“It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.” ― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings link
Pete, Stuart and Jill Briscoe
Joanne Hummel
I have been wanting to write this post for a long while but I have waited until Bent Tree Bible Fellowship (BTBF) and Pete Briscoe made the decision to go forward with publicly declaring that they would have women as elders. What was even more quiet was the fact that BTBF has long had a female pastor, and from what I can tell, we can now say female pastors. None of this takes me by surprise and I am incredibly proud to say that I spent many years at this wonderful church. Better yet, I can say that my husband and I felt quite close to Pete.
Denny Burk just wrote a post regarding this development called Some reflections on a church that has recently embraced egalitarianism. Burk had this to say.
Briscoe and the elders say that they intend to be a “conservative” church that maintains a tenacious commitment to the Inerrancy of scripture. That is something to be thankful for. There are many who join feminist readings of scripture to a more explicit repudiation of the Bible’s integrity and authority. Briscoe and the elders do not wish to do that. Still, whether they realize this or not, the theological rationale for their decision is at odds with a commitment to the Bible’s authority.
…Briscoe says that he wants Bent Tree to be a place where people can agree to disagree over this issue. He even cites a conversation with Darrell Bock, a member who disagrees with the elders but who also says it is not an issue worth dividing over. I think this point of view is mistaken. At the end of the day, a church will either ordain women pastors or they won’t. There’s no middle ground on that question. You may have people in the church who hold a complementarian position, but their views on the issue have no standing at all where male headship is denied in practice. Furthermore, if the hermeneutical issues are as serious as I have indicated above, then it would be a matter of faithfulness for Christians to contend against such teaching.
I want to commend Denny Burk for his willingness to take my occasional comments at his blog. He is one of the few hard line NeoCalvinist complementarians to do so. He does not appear to have a testosterone problem.
I am going to try to present a picture of Pastor Pete Briscoe, Pastor Joanne Hummel and the doctrinal statement of BTBF to bolster my contention that BTBF is a conservative church from a doctrinal standpoint as well as from actual events that I personally witnessed. Pete, Joanne and other members of BTBF had a profound impact on my faith and it is my hope that this post will properly represent the wonderful ministry that they have at BTBF.
Pete is not a celebrity seeking, "I'm friends with so and so," kind of pastor.
We were short time members of Ed Young Jr's church in Dallas. My daughter was quite sick with a brain tumor and the church was close by. Although Ed Young was kind to us during Abby's sickness, his theology and antics drove us nuts. One of the final straws occurred when my husband was asked to pray during a service. Ed liked having celebrities/professionals up front and made sure that the people in the pews knew just how important Ed was. My husband agreed to pray but he said he did not want an introduction and that he did not want MD placed after his name. Needless to say, he was never asked to pray again.
The first Sunday we attended the church, we introduced ourselves to Pete. He asked us about our professions, etc. When my husband, Bill, said that he was a cardiologist at Baylor, Pete's eyes lit up as he asked Bill if he knew Joe. Bill tensed, getting ready for a blow by blow on just how famous Joe was. When Bill said that he didn't know the guy, Pete said he needed to meet him. Joe was a janitor at Baylor who would pray for the patients as he cleaned their rooms. We knew then that Pete was different and decided to attend the church on the spot.
Pete is the son of Jill and Stuart Briscoe.
Jill and Stuart came to the States from England. You can read about them at their website Teaching the Truth. Pete grew up in a home with intelligent and committed parents: both dad and mom. They were both powerhouses. I will never forget the time that Pete, during a service, told a story about his mother, Jill, coming to speak at the chapel of Dallas Theological Seminary. It was at another seminary.
Update: This is what happens when you try to recall events in the past. This is a statement from Pete.
I would like to point out one error in your story. The event where men turned their back on my mother was not at Dallas Theological Seminary. DTS has shown nothing but grace and respect to my mom over the years, they are dear friends and I would not want people thinking poorly of them.
As she rose to speak, a number of young men turned their backs on her, showing their disdain for a women teacher. Pete broke down in tears as he reviewed all the wonderful things his mother had done in her life. He could not fathom how aspiring pastors could be both so cruel to her. Through my years there, I heard story after story of the enormous influence his mother, as well as his father, had on his life.
in 2010, Jill and Stuart participated in a book called How I Changed My Mind about Women in Leadership: Compelling Stories from Prominent Evangelicals This book is helpful in understanding how some Christian leaders (and yes-Jill is a leader) came to an understanding that women in leadership can occur within faithful churches.
Bent Tree Bible Fellowship is conservative in their doctrinal stance.
Here is a link to their doctrinal positions.
Authority of Scripture
We believe in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as verbally inspired of God and without error in the original writings. The exact meaning of the Scriptures is essentially unchanged in any important respect in the widely accepted English translations. The Scriptures are authoritative and without error in any category of knowledge, including science and history, and are of supreme and final authority in all matters about which they speak. We believe the Scriptures are to be interpreted in a normal and literal way and that they are understood as the believer is guided by the Spirit of God. Reference: John 10:35; Matt. 5:18; 2 Tim. 3:16; 2 Pet. 1:21; 1 Cor. 2:13; 1 Tim. 5:18; 1 Cor. 2:14-16; John 16:12-15
You will note that BTBF is premillennial in their statement. However, I can assure you that there are a myriad of beliefs on secondary issues within this diverse congregation.
Pete Briscoe and the elders of BTBF live out in practice what many just claim they follow. Denny has never experienced a church like this. I had not before I attended BTBF and I have not since.
In Essentials Unity, In Non-Essentials Liberty, In All Things Charity
Why I have been silent about Joanne Hummel, a female pastor at BTBF
I met Joanne shortly after joining the church. She was the minister of the Stephen and Women's ministries. She was the brightest woman I had ever met in the areas of theology, doctrine, church history and preaching. Each time I talked with her, I felt like I needed to go to a seminary library and start reading. Yet, her intelligence was tempered by her devastating wit. One always knew when Joanne was in the building since her passage through the building was marked by laughter and lots and lots of hugs.
As time went on, Joanne would be given the title of pastor and has preached many time from the pulpit of BTBF. My daughter, Abby, attended one service when she visited Dallas and said she could listen to her for hours. During this time, BTBF flew under the radar, unlike Irving Bible Church, a church that was stated by Charles Swindoll. In 2008, Dr Jackie Roese assumed the title and function as pastor and anger erupted in certain sectors. Hoping to spare Joanne a similar experience, I have not spoken much of Joanne's role which is now the pastor of the Carrollton campus which is the mother ship of BTBF. You will note there are other female pastors. I pray that she does not experience the outright hostility that was exhibited towards Jackie Roese.
Pete Briscoe asked me to lead a Sunday School class on the Reformation.
I love the classes at BTBF. I attended one on the history of the medieval church. As the class ended, the able teacher (Scott Arbuckle) could not continue to teach. I asked the Sunday school coordinator if they could continue the class into the Reformation. A week later I got a call from Pete asking me to teach the class on the Reformation. I was startled and mumbled something about me being a woman. Pete asked why I thought that I couldn't teach men the stuff that i knew about history. Needless to say, he convinced me and soon I started teaching and would continue to teach until I left Dallas for Raleigh.
How people who disagree on the role of women can be unified.
Shortly after it was announced that I would teach the class, I received a call from a woman who was involved in a parachurch ministry with her husband. I really liked both of them. She told me that I was treading on theologically unsound ground and that Pete believed in an expanded role for women which was unbiblical. I felt really upset but told her and her husband to deal with this concern with Pete and the elders. The elders decided to back the class and asked the couple not to interfere since I was doing this with their permission.
Denny Burk needs to read this next part. The class was successful and quite well attended. It continued to grow and there were days when there were 70 or so people in the class. Guess who started to attend? The very couple who disagreed with me teaching the class. No, they had not changed their mind but our friendship was more important to them. Eventually, the husband began to teach with me along with Scott and it was great! To this day, my husband and I continue to support them in their ministry even though they are still complementarian because they get it.
Pete can take critique and take it well because he is really humble.
Here is part of a post I wrote called Wade Burleson and Pete Briscoe: Two Pastors Who Really Get It.
