Journal: Priscilla Papers
Volume: PP 02:2 (Spring 1988)
Article: Panel Advises Expansion of Women’s Roles
Author: Holly Wenzel

Panel Advises Expansion of Women’s Roles

Holly Wenzel

Excerpted from an article by Holly Wenzel, The Clarion, March 25,1988, college newspaper of Bethel College, St. Paul, MN.

In a forum on women’s roles in the church, panel members suggested ways women can achieve equality and assume authority in spite of some sexist church structures. The March 18 forum held at Bethel College was co-sponsored by the Minnesota chapter of Christians for Biblical Equality and the Women’s Concerns Committee of Bethel College. The panel included Dr. James Beck, clinical psychologist and faculty member at Denver Conservative Baptist Seminary, Rev. Deborah Menken, Assembly of God pastor and Ph.D candidate at Fuller Theological Seminary, Alvera Mickelsen, former journalism instructor at Bethel College, and Dr. Berkeley Mickelsen, professor emeritus at Bethel Seminary. Pyllis Alsdurf, co-author of a book on wife abuse in Christian homes and former editor of Family Life Today, moderated the forum.

Beck said that sexism in the church can also disrupt the home and marriage, and said, “We cannot find sexism in Genesis 1 and 2, nor can we find it at the heart of what sexuality was created to be.”

Dr. Mickelsen addressed questions about I Timothy 2: 13-15, the passage in which Paul writes that women must be silent in church. [See article above, page 4.]

Mrs. Mickelsen cited scriptural evidence as a whole to show that a male monopoly of authority is wrong. “What our Lord did always was use His authority to empower others— Real authority is used to enable others to become all that God meant them to be, and that is in keeping with the words of our Lord. That message has really been lost, I think, in the church. We have had an attitude that comes from the Army; it doesn’t come from the Scriptures.”

Menken has had some firsthand experience with sexism. She recalled her parents’ and a few church members’ encouragement to attend the Assemblies of God Seminary in Springfield, Missouri, but said, “My pastor would not even acknowledge it. He told everybody in the church that I was getting a master’s degree in music.” When she arrived at the seminary, the academic vice president tried to refuse her entrance. She showed him his hand-signed letter of acceptance and asked if he wasn’t going to let her in.

“Well, yes; I have to, but don’t you realize an M.Div. is a pastoral degree?”

In her research of women’s issues, Alvera Mickelsen said, “I’ve been really disturbed by the number of women who tell me that somewhere along the way they have been counseled by somebody on some subject, and the line th...