Journal: Priscilla Papers
Volume: PP 19:3 (Summer 2005)
Article: Editor’s Ink
Author: William David Spencer

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PP 19:3 (Summer 2005) p. 3

Editor’s Ink

William David Spencer

Friends, if we had a coin for every time an opponent of egalitarian ministry claimed that women’s leadership was: a) derived from secular feminism; b) Euro-American in origin; c) invented in the 1960s, we would probably be able to give away all memberships to CBE free.

This issue takes a look at non-secular, non-Euro-American, non-1960s examples of Pacific Island and Asian egalitarian women and egalitarian men in leadership.

History is the hostage of the historian. Often the facts are tweaked to reinforce—or, in the case of contemporary viewpoints, preinforce—a writer’s viewpoint by a deductive search for proof texts. I raise this issue because it is the chief objection proffered against admitting women had genuine leadership roles in history. If they led, why are so few mentioned in standard history textbooks? challenges the skeptic. The normal reply we offer is that texts are written and preserved by those in power and their presentation (or lack of such) of those outside their realm of interest will minimize, distort or dismiss their accomplishments. That reply illustrates the point of presenting the essays in this issue. Let me introduce them by the example of the plight of King Liholiho (King Kamehameha II), whom you will meet in Aída Besançon Spencer’s exciting analysis of the female-propelled awakening of Hawaii. One historian called this king who encouraged women an ineffectual ruler. A second decided he was easily misled. A third dismissed him as crafty. A fourth deplored his so-called dependence on the women whom he encouraged to rule with him. So much for the views of the historians.

I believe it takes a strong man, self-assured and confident of his masculinity, to allow others room to grow and lead. King Liholiho was not his father, King Kamehameha I, who ruthlessly unified the islands by brutal war. Instead, King Liholiho did something far more courageous and life enhancing—he broke a taboo that even his legendary father did not dare to break (though, to his credit, his father, apparently influenced by his son, to whom he dedicated the proposed victims, forbade human sacrifice at his death [see Ralph S. Kuykendall, The Hawaiian Kingdom, Vol. 1 (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1938), 63]). Who, then, ultimately, within the values of eternity was the stronger man? He who wages war against humans for self-aggrandizement, or he who defies gods for the sake of conviction?

Similarly, women called to lead worldwide across the ages have been dismissed, their accomplishments belittled, ignored, distorted, making them believe they are of no value. A small incident occurred to me in the 1970s that has been synechdochical in my assessment of the devaluation of godly ...

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