Pete ruined me, plain and simple. You see, he handled conflict so well that I was forever changed, believing that all pastors would be like him. I attended BTBF for about 7 years, ending in 2001 when I returned to my beloved North Carolina. In the ensuing years, I was involved in watching another church handle a conflict in such a poor manner that I felt I had entered the Twilight Zone. I was soon to learn that Pete was one of those rare pastors who truly “gets it.”
While at BTBF, we became aware of a situation, which involved a third party (not us) that was unresolved. In fact, we became so concerned about it because we believed it could have serious ramifications for the church. I am not at liberty to share the details but it did not involve any moral, legal or financial failing. In fact, the action itself was justified but was handled in such a way that outsiders could make assumptions that might be reasonable but were not true.
Yuck. So, after much prayer, my husband and I decided to approach both Pete and the elders in confidence. At first, their response was somewhat negative yet they decided to dialogue with us. We requested they meet with the involved party and us to discuss the matter.
What transpired at that meeting still brings tears to my eyes. Everyone was tense and there was obvious disagreement on all sides. Suddenly, Pete sat bolt upright in his chair, held both his hands up and said something to the effect of “I get it! You are right. This needs to be corrected immediately.” We were all stunned at his insistence on doing the right thing, even though, superficially, it did appear that the church leadership had responded appropriately.
And they went out of their way to do the right thing, over and above what was required. No one in the church, outside of our little group, ever knew what had transpired and unity was restored. All parties were able to continue to worship together. And, if I might add, everyone had a little spring in their step because all was well.
Pete went a step further, demonstrating, forever, his incredible humility. We were attending a large leadership meeting at the church. My husband and I were taking notes since Pete was speaking and his teaching is awesome. He stopped and pointed the two of us out. He said, “See those two taking notes. They did something for me that helped my ministry. They took a risk and did the right thing and I am thankful.”
Why mention this? Pete could have kept the whole incident quiet. We had been so grateful for his response but he wanted to admit it publicly. Why? He is a truly humble man. At that moment, I saw the beauty of an organic body, loving and supporting one another, through thick and thin. And this vision will give me strength until I rejoice in unity with the saints in glory.
Can you imagine the Calvinista celebrity crowd responding like this?
BTBF practices church discipline but do so with thoughtfulness and, in so doing, get results.
Here is one incident as reported by the Christian Post.
Bent Tree Bible Fellowship in Carrollton has also used public church discipline. A worship leader whose husband discovered she was having an affair was confronted by her pastor more than a year ago. Unlike the Watermark example, the woman repented, reconciled and eventually went on a local Christian radio show with her husband to discuss the experience.
Bent Tree has had four other successful reconciliations of married couples that had been split by adultery, said the executive pastor, the Rev. Tim Harkins.
“Those are the home runs. That is what we are pursuing,” he said. For Peter Briscoe of Bent Tree Bible Fellowship in Carrollton, Texas, the most important aspect to the entire process is grace.
"One of the things I learned a number of years ago is that grace is doing the most loving thing," he said.
It took years for the church's worship leader to be at a good place spiritually after having committed adultery. What helped her in that process was Briscoe's care. During a worship service one Sunday evening, Briscoe had come down to the third row as he noticed that it was hard for her. He put his arm around her during worship time and then went up to preach.
For her, that was a defining moment because the point leader of this church expressed grace to her in a way that meant the world to her, Briscoe said.
While not all staff members reach the point of being recommissioned for ministry after a moral failure, some, including the Bent Tree worship leader, do.
When she was restored, the worship leader sang "Amazing Grace" at the church. "She had sung 'Amazing Grace' hundreds of times and it never sounded like that because here's a woman who experienced it," Briscoe recalled.
"God really does restore."
Here is a church discipline incident that occurred while I was a member. This should strike fear into the heart of the 9 Marx crowd.
A member of BTBF left his wife and kids (I think there were 4 but not sure.) He moved in with his sweetie on the side. Pete and the elders met with him, asking him to do the right thing. He refused. He was told that he could no longer be a member of BTBF.
So, did Pete send out treatises to the thousands of BTBF members outlining what was going on? Nope. The church quietly supported the family. The elders continued to meet with the errant husband, begging him to reconsider what he was doing. It was kept quiet and no one in the church was aware this was happening.
One Sunday, Pete was discussing adultery and said that a couple from BTBF would finish the sermon. It was this man and his wife. They were in the process of reconciling. This man was so overwhelmed by the constant contact of the elders and decided that he was wrong. Slowly, with lots of help from good counselors, this couple reunited. They stood before the church to tell their story and you could have heard a pin drop.
As I learned of this and other situations, I was blessed to see how church discipline could be applied without all the meetings, letters to the *faithful* and the votes to suspend the errant member. This man returned to the church without the hoopla of turning him over to Satan and big ol' excommunication meetings, etc. I was impressed and forever changed. That is why I fight so hard against the nonsense that we write about on this blog.
Final thoughts:
I so miss BTBF, Pete, Joanne and many others. My last Sunday at church, Pete gave me a hug and said "Don't ever let anyone tell you that you can't teach." I have never forgotten that. I am doing things a bit differently in Raleigh but the spirit of Jesus, as it shone through these wonderful folks at BTBF, is part of who I am as a Christian.
Pete and Joanne, if you read this, please know that you changed me forever. I went off on a slightly different path as I look at abuse in the church, but you will both always be part of my journey. I miss you both. One day, in heaven, I look forward to our reunion. I can almost hear Joanne laughing! You guys are the best! How blessed I am to have known you.
PS Raleigh would be a great place to start a satellite…….
Here is the BTBF announcement re: female elders.
foist
“As she rose to speak, a number of young men turned their backs on her, showing their disdain for a women teacher.”
When I read this, I literally felt sick. What kind of so-called ‘men’ would act like this? Simply disgusting…
Lovely blog article, Dee.
Pete Briscoe is the real deal as are his lovely parents.
So glad he encouraged you and you have encouraged the rest of us.
I visited back in November! The service was wonderful and I needed the encouragement. Ms. Hummel delivered the sermon because Pete was on vacation. And, I think it’s about time for me to head back there.
roebuck wrote:
A He-Man Woman-Haters’ Club — NO GURLZ ALLOWED! — or GAWD’s Anointed. (Is there a difference?)
@ Headless Unicorn Guy:
I do remember the Little Rascals (Our Gang) back in the day, with their He-Man Woman-Haters’ Club – in fact, many times while perusing this blog it comes to mind…
@ Mara:
Whoo hoo!!!!!
We need a BTBF satellite church in the Raleigh-Durham area!
How refreshing and encouraging to hear this! Thank you for sharing this, Dee! I would probably go back to church if there was one like this down here in SW Florida!
It’s so encouraging and motivating to hear of a church doing it right!
I’ve loved the teaching of all three of the Briscoes at a Family Camp in Wisconsin. What I was most impressed with was the interactions of Stuart and Jill with my teenage children. They talked to them like the young adults they are. That year, both kids chose to stay with the adults for teaching time instead of going with the other teenagers. I love seeing Jill Briscoe teaching adults as a great example for my daughter. They are truly a godly family.
Good to hear at least one evangelical church exists with courageous pastors willing to confront in cases of adultery. It is nice to hear some good stories once and a while for a change 😉
Burk said:
Burk needs to read this (part 1 and part 2):
Justifying Injustice with the Bible: Slavery
http://www.cbeinternational.org/resources/article/arise/justifying-injustice-bible-slavery?page=show
It opens with this:
It is so nice to hear of women being embraced as equal participants and co-workers in the life of the Church. Thanks for sharing this, Dee!
Regarding this comment by Burk:
And Christians who disagree with complementarianism have been doing this for decades now – sitting silently in pro-complementarian churches.
You have Christians who are non-comps, but since the majority of conservative churches are comp, you have no choice, in most cases, but to put up with comp teachings if you want to go to a church with conservative teachings.
Now the shoe is on the other foot in at least one church. I have a hard time feeling sorry for complementarians who are in more egalitarian churches.
I remember commenting on Denny’s post that the terms used to describe ‘complementary’ were defined differently among evangelicals and that my own Church did not have the same view of it in sacramental marriage where serving one another was based on love, not on a position of the authority of one over the submission of the other spouse.
