What? Can You Say That Again?

(Clarification on my quote from Rebecca Groothuis)

How would you feel if I said, “Now, I believe that Jesus is the only way to God, however, I also believe that the teaching that there is more than one way to God seems to have some plausibility.” ? Would you believe my faith in Jesus as the only way to God was solid? No. Well, that is what we are facing here with Rebecca Groothuis, telling us she does not believe in androgyny, however, she presents an androgynous teaching and writes that such an idea “seems to have some plausibility.”

I wanted to make a clarification regarding my previous quote from Rebecca Groothuis. She wrote us to let us know that I left out the phrase below which I have put in italics in blue. By the omission of this phrase, this by no means proves that I took her out of context. Also, there was nothing “strategic” about this mistake; it was simply a mistake, and I do apologize. The androgynous teaching speaks for itself, and whether or not she dogmatically asserts this teaching, no matter how evasive she may try to be, the teaching is still there. As you can read below, she still believes this liberal idea seems to have plausibility. We are continuing to get emails from Rebecca about me taking her out of context, so I have written the entire page 125 from her book Good News for Women for the discretion of the reader (see what I have bolded for emphasis):

Some have suggested that before the woman was created Adam was not a specifically male human but was a sexually undifferentiated human. This idea seems to have some plausibility given that the biblical text does not refer to Adam as male until after the woman is taken out of him. In Genesis 1:26-27 and 5:1-2 we are told that God created Adam, that Adam was created in God's image, and that Adam was created male and female. These summary statements telescope humanity's two-stage creation so that, whether existing in the form of a single being or as male and female separate beings, humanity is referred to simply as "Adam." This suggests that before the woman was taken out of the man, Adam had in himself somehow a capacity for both maleness and femaleness. Donald Joy sees a parallel here with fetal development, in which every fetus has the form of a female until the ninth week, after which time sexual differentiation begins to occur.

Perhaps in a sense ontogeny does recapitulate phylogeny that is, perhaps the development of each individual human from undifferentiated sexuality to differentiate a sexuality, echoes the events of the original creation of humanity. As Donald Joy puts it, “We all start out the same in Adam, but we also all start out the same in embryo. Creation revisits every conception.” Although, of course, we cannot know these things with certainty, it does appear that the Genesis creation account has in it some mysterious possibilities that should militate against the traditional assumption that “Genesis tells of a male God who created a male human, and afterward, largely as a favor to the male, created a female.”

God named male and female humanity “Adam,” which means “human” (Genesis 5:1-2). She is human, he is human. In Genesis 2, the man is called “the human” before the woman is taken out of him, and he continues to be designated in this way after she is taken out of him. The man has temporal priority, and the language reflects this. But it does not also reflect a priority of power or authority. Most likely, it is simply for the sake of clarity and continuity that the man is referred to by the same term that had designated him before the woman’s creation. There is no reason to regard this use of language as a profound portent of the man’s spiritual authority over the woman.

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Despite this teaching, the Bible is still true! What a difference in my spirit when I read God’s Word to me:

“Wives be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the body. But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything. Husbands love your wives as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her.” Ephesians 5: 22-25.

Ah, now that is good news for women! Let the feminists call me “weak.” I find strength in the structure of God’s love, provision, and protection for me.

“Cleansed by washing of water with the Word” (Eph. 5:26),

Dwayna Litz

Lighting The Way Worldwide

http://www.lightingthewayworldwide.org