In February of 2011 I was privileged to speak, along with the Rev. Dr. Joel Lehenbauer and the Rev. Dr. Armand Boehme, on the topic of "Women in the Church" at the Theological Convocation held by the Minnesota South district of the LCMS. It was the desire of both the speakers and those who arranged the convocation that the presentations of the day would generate and foster further useful discussion throughout the district and synod. My specific task was to respond to Reverend Lehenbauer's presentation and to share thoughts on a broader view for women in the Church. Since that day I have become aware of numerous responses to my presentation, many of which were insightful and which have been helpful to me in terms of clarifying my own thoughts. I am deeply grateful to those who took the time to attend the conference (and/or to read the papers) and then to offer thoughtful questions, comments and resources for further consideration. These responses generally fell into three areas that I believe merit further attention: 

1. Methodological approach

2. The "Order of Creation"

3. Freedom and justice as a paradigm for future work 

In the following pages, I will attempt to address each of these points. It is my hope that those who have already joined in the discussion will continue to offer their insights, and that others might also be encouraged to take part, so that the spirit of kindness, peace and hope that prevailed at the convocation in Minnesota might continue.                                                       

Methodological approach

In the past few months I have given a great deal of thought to the parallels that I raised regarding the process of interpretation used by Pharisees, Nazis and the Taliban to that used by many in the LCMS on this particular topic. In particular, I have asked myself whether the references to my son and to the Time magazine article were truly well-founded or whether perhaps they were simply an extension of some uncontrolled emotion on my own part. I am indeed passionate about that topic. One does not receive a phone call stating that his/her child has been blown up, and may or may not live, without a certain degree of emotion. I cannot recall that day, or the many months of rehab that have followed, without a certain amount of residual fear and panic rising in my chest. Neither can I escape the reality that my own son was one of the "lucky" ones, knowing that the children of many have come home as pieces in boxes, and that the children of others routinely face situations such as that of Ayisha who was featured in Time.

So, I do not claim to be an objective analyst and witness to these things. I am indeed heavily invested. Similarly, I cannot (and would not if I could) claim to be a completely objective analyst and witness to this topic at hand in the LCMS. I am a child of the LCMS, with great grandparents who came from Germany on the boat, and with a grandfather pastor who was raised in Perry County. My father served as President of Lutheran Hour Ministries for many years. I am married to an LCMS pastor and am myself a commissioned minister in the LCMS. I am hardly an outside observer and my guess is that if you are taking the time to read this, you are not a detached observer either.

Still, this first question at hand is whether or not I let my emotions run away with me at the Convocation in Minnesota when I made reference to Pharisees, Nazis and Taliban. I believe the possibility is a valid one and appreciate those who raised it because it forced me to ask that question of myself. In response, I first want to repeat and clarify that the comparison did not, and was never intended, to paste the label of any of the above on anyone in leadership in the LCMS. Rather, the intent was to point out that the process of interpretation that has been consistently applied in regard to this topic is the same as that used by the above groups; and that this fact indeed ought to strike fear into the hearts of all of us.

Upon further introspection and study, I have come to believe that the comparisons I raised in Minnesota were both appropriate and necessary. That the process being utilized is the same and therefore is dangerous is a point I am compelled to keep making. The path of legalism does lead eventually to dehumanization and violence -- such a path was not, and is not, sanctioned by Christ and it should not be sanctioned by His Church. Those who are well-versed in the history of Lutheranism will recall the debate in 1934 between Karl Barth and Emil Brunner on "Natural Theology." In short, Barth argued that human beings cannot in any way achieve knowledge of God via human reason and that the concept of "natural theology" suggested that such was possible. Brunner, on the other hand, claimed that "natural theology" could legitimately be used without violating the notion of sola gratia. Complicating the theological debate, however, was the volatile world in which it was taking place. Barth feared that a theology such as that proposed by Brunner could be hijacked by the Nazis and used as theological backing for their political ideology. The reality is that the Nazis proceeded exactly as Barth had feared. It is not that Brunner himself advocated such a use of the concept of "natural theology." Nonetheless, for the Nazis, such a theology provided a ready and handy tool and the trajectory of said tool was noted early on by Karl Barth and also by Dietrich Bonhoeffer.[1]