I look at the authoritarian idea of male ‘headship’ as bizarre in the ways some evangelicals have adopted it. I try to understand their thinking, but it doesn’t make sense to someone from my own tradition, which BTW is supposed by many to be very authoritarian. I don’t think ‘headship’ allows for the great dignity of the human person to consult and honor their own conscience in decision-making. People of my faith don’t abrogate obeying their consciences when they are in a position where authority is present … quite the opposite. Our consciences draw a line as to what we are permitted to do under any authority . . . before God, we cannot disobey our God-given conscience, if an authority figure were to demand for us to do what is wrong.
I have wondered: do the wives who live under ‘male headship’ have to leave their consciences behind at the altar when they marry? I really don’t think these male headship men would want to marry a woman who is Catholic, as Catholic women are heavily into honoring their consciences in the manner of their living.
Thank you for your kind words Dee. I would like to point out one error in your story. The event where men turned their back on my mother was not at Dallas Theological Seminary. DTS has shown nothing but grace and respect to my mom over the years, they are dear friends and I would not want people thinking poorly of them. Thanks again.
The video of those precious men just filled my heart full of gratitude and gives me hope for what can be the full functioning of the Body of Christ.
roebuck wrote:
Real Christians wouldn’t act like this.
I’ve read some of the writings of both Stuart and Jill Briscoe, and they’re some of the theologians I trust to always have their theology right.
Blessings on Bent Tree Bible Fellowship. They’ve demonstrated that they know how to read the Bible correctly: to look at the context and see what Paul was really talking about.
Bless their hearts, I admire, I guess, the comps standing up for what they think is right, but why can’t they see how illogical their reading of scripture is given all that women have accomplished today. You’d think they’d look at women and then look at these verses and see that maybe their interpretation isn’t accurate.
Daisy wrote:
They accuse egalitarian churches of following the sinful culture, but given that the culture has until recently restricted females and denied us rights, etc., it’s really the comp churches who follow the sinful, wordly culture.
Thanks Dee, there are so many admirable things outlined in this post, my favorite was “they had not changed their mind but our friendship was more important to them.”
Thanks for the great examples of how it is supposed to work.
Christiane wrote:
I’ve long noticed that about adherents to the Catholic faith and I applaud it. Back during the Vietnam Era there was only one Protestant clergyman who publicly opposed the conflict, Dr. Martin Luther King, the rest were all Jesuits as far as I know.
In Burk’s religion, it is taught that the human conscience is so hopelessly sullied by ‘sin’, it cannot be trusted; and therefore only the authority of Scripture can inform it as to what’s right.
Sorry about the post going off line. I am not sure why that happened. Here it is with one update. The incident with Jill Briscoe did not take place at DTS.
Now I know why the post was offline. GBTC was helping me out!
roebuck wrote:
I have heard this story (or one like it?) before and it is sick. Pathetic. Unchristian in every way I can think of truly.
Other than that, what a lovely story.
Daisy wrote:
Which is part of why I am currently attending a much more liberal church than I would otherwise be inclined to attend. (That and the music.)
Also, anyone who mentions ‘headship’ in a serious fashion from here on out is going on my list.
Wow! I would go to Pete’s church in a heartbeat. But I live a couple of hours from there. My niece is a ordained minister. Plus my female first cousin is one also. Both in different denominations. While my niece isn’t a minister (her husband is on the ministerial staff), she does lead several groups at the church. I would love to listen to her preach someday. My son disagrees with me about women being ministers or pastors. I have to pray about that a lot. He believes that only men can be pastors. I don’t believe that God is a respecter of persons. Whether is be male or female, as long as they preach the Gospel is what counts.
So lovely to think of seeing these things done well. We need so much more of this, as a balance to all the authoritarian weirdness.
I’ve just been reading a bit of Eugene Peterson’s The Pastor, & for a man ‘allegedly’ a Calvinist, though I suspect more in the line of Barth’s ideas,& claimed by Calvinism in the same way that C.S.Lewis is ;), it is just a totally different picture of life, & gives all the religious words I have come to be wary of such a very different meaning. He’s like chalk & cheese from the calvinistas, as is Pete.
I also saw a quote from ‘living spirituality’ on fb, (from L’Abri guy Greg Loughery) about how the evangelical church has no time for uncertainty (or agreeing to disagree, my paraphrase) but overlooking arrogance with ease. It really resonated with conversations on here over the last few days, & always really. I need to look that quote up & post it here verbatim as it’s much better in the original.
P.S. Daisy, I don’t know of it’s your blog writing that’s doing it but your comments here have really ramped up in all sorts of good ways.
‘Many evangelicals are apparently highly allergic to uncertainty, but seem to have a more tolerant reaction to arrogance’.
There we go, much better.
And hundreds of Neo-Cal SBC pastor’s heads have exploded….
dee wrote:
Some day in the distant future Dee will read email from me BEFORE reading the blog comments. 🙂
Patriciamc wrote:
That’s because they’re Holy A-holes.
“Jesus didn’t die
So you could be an A-hole…”
— some YouTube video I’ve never been able to find again (the visual for that couplet was Fred Phelps leading one of his demonstrations)
K.D. wrote:
Just before pronouncing Anathemas from the Institutes and looking for the stake and fagots. “WITCHCRAFT!”
Muff Potter wrote:
It’s called The Party Line.
Dee, the child sex abuse cover up at David Horner's Providence Baptist in Raleigh and the way the church went after your family is deplorable. It's a disgrace. Providence had one hell of a Sunday school teacher. It's my belief that Providence Baptist owes you and Bill an apology. I have no qualms writing about and pursuing that for you. David Horner never knew what he lost when the church came down on you.
Form the original post: “My husband agreed to pray but he said he did not want an introduction and that he did not want MD placed after his name. Needless to say, he was never asked to pray again.”
Dee, I tell people the same thing, whether it’s a church setting or other group. Unless I’m at the event because of my position (being invited to give a talk in my field, for example) I tell them not to use my title. That’s simply not what it’s for. There are people who don’t understand no matter how much I try to explain it to them.
Denny Burk’s post in response to BTBF’s announcement came after I started writing these thoughts, but his rigid stance is exactly what I was going to talk about so I incorporated it into today’s post: Being Egalitarian and Taking the Bible Seriously.
Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:
I can’t speak for Denny Burk, but I do know that he allows for a diversity of opinions to be expressed during the discussions of issues he posts about . . . that tells me he is open to diversity in the whole Church as something to be celebrated rather than ‘excluded’. So I am appreciative of Denny’s willingness to offer people an opportunity to discuss issues from their various perspectives. I give him great credit for that.
As far as the Calvinist doctrine of ‘total depravity’, one WOULD think that if Calvinist men believed that, then it would cancel out any thought of ‘men’ being capable of providing spiritual ‘headship’ over women. I mean, if these men truly see themselves as depraved, then they could not honestly claim to be able to be ethically and morally suitable to step in and take over the place of the Holy Spirit in the lives of women of Christian conscience. Just a thought. Like I said, I don’t know Denny’s actual beliefs one way or the other on Calvinism, but I do appreciate the Christian hospitality he shows commenters on his blog who come from different view points. That takes courage, I think. But more than that, it helps me think that Denny has some hope for good to come to the whole Church from his efforts.
Christiane wrote:
Yes. I often have the same thought. Also ‘women are more easily deceived’ so you should trust and do anything a man at church tells you to do. Um…seems like that could to problems! Especially when people with no sense at all apply it to 14 year olds.
Jill Briscoe is one of my favorite Bible teachers. I would rather listen to her over any of the Gospel glitterati, any time, any place.
Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:
Calvary Chapel’s party line insofar as not trusting one’s own internals, is the same as the Neo-Cals.
Their favorite goto-clobber-verse on this is almost always Jeremiah 17:9.
As I’ve written before their differences are largely cosmetic.
Tim wrote:
Good post, and I love your masthead! When it comes to taking your Bible seriously, since egalitarians have researched the Bible so much that it seems to me that they take it very seriously. We’re very dedicated to accurate interpretation.
@ patriciamc:
There needs to be another comma in there somewhere….
I watched the whole video. I applaud these elders – the whole way they have gone about this. As someone who has changed my view on women in church leadership during the past few years, my heart REJOICES to hear of godly men seeking and digging into the word of God and using their minds through wisdom to find truth! More than any other group in all of history, women categorically have been subjugated, domineered, raped, beaten and silenced – be it not so, any longer in the body of Jesus Christ!
