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evangelical or evangel? only your hairdresser knows for sure
It happened again a few nights ago. A news story on ABC World News Tonight. Lead in video montage of a woman with eyes closed and hands raised in worship, cut to a group of three Southern Baptists standing outside of a SBC seminary: a white man, a youngish woman and a youngish African American man, all dressed up as if for church. So they were trying to put a positive face on these Southern Baptists. The interviewer asked them all: “Do you think Sarah Palin is ready to be a heartbeat away from the presidency?” They all nodded enthusiastically. Then the follow up: “How would you feel about a woman serving as a pastor?” They all frowned and shook their head, no. Somehow, according to their reading of the Bible, it was just fine for a woman to command the most powerful military the world has ever known, with a enough firepower to wipe out humankind, but it was not fine, and decidedly so, for a woman to pastor a church. Despite Deborah, despite Priscilla, despite a woman being first witness to the risen Jesus, commissioned by him to take the message of his rising back to the other apostles, making her the apostle to the apostles. Throwing his lot and the lot of his religion in with a woman from the get go–entrusting her with the most authoritative message ever delivered by a member of humankind to humankind.
The views of the three Southern Baptists are representative of the largest Protestant denomination in the United States, second in size only to Roman Catholicism (which similarly prohibits women from serving as pastors), and more to my point, the church home of the leading evangelical of our time, Billy Graham. I ask you, if you were a thoughtful and inquiring young woman who had not been raised with any particular Christian convictions, how would you feel about attending an evangelical church in the hopes of learning more about the founder of Christianity? Houston, we have a problem.
And it’s a problem that has been vexing me sorely of late. We have, for lack of a better word, a branding problem. We who care deeply about the gospel and who find ourselves identified with those who are known as evangelicals. The branding problem is deep and it’s wide. Evangelical is a term that in popular use applies mostly to white American Christians, though an increasing number of Hispanic Americans are evangelical as well. African American Christians rarely if ever use the term, even though the vast majority are theologically evangelical. I won’t even mention the branding problems associated with attitudes toward science or politics that are firmly imbedded in the popular understanding of what it means to be evangelical in America today.
All this is fine, so long as we don’t mind preaching to the choir, but as soon as we want to actually be evangelical, and by that I mean as soon as we want to bring the gospel effectively to those have not engaged the gospel, we find ourselves about as frustrated, say, as is Treasury Secretary Paulson these days, our rescue mission stymied.
Maybe it’s time to think of ourselves as evangels, not evangelicals. Maybe it’s time to try to understand the difference between loyalty to Jesus and loyalty to evangelicalism as we know it today in the United States. Maybe for the sake of the gospel, we will need, increasingly, to be willing to offend what have become evangelical sensibilities, and with that incur the annoyance of the power brokers of American Evangelicalism.
What’s the difference between an evangel and an evangelical? Let’s play with that thought for a while. Only your hairdresser knows for sure. Your hairdresser knows your true hair color is the idea, because she can see the color of your roots. (It’s tiresome having to explain your allusions knowing that Clairol commercials are not enduring things. Or was it Breck?)
As I consider my own roots–my Jesus roots–I go back to my earliest days as a confessed believer. I was part of the early Jesus movement before I knew there was such a movement. We didn’t use the term evangelical back then. We barely saw ourselves as connected to anything remotely like “the institutional church.” Catholic, Protestant, Methodist, Baptist? That’s not where it’s at man. It’s all about Jesus. Naive, I know. A-historical, I know. Not in keeping with a faith that is by nature, historical and incarnational, I know. But there was also a genius to the naivety. This notion that one owes one’s loyalty to one source who is someone not a something: Jesus of Nazareth, who lay beneath and rose above the phenomenon of institutionalized religion. Willing to be borne by institutional religion, in the same way that he was willing to be borne on the back of a donkey. Thereby re-purposing institutional religion to it’s only legitimate function: to be a good donkey.
I think of my theological center, the kingdom of God. My earliest Bible teacher was a Jewish believer in Yeshua named Haskell Stone who studied under George Eldon Ladd the theologian of the kingdom of God. Had you asked Haskell whether he was Catholic or Protestant he probably would have said, “Neither. Thats a Gentile dispute and I’m not a Gentile.” The kingdom of God was not the primary theological motif of the Protestant Reformers, Calvin and Luther. (Luther named his new churches, evangelical churches, dusting off a term that hadn’t seen much use.)