The point is not to suggest that there is no basis in the Biblical text for "orders of creation" or "natural theology." Indeed, God creates the world and brings chaos into order as He does so. But whether or not it is appropriate for Church leaders to take the notion of such "orders" and superimpose them concretely over human beings in specific life circumstances is quite another matter. That, I believe, is the question that is actually before us. However, I will attempt to take up the matter of "Order of Creation" further in the next section.

It seems my reference to the Taliban bothered some even more than that to the Nazis. I can only presume that this is because the Taliban has come to power in our own time period and thus represents a significant threat to us. I, for one, would like to demonize them; to pretend that their faith has flaws that lend it to violence whereas ours does not. And certainly, as a Christian, I believe that their faith does have a major flaw in that it denies the divinity of Christ. This difference between the two faiths is real and critically important. When Muslims face interpretive decisions, they look to the Prophet Muhammad; whereas we look to Christ, the Son of God. Even so, the hermeneutical challenge faced by Muslims and Christians is much the same. In regard to the relationship between women and men our approach has been to zero in on certain texts (Gen 2: 21-24 is a good example) and then interpret those texts in ways that either restrict or loosen restrictions on women. In Islam, the battle over certain passages functions in the same manner. The following hadith (saying of Muhammad), for instance, is fiercely debated:

Jahmah said to the Holy Prophet, "O Messenger of Allah, I desire to go on a military expedition and I have come to consult you." He asked him if he had a mother, and when he replied that he had, he said, "Stay with her because Paradise lies beneath her feet."[2]

The significance of this well-known hadith became clear to Isobel Coleman of the Council on Foreign Relations after she encountered conflicting interpretations of it on a trip to Saudi Arabia. Coleman relates that a male Saudi friend defended his country's restrictions on women (who are not allowed to drive, vote or travel without a male guardian) by claiming that the laws exist to protect women; and that certainly women must be protected because the Prophet Muhammad himself stated that "Paradise lies beneath the feet of mothers."[3] Coleman relates how the same hadith resurfaced in a later discussion with a group of Saudi women, one of whom insisted that "we deserve all these rights and more, because Muhammad said that 'Paradise lies beneath a mother's feet.'"[4]   

Clearly, this saying of Muhammad can be interpreted in differing ways. In our tradition, the same is true for many of the sayings of Paul, in particular. What the Taliban have done is to take the basic interpretation used by people like Coleman's male friend and radicalize it several times over. It is a small step from women cannot drive to women cannot hold certain jobs or attend school. It is also only a small step from women cannot hold certain offices to women cannot read lessons or serve as acolyte. The hermeneutic employed by the Saudi man (in the first example) is one of protection (ostensibly for women but perhaps also for the traditional male role in Saudi society). He believes protection is critical and thus he interprets the hadith through a lens of protection; but what exactly is the hermeneutic being employed in the LCMS (in the second example above)? When one attempts to explore that question, the answers vary. Sometimes, the rationale is that the Church should not offend those who believe that women should not perform certain tasks. At other times, the rationale is that the Church should not cause confusion by allowing practices disallowed in the past. Still another reason is that the Church needs to exercise right doctrine and that allowing women to function in certain roles would represent a breach of faith and practice.

