In Memoriam Mulieris Fortis

Proverbs 31:10 asks who can find a virtuous woman, implying that such women are rather rare. Interestingly, both the Hebrew word chayil and the Latin word that Jerome used to translate it (fortis) convey the idea of strength and power. The adjective in the Septuagint (andreios) actually means masculine or even stubborn. The subsequent description offers a biblical celebration of a woman whose genuine strength of mind and will is clearly on display. King Lemuel’s mother apparently wanted him to find a woman with strong character, determination, and the ability to rise above circumstances and to achieve great deeds. These traits have often been thought of as masculine, but they are entirely compatible with a biblical understanding of femininity.

When, during the summer of 1978, I stepped onto the campus of Denver Baptist Theological Seminary, the first person I met was the registrar, Ann Miller. She took the trouble to show me the school and to introduce me to several professors. Her encouragement was definitely part of the reason that I went to Denver instead of to a more prestigious seminary.

Later, as a student and then a professor at Denver, I learned more about Ann. The first thing that I learned about her is that she was a highly competent administrator. While her official position was registrar, her managerial ability was the glue that held the institution together. Whenever I needed to solve an organizational problem, Ann was the person to talk to. If she didn’t know the answer, or if the matter fell outside of her purview, she could always help me find the right person with the right answer. If the New Testament teaches that the Holy Spirit gives gifts to believers, then one of hers was the gift of “governments” (1 Cor. 12:28).

That was not Ann’s only gift, however. A couple of months into my first semester, Mrs. Miller called me to her office. She had my transcripts in front of her. “I see that you didn’t do very well during your first couple of years in college,” she said. “Then your grades took off. What happened between your sophomore and junior years?” I explained that during my sophomore year, God had broken my heart and will, bringing me out of rebellion and into a willing recognition of Jesus Christ as my Lord. I can still remember how Ann’s eyes lit up. “I knew it!” she said. “I knew that God was doing something with you!” For a few moments we rejoiced together in the goodness of God. From that moment onwards, Ann became an unceasing source of encouragement.

What I experienced was not unique. Ann took a very personal interest in all of “her boys.” Widowed while still a young mother, she had reared three of her own sons to godly maturity. Now she adopted virtually every young seminary student who walked through the door. Her interest in each of us was genuine and deeply personal. We knew that she prayed for us. We knew that she was on our side. She had as delightful a mix of the gifts of exhortation and helps as I have ever seen.

When, after summer break, we boys returned for our next year of seminary, we discovered that Mrs. Miller had become Mrs. Hauser. She had married Charles Hauser, professor of theology and biblical exposition, who had been bereaved of his wife a few years before. We seminarians got a kick out of seeing the two of them acting like newlyweds. Together they became a remarkable team. Her outgoing ways and his theological depth combined with a degree of maturity that both of them had learned through much suffering.

Some of my most important lessons in pastoral theology were learned from Ann Hauser. She was not afraid to instruct us about the kind of pastors that we must not become. Her first husband had been a pastor. She had ministered by his side as he sank into depths of despair, his despondency brought on because he could not meet the expectations of the false and unbiblical vision of ministry that then reigned in his version of Baptist fundamentalism. Her heart broke for the pastors (and their churches) who labored under that vision of ministry, and she did her best to disabuse us of it. Her obvious godliness underscored the depth of her concern, and her message reinforced the very things that we were being taught in the classroom.

Ann had reason to know something about bad versions of fundamentalism. Her first year of “seminary” (really, Bible institute), she discovered that the host pastor of her school was an immoral man. She would tell how the girls used to sprinkle powder lightly outside their doors when they left in the morning. If they saw a man’s footprint in the powder when they came back, they would not enter their rooms because they knew that Dr. Lecher (not his real name) would be inside waiting for them.

Toward the end of the year, this pastor wanted to oust the recently-appointed president of the school. He drafted a new constitution and presented it to the students (yes, that’s correct, the students) during a chapel. Proclaiming that, “I will be the cock of the wall or there will be no wall,” the president insisted that the students vote on the new constitution. When the “Nays” were called for, Ann’s sense of justice propelled her to her feet. Only later did she learn that about a dozen other students stood behind her. The pastor tried to throw them out on the street immediately after chapel. Only after Ann’s home pastor contacted legal counsel were the students permitted to leave campus in an orderly fashion.

Ann worked in the business world while her sons were at home. Once they were grown and on their own, however, she sought a ministry to spend her life on, and she found Denver Baptist Bible College and Seminary. There she labored at considerable personal sacrifice until the school closed. She and her husband spent their last decades at Central Baptist Theological Seminary of Minneapolis.

A gentle woman, Ann was an organizer, helper, and encourager. She was willing to labor without recognition and sometimes without compensation. She never craved the spotlight. She had a strong conscience, however, and seemed to be utterly without fear. She insisted upon holding Christian leaders to the same standards of morality and spirituality that those leaders laid upon people under their care. She had the moral courage to stand against ministerial predators who betrayed the ministry with which they were entrusted.

Her experiences of sorrow and betrayal might have embittered her. She might have abandoned God’s work or His people. Rarely, however, have I known anyone who found greater satisfaction and delight in her God. Rarely have I seen anyone more radiant with Christ-like joy. And rarely have I watched anyone throw herself into God’s work as Ann did, laboring to exhibit God’s goodness and mercy so profoundly that they would overshadow such dregs of human depravity as evidence themselves even in Christian settings. Through Ann, the mercy and goodness of God spilled over onto everyone she met.

During my entire ministry, I knew that Ann prayed for me. She was a definite source of encouragement, and not to me only. Through the years she touched the lives of many future pastors, first in Denver and then at Central Seminary. As long as she was at these institutions, every young pastor-to-be who walked through the doors became one of her boys.

Some years ago the Hausers retired to Louisville. Then last Thursday came the news that Ann had suddenly been summoned into the presence of her Savior. Except for two who were providentially hindered, our entire faculty drove to Kentucky to honor her memory.

Virtuous women such as those of Proverbs 31:10 are difficult to find. The combination of strength and grace is rather rare. Ann Hauser had it. Among virtuous women, she was one of the best. Chayil. Fortis. Andreios. Sometimes these virtues can be revealed to their best advantage when the adjective acquires a feminine inflection.

Denial
George Herbert (1593–1633)

When my devotions could not pierce
Thy silent ears;
Then was my heart broken, as was my verse:
My breast was full of fears
And disorder:

My bent thoughts, like a brittle bow,
Did fly asunder:
Each took his way; some would to pleasures go,
Some to the wars and thunder
Of alarms.

As good go any where, they say,
As to benumb
Both knees and heart, in crying night and day,
Come, come, my God, O come,
But no hearing.

O that thou shouldst give dust a tongue
To cry to thee,
And then not hear it crying! all day long
My heart was in my knee,
But no hearing.

Therefore my soul lay out of sight,
Untuned, unstrung:
My feeble spirit, unable to look right,
Like a nipped blossom, hung
Discontented.

O cheer and tune my heartless breast,
Defer no time;
That so thy favors granting my request,
They and my mind may chime,
And mend my rime.