I’m probably not making sense to many of you. But I am making sense to myself.
What if we tried to think of ourselves for a while as mere evangels? and left the ending “ical” to refer to our Macbook calendars, for, lets say forty days. Forty days of re-purpose. Forty days of re-purposing ourselves. Forty days of refocusing ourselves, and our identity and our loyalty and our passion and our efforts and our strategies and our tactics and, before all that, our hearts, our vexed and troubled hearts.
You may quibble with me over words. I know “evangel” is a word that simply means good news. And it’s begging for an adjectival ending that allows it to serve as an identifying noun. But hold the fort, the second meaning of “evangel” in Webster’s Third New International and Extremely Heavy Dictionary is “one who proclaims a gospel message.”
What if we woke up after forty days of re-purposing and found ourselves to be evangels? What would we then be that we are not now?
As I said, I’m sorely vexed. How about you?
Tags: evangel, evangelical, Sarah Palin, Southern Baptists, thinking out loud, vexxed, women
September 30th, 2008 at 7:39 am
i am vexed as well, but i love that this sort of thing touches our idols, and we begin to sweat it. smash the idols (even the “good” ones)!
September 30th, 2008 at 8:59 am
Gal. 5:6 For in Christ, neither our most conscientious religion nor disregard of religion amounts to anything. What matters is something far more interior: faith expressed in love.
I vote for the love road.
September 30th, 2008 at 4:43 pm
There are many things in the Bible that are offensive to non-Christians. That doesn’t mean we should ignore them. There is a difference between secular political authority and church authority. A Muslim can be President, but can’t be a pastor. A gay person can be President, but shouldn’t be a pastor. Agree? Isn’t that what Vineyard teaches also? Did you cross out 1 Timothy 2:12 and 1 Corinthians 14:34 in your Bible? Aren’t husbands to be the spiritual leaders in their families and churches? How many of Jesus’s twelve disciples were women? God doesn’t need you to help him be P.C.
October 1st, 2008 at 4:20 am
Brenda,
Were any of Jesus 12 disciples gentiles? Given your logic we should also only have Jewish pastors.
October 1st, 2008 at 5:17 am
Brenda, I know where you are coming from, I have been down the same road. It is not about being PC, it is about being His.
The beauty of our faith is not the rules we obey it is the one we serve, love and hopefully emulate.
A Muslim couldn’t be a pastor because they are muslim. A gay person certainly could be a pastor. My first pastor was gay. I know some awesome gay women pastors. You say shouldn’t be, perhaps we can agree. But gayness and muslim-ness are choices of behavior, some argue that gayness is genetics, again perhaps. But one must choose at some point to act on it. Behavior vs being.
Being a woman is a far different discussion, there is relatively little choice in the matter.
I seem to remember a Vineyard discussion of this same subject, perhaps someone has the reference.
October 1st, 2008 at 5:28 am
Well, I don’t know. Biblical interpretation is diverse. Whether we like it or not. Sincere Christians differ sincerely. What did John Wimber say? Something about the “main and the plain,” as I recall. He recommended defining ourselves on the basics of what it means to be a follower of Jesus, not on the stuff that wasn’t at the heart of his person and his teaching. So if we are to be carriers of the good news to the lost, if we are to be the vessels of the Holy Spirit, then we’ve got a big enough job, don’t you think? We shouldn’t be quibbling about the arguable issues. Evangels? Arguments divide us. Arguments distract us. What I like about “evangels” is that it gets the polit”ical” out of what I call myself. I’m a follower of Jesus, not Billy Graham or Rick Warren or Jerry Falwell. Or any other human being. Or group of human beings. I want to bring the good news of Jesus, not the good news of some preacher/politician. I want nothing less than Jesus himself and no one else.
October 1st, 2008 at 9:35 am
“Why can’t a Vice President Palin also be a Pastor Palin? Spiritual and civic leadership are two different things. The Bible does not address gender for civic leadership, therefore we must not place a restriction where God is silent. Otherwise, we become Pharisaical legalists writing laws God will not support. In short, a woman would certainly be free to run for high office in civic leadership. On the other hand, the Bible does address the gender issue for spiritual leadership. We honor that by faith even if it does not satisfy the demands of natural reasoning. In spiritual understanding, however, the highest ideal is not a leadership position but service. Thus, everyone has the same opportunity for service with high reward when each stands before God.”
