The CBE Scroll

Sometimes we hear things or see things or read things that we can’t forget. Sometimes we wish desperately that we could forget them. Sometimes we’re willing to give every ounce of who we are to keep on remembering. Sometimes it’s a mixture of both.

I just can’t get it out of my mind – this passage in Proverbs 31 (verses 6-7) about poverty and injustice. It’s the verse that says to let the poor drink beer so that they might forget their misery and anguish. It won’t stop running through my mind that there are people so impoverished that Wisdom would say to let them drink so that they won’t have to remember their misery! The amount of despair that is revealed in these verses makes my heart ache so much I wish I could forget it. And yet, this amount of very real, everyday heartache that people experience is something I don’t want to forget.

Because. I want to do something about it. It is clear this desire I have is something God desires. The verses that follow say:

‘Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy.’

This is our job. We must speak up for others—be a voice for the voiceless. This call has become increasingly poignant to me; it increasingly pierces my heart and demands action. God really cares about justice, doesn’t he? I was never really aware of this before, but now I see it so clearly. Because I am made in his image, the passion for justice burns within me. I want to defend the rights of others that they may have all that God dreamed up for them.

May all men and women, rich and poor, and people of every tribe and tongue in all the earth know their value, dignity, and worth in God’s eyes. May they experience the degree to which he values and esteems them through all the human beings they encounter in their lives. And may you and I come to know the part which we can play to answer this call for justice.

Mutuality is now accepting articles (and discussion surrounding the issue) for the Summer 2008 issue on ‘Resolving Conflicts.’

Topic ideas include, but are not limited to:

• How convictions about biblical equality and gender justice apply to resolving conflict
• Biblical alternatives to ‘the tie-breaking-vote’ model of conflict resolution by female submission to male headship
• The importance of prayer for resolving conflict
• Whether there is a ‘middle way’ between egalitarianism and male headship
• Appropriate and inappropriate anger
• Biblical reflections: examples of how Jesus handled conflict, Jacob and Esau’s reconciliation, rivalry between Sarah and Hagar, etc.
• Examples of Christians who are/were reconcilers as well as examples of Christians who refuse(d) to compromise on truth
• Practical tips and reflections on race and gender reconciliation in Christ

Please send specific ideas or proposals to mgreulich@cbeinternational.org.

Founded by the forward thinking Mary Lyon (1797-1849), Mount Holyoke Female Seminary in South Hadley, Massachusetts (today known as Mount Holyoke College) was not her first educational venture. Lyon taught for several years along the Massachusetts countryside in smaller, elementary schools (often paid far less than the men in the area for the same amount of work). From 1817 to 1821, she attended Sanderson Academy and later taught there, as well as at the Adams Female Seminary in New Hampshire and Ipswich Female Seminary. Mount Holyoke opened in South Hadley in 1837 with eighty students, and it is Fidelia Fiske (1816-1864) who became its first graduate to enter into international missions.

Fiske was said to be a precocious young girl, reading Cotton Mather’s Magnali Christi Americana and Timothy Dwight’s Theology by age eight. She came to Mount Holyoke in 1839, but her education was interrupted when she contracted typhoid fever. Forty students contracted typhoid fever at the same time and nine died. It was thought that she, as one not known for good health, would be on that list. Her father, sister, and mother helped her pull through, though her father and sister also picked up typhoid fever and died in the process. Her mother, Hannah, did not want her to drift too far away after her near-death experience, so for a short while Fidelia taught at the local schools. Once she had recovered, her mentor and good friend, Mary Lyon, encouraged her to return to school and finish her education. After completing her degree, she was overwhelmingly approved by the trustees to be a full time instructor at Mount Holyoke.

As is often the case, life changes quickly. A missionary on furlough named Justin Perkins wrote a book called Eight Year’s Residence in Persia. Fidelia read it with eagerness. The book described the world of Persia (modern day Iran) and the needs of the people in such detail (including full color artwork) that she wondered if she would be better serving Christ in that world.

Within little time, word came that Perkins was nearing the end of his stay in America and had not located someone to replace Judith Grant, a missionary in Persia who had started a day school for girls, but passed away a few years earlier. Mary Lyon called all the instructors and students of Mount Holyoke together for an emergency meeting, informing them of the need. Those interested were told to drop a note in a box. While Fidelia and others were certainly academically qualified, it was later recalled by Perkins that Fidelia’s note was the only one that said, ‘If I am found worthy, I would like to go.’ The others regaled the missionary with their curriculum vitas, but because Fiske saw it as a spiritual engagement, she became their first and natural choice.

With little time to work, she immediately sent out a letter to her mother asking for her blessing. She also sent out letters to other family members, asking for their opinions. All of them told her that she was not healthy enough to enter into a mission field. Some pointed out that she could be leaving her family for good if she did such a thing. With good intentions, they reminded her that she was not the type of person to go off on adventures (clearly ignoring the fact that her interest seemed to indicate otherwise). There was also the added point, being a single missionary woman in the field was nearly scandalous – a sentiment still living on in some circles today.

Heeding their concerns, Fidelia turned down the offer and tried to move on. The position was offered to another woman, whose family told her the same thing. It was then that Mary Lyon came back to Fidelia and asked her to reconsider. Fidelia asked to sleep on it – something she was not able to do easily. Very early in the morning she knocked on Lyon’s door. She was willing to go to Persia, but on one condition: Lyon had to help her convince her mother. On that snowy winter day, she took a sled ride with Lyon to her mother’s home and spent the weekend discussing the issue. By Sunday evening, her mother gave her blessing.