Muff Potter wrote:
Just like the differences between Naziism, Communism, and Objectivism.
Total opposites on the surface, near-identical at the core.
Lea wrote:
Never mind when the “man at church” is a 14-year-old Elder…
Christiane wrote:
Yes they do, and Muff is correct about the party line on conscience. I was even taught that about conscience as a child even though we were not calvinists.
As the the rest of your comment, IMO practicing evangelicals and practicing catholics have nothing more than perhaps one tight rope between them, they are that different in many ways. I cannot see how a marriage could possibly succeed unless one or the other actually converted from their heart beforehand. I found catholicism much more user friendly and I found that catholics and catholicism itself seems to actually like God (not as common with evangelicals as far as I can get a feel of it) and like/respect each other and even like/respect the clergy. I too thought it would be authoritarian in the extreme until I got over there and checked it out and was utterly amazed at how mistaken about that I had been. The ‘feel’ of it is very different from evangelical protestantism even when there are doctrinal similarities on paper about some things. Just my take on it.
@ Pam Palmer:
Awesome comment!
Burwell wrote:
You sound like me.
Tim wrote:
Good for you! Thank you.
Tim wrote:
This is another reason why I like you.
@ Dave (Eagle):
Never forget, David, that I had to see this stuff with my own eyes in order to be an effective advocate.
GuyBehindtheCurtain wrote:
You are my long suffering friend.
Harley wrote:
You radical!
Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:
OR is operating at a 14 year old maturity level (I’m looking at you mark driscoll!)
In the early 1980s, the deacons of the SBC church to which my wife and I belonged, and where we were both in leadership, the issue of whether women could be deacons came up as women were being nominated but the church constitution only allowed for men. I was the vice chair of the deacons, and was tasked with setting out the process we would follow in making a recommendation to the church.
We asked everyone to identify any scriptural passage that they believed to be relevant to the question. We then reviewed each passage in context, using a number of translations and other resources to better understand the passage and its context.
After extensive discussion, we took a vote. It was 20 soemthing to 1 and the one was unsure about his vote. After a bit more discussion, the recommendation to the church was unanimous that the constitution should be permissive. However, with a threat that the state convention would take away our building, the church voted, narrowly, to retain the men only provision.
It was a very sad episode, as the deacons spent many hours coming to our conclusion and many in the church never read our analysis. But a true Baptist church is a congregationally governed democracy, hopefully under the leadership of the Holy Spirit.
An Attorney wrote:
How terribly sad.
Dee, this is a nice post. I recall you mentioning this church before in such a positive light. We are in South Arlington, and I wish there was a BT campus close by! I wonder if they’d consider doing so? Perhaps South of I30 or I20?!
And if I may ask, I wonder if Bent Tree and Pete could recommend a place of worship in my neck of the woods? Some of you might recall me mentioning a church we got involved with in our area that is a part of Acts 29. Not knowing what all that meant, it took us a couple of years to figure out we definitely are NOT Calvinists. We haven’t found a place since… It’s kinda scary to be honest.
@ Lea:
Sadly I think SBC churches have been very concerned of being kicked out of their local associations if they ordain women deacons or pastors.
okrapod wrote:
I think that the reason for this is that Catholicism has managed to come to grips with The Enlightenment and The Rights of Man. It would appear that they have learned from the mistakes of their past, while Evangelical Protestantism remains stuck in the reformation of the medieval period*.
*This of course is not true for all sects in the vast melange of evangelical protestantism. Dee’s article above points out an admirable exception.
mot wrote:
And they don’t realize they would be so much better off away from the SBC denomination….
@ Muff Potter:
That makes sense.
@ Beakerj:
I saw that too, and immediately thought of the neo-Cals.
@ Pete Briscoe:
I listened to your sermon on the Future of Leadership at Bent Tree, and it was one of the most refreshing messages I have ever heard! Thank you for being so encouraging to the women in your church and to my blogging buddy Dee (Darlene).
May Bent Tree Bible Fellowship be greatly blessed as you continue to carry out the Great Commission using ALL of the gifts God has bestowed upon the local church body.
BTW, I heard your mom speak at the Just Give Me Jesus event that was held here in Raleigh in 2002. She is a wonderful Bible teacher.
Finally, my family once belonged to the Christ Baptist congregation. We left the same day the Lotz's did. It was a difficult chapter in our lives. Thank you for providing inspiration and encouragement to the elders of that church at a retreat in early 2005. I heard wonderful things about you back then.
@ K.D.:
I do not see very many benefits belonging to a SBC association, a state SBC convention or the the national SBC.
The bottom line for me is that the complementarian crowd does not exhibit the fruit of the spirit, and does exhibit the works of the flesh. Correlation is not causality, but this correlation does mean that I can’t take them seriously.
This church sounds wonderful. How awesome to truly “get it” about how to deal with conflict, but also how to deal with sin – confronting the sin but still supporting and loving the person. I don’t think I have that one mastered, but would like to learn.
As for women pastors – it’s not something that was ever a big issue for me. However, being in a church now with two women pastors has been a great experience for me. I was in a bible study led by one of them, and she has so much wisdom and compassion and good theology that it helped me along in my spiritual healing.
This is so encouraging.
Two churches in our area were voted out of the local association for electing women deacons. No big deal. It was the association’s loss, IMO.
I listened to the sermon video. At the end the pastor mentioned a paper the leaders had prepared to explain their decision in more detail. Does any one have a copy or link to that document?
@ frieda:
We are linking to it in our upcoming post. It’s available on the church website.
This is an absolutely joyous article. Whatever is going on at this church, I hope it is contagious. We need a pandemic outbreak!
Denny says, “…You may have people in the church who hold a complementarian position, but their views on the issue have no standing at all where male headship is denied in practice.”
+++++++++++++++
so what?
it doesn’t bother him that at a ‘complementarian’ (gah, I hate that word) church you have people there who hold a mutualist or egalitarian position, but their views on the issue have no standing at all where male headship is practiced.
why in the world does he refer to comps as being so precious, so elite, to be treated with such deference and preference, and the complaining when they are not? as if it’s ‘insupportable’ (as Mr. D’arcy might say).
bloody hell, denny, it’s just a matter of a difference of opinion, not a different class of Christian or human being.
@ frieda:
http://7aa41354baefb3f610d0-9426158b81c9f57386a468ce77b36d59.r25.cf2.rackcdn.com/uploaded/f/0e5040219_1461257524_future-of-leadership-at-bent-tree.pdf
Thanks for the link.
@ elastigirl:
Burk also had this to say:
“Furthermore, if the hermeneutical issues are as serious as I have indicated above, then it would be a matter of faithfulness for Christians to contend against such teaching.”
This and the Burk quote you commented on above shows that in their world there can be no peaceful coexistence between the two competing views. Their hermeneutic must prevail and it must translate into actual practice. The real beauty of Dee’s article is that it gives a real world positive (Briscoe’s church) showing that it doesn’t have to be this way—Half of the fellowship’s God given talents do not have to be suppressed based solely on plumbing received at birth.
__
1 WartburgW 3:2 – An elder then may be blameless, the wife of one husband, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach; and must like pug dogs.
—
@ Muff Potter:
it is so very weird, but lately it seems like comp people are phrasing things like ‘complementarian’ is all of a sudden a category on par with ‘protestant’ or ‘evangelical’ or ‘christian’.
like it’s an organized effort at a new branding approach towards a revitalizing marketing strategy. manipulating people into believing comp-schmomp is on par with the likes of the Nicene creed, the Reformation, what it is to be protestant, evangelical and christian by a subtle shift in language.
something really sinister about it all. manipulating people’s most deeply held beliefs.
I really don’t see how the CBMW powerbrokers can continue in a clear conscience.
But three cheers for Pete Briscoe and Bent Tree Church and others like them!
And really, how can the position that restricts 1/2 the human race even stand a chance against the welcome and the yes of mutuality, of equality, of dissolving the social construct of subjugation and raising up those subjugated by it?
“…study after study supports that when a culture values females as much as males, girls are more likely to survive to adulthood. And when girls and women have equal authority and opportunities, communities are more apt to thrive as violence decreases and economic stability increases. Non-government organizations call this “the girl effect.””
http://www.relevantmagazine.com/reject-apathy/why-gender-inequality-christian-issue
like perpetual narnian winter losing its hold to the warming spring, I really don’t see how we-vote-jesus-for-subjugation! stands a chance.