-Rev. Ron Susek, evangelist, author and president of the Susek Evangelistic Association
In my opinion, Rev Susek’s reasoning is fallacious. Why do I say fallacious? Because when Ron says, “We honor that by faith even if it does not satisfy the demands of natural reasoning,” he is admitting that the logic of natural reasoning leads to a conclusion about women pastors that is different from his “faith” conclusion. No offense, Ron, but our “natural reasoning” is a GIFT FROM GOD, a gift which leads to the sound logical conclusion that God has called some of his daughters and not just some of his sons to the pastorate. Our reasoning is always a gift from God, flawed and imperfect, but it’s the best gift from God that we can use to determine, “What is truth?”
October 1st, 2008 at 10:02 am
There is an excellent article on this subject which I recently read in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion. The article is “Measuring Evangelicalism: Consequences of Different Operationalization Strategies” by Conrad Hackett and D. Michael Lindsey. Interestedly the study finds that conservative measures show that only one in 20 Americans is evangelical, while one in two are evangelical according to a more combination of more expansive measures. Depending on the culture, demographic, and religious characteristics, evangelical is defined differently. Very fascinating article. If we are all defining evangelical differently, then how can we claim to be the same?
October 1st, 2008 at 7:31 pm
I should start by saying that my position on the topic of women in leadership has evolved quite a bit over the years. I have come to realize that the passages seemingly prohibiting it are not as cut and dry as they appear and I now support women in leadership in the church.
With those biases clearly stated, let me ask those who hold a different view to help me understand their argument better. As I understand it, the position is: The bible prohibits women from leadership over men in churches, but not in civic or other secular situations. Where does the Bible make such a distinction between civic and spiritual leadership? The passage and Timothy starts with a call to prayer for kings and all who are in high positions. So the context is quite general.
For that matter, where does the Bible ever make a clear distinction between civic and spiritual authority? Their is certainly and Old Testament distinction between the Kingship and Priesthood but that is a distinction of role, not spirituality. Both were equally answerable before God and subject to His authority. No?
October 2nd, 2008 at 5:24 am
Well, I don’t know. Was the question of female leadership in the church central to Jesus’s person and his teaching? Or is it tangential? It is one of the many questions by which we divide ourselves from one another and distract ourselves from doing what Jesus asks of us. Loving is made more difficult by disagreement, especially when the disagreement is inflamed by the desire to claim God’s own righteousness. This tendency to major in the minors or emphasize things that Jesus did not make central for us is what I think of when I think of Evangelicals. So I’d rather get back to the basics. I like the term Evangels (if we have to have one) because it seems to better suit this perspective.
October 2nd, 2008 at 8:53 pm
“I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet.”
“Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says.”
Come on, are you really going to tell me that the man who wrote these words would be okay with a woman being a pastor, preaching and having authority over men? If you want to disagree with Paul for the sake of making the gospel “palatable” to our modern audience, fine… but please don’t patronize me by telling me that Paul would ever have supported having a woman spiritual leader over a church.
The same methods of interpretation that allow you to argue that Paul didn’t mean what he clearly said are the arguments being used to say that Paul also didn’t mean what he said about homosexuality.
Why not just be honest and say that you disagree with Paul and the Bible on these issues? I would have much more respect for that.
October 3rd, 2008 at 5:32 am
Well, I don’t know. Is Paul Jesus or is he Paul? Does Paul speak for Jesus, or does Jesus speak for Jesus? Does Paul have the authority of God, or does Jesus? As a follower of Jesus, I am rigorously a follower of. Guess who? Jesus.
October 3rd, 2008 at 6:58 am
What does it mean to be a rigorous follower of Jesus? Well it means a lot of things. One of the things it certainly means is that the words and actions and character of anyone else, whether in the Bible or out, become much less interesting. Much less informative. Much less authoritative. One looks at all others as merely flawed human beings, making mistakes regularly as all merely human beings do.
