. The Lord took note and listened, and a book of remembrance was written before him of those who revered the Lord and thought on his name. They shall be mine, says the Lord of Hosts, my special possession on the day when I act, and I will spare them as parents spare their children who serve them. Then once more you shall see the difference between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve him (3:17,18)._________________________ 1 See, www.eewc.com/Update/Fall2002Harvard2.htm.
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