Thank you. I listened to every word of the Bent Tree Fellowship message. I will listen to it again another day. And possibly after that. To see and hear men–a stage full of men–sharing a God-given conviction that God gives gifts to whom He will, both male and female, and that they are now acting on that conviction, is incredible. In a letter I wrote to my own elder board one year ago this month, I urged them to do exactly what the elders at BT spent a year doing: to sincerely and deeply examine what part women had–if they had any part–in the early church. I wrote with respectful purpose after our elders announced that they had decided to add “deacons” to our lay leadership and it was quickly apparent that only males would be considered. To know there is a theologically conservative church with a deeply rooted all-male elder board who changed their minds after sincerely searching God’s word, is a great encouragement to me, as my own elder board has not even considered doing so. (We do have one elder who believes women to whom the Spirit gives gifts should not be hindered, but he is only one.) Thank you to TWW for sharing. Thank you to the elders of Bent Tree Fellowship for their faithfulness in searching the scriptures and changing their minds as the Spirit shed light. Thank you to the pastor of Bent Tree Fellowship for his faithfulness in believing that women to whom the Spirit has given gifts should be free to use them, for working so many years with those who did not hold that same belief, and for being so understanding of those who will find such a radical thing to be very hard. Pete Briscoe and elders, this encourages me to renew prayers for my elders to have hearts to seek the Lord as He leads them by His time and in His plans. Thank you.
This is well written and a needed message. I read Dr. Burk’s book Transforming Homosexuality it is about 130 pages long and basically says even the orientation is wrong and needs to be repented of and eventually changed. Taking such nonsense to its logical conclusion one might think any “inclination” is wrong and sinful and one gets into measuring when does one cross the line between temptation and sin, how long is a thought a temptation before it becomes a sin. What about people who struggle with a variety of issues that can cause thought processes to “change”. Ever see someone going through sugar fluctuations for example or someone with dementia who may have been a very faithful Christian but is now yelling and screaming the vilest phrases. Did they stop being a Christian? Are they lost? The bible read dogmatically on the subject is clear God will keep his people from sinning in ongoing “patterns”.
I have had several posts on his site not posted, which is fine, but I really was trying to get his take on issues such as medical or psychological that cause notable behavioral changes. The Oh they are not believers meme just does not cut it, that is basically what I saw in this book. Also, proof-texting is not very helpful and I find it rather ironic. God grants gifts to His Children male or female and they should use those Gifts, also its stupid to sequester more than half of your fellowship and the stronger half I might add. I hold the church would have failed miserably without women, it actually would not exist. I hope everyone has a nice Friday.
It was DTS where pastors turned their back on Jill Briscoe. Now it makes sense why the same thing happened in Oklahoma at a SBC evangelism conference in 1993. I talked with baptists who were upset Jill Briscoe would even defend herself. This was the same conference where these same people who turned their backs on Jill Briscoe succeeded in having Ann Lotz cancel her speaking engagement at this same conference. I have never understood making the literal Word more important that the Spirit behind the Word. The Word was made for men and women, not men and women for the Word.
http://newsok.com/article/2418198
Sorry, I am making a parallel to legalism and Mark 2:27. I believe the Bible is infallible.
I’m so happy you had a church experience like that, Dee. The majority of churches I have been to are so obsessed with social connections, financial status of members and personal competition for power that they embody the WORST stereotypes of Christians that the secular world is familiar with. It’s because of these hypocritical “social clubs” that it took me nearly a good decade to be able to distinguish the difference between God and humanity.
MOD: Comment removed as a duplicate
__
(corrected copy)
Did the Apostle Paul’s divine task, understanding and directive include women in church leadership?
Did the Apostle Paul have a certain mind-set that Christians everywhere are wise to emulate?
hmmm…
If the pattern of growth in the first century Christian Church included a men only leadership team, and all else was view as contrary to Apostle Paul’s written instructions for the formulation of local churches[1], how has pastor Pete Briscoe and his 501(c)3 church leadership team presently gotten around this seemly apparent New Testment limitation?
Has Jesus Christ given new instructions to His church in the 21st century that supersede those found in Apostle Paul’s New Testament letters?
What light can you shed Wartburg?
What light can pastor Briscoe shed as well?
ATB
Sopy
__
Notes:
[1]
1 Corinthians 11:3 – But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman [is] the man; and the head of Christ [is] God.
1 Corinthians 14:34 – Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but [they are commanded] to be under obedience, as also saith the law.
Ephesians 5:22 – Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.
1 Timothy 2:11 – Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection.
1 Timothy 2:12 – But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.
1 Timothy 3:2 – A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach;
—
Mark wrote:
Purity of Ideology, Comrade.
Purity of Ideology.
1 despicable comment was not allowed.
Sam wrote:
Been there myself, even after my time at Pete’s church.
dee wrote:
We used to refer to my grandparents church as ‘such and such Baptist country club’.
Mark – I have never understood making the literal Word more important that the Spirit behind the Word.
Yes, I think they are often trying to make the words the most important thing, rather than the spirit. Which should be love. If love is missing, your interpretation is wrong. That’s what I think.
BTW, Kirk Cameron is apparently giving more interviews about marriage again. Sigh.
First let me remind everybody that the religions tradition where I am now ordains women and I am good with that.
Now let me say, however, that when a church starts deciding who can and who cannot be ordained to Holy Orders including the diaconate there is a slippery slope to be considered. If women, then why not LGBTQ people? How about non-celibate but married LGBTQ people? What about people who are not married, either straight or LGBTQ who admit that they are sexually active. Please take a look at these issues as they have been considered by the episcopalians and now the methodists and decide on a long term projection as to where if anywhere you want to draw the line. It is a lot harder to draw the line, if you even think that should be done, once the slippery slope has begun.
The episcopal church has been put in time out by the anglican community over this. The UMC has struggled and struggled and clergy trials have resulted in broadening the level of acceptance relative to non marital sexual activity for the clergy. I am not trying to tell you what to do or even influence your decisions, but I am saying that it is wise to decide where you want your journey to ultimately lead before you start out down the path.
Sopwith wrote:
Hey Sopy. Let’s start with this: what were the situations Paul was referring to in his letters? What were the situations that were understood, the things in the local culture that the people who received Paul’s letter all knew about and did not need to be spelled out? What was the position of women like in the overall culture? Most importantly, how did Jesus treat women? To interpret Paul, we have to look at the surrounding situation and most importantly, look at Jesus and what he said and did.
Also, be aware that if you lift verses off the page without considering the surrounding verses and the situations Paul was addressing, then you get “truths” such as “a woman is saved in childbearing.” Now, we all know that’s not true.
Patriciamc wrote:
The culture is still very much male dominated. The Comp church is far more aligned with the world than the Egal one.
okrapod wrote:
oops. communion
Lea wrote:
Didn’t the same thing happen to Anne Graham Lotz?
Patriciamc wrote:
You know what really drives historians up the wall?
All the things about the period under study that nobody of that time bothered to write down or record because “Everybody Knows That!”
(You see the same thing in software documentation. Only the anomalous and expert-level stuff gets documented, NONE of the basics you need to know to understand the software or even the jargon as you come in cold. Because “Everybody Knows That!”)
okrapod wrote:
With all respect, okrapod, turn about is fair play. That ” slippery slope” can go both ways, so here goes.
Most churches will not grant membership to homosexuals. Many churches will discipline, even excommunicate people who are openly sexually promiscuous. If they want to compare apples to oranges, couldn’t just granting women church membership be considered a slippery slope, too?
dee wrote:
Daffy Duck commented?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfsTk5i7mPw
Ok, this is a kind of a sidenote, but I’ve seen ‘secret church’ mentioned before and I just saw somebody link something on facebook. What is that??
@ okrapod:
Briscoe addressed this briefly in the video.
I know this will offend many here as it is a caustic topic but I have never understood the need for Christian groups to categorize women functioning in the Body with the issue of homosexuality as if they go hand-in-hand.
I know you are not doing that. Your comment is more of a springboard for discussion. I agree about lines in the sand for clarity sake.
I believe in freedom of conscious and the rights of churches on these issues. I also believe in free speech in debating these issues publicly with the need to bring thick skin to the arena!
