Quoting Walter Martin on Feminism, Inclusive Language, and the NCC

 Dr. Walter Martin (1928-1989), founder of CRI and the original Bible Answer Man, on “Neutering the Bible” (quoted verbatim; sermon preached in mid-70s):

Today, the Christian church is in deep and growing apostasy. I am not an alarmist; I am not paranoid on the subject…Today, it is no longer what the Scripture says. It is what the theologians say the Scripture says…

Just recently the National Council of Churches entered into the castration business….They published 112 pages (I’m quoting now), called the “Inclusive Language Lectionary”…Isn’t that very scholarly? … “It is intended in the Episcopal, Methodist, Lutheran, Presbyterian, and Roman Catholic Churches. It is a liturgical lesson for a particular day, and passages are drawn from the both the Old and New Testament.”

Why become upset about something like that? Because it is nothing less than a desecration of the Bible. The purpose of the Council, they say, is to eliminate sexism from the Bible. Isn’t that interesting? Did you know that the Bible was sexist? They say it is, and they are going to eliminate sexism from the Bible. How do they do that? Well, by changing the text of the Scripture, so that the feminist movement is included everywhere to eliminate sexism!

Some (of you) look very surprised. Don’t be, I have learned a long time ago never to be surprised at the National Council of Churches, because they can utter the most pompous tom-foolery in the name of God that has ever been the misfortune of the church to have to put up with, and this is a good illustration....

They are going to eliminate all references to gender…Thus, Jesus is no longer identified as the Son of God, but now He is the “child” of God.

…The only way you can deal with this is to bring it out in the open, and let people see it for what it really is: It’s filth, because it is attacking at the very core the character and nature of holy Scripture and making the Scripture say what the Scripture does not say…

God is referred to as “Father/Mother”; the word “king” is replaced by the word “ruler”, because, you see, the word “king” eliminates “queen” and the word “father” eliminates “mother” so of course you don’t want to offend “Her” a bit more than you want to offend “Him” so you combine both of them into a bastardization of the Biblical Concept of God…

The time has come to take off the velvet glove with these jokers, and tell people what they are really up to, and this is what they are up to: they are up to the perversion of the text of holy Scriptures. Even their own translation, the Revised Standard Version, disagrees with them everywhere. Now, don’t tell me that the National Council has not been affected by the ERA; don’t tell me that they have not been affected by feminism, because it is clear they have even gone to the cults for their information. Long before this garbage was printed, Mary Baker Eddy in 1875, in the book, Science and Health with Key to the Scripture, in her glossary of terminology, identified God as “father-mother”. The National Council has at last has come full circle in its agreement with Christian Science, which is the diametric opposite of biblical theology. Now, it would be possible to go on discussing their re-writing of the text, but one thing is certain—in neutering the Bible they are performing the castration of biblical theology; they are doing away with the authority of the Word of God.

The National Council of Churches…speak in all the seminaries and all the colleges and the church conferences and denominations, and…they are influencing people, and if our voice is quiet they will think nobody disagrees, and they have won the day. Let us not give them that opportunity. Let us raise our voices and say, “No, no, no.”

I would like to know how it is possible to talk about “mankind” without including women. I would like to know how it is possible to be so naïve as to think that if you say “chairman” it couldn’t be a lady when your culture is obviously indicative of women occupying positions like this. If you want to say “chairperson” fine; if you want to say “people hours” great; if you want to call children “persons” instead of…”boys and girls,” wonderful! If that’s your bag, welcome to it! But keep your paws out of Scripture. That’s different. What you say in polite conversation…is not to be confused with the re-writing of the Word of God, because that is exactly what they are trying to do.

You see, God is not talked about in the masculine because of sex. God is talked of in the masculine, because that is the order of creation, and He identified Himself with man as the head of creation, nothing to do with sex, and the Scripture categorically states that women were created for man, not the reverse…The National Council is trying to force us into a mold of rebellion against the authority of the Word of God, and they are using sex as a blind for it.

…Deut 4:2—God forbids you to change His Word.

…Proverbs 30:6—Add not to His Words, lest He rebuke you and you be found out to be a liar.

The National Council is a liar.

People say, “Why must you be so blunt?” Well, in the name of God, somebody’s got to be blunt and tell the truth, because this garbage is passing for truth, and if we keep quiet in the midst of it, we are guilty! Therefore, let’s speak out. When you pray, pray this way: “Our Father which art in heaven.” When you talk about God, talk about Him in the way Jesus said to talk about Him: “Our Father.” When you want to talk about the biblical God, then talk about Him the way the biblical writers wrote it and not the way a Council of Churches, which has sold out to liberal theology and to feminism and to ERA, is trying to construe it. In short, let’s stay with the biblical concept of God who so loved the world He sent His only Son to be our Savior…Jesus Christ is Lord. He is the Son of God. He is the Savior, and He is not to be confused with the “chairperson” of the universe.

 [Walter Martin Ministries; www.waltermartin.com, sermon CD #3042]

 National Council of Churches Today (www.ncccusa.org)

 I had been wondering about the trend of not capitalizing “He” when referring to God amongst the new kind of Christians. I guess this may explain the reasoning behind it from “NCC Bible Translation and Utilization”:

 …it should be pointed out that in the original languages neither the Old Testament nor the New makes any linguistic distinction between addressing a human being and addressing the Deity. Furthermore, in the tradition of the King James Version one will not expect to find the use of capital letters for pronouns that refer to the Deity—such capitalization is an unnecessary innovation that has only recently been introduced into a few English translations of the Bible.

 [source: National Council of Churches; “NRSV: To the Reader” by Bruce Metzger; http://www.ncccusa.org/newbtu/reader.html]

 “Party” with “the Christ” in Stillness:

 Despite how antiquated my style seemingly is for today’s culture, I desire to continue capitalizing pronouns in reference to God in my writing, out of respect to Him. I guess I am just funny that way and “sheepishly” out of step. I don’t wish to “incarnate” either which apparently makes me an old kind of Christian according to the National Council of Churches. In case you have not heard, “Christians” are invited to come and “party” with “the Christ”, “take the stillness of the image”, and become like God:

…Sprague, a deacon in the Episcopal Church, argues that finding common ways to read scripture will go a long way toward making members of different faith traditions one body in Christ. Her studies for the event included a walk through the Creation story of Genesis 1:1-2:3 "to talk about how finely tuned God’s design is." Sprague noted that humans are the only creatures not named for their movement; we are named instead for being made in the image of God. "We are each of us only half an image of God," she said. "We are designed ... to be with each other and looking for the other in all sorts of ways."

Looking for the other and making room for others requires Christians to follow Jesus’ example of living life as a guest, argues Sprague.

"He does his life as guest," she said. "He is our guest as the Christ. We are called to be incarnate like him. To do that we have to change our concept of hospitality. It’s not our party even when it looks like it is.”

"In creation, like Jesus, we are the guest. ... To be the guest, we are to take the stillness of the image ... and be with God in creation. Then we can give it out and walk it forward and be the body of Christ."

[source: 1998 NCC News Archives, Young Adults From Across the Nation "Come to the Feast"; Kelly Holton, Associate Editor Wesleyan Christian Advocate (The Wesleyan Christian Advocate is the official newsweekly for United Methodists in Georgia) http://www.ncccusa.org/news/news51.html].

“But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ.” (Philippians 3:7) The way of the Cross leads Home…

“Walking it forward” on a different road, called to suffer for His sake,

Dwayna Litz

www.ltwinternational.org