In the LCMS, the hermeneutic, or rationale, for restriction is certainly less than clear. At the very least, this point ought to be clarified; although the basic problem runs much deeper and forces us to wrestle with the problem of the "slippery slope." During the panel discussion in Minnesota, I was asked how I would deal with the "slippery slope." The questioner stated that people like me "scare" him because my presentation sounded to him much like what he had heard at the recent ELCA convention where the decision was made to allow homosexual clergy. My response was that I simply cannot be worried about the slippery slope; and that I do not see Jesus worrying about it either -- after all, he eats with sinners, runs around with sinful women, and also with alot of men who seem strange, to say the least. So, I'm not going to worry about the slippery slope and I'm going to leave the decisions of the ELCA and the judgment of other people to God. Even so, upon reflection, I wonder what hermeneutic (or rationale) was driving the man's question. Was it a hermeneutic of protection i.e. that we as the LCMS need to make our primary goal that of not becoming like the ELCA? Or, more broadly, that we need to protect our Church against false doctrine and the like? Do either of these concerns reflect concerns held by Jesus? Do they reflect a hermeneutic that Jesus used? I don't think so. Still, while I stand by my initial answer, I do believe that the "slippery slope" needs further discussion. I will come back to it in the following sections but hope others will lend their thoughts and expertise as well.  

The Order of Creation

As I noted in Minnesota, The CTCR study, The Creator's Tapestry, rests heavily on acceptance of the concept of the "Order of Creation;" and while I do not wish to re-trace points already made at the convocation (either by myself or others), I do believe it is helpful to recall Rev. Lehenbauer's statement that CTCR documents are created for the purpose of generating further study and that, therefore, any CTCR document is open for questioning. It is that process that has already begun, and that is, in my view, healthy.

In attempting to further the study, then, I think it is helpful to note that a very basic disagreement exists as to whether inequities, or "complementary" roles (the terms themselves are laden with meaning and betray a stance one way or the other) between men and women were instituted in creation before the fall (as the proper way in which life should be arranged) or came about after the fall (as a sad consequence of sin). In other words, is hierarchy inherent in God's initial design for creation? Those who follow the former necessarily place a great deal of stock in God's ordering of the cosmos and creatures in Genesis 1. They see the creation of the human beings in Genesis 2 as God's ordering of human creatures. The sun and the moon are in a certain order and the sun is brighter than the moon. Likewise, men and women are created in a certain order and the man is brighter (so to speak -- take offense if you wish!) than the woman. In quite a different manner, those who follow the latter view, that is, that inequity and all injustice is a sad consequence of the fall, do not focus on the ordering of the cosmos or of the humans but rather on the relationship between all created things; a relational network in which all was created good and in which men and women are created in something akin to a peer relationship (not in hierarchy but more like workers together) -- until that goodness (and the peer relationship) was corrupted and became distorted at the time of the fall.

This is not a new area of contention[5]  -- but anyone wrestling with the issue of how women and men stand before God and how they are to relate to one another in the Church must eventually face it. It is the point on which our endless arguments over the phrase 'ezer kenegdwo ("helper fit") hinge. Again, is hierarchy between men and women inherent in God's original design for human beings or did it come into the world as a result of the fall? Who really is this creature, this woman, whom God creates from Adam? How does she relate to him? Is she one with the man, created also in God's image and out of Adam's very substance: bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh? Or should we think of her as a more separate creature; one who is also in God's image but who is created as an assistant to the man, as illustrated by the fact that she is created after him and from his side (rather than from a more essential part like his heart or his brain, for instance)?