Nancy2 wrote:
I don’t think so. The bible nowhere talks about church membership as different for women and men. I am saying specifically membership itself which I think is what you are saying. However, to ordain women one must adopt a certain view of scripture in thinking about what it means and what it’s function is in today’s era. Once a certain view of scripture’s meaning and function have been adopted then what argument can be used to prevent using that same argument concerning other issues also?
The bible says certain things about women’s activities within the church, things which people say are heavily influenced by the culture of the day. The bible says certain things which have been dissected extensively about homosexual behavior (among other things) things which are limited in scope compared to the current issues on this topic and which are heavily influenced (or so the argument goes) by the culture of the day.
Once we say that current understandings of cultural impact are more apt to lead to a best understanding of scripture, as opposed to mere recitation of the words themselves, then we have potentially opened ourselves to dealing with other issues based on the same approach to scripture. Now note, that we as a nation have done this and wisely so I think in the area of slavery and the area of polygamy so far, in saying that these things while not specifically forbidden by scripture are never the less inconsistent with values taught in scripture and inconsistent with our current culture. The current disagreements over women’s ordination are similar in saying that while scripture does not specifically permit that role for women even so to deny it to women violates some other values which are found in scripture. Similar reasoning.
So what I am saying is that it is wise to see where that reasoning leads, and the current issues in both the episcopal and UMC situation just happens to be LGBTQ related because that happens to be what is happening in the culture right now. And since I recently left the methodists and became an episcopalian I cannot avoid these issues.
On the other hand, strict adherence to the words of scripture and ignoring the cultural aspects and/or ignoring that some values in scripture seem almost contradictory to each other, can lead to what we are seeing with the neo-cal movement.
So I am saying, first decide in which direction to go realizing that there are implications down the road because roads always lead somewhere, and this issue of what is scripture and how to handle scripture in the church is a road that leads somewhere. IMO the decisions need to take all the variations and consequences into consideration early on.
I found tears flowing down my cheeks as I listened to these men speak so positively, encouragingly, and excited about women in leadership. Thank you, Dee. Wow!
Jeff S wrote:
They are blind to how they end up objectifying females.
@ okrapod:
Oops, you specifically mentioned church membership for homosexuals and I took off in the direction of women. I did not know that some churches would deny membership to homosexuals base on SSA, but probably some would based on sexual behavior. I have never been a member of a church, SBC or FWB or UMC or TEC that denied membership to homosexuals based on SSA. I have seen fellowship withdrawn from heterosexuals based on sexual misconduct and I assume they would do that for anybody.
In other words, danged if I know.
Julie Anne Smith wrote:
I had the same response. I had a similar response last summer praying with male African Anglican pastors praying for our (women) giftings to be developed and used for the Body of Christ. And I rarely cry.
Lydia wrote:
I find it strange for many reasons, but especially considering women are half the population! You are talking about a huge number affected by all of this teaching, and to so restrict that group because somehow (for no reason I have really seen, what have I to do with a man who wants to be transsexual??? That is neither under my choice or control) because of some weird linkages seems deeply strange.
But really, it just seems like they need to come up with new reasons every 20 years, as the old ones become unacceptable and the current one is ‘culture wars’. Dismiss women, because the culture is too liberal.
okrapod wrote:
The only thing I would point out from a “biblical” view is that no where in the OT is there any prohibition given to Women leading or teaching men. And there are such exceptions to the typical OT partriarchal practices.
However, we are to believe that Paul, led by the Holy Spirit, instituted such female prohibitions in the New Covenant where Jesus did not. It was the opposite, in fact.
I was thrilled that Briscoe pointed out a few examples that are usually ignored like Luke 8.
I say all this because the slippery slope argument has no credibility if people are willing to engage in discussing not indoctrinating.
Lydia wrote:
Credibility or no, look at what has actually taken place in TEC and UMC and come up with another name for it. I care not for the name, but the evidence is there and easily googled.
@ okrapod
Your question sparked something for me that I haven’t thought about for a long time regarding my thoughts on LGBT in the first place. I have aways believed that CBMW mentality has caused a lot of LGBT people. I do think some are born, some develop hormone diversities later, some choose to be, and some are simply confused because CBMW puts unbiblical legalities on what girls and boys are supposed to be interested in. So, I think that the slippery slope was the sexism in the first place. Now if you can find me some passages of scripture that actually teach men to lead rather than the making up of doctrines around the verses that say women submit, then I will revisit my 20 years of study on the equality of men and women in the pulpit and home. Otherwise, the women submit verses make about as much sense to me as telling me to submit to the coffee table I’m staring at.
Lydia wrote:
Yes!!! Before the Internet, that was my excitement when all I had to study was my Bible and my 4 inch thick Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance with Lexicon of the King James Version. I thought I was all alone. I did not know there was scholarly work already done on everything I was finding. I had only heard before that Paul and Peter were maybe still sexists because of their culture. But as I read everything in not just chapter context, but book context along with finding the discrepancy between the Strong’s and the KJV that was not there regarding most other subjects, I thought everyone would be as happy as I was when I could show that Paul and Peter were actually saying the opposite of what I had been oppressed with my whole life. But no, I was crushed to a heap of tears when my study was met with angry disdain. I was like, why bother studying?
@ Patti:
You are confusing my comments with what SOPY said it seems. I did not launch any argument agains women’s ordination nor for it, but what I did say is that people need to consider where that line of argument leads and be willing to decide based on all the implications.
In my church that sort of understanding of scripture and that sort of argumentation, whether right or wrong, has now led to ‘issues’ about celebration of gay marriage in the church, and the larger anglican communion has put us in time out because TEC took it all further than they wanted to go. Now whether one calls that sliding down a slippery slope or calls it charging up a challenging hill it is all the same thing. It is ending up somewhere that some people may not have wanted to go. And, in fact, which basically split the church in recent years; I mean an actual organic split ending in court over the properties. I did not make this up; check it out on line. And I am saying that these things can and do happen. And I am saying that the issue is the meaning and role of scripture, about which there is huge disagreement.
@ okrapod:
I agree the the slippery slope arguments are made. As usual we have a clergy class that are pretty much making them with their factions of followers.
This is just another reason why I think it is so dangerous to have a “set apart” clergy class that we look to- to call out abuse from other pastors or for answers on extremely divisive questions or policies.
@ Patti:
I did similar! I was not raised in a patriarchal or comp environment so the rise of that thinking was very confusing to me.
After a lot of research and study I discovered, by accident, Catherine Bushnell.
Now there is a scholar who will rock your world! I had to eat my Wheaties before each lesson!
Muff Potter wrote:
Ummmmm…William Sloane Coffin, Jr. and other members of the Clergy and Laity Concerned About Vietnam come to mind.
@ okrapod:
Where are the grown ups on either side of the issue saying: these are totally different issues and should be treated as such?
I don’t get it.
Lydia wrote:
Because just the word “homosexuality” disconnects every neuron above the Christianese brainstem and waves the Bright Red Murder Flag in front of what’s left.
And/or homosexuality is a man taking the Penetrated role of a woman instead of Penetrator like a man; that’s why male-supremacist cultures are revolted by the entire concept. (And the corollary that another man stronger than you can use you as you use a woman — “make a woman out of you” in prison rape culture slang.)
Lydia wrote:
These days, Grown-ups on the side of ANY issue are pretty scarce in general.
Lea wrote:
I have had some very interesting discussions with older women who lived through this focus on comp Doctrine in the SBC early on. The thinking goes like this: the first proposed Civil Rights Act gave more freedom and equality to black women than white women had in some areas.
This was addressed for all women in the Civil Realm.
This became a huge cause for concern for some men in the SBC and we see a trajectory of them embracing such “academic” teaching as George Knight and his “submussive Christian roles” for women. They were simply reacting to cultural changes.
This was pretty much a fight in Christian academic circles which eventually brought us the Danvers statement and the made-up word complementarian. It was nothing but a soft sell for patriarchy with Jesus lipstick
In my research on this trajectory, I found some very interesting writings from other Scholars driving big holes through the Danvers statement, scripturally.
But this all happened pre internet and they were pretty much drowned out.
Add to this that most people love the self-help industry and rules, roles and formulas for living life. It is one reason why even Islam is growing.