October 3rd, 2008 at 10:05 am
Paul was an early (admittedly just about the biggest and earliest) church leader/planter who prayerfully sought to spread God’s truth to his constituents. I’m no scholar, and I don’t know all of the cultural influences in the 1st century that played into some of Paul’s sayings, but to equate Paul with Jesus or the rest of “the Bible” (the Holy Scripture referred to by Jesus, before Paul) is either incorrect, or you’re doing so incorrectly. Does everything said by every character in Bible require absolute adherence, as if it were the Law direct from the mouth of God? If not, what criteria do you use to determine who/what does achieve this state of authority?
In order to read the Word with the authority that (I believe) God has placed on it, one must read it as a whole, cohesive and dynamic, living story (of which we are a part, with the ability to reason with the Author, just as Paul was, from Adam to Noah with the Noahide code, to Abraham and the covenant, to Moses and the Law, and most importantly Jesus with the new covenant – as the Author and Creator of all these characters, Himself joins the story as the knight in shining armor to save His bride, humanity).
We are in the fifth and final act of this epic, and to claim that we must replay scenes from the earlier acts in order to be true to God’s purposes for the continuing drama is not only naive, but it’s missing the mark, the goal to which God has called us heavenward in Christ Jesus. Instead, we are to study the earlier acts in the Bible (as EARLIER acts), as if to familiarize ourselves with the characters (esp. Jesus) so as to properly improvise these final scenes with accuracy, true to His purposes for us as we act in consistency of character, in accordance to who He has called us to be as Christ followers. This is how the Bible is to operate for us as an authority, not as a rule book or list of propositions to adhere to.
Real life in this fallen world is not conducive to legalistic idealism. Ideals are important, but even more important is to recognize them as ideals, and to recognize reality as reality. Some day we will live in the ideal, for eternity when our redemption is complete. [by the way I'm not saying I believe misogyny is at all a part of this ideal - instead I lean toward the idea that these things were right in Paul's time due to the fallen state of his society and what was deemed "proper" at the time].
Concerning homosexuality… I’d like to say I’d rather not touch that one with a 10 ft. pole (as I’m sure Ken would feel, if not outright say). But it’s that attitude that perpetuates many problems within the issue. I believe similarly here, as with the women in leadership issue. Except that it’s a bit different. Even though I’m not a woman, I understand what it means to be one gender (male) in comparison to the opposite, and if the tables were turned I can empathize (to some extent) with such “female” concerns. With homosexuality, however, it is very difficult for me to understand with no similar (or converse) experience/temptation for which to equate/compare. Some say that heterosexual sins/temptations fulfill that complementation, but even that doesn’t carry at all any of the related cultural/emotional upheaval that homosexuality does. I don’t believe homosexuality is genetic. One particularly potent evidence for that is a “case study” of two identical twin friends of mine from high school. One of them is gay, the other straight. But genetics doesn’t determine everything about our personalities, and even the slightest environmental factors can have huge impacts on the direction of our development, even effecting our physical body and mind.
My conclusion for this is, if one has homosexual tendencies, and feels honestly convicted by the Holy Spirit to curtail this and to work towards change (which I’ve heard is possible from some who’ve taken this route, but for others it has proven futile – in which case, the question is whether the Holy Spirit really was the messenger of conviction, or was it other influences? -of which there would be thousands…), then by all means that person should follow His lead. If not, trying to change by shear will is unhealthy and damaging, leading to a life of hypocrisy and dishonesty. I’m of the opinion that God desires authenticity from us more than a primary concern to please (or appease) Him, like He’s some angry control freak in the sky. That’s not love, that’s fear, two things which are mutually exclusive. Perfect love drives out fear, and conversely fear (like darkness) cannot exist in the presence of true love (light). Trying to love through fear is the ultimate futile task. It is for this reason that God gave humanity a choice in the garden. Without the choice to eat or not eat of the fruit of the tree of the “knowledge of good and evil”, you would think that we’d still be in paradise, right? Wrong, without the choice we’d be mindless pawns, robots who can neither love nor feel love. That’s not paradise, it’s not even Hell, it’s worse. It’s nothing.
K, I’m done rambling (again).
October 3rd, 2008 at 8:45 pm
Brenda,
The man who wrote those words wasn’t writing “Paul’s rules of church government”. He was writing letters to specific people in specific situations. It’s disrespectful to scripture to simply pull passages out of context and say, in effect, “isn’t the meaning obvious?”
