TRUSTING WOMEN a Review

Trusting Women, (The way of women in churches of Christ) is a recent publication issued by New Leaf Books of Orange Calif. New Leaf is a perennial spring of materials promoting the agenda of the change movement. Billie Silvey is the editor of this book of essays by women affiliated with the Lord’s church.   Harold Shank of the Highland Church of Christ in Memphis expresses the view of change agents concerning the message of this book “These writers say things about Churches of Christ that nobody else is saying, things that nobody else can say.” He feels it “contains things that should have been said long ago.”

This reviewer and others of a conservative bent, would describe it as a “coming out statement” of women who have rejected God’s Word and the limitations it sets on their filling roles of congregational leadership and public teaching in His church.  Preferring the teaching of feminism to that of the Holy Spirit, they express their frustration with preachers, elders and congregations that would not allow them to use their talents in the leadership and public worship of the church.

This book is noteworthy in that is a declaration of the first women preachers to surface among our churches in over a hundred years. True, women preachers emerged among the digressive churches that separated from us at the end of the 19th century, but had no place among our brethren until recently.

There is Katie Hays, one time ministers of the Cahaba Valley Church of Christ in Birmingham, AL, now preaching for the West Islip Church of Christ in Long Island, NY. 

There is D’Esta Love, chaplain of Pepperdine University and member of the Malibu Church of Christ whose elders “made a statement to the church that made it possible for women to read from the Scriptures, to serve communion to the congregation, and to participate in periods of prayer in our worship” (p.  128). She feels that her “own religious tradition” (i.e., Churches of Christ) had let her down.  She reminiscences about thinking she would never have the opportunity to use her gifts of “ministry” in the church. It seems to me she could easily have walked away from a church so tightly bound and limited by Scripture and gone to the Disciples of Christ, the Methodists, Presbyterians or Pentecostals and instantly gone on payroll (p. 129). She tell us how folks like her get around such embarrassing passages as I Cor.  14:43-34 and I Tim. 2:8-14. “We are finding tools for the analysis of scripture which allow us to view the role of women in the larger context of the biblical witness, rather than allow two heavily disputed passages to relegate women to a silent role” (p. 130).  She believes that God “called (her) to Pepperdine University and has opened doors of opportunity for service that could not have been possible elsewhere” (p. 131). In this she is probably right, except of course she could have gone to Abilene Christian University and done as well.

	There is Amy Henegar, hospital chaplain, who preaches Sunday sermons at the hospital chapel. * There is Karen Logan who found her inspiration from “a statement of faith by ‘Christians for Biblical Equality’” published in the denominational journal, Christianity Today.
	Joyce Hardin argues that women can do anything except be elders, preachers or Bible teachers of Christian men” (p. 57). For this concession we do give her credit.  But she informs us that she does “not...understand why those restrictions are placed on women” (p. 57).
	Pat Boultinghouse tells us how she found her freedom from the old Biblical restrictions while working for Howard Publishing Co. of West Monroe, La. With the help and encouragement of Alton and John Howard, she and her husband launched Image magazine, precursor of  Wineskins.  She tells of working with influential leaders of the change movement such as Joe Beam, Ruble Shelly, Lynn Anderson, Jeff Walling, Mike Cope, Terry Rush and Marvin Phillips (p.  135). She asks, “Do we lift up our Lord and draw others to him when we rigidly hold to human traditions and a fifties culture” (p.141). I remind her and others of like-mind that the limitations on women in the leadership and worship of the church originated with the apostles in the first century, not the 1950s.
	Sherrylee Woodward acknowledges that, “During those tender devotions of the late sixties youth rallies, my crowd first began to wonder about applying the pattern for church worship, order and leadership when the church was not “in church.” (p. 191). It is fair to assume that much of the change agenda had it origin in the period of the sixties and in the environment of youth meetings. Young people who were poorly taught and led then are now the forty-something adults who are emerging as leaders of our churches. Raised on entertainment and emotionalism they know not what we believe nor why we worship as we do. Nor do they care much for what the Scriptures says.
	Lucille Todd and her friend, “felt the Holy Spirit moving (them)” (p. 209).
	Karen Logan tells us she was “blessed to be at a progressive church” where she enjoyed the worship of hand-raising and singing” (p. 228). She wonders, “Where is the verse that says a woman cannot lead a prayer?” (p. 22). We could ask, “Where is the verse that says we cannot sprinkle babies for baptism?” Of course this is the wrong question. The question is where is the verse that says women can lead in public worship? She believes that “God was preparing (her) to teach gender equality using this ministry of drama” (p. 232).

In reading this volume, one is impressed that virtually all of these liberated women who aspire to public leadership in the Lord’s church got their education and or inspiration from universities operated by members of the Churches of Christ. The most notable influence coming from Abilene Christian University and Pepperdine University.  This is important information for those who care for the church and want to see this apostasy contained. Whenever there is an outbreak of food poisoning public health workers look for the source.  When blatant heresy breaks out in the church we too must look for the source. This book provides the answer. All who read Trusting Women will agree with Harold Shank who, in his commendation of this book, rightly said, “This is not an academic volume or a book on Bible study.”  It is rather a declaration of women who no longer accept the Bible as their spiritual standard.