So yes, you will see the the marketing behind the issue change. We are actually seeing that right now with the new focus on testosterone. Before that it was a focus on what is feminine.
Lea wrote:
I have had some very interesting discussions with older women who lived through this focus on comp Doctrine in the SBC early on. The thinking goes like this: the first proposed Civil Rights Act gave more freedom and equality to black women than white women had in some areas.
This was addressed for all women in the Civil Realm.
This became a huge cause for concern for some men in the SBC and we see a trajectory of them embracing such “academic” teaching as George Knight and his “submussive Christian roles” for women. They were simply reacting to cultural changes.
This was pretty much a fight in Christian academic circles which eventually brought us the Danvers statement and the made-up word complementarian. It was nothing but a soft sell for patriarchy with Jesus lipstick
In my research on this trajectory, I found some very interesting writings from other Scholars driving big holes through the Danvers statement, scripturally.
But this all happened pre internet and they were pretty much drowned out.
Add to this that most people love the self-help industry and rules, roles and formulas for living life. It is one reason why even Islam is growing.
So yes, you will see the the marketing behind the issue change. We are actually seeing that right now with the new focus on testosterone. Before that it was a focus on what is feminine.
Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:
It is similar to what Congress does with bills they want passed. They tack on a lot of unrelated things to the bill and so if another Congress person is against that then they are positioned as wanting children to starve or hate refugees or something. It is more about propaganda for an issue than it is actually discussing the issue.
Lydia wrote:
This is definitely how the issue seems to be discussed in some circles. You don’t believe women should be prevented from all church roles but the nursery = you don’t believe in the bible. Nonsense.
Jeff S wrote:
I agree, and I find it terribly annoying at how some complementarians will insist that they are “counter cultural.” They’re really not. They’re upholding the status quo (sexism).
Lydia wrote:
I believe this blog had a post or two addressing that subject or something similar:
If Complementarianism is New, it Cannot be True
https://thisbrother.wordpress.com/2015/11/09/if-complementarianism-is-new-it-cannot-be-true/
Lydia wrote:
Often times, masculinity gets defined as just being anything that is not considered feminine, one result being that anything feminine (including women) are treated like second class.
elastigirl wrote:
They can continue with a clear conscience because they believe in the ‘rightness’ of their cause. It’s based on the proposition that Paul’s letters (in the form of literal commands) have the same gravity as the Almighty thundering out of Horeb to Moses.
Lydia wrote:
Personally, I couldn’t care less what a person’s sexual orientation is so long as it’s within the bounds of our civil laws.
But yeah, the implied connection puzzles me too.
And don’t worry about offending me, I’m an equal opportunity offender too!
@ Muff Potter:
but resorting to such slick, manipulative slimy sales tactics — it seems they have no qualms about manipulating people’s thinking and minds. something’s off with their conscience, with their ethical meter.
My husband and I just watched the entire thing and were greatly encouraged by it. I teared up several times while watching this. It’s funny he mentioned that it took 25 years to get to this point and for 24 years he waited for the Holy Spirit to move. I’ve been waiting just about the same amount of time. To see conservative churches who embrace the authority of Scripture finally – FINALLY! – move in this direction is such an incredible answer to prayer.
I pray God will redeem the years for all of the gifted women who have been sidelined all that time, waiting for the Holy Spirit to open a way for them to use their gifts. And I hope this will spur other conservative churches on to make similar decisions.
I am glad he tackled the slaves, women, and homosexual issue. I know it won’t be popular, but I thought he did a good job of addressing it in a limited way since the slippery slope argument is so often used to shut down conversation.
If there was one thing I thought was a bit weak it was his explanation of 1 Timothy 2, but maybe he was running out of time. I’ve found the historical context explanations Wade Burleson has given more helpful. But perhaps the handout goes into more details. I just downloaded and haven’t had time to read it yet.
Oh to have a church around here like this!
elastigirl wrote:
Ask Reichsminister Speer about “arranging the mind” to see nothing wrong when you’re personally benefiting from the System.
I’ve always hoped to see a change in the church in regard to women in leadership within my lifetime. This is a great start!
I think I read an article on 9Marks (It could be T4G – I don’t remember) not too long ago that talked the reason why men need to be leaders is because Jesus chose men. *Sigh* I liked the comeback to this argument – Jesus’ disciples were Jewish, therefore your church leadership must be Jewish.
@ okrapod:
Aw yes, I see in the second half of my comment, I slipped into my thoughts on Sopwith’s list of verses, ‘sorry to imply his thoughts were yours. The first half was loosely based on your thoughts about churches who use the slippery slope argument which just wearies me. I just can’t figure out why banning women isn’t any less a sin than allowing people they don’t approve of in the pulpit. I guess I’m part of the slippery slope. If allowing women in the pulpit means LGBT in the pulpit, so be it.
Lydia wrote:
Yes, that was first book I read after getting on the Internet, ordered it, devoured it. But when I gave to anyone else who seemed interested, they said it was just too scholarly for them to understand. Whu…? So I know about the wheaties thing. I always thought I was too dumb to understand stuff, but now I’m learning I’m pretty smart.
@ Patti:
I cried and cried reading her book because I couldn’t believe it had been so shelved all these years. There are a few things she wrote that I think I do not quite agree with her conclusion, but you can’t argue with her original language translations.
Lea wrote:
Secret Church is a David Platt thing (Platt is a New Calvinist celebrity). He periodically has Simulcasts that New Calvinist pastors sign up for, as additional indoctrination into reformed belief and practice for their church members. As Platt puts it “The objective of Secret Church is not just to come and learn for one night, but also to take what we’ve learned and pass it along to others.” You can read all about it at http://www.radical.net/secret-church/about
@ Max:
Thanks Max. I had some inkling it was related to these guys, but no real knowledge.
Kathi wrote:
But the 12 Apostles Were All Male
http://juniaproject.com/but-twelve-apostles-all-male/
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@ Patti:
Yes you are! You should see my first copy of her book. It is dogeared, post it noted and highlighted to death. Then, I bought a clean copy to start over again!
As Carolyn Custis James is fond of saying, we can all be theologians.
Beautiful… The grace of God in action…. So unlike the 9 Marks… SGM crowd…like a healing balm…. Dee and Deb… Please keep up your wonderful work … And those of you that have been hurt…please keep reaching out… God is there… He loves you and can be trusted… The journey back may take awhile but keep on walking…
@ Max:
Max, this is absurd!
Pastors only? Which also means no girls allowed, either.
@ Max:
Oh max, now I get it. They want to simulate persecution with the secret House Church meme. This is all the rage in some reformed youth groups
Encouraging post and testimony. Thank you!
@ Patti:
You know, it wasn’t even all the conclusions she reached that really got to me but her intense scholarly approach for that day and time using snail mail across oceans to confer with other Scholars around the world.
If you read it close there is even a whiff of old Earth in there which might come from her medical science background.
She was certainly no lace and flowers women’s ministry type but quite formidable!
Lydia wrote:
Sorry, my comment may have implied this. I meant to say that YRR pastors signed their churches up for the “Secret Church” Simulcast. As far as I know, those sessions are open to all church members (male and female).
@ Max:
No problem. Secret church has been a reformed youth group activity for several years now.
I am thinking these youth groups might emulate their hero, Platt, travel to Dubai, hole up in the Marriot and claim they are doing Secret Church in an undisclosed location where you are persecuted for your faith.
Sad and silly stuff out there.
@ Mara:
I believe me and billy need to take a trip out to this,church and visit. Thank you for writing this story.
Lydia wrote:
Wish those 22 Copts were available for comment…
From the Secret Church website:
“Secret Church began in 2006 at The Church at Brook Hills in Birmingham, Alabama, based on time David Platt spent with brothers and sisters in underground Asian house churches. ”
Huh? When wuz Platt in underground churches in Asia?
Thank you so much for posting this message. I was surprised to find myself crying as I listened. It reminds me of an illness I had once that left me in terrible muscle pain. When I started to recover, I went to physical therapy. As the therapist started getting my muscles to relax and relieving the pain, I just spontaneously broke down in tears and I was so surprised. It took the pain receding to make me realize how much pain I had been in. This message made me feel the same way.
It has taken me awhile to comment because I’ve been speechless, thinking about all this. So many years of feeling marginalized and invisible in “church,” of feeling this is a normal thing I have to accept.
