Here is an interesting discussion from the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod concerning women's voting. It seems that many members in the Canadian Reformed Churches would agree with this federation of churches that women should not vote because it is an act of governing. But then should not some of the conclusions hold as well?
Scripture does not speak directly about the implications of voting. However, it may be significant that when a successor for Judas was being chosen, Peter addressed the men of the congregation concerning this responsibility (Acts 1:16 literally refers to "men, brothers."). Since Scripture directly forbids only the exercise of authority by women over men, we must ask if all voting involves an exercise of authority. We have not maintained that all voting always involves authority. We have, however, said that only men should cast votes which exercise authority over men. In our system of church government the voters' assembly is the authoritative governing body of the congregation. Among its more important responsibilities are the calling and removal of pastors and teachers, electing or removing the leaders of the congregation, and the acceptance and exclusion of members. For this reason, participation in this and other governing bodies in the church should be limited to adult males who are able to properly exercise authority over other men.
Some people have suggested that the issue of voting rights for women can be defused by changing the voters' assembly of the congregation into an advisory body without final authority. Such a redefinition of the nature of voting and the role of the voters' assembly would establish a hierarchical church government in which the final authority was in the hands of a board of elders, not the congregation. The same would be true if the synod convention were made anything less than the authoritative governing body of the synod. Do we really want to remove final authority from the hands of the congregation and hand it over to a small board? Furthermore, it is questionable if allowing women to vote in a body which was only advisory would satisfy people who insist that women must have more power to determine the program of the congregation. The desire of many women to have their needs and wishes considered when the programs of the congregation are determined can be met by less drastic methods than changing the nature of the voters' assembly.
I think that if we maintain that voting is an act of government, we need to change our Church Order to reflect that and then incorporate an article that states that the final authority rests with the male members of the church. Of course that would be a profound deviation from the principles of synod of Dort which, when it laid down the original Church Order, rightly maintained that the ruling body of elders held the authority in the church under the lordship of Jesus Christ.
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4 comments:
Ha. That's a very good point.
My Dad(from whom I learned tonnes) always asserted that the vote process constituted an expression of preference and that the consistory had the final say. That being said, it would be a very unwise consistory that goes against the majority preference.
With regards to women voting, I believe much could be assuaged by adopting a "one vote per household" policy like most or all CanRef school societies. It has always been my impression (again via my Dad through his many years in Orangeville consistory)that the main proponents/primary reasons for women voting are the communicate single women/widows members in the congregation. I don't know if that is still the case. But given the numbers of this demographic within the CanRef churches, the governance issue is a moot point..imho.
Your dad was right, Weather Guy. The consistory presents two names (both of whom, in the judgment of the consistory, are qualified) and asks the congregation which of the two they'd prefer.
The "one vote per household" might be hard to work out. What's "a household"? Keep it simple: You must be a communicant member in good standing to vote.
In Dr Bouwman's article, Gereformeerd Kerkrecht vol. 1 (Kampen: Kok, 1928), pp, 386-394, he argues in his attempt to establish that the mere act of voting in church is an authoritative act of government, and therefore forbidden to women (because the Bible forbids women to exercise authority and government in the Church): "No one will deny that the election of officebearers by the consistory is an exercise of church-rule. When now the consistory calls together the members of the congregation in order to vote with them, then it is not merely asking for advice, to which it does not have to pay any attention; but it then calls the congregation together, in order to cooperate with the consistory. The vote of the congregation is then, indeed, properly a valid vote which has decisive effect."
I have only one question: If this argument of Dr Bouwman is true and valid, then, why is it, that when the Independentists (i.e. Congregationalists, Brownists, and Barrowists) maintained that "Presbyterians admit that ministers ought to be settled upon the choice, or with the consent, of the people, but then this implies that the people have some share in the government of the Church, and, therefore, the Presbyterian doctrine, which excludes them from government, must be false", the ablest and most learned of the Presbyterian theologians in Scotland refuted this argument of the Independentists, "not by disclaiming the doctrine that ministers ought to be settled upon the choice, or with the consent, of the people, but by maintaining that this did not involve any exercise of government or jurisdiction on their part"? Why is it that these same Presbyterians "ESTABLISHED, IN OPPOSITION TO THE INDEPENDENTS, AND IN VINDICATION OF THE PRESBYTERIAN PRINCIPLE ABOUT THE GOVERNMENT OF THE CHURCH BEING VESTED IN THE OFFICE-BEARERS, THE FALSEHOOD OF THE VERY DOCTRINE ON WHICH BELLARMINE AND DR. MUIR FOUND THEIR OPPOSITION TO THE RIGHTS OF THE CHRISTIAN PEOPLE IN THE SETTLEMENT OF THEIR MINISTERS"?(See Strictures on the Rev. Jas. Robertson’s Observations on the Veto Act, pp. 23, 24. Edinburgh; 1840, The Southern Presbyterian Review XIII.4 (January 1861): 757-810, J. H. Thornwell, The collected writings of James Henley Thornwell, Volume 4, pp. 271, 272.)
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