A Follow-Up to "On Women Writing Theology in the Church"
Rev. Mark Preus’s guest essay of two days ago has blessed the church with a lot of conversation and discussion. One of the commenters questioned Pr. Preus’s methodology and scholarship. This is his response. ~ Ed.
Explanation of the Scope of “On Women Writing Theology in the Church”
By Mark Preus
“I appreciate pastors whose teaching is responsibly sourced and bears the marks of good research. I’m disappointed that a google search for “female teachers in church history” brings up an article which, point by point, mirrors Pastor Preus’. https://godswordtowomen.org/teachers.htm
Pastor ought to at least have referenced this article (which itself is not impressive), since he was obviously using it as his main (sole?) source for material.
Gottesdienst, we need you to do better than this, please.”
A brother in the ministry wrote a comment lamenting the lack of scholarship my article shows, and also pointed out similarities between my article and an article about women teachers that can be found online. The origin and scope of this article should be explained in a few point to counter both concerns.
First, Pr. Hill asked me to write this little article after I had spoken in person with him the week after Easter about my objections to having women writing in recent publications of synod. I explained a short outline of what I knew from previous studies of mine, mentioning all of the women who wrote hymns, explaining Deborah and Hulda, etc. I also mentioned Macrina, the woman who helped Jerome translate (whose name escaped me at the moment), Egeria, Hilda, and Angela of Foligno. He asked me to make a short presentation that is easy to understand to the brothers of the Wyoming District. The only major change I made, besides adding some details, to what I said to Pres. Hill, was to change my late medieval example from Angela of Foligno to Catherine of Siena, whose Dialogue I read. The article is a short argument addressing some basic truths of history and, most importantly, Scripture. The goal was to put it in a way pastors can explain to their parishioners. I think I succeeded mostly in that.
Second, to stop any further accusation that I simply looked at some article online (which article really stinks, by the way) or did no scholarship, I would like to explain how I knew what to say to John Hill before I wrote an article. My sources for Macrina are On the Soul and the Resurrection (trans. Madonna Sophia Compton) & The Life of Saint Macrina (Gregory, Bishop of Nyssa, trans. Kevin Corrigan). I chose Macrina the Younger because she is regarded as one of the greatest female theologians of the church, and is an example of a woman being a theologian, and yet refraining from teaching publicly. I read Egeria’s Travels (trans. John Wilkinson) in college in a class “The Age of Augustine,” where I also read some of Jerome’s letters. I knew about Paula from that time, and so I read the pertinent letters again (which are all online) and based my words on them. I read and taught Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People around 2011 at Faith Lutheran School in Plano, and so have known of Hilda and Caedmon. I had my two oldest read Caedmon four years ago from a beautiful little book for adolescents entitled Essential Studies in English and American Literature, by James Baldwin (1886), and I taught them about Hilda. I used primary sources, as scholars should begin with. Peter Dronke has a book, Women Writers of the Middle Ages (1985), which details a lot of women writers before the mystics, but they are either mothers, nuns, or are not writing theology. I did not include St. Perpetua, because I am still suspicious that the so-called transcriber actually wrote Perpetua’s words, and her writing is a description of martyrdom, which is good. I did not choose poets, of which there are several, because I had already proven from the Scriptures that women teaching through hymnody is sanctioned by the Spirit of God. I chose examples of women theologians who were known to me from my own education. To call some random article (which I think I actually did read at some point) the source of my article, is not only untruthful to the facts, but ignores the actual issues that I have spoken to. [You can find the article that promotes women teachers here: https://godswordtowomen.org/teachers.htm The author chose many, but not all, of the most well-known women “teachers” in the Church.]
Finally, the article is a very brief historical overview of the Church, meant to spark discussion about something we have been silent about while grey area after grey area becomes the norm and foundation for ever more teaching from women in the church. I did not have time to argue from all the Scripture that applies. I chose those women I best knew from my studies as particular examples of women who were good theologians, but nevertheless did not teach. I purposely did not get bogged down in arguments that would detract from the basic thrust of Scripture and the Church’s history. I now plan on writing a more detailed article in the future, nothing that could ever be considered exhaustive, but at least more helpful.
I only briefly touched on women mystics, but the scandalous fact that they actually often taught publicly to men is well known. Though there is much that is true in them, there is also much that is false (as I said of Catherine of Siena), which our Confessions explicitly condemn (including prayer to the saints, enthusiasm, direct revelation from God, trusting in self-chosen works, etc.). Parallels between these mystics and the popular female teachers of today are enlightening and we would do well to know more about the Church’s history in dealing with them.
The Papists, by a Biblical understanding of the word, already have “women pastors.” They have women teaching theology to adult catechumens. They fill the function of the one office of the ministry that derives from the apostolate. The so-called evangelicals often have women speakers and teachers and authors, even though the conservatives among them reject a woman being “a pastor.” The issue affects both the true visible Church and the sectarians. We should all be willing to contemplate the actual issues, investigate what we can of history, and watch carefully, lest we follow those who do not love God’s creation of woman for her glorious vocations, but for her self-chosen works.