Sallie Borrink wrote:
Me too. You know, every single action or decision there is, is part of someone’s “slippery slope.” I’m so tired of the mindset! It prevents so many types of progress.
@ siteseer:
Amen
@ Headless Unicorn Guy:
Wow. You are spot on.
@ Nancy2:
He can’t say. It is secret.
Max wrote:
Sounds like “Gnostic, and proud!”
@ siteseer:
really powerful comment! I felt I was experiencing what you were/are experiencing.
Nancy2 wrote:
This surprises me… is it true? In all seriousness, how would a church know someone’s sexual orientation? I’ve worshiped in quite a variety of churches, and over the years have known a lot of church members I believed were gay.
@ Friend:
It’s complicated, depending on the denomination and even more so on the individual church. Leaving aside for now a discussion of churches that accept as members people in same-gender relationships, there are at least a few different approaches of which I’m aware.
On the one hand, there’s the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell kind of situation, where everyone suspects that so-and-so might be you-know-what, but as long as no one comes out and says anything, all the straight people are fine with pretending that they don’t know what they know.
In cases where the individual in question has come out in a sense of transparency, there are churches where as long as they maintain a narrative of “struggling with SSA,” they’ll be accepted as members, although sometimes not permitted to lead or do anything with children (because old myths die hard).
There are, nonetheless, some churches were merely admitting that you experience an ongoing “struggle” will result in excommunication. I know of two cases where individuals who came out while still celibate were excommunicated from the PCA because apparently not being healed of your “SSA” (i.e. replacing your same-gender temptations with opposite-gender temptations) is a sign that sanctification is not ongoing in your life, and therefore you’re not one of the elect… so out you go with the left boot of (dis)fellowship.
For anyone who, like myself, is really mostly ok with remaining unmarried, but who rejects that non-straight orientations are disabilities that need to be cured, finding a place in the conservative evangelical world can be challenging.
Josh wrote:
Thank you for your explanation. That helps me understand.
I grew up in a church that was Calvinist before neo-Cal formed into a movement. Some gay kids were in my youth group, and this was known, although I’m describing a time before gay teenage activism. Our church quietly considered homosexual identity and behavior sinful, but to expel these kids would have been unthinkable. If we threw them out, how would they hear God’s Word and witness and experience God’s transforming love?
So yes, the notion of homosexuality as sinful was silently present, probably along with some adults’ hope of changing these kids. There might have been mixed motives for keeping them in the fold. But at least the pastors did not name, shame, and eject these young people. All of us were equally loved, and equally feared for: the “fast” girls, the misguided boys, the kids who smoked, the dunces, the geniuses, the boys who spent too much time together unsupervised, the shoplifters, the ones who couldn’t sit still, and the kids who demanded more and more Bible study. We sat through some crazy teachings, but this was a Beloved Community.
__
“This End Up?”
hmmm…
The pages of scripture, give no visable evidence of such a distinction as that of women exercising governmental authority in the Christian church Jesus Christ established. Therefore, to find justification one must look elseware.
Not all Christian 501(c)3 churches are going to be ‘trajectory inclined’ ™ towards the placement of women in ‘governmental authority’ (R) however strong the cultural or societal inclination may exert itself.
—
Sopwith wrote:
I had rather see people and churches openly look elsewhere and truthfully admit what they are doing than see them distort scripture to make it say what they want it to say. Looking elsewhere for historical information may not be a bad idea once people begin talking about culture this and culture that, but the distorting and/or editing of scripture is off bounds in my book.
So many interesting, well thought out and thought provoking comments and questions on this stream.
I am woman, in my early 70’s, over educated, and in the church all my life.
Looking back I see it as one of those packaged trips where one can see 100 countries in 6 days, don’t unpack your bags. Everything from wonderful women teachers in Bible Study Fellowship, wearing a hat from the pulpit because the church where it was being held required a woman to have her head covered (Remember when the ladies wore hats to church and the Catholic women always carried a scarf in their purse). I have been a deaconess, worship leader, children’s choir director, support group leader, etc etc and I have seen churches who were infiltrated by the Shepherding movement and overbearing control freaks try to take over. I say run don’t walk from the control freaks.
I have seen Christians growing in the Lord and then others who have gone off into looney tune new age, crystals, Barley green, and selling soap with a picture of a motor home on your fridge, and pseudo spiritual excesses.
The church has been in whirlwind of pressures, swindlers, goofballs etc for some times and the only thing that has kept us from flying off the ride has been the Lord, the Bible and thoughtful people as many of you are.
A last story for the evening. I heard about M in the 70’s. She put herself through Bible College by doing house work and became a Wycliff Bible Translator. She went to the jungles of Papua New Guinea in her 20’s, to learn a foreign language, put it in written form, educate the people to read their language, work with them in groups to translate the Bible. A daunting task. I wanted to meet her and did. We became friends and whenever she was back on furlough I would try to see her. On her last furlough before retiring, a little Oregon Baptist church, that had given her some of her support through the decades, was going to celebrate her birthday one Sunday.
I flew back there especially for that and was astounded (silly me) that the Preacher did not ask her to speak during the service. There was the potluck and birthday cake, for her 70 something Birthday, afterwards and the pastor led the prayer and again did not ask her to speak.
Perhaps because in the secular world, in many situations I wouldn’t hesitate to speak up, I stood up and explained that I had made it a point decades before to meet this remarkable Christian woman, who had given her life to the task the Lord had called her to do and I wanted to hear her speak. Quite a few of the members clapped at that and so she was able to get up and talk.
Only later did I realize that the Pastor was one of those that didn’t think women should speak in church (or even at potlucks).
I asked one of the women why they didn’t let women speak and she said “because women are so easily deceived and the start of so many cults” and I replied “yes, like Jim Jones, J. Smith, Armstrong, Scientology, etc etc etc”
Christiane wrote:
This is also what I believe. We are to obey God, & no one has the right to ask us to go against our consciences.
Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:
My dear HUG: I really do love you.
bc wrote:
I hope to live long enough to hear the Lord tell pastors like that to sit down and shut up, while He hands the mic to others who have something to say. When He judges the 21st century church (and He will), there will be much to rebuke and correct … at the top of the list will be the patriarchy which has silenced a word from the Lord given to women.
bc wrote:
It took the devil to deceive Eve … but only a human to deceive Adam.
Max wrote:
Ha. Adam was not deceived. He just decided to sin anyway. How that’s better is beyond me!
Also, I haven’t noticed a lot of women starting cults. Apparently women are at fault for joining them, but men are not for starting them. Oy.
bc wrote:
One of the saddest anecdotes from the Jim Jones thing was that when they started killing the children, his wife (I think) fought it and was held back (by men!) until they were all dead. And then she willingly took poison. Jim Jones was of course too chicken to actually die as he made other die. He shot himself.
But yeah, women are the ones we should blame here.
Lea wrote:
True that! I could count on two fifths of one hand the number of women I’m aware of* who have started cults, compared to … well, the Duggar family doesn’t have enough fingers and toes among themselves to count the number of well-known cults started by men.
* For the record, that’d be Mary Baker Eddy and Ellen G. White.
There is one on Sanibel. Sanibel Community Church.@ Victorious:
I have been reading with great interest your blog since I was introduced to it through Wondering Eagle and his writing on Community Evangelical Free Church. I live in Elverson. Would you please email me? For three days now, I’ve been trying to get into the Assemblies of God web site to copy a link to their position paper on Women in the Ministry. For some reason, it seems to be the only site on the internet that I can not get into. I just got off the phone with someone who got in and emailed me the link. Since I believe women do have a place in ministry leadership, when I discuss this highly charged topic with others I usually draw upon this Biblically strong position paper, and personal experience. If you send me your email, I will forward the link to you.
I have gone to Janet Parshall now three times with links from either you or Eagle. I believe that abuse in the church is rampant and needs to be exposed.
Hope to hear from you in an email. May the Lord protect you as you labor in this unusual part of the harvest field. John
I found this quite accidentally and was struck by two things: the replacement of bible content with utilitarianism and your own lack of love for people with whom you disagree by your snarky remarks and condescension (e.g. “Calvinistas”‘ “9 Marx”). I would encourage you to set an example in doing the good you wish to see as fruit in the lives of others.