No, it’s not obvious when you’re reading words written thousands of years ago in another language! And when you’re dealing with issues such as gender roles, where culture plays such a huge role it is doubly important to reflect on how your upbringing and worldview color your reading of the text.
In both passages you site, the context and the Greek words used make it clear that Paul is writing about husbands and wives, not men and women in general. In 1 Corinthians, he’s addressing the situation of a charismatic church service, and in 1 Timothy the context is church dealing with false teachers and those who have been deceived by them. This context matters.
October 4th, 2008 at 11:24 am
Hairdresser? her? If we’re going to get all PC about it, the modern term is hair stylist, and it can even be a “he” nowadays. And just because he or she chooses to be a hairstylist, doesn’t mean he or she would make a good one. Likewise a man or woman can choose to be be a pastor (or get elected as president), but that doesn’t mean they’d be good at it. Last time I checked, it’s not what’s between the legs, but between the ears that makes a good leader, pastor, president, etc.
October 5th, 2008 at 2:57 pm
I think it is healthy for Christians to debate and argue their theology vigorously, if done in an attitude of respect and love.
I think Brenda has hit the nail on the head. In this case, Pastor Wilson should just come out and say that he’d prefer to do away with the New Testament teachings that he doesn’t like. The Word of God says clearly that women are not to be in authority over men. One could argue that perhaps that that was meant for that time and culture then, and not now, but that is not the root of Ken’s position or thrust of his argument. I’m not troubled that Christians are standing on the Word of God, I’m very troubled that Ken seems to want to set aside the Word of God to please men. Ken is embarrassed because the majority of Christians take the Word of God literally for this topic, and the world hates us for that. The wisdom of this world, the world’s theology would have us do away with anything offensive about the Gospel. Martin Luther said, “Upon this Word I stand.” Ken Wilson is saying, “Upon my wisdom (natural reasoning) I stand.” The world hated Jesus and He told us that it would hate us as well. We should strive not to put a stumbling block in front of men, but not at the expense of compromising the Word of God to please them. Next week CNN will argue that homosexuals should be allowed to be ordained in Evangelical churches, and that all faiths lead to God and salvation. Will Ken Wilson agree?
October 6th, 2008 at 1:06 am
Forgive my ignorance, but where in the bible does it say that every word out of Paul’s mouth (or any other apostle’s mouth) must be treated as if Jesus Himself said it? I respect Paul, but I don’t worship him–I only worship the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
I respect the bible,too, but I don’t worship it, either; frankly, I think that the attitude of fundamentalists and evangelicals toward the bible borders on idolatry. They seem to worship the book, rather than the God who inspired the authors to write it. They would do well to explore the bible’s
profound spiritual,symbolic,allegorical, and mystical depths, rather than limiting themselves to mind-numbing literalism.
When God invited us to his heavenly feast, I believe he meant for us to eat the meal, not the menu.
October 6th, 2008 at 8:32 am
Brenda, despite this barrage of comments, I think I speak for all of us when I say “We love you, despite our difference of opinion.” I can imagine it doesn’t feel too good to have so many fellow Christians being so defensive about this (with all of the underlying emotional baggage with issues like this) and seemingly ganging up on you. I’m sure if Ken hadn’t been away visiting family right after your post, many of these duplicate comments would never have been posted.
I know what it’s like to be ganged up on. So does Jesus
October 6th, 2008 at 10:18 am
“Forgive my ignorance, but where in the bible does it say that every word out of Paul’s mouth (or any other apostle’s mouth) must be treated as if Jesus Himself said it?”
Good question. 2 Peter 3:15, 16 is a good start.
I believe that the Holy Spirit inspired the human authors of Holy Scripture so that the Bible is without error in the original manuscripts. And I receive the sixty six books of the Old and New Testaments as my final, absolute authority, the only infallible rule of faith and practice. How about you?
Receiving the Bible as a final authority and rule of faith and practice does not mean I worship it, but I view it as God’s word to me and the church. I don’t view it as an options-filled menu, rather it is an instruction guide. When Jesus, and Paul, gave instructions to the church, they didn’t say you could take this or leave that, (extra mayo please and hold the fries), they didn’t say, “welcome to our spiritual buffet, choose what you like”, they said, “do this”. As a guide we choose to either follow it, or discard it. If we treat is as a menu, then we are free to chose what we want to accept, or want to reject, depending on our apatite or mood.