The answer to these questions are critical and reveal the importance of exegesis on these passages and the critical nature of the meaning that is assigned to the phrase 'ezer kenegdwo. As many have noted, the word 'ezer (helper) is also used in scripture for God himself and thus cannot be said to imply inferiority. The word kenegdwo, often translated "fit for him," means "corresponding to him," "his counterpart," or "one like him."[6]  If the primary focus is on the fact that the woman is made from Adam's own flesh, it makes sense to read her as Adam's peer who exists and operates in relation to him even as he exists and operates in relation to her. After all, the two are (since she proceeds from him) of the same substance; just as our confession states that Christ is of the same substance as the Father. If, however, the primary focus is on the fact that she is made second (even though of Adam's same substance), translations that connote lesser/different status can be more readily applied. Thus, the former focus lends itself to a view that understands men and women as peers; as one humanity created in the image of God. This I will refer to as a "Body of Christ" model. The latter lends itself to a perception of men and women as two separate beings, both made in the image of God but created in hierarchy, one above the other. This is an "Order of Creation" model. I will continue the discussion of these models in the third section of this paper; but here, it is first necessary to consider the comparisons sometimes made between men and women in the "Order of Creation" and the persons of God in the Trinity. While under a "Body of Christ" model such a comparison can be utilized without theological compromise, the same cannot be accomplished under an "Order of Creation" model. 

In a paper entitled The Service of Women in the Church in Light of the Order of Creation, Rev. Robert Wentzel asserts that prior to the Fall, the "Triune God created all things and placed all things in order . . . A place for everything and everything in its place, including man and woman."[7] Next, in a series of ten theses, Wentzel makes clear that the Trinity, not just God the Father, is present and active in creating the world.[8] Early on in his paper, he states

We believe in contradistinction [to those whom he believes do not accept the underlying unity of scripture], that the teaching of the Order of Creation embodies the Word of God in the fullest sense: that all things were created from nothing by a Word from God and placed in order, that is, in a living, working relationship; that Jesus Christ Himself is the Word of God, begotten of His Father from eternity but also incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary. He is the Word of God made flesh, who dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; God, the uncreated, becoming one with His creation, so that creation itself is redeemed from sin and restored to the fullness of order that creation possessed "in the beginning." The matter of humanity, of man and woman created by God to live before God, is contained within this Order of Creation. To attempt to understand our lives as Christian men and women in church, in home, and even in the unbelieving world around us a part from the Order of Creation will prove fruitless and even destructive . . . [9]  

Wentzel's initial point, that the teaching of the Order of Creation embodies the Word of God in the fullest sense is problematic. Certainly Lutherans accept that the fullness of God, the whole of the Trinity, was present at creation; and yet, it does not follow that the Word of God in the fullest sense was embodied in an "Order of Creation." The "Order of Creation," as it is fleshed out in Wentzel's paper presumes that this Order is hierarchical; but hierarchy when applied to the Trinity has long been deemed heretical. One might well choose to accept Wentzel's assertion that the matter of humanity, of man and woman created by God to live before God, is contained within this Order of Creation but to accept his earlier premise that the Order of Creation embodies the Word of God in the fullest sense is to usher in a new and poorly revised form of Arianism. Simply put, when one's starting point is based in hierarchy, Trinitarian thinking on this topic is dangerous.

While on the surface, the "Order of Creation" might seem to solve hermeneutical issues in regard to certain challenging passages, it actually raises greater difficulty. For instance, consider First Corinthians 11:3: "But I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and the husband is the head of his wife, and God is the head of Christ."[10] Are we to suppose that because Paul says "God is the head of Christ," there is hierarchy within the Trinity? That is certainly the trajectory of the statement if we read the first two phrases using the model of the "Order of Creation." In his work, The Office of Woman in the Church, Fritz Zerbst goes to some length to establish that the troublesome Greek word, kephale, "designates him whose very reason for being consists in being over another."[11] Without explanation as to why, Zerbst dismisses the possibility that Paul may intend the word kephale to carry a broader, more organic connotation, as he states "In the Old Testament and in the Septuagint, kephale always implies 'a plurality or an organism', but not in this Corinthian passage."[12] According to Zerbst, the point that "Paul evidently wants to express, [is] namely, that for man, woman and Christ there is something that has been ordinated over them."[13]

This kind of thinking, logical within the framework of the "Order of Creation," affirms subordination within the Trinity. Christ the Son is, herein, second to God the Father. Zerbst attempts to move readers away from that conclusion by contending that the hierarchical arrangement involves no humiliation or dishonor. Christ is obedient and willing to be subordinate to the Father and thus women should also be obedient and willing to be subordinate to men.

