0.9 2.5 the literature of the early church  (Page 7/8)

By the second decade of the twentieth century, interpretation of the issue had changed emphasis from the restrictive passages to the permissive ones. Questions were still raised about the verses urging silence, but they were answered matter-of-factly in terms of local customs in New Testament times. A typical response was that Paul was discussing "an orderly church service," and he demanded not "the silence of dumbness," but "the silence of quiet behavior." BS, October 30, 1913, p. 18. A repressive question like one asked in 1916, "Has a woman any right to vote on a pastor?" drew the response, "What a question: Read Gal. 3:28 and see whether there be any distinction of sex in the faith that is in Christ Jesus." BS, April 27, 1916, p. 24.

A comprehensive article written by James Gambrell in 1916 confessed that the "current of Scripture teaching" on women had been altered; namely, it had moved from "a few passages given in negative form" to affirmative doctrine. He used examples of women prophesying in Acts and in the letters of Paul and argued that if Paul gave instructions regarding how women were to pray and prophesy, he was sanctioning those activities. He distinguished between Paul's dealing with "customs and proprieties," which change, and "fundamental principles," which are eternal. The principles behind Paul's instructions to women were 1) "to dress and behave becomingly, so as to bring no reproach on our calling," and 2) to honor "the headship of the man in the marriage relation." Beyond that, Gambrell stressed "the inherent right of every one to think and act in religion on the basis of personal responsibility." Citing the Samaritan woman at the well giving her testimony "in the presence of the Savior and recorded by the pen of inspiration," he affirmed the "truth and consistency of Scripture" in granting the "liberty of the spirit" to both sexes. BS, August 10, 1916, pp. 10-11.

Mention of women speaking on the day of Pentecost was made numerous times to give biblical credence to women having an active--even vocal--role in church affairs, but the passage in Galatians that obliterated all reference to sex among those who were "one in Christ Jesus" offered the greatest hope of real comradeship in service. A minister insisted that Paul was "sounding out clearly the equal rights of women." BS, July 8, 1915, p. 25. "A woman is just as worthy and precious in the sight of God as a man, and all distinctions which imply inferiority and degradation, in Him, are broken down." BS, June 8, 1916, p. 8.

Between the 1880s and the 1910s Baptists made an intellectual journey in which they moved from an emphasis on "submission" passages to ones supporting "freedom." This movement helped rationalize the cultural changes that enlarged women's role in the church while allowing them to remain under the ideological umbrella of a biblical faith. The change was not unilateral, but the majority of the denomination moved with the tide of those times or made the journey subsequently. The "freedom" that was espoused and practiced, however, was compromised in two respects: the maintenance of the creation hierarchy in family relations and the prohibition of a woman's preaching or being ordained to the ministry. On these two points, orthodoxy was not challenged. Some of the reasons for the acceptance of these limitations were women's lack of imagination and courage, their unshakable faith in the system that had traditionally upheld these areas of male supremacy, and the refusal of men to surrender their bastions of power. Predictably, these are precisely the issues that the present-day feminist struggle, insofar as it exists within the Baptist church, is reinterpreting and attempting to change.