Jesus said to the Jews that they studied the Scriptures because they thought that in them they had eternal life, but that those Scriptures pointed to Him! Therefore we should accept and study the Scriptures because they guide and point us to Christ who gives us eternal life; He is our feast. Since Jesus declared the Scriptures are a guide; should we then ignore them or follow them? If we ignore them, maybe we won’t be feasting on the real Jesus.
I don’t reject spiritual or mystical experiences or knowledge, it is very real. But when it contradicts what the Bible teaches then that experience, feeling, or intuition, is to be rejected. Some Christians have claimed that they felt God lead them into sexual sin for some mystical reason. That means that God is stupid and I don’t buy it.
Further, in the early days of the Vineyard movement, John Wimber was accused of putting spiritual experience above Biblical doctrine. Search the web and read about it. This accusation was unjust, unfair, and untrue. Eventually John Wimber responded strongly: personal spiritual experiences do not trump the Bible.
And with the right Biblical perspective you can go far deeper in knowing Him.
October 6th, 2008 at 4:17 pm
“But when it contradicts what the Bible teaches….” The Bible doesn’t teach anything. People teach. The Bible contains hundreds of human voices, each with its own bias, point of view, way of thinking about things, audience, and so forth. It is a fiction that the Bible teaches anything.
October 7th, 2008 at 5:22 am
People teach. People interpret. God inspires. Can people get God wrong? You bet. When God inspires somebody, can that somebody get off track? You bet. Inspiration is not dictation. Response to inspiration is not automatic writing. It is the selection of words. And words can be selected incorrectly. King David was inspired by God. He still commited adultery and had a friend killed. The apostle Peter was inspired by God. But that did not keep him from denying him three times.
October 7th, 2008 at 11:01 am
Jim, I would like to reply to your Q, and dialogue with you. You said,
“I believe that the Holy Spirit inspired the human authors of Holy Scripture so that the Bible is without error in the original manuscripts. And I receive the sixty six books of the Old and New Testaments as my final, absolute authority, the only infallible rule of faith and practice. How about you?”
Jim, I have studied the pros and cons regarding the inerrancy of the bible. The evidence that I have seen compels me to believe that the bible has errors in it which were in the original manuscripts. What is the evidence that compels you to believe that it is w/o error? Your faith that the bible is w/o error is not evidence, it is belief w/o evidence, is it not? By definition, belief w/o evidence is superstition.
October 7th, 2008 at 6:00 pm
1 cor 11… 6 If a woman does not cover her head, she should have her hair cut off; and if it is a disgrace for a woman to have her hair cut or shaved off, she should cover her head. 7 A man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of man.
Also Paul.
October 8th, 2008 at 5:44 pm
I’m not threatened. At least the literalists have the guts to say what they believe and stick by it, popular or not. Same with the people who just come out and say they don’t believe the Bible is infallible, and it has wrong and bad ideas in it, but they read it anyway. The rest if this religious-left new-evangelical group here wants it both ways. The Bible is right and inspired and authoritative when it reinforces what I already believe is good (equality, pacifism). When I don’t agree, then it’s “culturally” limited, for just the ancient audience, or it was just Paul, so who cares? Churches like Vineyard are a big house of cards just waiting to collapse. If not the women pastor issue then homosexuality. If not that, then universalism. Mark my words! One leads to the other.
October 8th, 2008 at 7:39 pm
Archie, right on! Jim, where’s your evidence that the bible is god’s inerrant word? God’s precious, priceless gift to each of us is Reason, which tells us that ALL humans are god’s children, that the purpose of life in this world is to grow in love and truth, and that to love god whom we can’t see means that we love his children whom we can see! Amen!
October 10th, 2008 at 7:04 am
a lot of the quotes that baptists use is from Paul. Paul’s writings to me is often confusing to me, and even Peter said this same thing, 2000 years ago. Jesus was very straight forward in what he said and made it plain unless he spoke in parables.
Maybe we need to follow Jesus’s example. Make it simple and instead of some obscure scripture that always seems to be taken out of context.