Frankly, it is surprising that a work such as this has gained as much traction in the LCMS as it has. If we read Paul through a "Body of Christ" model (which he himself puts forth in chapter 12 of 1 Corinthians), an interpretation of kephale as more akin to “summation of the whole” rather than "leader" or "head" in the sense used by English speakers becomes very feasible: "Nevertheless, in the Lord woman is not independent of man or man independent of woman. For just as woman came from man, so man comes through woman; but all things come from God."[14]

There is no need to resort to Arianist type theologies. The Trinity is a mysterious One-ness. The Son is not less than, or subordinate, to the Father. Orthodox early Church leaders refused to budge on that point for they understood that if Christ was not wholly God, if indeed He were less than the Father, He could not possess the power to save humanity -- and in that case, their faith, and ours, would be in vain.[15]

Still, for Zerbst and some others before him, the over-arching hierarchical arrangement existed at the level of the Trinity, at the level of the cosmos and at the level of humanity. Hierarchy was God-ordained not only in marriage but in the Church as well; and not just in the Church but between the sexes in general.[16] For many years in our country, and in our Church, it was a small step to assume and enforce God-ordained hierarchy between white people and black people. And for the Nazis too, the "Order of Creation" was indeed a theology made to order. In tracing the influence of Christianity on Nazi thought and policy, Richard Steigmann-Gall examined the heavy involvement of the "Inner Mission," a Protestant Social-welfare Program whose members became strong advocates for the Third Reich's eugenics policies, even to the point of supporting euthanasia of those deemed unfit for the master race. In an interview on the topic, Steigmann-Gall stated,  

I think it’s very important to keep in mind that these are not people who didn’t realise what they were doing. The theological underpinnings of this, to borrow your expression, also in a broader sense explains why those Protestants who went to Hitler, did go to Hitler. And it’s an expression which is used in Germany – I won’t give you the German word, Stephen, but it translates roughly into “the theology of the orders of creation.” And what you start getting in Protestant circles is the idea – certainly by the turn of the century, this idea is getting currency – that the Volk, or the race, is one of God’s orders of creation. Now, Lutheran theology had always maintained that God had created certain orders in society, like the family, and the law and the state. And what you see increasingly among Luther scholars is the idea being suggested that the Volk as well – and again, Volk is a word which doesn’t translate easily into English, it’s translated as “people” or “race” – but the Volk is a divine order of creation.[17]

Theology matters. In the name of God, Hitler and his Third Reich killed millions of human beings who occupied inferior rungs on the hierarchical model of the "Order of Creation:" Jews, Gypsies, Poles, persons who were mentally or physically handicapped, elderly and children. By way of explanation, Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's Minister of Propaganda, declared:

Our starting point is not the individual, and we do not subscribe to the view that one should feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, or clothe the naked.... Our objectives are entirely different: we must have a healthy people in order to prevail in the world.[18]

I asked it in Minnesota and I'll ask it again: As a Church, is this where we wish to cast our lot? 

Freedom and Justice as a viable Paradigm or Lens for interpretation?

It is at this point that I would like to draw your attention back to the problem of the "slippery slope." The man that raised the point in Minnesota asked me what I would propose to do about it. If I could roll back time and have that moment again, I would like to ask him about his guiding hermeneutic. What is the rationale behind his question and what is the theological problem that troubles him? In other words, what drives the question? If our concern is doctrinal, then how have we constructed our hermeneutic? Why did Jesus come into our world? Did He come to construct a hierarchy of who serves whom? Did he come as a new Moses to impose order in his creation? Have we thought these things through, or have we bought into a politics of power which then brings us to read the phrase, "he shall rule over you,” as an Order instituted by God rather than as a curse enforced by virtue of the man's strength, size and musculature in relation to that of the woman? How does such a reading of Ordered hierarchy square with Paul's words in Galatians 3:28 which sound relational rather than hierarchical -- “You are all one in Christ Jesus?”