It was a decision that changed her life. She boarded a ship with Perkins and his family and journeyed off to Oroomiah, arriving in June of 1843. There she made the school of Grant into an effective boarding school modeled after Mount Holyoke. She entered into a hostile culture that found no value in women and saw no reason to educate their daughters. Given such a world, one of the first phrases she learned in their language was ‘give me your daughters.’

Fidelia spent fifteen years in Persia declaring the value of women. She convinced families to let her educate their young daughters instead of abandoning them or selling them into slavery. She became a mother and a teacher to these girls.

By 1858, her struggle with sickness got the better of her and she returned to America. During that time she toured New England, raising awareness of the work still needed to be done in international missions. She returned to teaching at Mount Holyoke for a while and later published several books, including a biography on Mary Lyon. She died in 1864.

Under the guidance of Mary Lyon, Fidelia was encouraged to get a quality education and had her individual gifts nurtured. She did not allow herself (or the girls she ministered to in Iran) to be pigeonholed based solely on their gender. Each of us could serve as a Mary Lyon to someone who needs nurturing. Organizations like CBE and its members call Christians to minister by giftedness, not by gender.

How do you do the same in your local congregation?

For more information on Fidelia Fiske, see Faith Working by Love here.

Hurrah to London’s Metropolitan Police for upping their aggressive strategy to end female genital mutilation in the UK. The Guardian has the full story here on the new cash reward being offered – just before the summer holiday season when many girls are taken out of the country for the ‘ceremony,’ illegal in Britain – to anyone who provides information leading to a successful conviction. Let’s pray this campaign helps to raise awareness in other countries as well.

She wore plain clothing, a white dress, a white bonnet, and a rather drab shawl, but her Christian life was vibrant, colorful, and focused on the work of the gospel. When, in the early 1800s, Elizabeth Fry dedicated her life to the pursuit of a Quaker life, her family was not pleased. Only her brother, Joseph Gurney, really stuck by her side through it all. In her supposed radical devotion, Fry struggled intensely between her desire for the comfortable and prestigious life she was used to and her desire to promote only the glory of Christ. This accounts for her seemingly constant state of depression evident in her journal and sometimes weight loss.

Fry is best known for her prison reform, call for fair treatment of the insane, and opposition to the death penalty. Her famous work began with her visit to Newgate Prison. Two friends of hers, Stephen Grellet and William Forster, had just visited Newgate, and discovered its appalling conditions. Many were imprisoned without trial, and many executed for the weakest of reasons – England at the time had about 200 offenses that called for execution. Guards often treated the women’s ward like their own personal brothel. Women prisoners gave birth and raised children within in their cells and many existed in relative nakedness and poverty. Though it was the nineteenth century, it was still common for crowds to gather and cheer at the executions of these prisoners. The governor himself would sell tickets to the front row and even enjoy his breakfast over a good hanging.

When Grellet and Forster left Newgate, Grellet went immediately to Fry, feeling she – above anyone else – could effect true change in the prison. Fry and her close friend and relative, Anna Buxton, went to Newgate to check it out for themselves. When they arrived, they found women crammed into the cells, fighting over food, nursing infants with their own emaciated bodies, sometimes trading food for alcohol and carrying on wildly. One striking memory for Fry would be two women taking the clothes off of a dead infant to put them on a live newborn. Fry was shocked that prisoners were treated worse than animals. There was no doubt in her mind that Christ was offended by the conditions at Newgate.

She and Anna gathered clothing and food and passed them out to the inmates. But, Fry recognized that the women needed more than bread and shawls; they needed education, a useful occupation, and above all the gospel. She found herself preaching to them on a daily basis, and they hung on her every word.

In fact, it was her new celebrity status in the prison that caused Fry to question her work. She found herself enjoying the attention too much. She wondered how much of her work was for her own benefit – to give herself props – and how much of it was for the cause of Christ. Afraid of sinning against her devout Quaker principle of humility, Fry withdrew from her work in London for a time and moved back to her country house.

From there, her husband Joseph Fry handled his business and her nine children received an education, the boys from the tutors and the girls from the governess. Joseph, an egalitarian by the standards of the day, was very supportive of her work and demanded little from his wife in the way of domestic duties. This freed Fry to employ her leadership gifts in the community, and she started a school for poor girls in her home. But, tragedy precipitated deep depression. Fry suffered the death of a brother and her favorite daughter, Betsy. The family business lost money. Eventually, they were forced to move back to London, where Fry again visited Newgate and renewed her commitment to the women inmates. She finally saw her role there as that of a minister of the gospel and took lasting joy in this work.

Through strategy, winsomeness, and social position, she convinced the authorities to let her start a school in the prison for children of the inmates and young convicts. The inmates themselves offered to give up one of their already crowded cells to provide the school space the authorities insisted upon. Soon the children and the women were learning to read. They reinstituted regular worship services. She helped them start a sewing business and arranged for product sales outside the prison.

Fry’s work at Newgate turned into a lifelong pursuit – even in her own relative poverty late in life – of changing the way English people understood their responsibility toward other human beings. Due to her work, laws were enacted for the improvement of the conditions of prisons and hospitals and the treatment of the insane, even bringing changes to the death penalty.

Bringing human equity to the hearts and minds of others requires putting our hands to the plow. Egalitarianism, as a call for human equality, requires the dedication of our time and our pocket books. We must, as God has blessed us, use our gifts to advance the cause of the gospel. There are many Elizabeth Frys in the world (maybe you) who need our support. Find one and help her create change.