An African Denomination Fights for Its Life Against Feminism

–– Paul Schlehlein

The audio version of this article is available here: YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.

Recently, Die Gereformeede Kerke in Suid-Afrika (GKSA) opposed another push for female leadership in their denomination. In their decision, they wrote: “The GKSA are convinced the Holy Scripture does not permit women to serve in the office of minister of the Word and/or elder.”

The GKSA, sometimes called “Doppers,” is a Calvinistic, Protestant denomination that was established in 1859 and includes over 370 congregations across several southern African countries. They are the most conservative of the three, Reformed “sister churches” in South Africa. The other two, the NGK and the NHKA, have long ago succumbed to female church leadership, making the GKSA’s stand all the more remarkable. 

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The New Archbishop & the African Church – Some Warnings  

— Lukonde Mwila

The audio version of this article is available here: YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.

Since Anglicanism is now more African than English, what happens in Canterbury has ripple effects from Cairo to the Cape.  The gravitational “centre of Anglicanism has shifted to the Global South, particularly sub-Saharan Africa”, with over 63 million baptised Anglicans in Africa compared to some 23 million in all of Europe!

Church history contains Anglican heroes of our faith – like J.C. Ryle, J.I. Packer, C.S. Lewis, and William Wilberforce.  However, it is a Church today marked with a growing stain of compromise since its foundation.  Anglicanism was essentially born out of Queen Elizabeth’s desperate attempt to unite a nation that was fragmented by Protestantism and Catholicism. 

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MM 48: “Should the Word ‘Obey’ be in Wedding Vows?”

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First a story. I believe it was Princess Diana who was the first royal bride to omit the word “obey” from her vows when she married Prince Charles in 1981. Their vows were read aloud from the Book of Common Prayer.

Here’s a standard wedding vow from the Church of England: 

“WILT thou have this man to thy wedded husband, to live together after God’s ordinance in the holy estate of Matrimony? Wilt thou obey him, and serve him, love, honour, and keep him, in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all other, keep thee only unto him, so long as ye both shall live?”

She took that word “obey” out. This is very common in our world today. 

Especially with the women’s suffragist movement in the 1920’s in America, vows often now us “love and cherish” in replacement of the word “obey”.

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