So, given such questions, what I would propose to do about the "slippery slope" is simply to ask yet one more question: What exactly happens to the slippery slope if there is no slope? Slopes exist because hierarchies exist -- if there is no hierarchy, there is no slope. So, what if we were to begin to think about this issue with a "Body of Christ" model instead of an "Order of Creation" model? Under the "Body of Christ" there are many members but one body; and "If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it."[19] There is no hierarchy and thus, no slope to worry about slipping down.

This is not a suggestion that we do away with all semblance of order. But it is a proposal that questions whether God instituted a hierarchical order at creation in which there is, as Wentzel states "A place for everything and everything in its place, including man and woman." Following the Minnesota Convocation, a number of useful comments came my way regarding the plausibility of my suggestion that freedom and justice serve as our interpretive lens. I appreciate these comments and do think further thought and clarification is needed. As Lutherans, we confess that salvation is by grace through faith. That is our most basic interpretive lens. I think of it as our core value. It is the belief on which the Church stands or falls. But what other hermeneutical lenses (or paradigms -- we can call our guiding principles by any of these names) flow from our most basic core value of grace through faith? What hermeneutic most properly follows? Is it pure doctrine? Is it order? Is it protection of a culture or particular cultural mindset? I do not believe that any of these are the best hermeneutic to flow from our basic value of salvation by grace through faith. Instead, I would argue that there is adequate, even overwhelming, scriptural evidence to suggest that the hermeneutic employed by the prophets, and later by Jesus, is a hermeneutic of freedom and justice and that this hermeneutic flows naturally from the basic premise of grace.

But now, let me share more specifically some of the valuable insights on this topic that followed the convocation and that may serve to illuminate the topic further. Some felt that freedom and justice as an interpretive lens is a nice idea but that its implementation would require such a cataclysmic shift of institutional thought and attitude that it could never happen. Maybe -- but I once took one of those personality tests that labeled me as "buoyant in the face of difficulty," so I'm not quite ready to quit treading water yet.

Others expressed concern that in approaching the issue as a matter of justice or the securing of rights for women, we would only be flipping the hierarchy. I could not agree more; and wish to clarify that this cannot be about justice for women because this is not a woman's issue. Rather, it is an issue that concerns all people, and especially all people in the Church. Yet another point was made that even if we change the system, our sinful natures would continue to contaminate any new system. This is also true and brings us back to the need to reflect on grace as our basic core value and our first lens of interpretation. It is critical that we not lose sight of that value for as Paul wrote to the Ephesians, and Luther re-discovered for each of us,

[It is] by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your doing; it is the gift of God--not the result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.[20]

If we begin with this core value in mind, it should not be hard to take the next step which is to choose a lens that flows naturally through which we will read scripture. This lens is critical because it represents the principle (too often assumed but not clearly stated) that drives our reading and interpretation. If we choose a paradigm of purity and law (the lens that I showed in Minnesota was also used by the Pharisees and the Nazis and continues to be used by radical Muslims today), we are destined to continually worry ourselves with the self-appointed duty of judging others. Who is where on the slope and how can we keep the lesser ones from getting closer to us? This, I would suggest, is the great heresy with which we flirt in Missouri. We are not saved by getting it right; and getting it right is not a lens that flows easily out of our core value of grace. It is, however, the lens that we have used thus far in regard to this issue; and it has led us to a perilous adoption of the "Order of Creation" model -- which provides the theological glue to cement the faulty hierarchy in place.