I only reason I think they do this is that it fits their thinking and how they have to have control over certain people like women.
October 10th, 2008 at 3:28 pm
Jim, your last comment is confusing to me. Are you the same jim that’s been commenting this whole time? You seem to have switched sides on this issue… ?
October 15th, 2008 at 2:43 pm
THere are several passages of scripture where women are referenced as leaders, such as prophets. Other passages talk about all being one in Christ…”neither bond nor free…. but all are one in Christ.” These passages offer some contrasts to the often stated ones about women described above. THe whole of scripture helps us interpret.
However,I don’t know of contrasting passages regarding homosexuality. But if anyone has any, please post. THat subject seems pretty clear from scripture. I would choose scripture over culture as my guide.
November 21st, 2008 at 9:19 am
Ok, I’m already not clear on what to call myself since I don’t fit into any box or denomination/church. If I had to say I’m one of those right wing conservative Evangelicals (don’t be hate’in), but with charismatic/Pentecostal leanings. I believe that the Bible is the true & Holy Word of God, is error-free & unchanging. I also believe that the Holy Spirit does call women to be pastors, and do not see where it is prohibited in God’s Word. Paul’s statements in I Corin 14:34-35 & I Timothy 2:11-12 need to be read in light of the entirety of scripture and along with Paul’s other statements and practices. Biblical examples of women in ministry are: Miriam, Deborah, Huldah, Tabitha, Euodia & Syntyche, Pricilla, Phoebe, Junia – who Paul identifies as an apostle in Romans 16:7, but translators after the 13th century masculinized her name to Junias.
The scriptures also need to be understood in the context and culture of that time with what was happening in the church at Corinth, which was this: Women were previously not allowed to go into the inner court of the synagogue & not allowed to speak there, but only listen from the women’s section. The new freedoms for women in the early church were causing some problems. The women in that day were also for the most part uneducated & they were calling out to their husbands who sat on the other side of the church – asking questions about what was being said, and therefore being disorderly (v.33) This is way Paul was saying to the wives to ask their husbands (who were educated) at home.
Additionally – looking at I Corin 14:34-35 “women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home, for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church.”
v. 34 mentions “women” and v.35 “husbands” – in the original Greek there is not a word for husband or wife, only man and woman. v. 35 is referring to “husbands”, so v. 34 should have been translated as “wives” and not “women”, and so this was not pertaining to all women.
I Timothy 2:11-12 is a similar passage. The verses should have been translated as husband and wife, since the verses that immediately follow refer to Adam and Eve (husband & wife).
Signed, I can’t keep silent.
November 21st, 2008 at 6:52 pm
Ann, Thanks for this thoughtful post. I’d be interested in your take on the Dobson letter (2012) that I referenced in my latest post. I’ve voted for my share of Republicans over the years but wouldn’t describe myself as right wing. So I’d be interested on your take on the Dobson letter or whether you see a problem with evangelicals adopting this “culture war” metaphor as the way we engage the culture around us.
January 9th, 2009 at 1:03 pm
Sorry for the delay in responding. I can see real possibilities of his gloomy predictions happening. Before reading that 2012 letter I had heard that the Christian-based dating service, e-Harmony, was being forced to offer a service to homosexuals. I wondered if they would close down, since if I were the owner that is what I would be compelled to do. And since I’ve opened the can…let me also say that I am not a hater or a judge (and don’t believe the majority of others with this belief are either) , and love gays the same as I do others. In my family, 2 out of 4 of my cousins are gay. Actually, my heart goes out to gay people since I believe that many have suffered a past hurt or series of hurts, perhaps unrecognized, and are only trying to fulfill a God-given need of being loved. Also, because of a past deviance of my own. I know there are strong feelings on both sides of this issue, and I hope I haven’t upset anyone since that is not my intention. I can only be truthful about what I believe. I’m more focused on spiritual stuff than political, so don’t want to spend too much energy on that aspect. I do think Christians should be engaged in shaping the culture as we witness and as we live. What is the Vineyard Org. view on homosexuality?
January 9th, 2009 at 10:18 pm
Ann, I appreciate what you said about honesty, “I can only be truthful about what I believe.” The principle of being honest with others and with oneself has come to mean a lot to me over the last several years. Thanks for putting your thoughts into those words.