There is, however, another option. If we were to deliberately choose to employ a paradigm of freedom and justice, the lens that was employed by the prophets and by Jesus Himself, we would be enabled to see ourselves and others inter-dependently. Indeed, we would be able to see Christ in others. We would be free of the slope and of judging others; but we would not be free of care and concern for them -- "The eye cannot say to the hand, 'I have no need of you,' nor again the head to the feet, 'I have no need of you."[21] Paternalism would be replaced by genuine respect and love between members of the body of Christ -- leading men of good will would no longer need to bear the burden of mouthing words of respect to women while simultaneously upholding rules that oppress those same women. Women and men alike would be free to truly love one another in Christ -- and it is, after all, "for freedom that Christ has set us free."[22]

As already said, it is my hope that many others will join in this conversation and that this paper will serve to foster further discussion. 

[1] The argument between Brunner and Barth was quite heated and can be found in Emil Brunner and Karl Barth (trans. Peter Fraenkel), Natural Theology: Comprising "Nature and Grace" by Professor Dr. Emil Brunner and the reply "No!" by Dr. Karl Barth, Eugene, Oregon: Wiph & Stock Publishers, 2002. See also Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Geoffrey B. Kelly and F. Barton Nelson, eds.), A Testament to Freedom, especially Part 6, "Bonhoeffer's Ethics," 343-372.

[2] An-Nasai, Muslim scholar (ca. 829-915) -- a popular hadith quoted by Isobel Coleman (Council on Foreign relations -- NY), Paradise Beneath Her Feet: How Women are Transforming the Middle East, NY: Random House, 2010, cover page.

[3] Coleman, xxvi.

[4] Coleman, xxvii.

[5] In the ancient world the question was often embedded in a related discussion regarding the point at which sexual consummation first took place – in the garden or out of the garden. For varying views, see Gary Anderson, “The Garden of Eden and Sexuality in Early Judaism” in Howard Eilberg-Schwartz, ed., People of the Body: Jews and Judaism from an Embodied Perspective, NY: State university of New York Press, 1992, 47-68.

[6] Benjamin Davidson, The Analytical Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon, Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1986, 533.

[7] Rev. Robert W. Wentzel, The Service of Women in the Church in Light of the Order of Creation, submitted to the Free Conference of the Association of Confessing Evangelical Lutheran Congregations, March1, 2011, 2.

[8] Wentzel, "Thesis I: All things created are created by the pre-existent Word of God," 5.

[9] Wentzel, 4 (italics mine).

[10] 1 Cor 11: 3. Biblical citations are from the NRSV.

[11] Fritz Zerbst (Trans. Albert G. Merkens), The Office of Woman in the Church, St. Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House, 1955, 32.

[12] Zerbst, 32. The problem is that one Hebrew word, rosh, has a wide semantic range and was used in both senses in the Old Testament. The Greek language has two words available, which connote differing meanings. Thus, the translators of the Septuagint translate rosh as arche when the sense is one of “chief,” “leader” or “head person” whereas when rosh  connotes “a summation” or a sense of “organic wholeness,” they utilze kephale. See rosh in Davidson, 671. 3. See also arche and kephale in Liddell and Scott, An Intermediate Greek-English Lexicon, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 7^th ed., 1997, 121 & 430.

[13] Zerbst, 32 (italics mine).

[14] 1 Cor 11: 11.

[15] 1 Cor 15: 12-14.

[16] Zerbst, see especially 32-35, though this point runs through the whole of the rest of the work.

[17] Richard Steigmann-Gall with Stephen Crittenden, "Nazism had strong ideological roots in Christianity" on The Religion Report, September 17, 2003 (accessed April 28, 2011).

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/8.30/relrpt/stories/s946813.htm]

Steigmann Gall is the author of The Holy Reich: Nazi Conceptions of Christianity, 1919-1945, Cambridge University Press, 2003.

[18] Joseph Goebbels, in Naomi Schaefer, "The Legacy of Nazi Medicine" in The New Atlantis, no.5 (Spring) 2005, 54-60.

[19] 1 Cor 12: 26.

[20] Eph 2: 8-10.

[21] 1 Cor 12: 21.

[22] Gal 5: 1.