Out of this whirl: The Whirlpool Galaxy (M51) and companion galaxy. ESA Hubble
“Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens.” — Gimli, The Fellowship of the Ring
I have long been aware of Wade’s views on women and the church. I have been waiting for him to make the first move regarding his thoughts and his practices at Emmanuel Enid. There is no question that he will be challenged by some in the SBC. In fact, it has already happened and I will be posting on that as well.
Years ago, Wade gave me permission to reprint any of his posts from his website. I am grateful for his views on women and his willingness to move this issue forward within the SBC. His viewpoint expressed here is not new for him. He has been consistent in his belief that women, as well as men, who are gifted can serve on the Leadership Council and also preach on Sundays.
Christ’s Kingdom Advances When Gifted Males and Females Serve and No One Rules Over Anyone Else
…In this post, I wish to show you how an evangelical church affiliated with the SBC thrives under gifted shared servant/leadership of both males and females.
Jesus taught His disciples that they were not to ask questions about “who is in charge.” We are to inquire “how may I serve.” For nearly a quarter of a century, I have been cautioning Southern Baptists that the major issue in our Convention revolves around “authority”– men have it, especially men in “the office of the authority of pastor” and women don’t.
The great crisis in American evangelicalism today is male infatuation with authoritarianism in the home and church.
Dr. Tom Nettles of the Founders Ministries writes:
“(Wade) Burleson asserts the idea of a ‘submissive attitude’ on the part of a woman is a violation of the New Testament standard, a direct contradiction ‘to the infallible and inerrant teaching of the New Testament.'”
That’s not correct. Nowhere have I ever said such a thing. Women are called by Christ to have a submissive attitude, but I’m declaring that the Bible teaches Christian men should have a submissive attitude as well!
Back in 1998, the Baptist Messenger, our state Baptist paper, published the following letter from me:
As you can clearly read, Dr. Nettles has misrepresented my position, most likely unintentionally. Maybe Tom can’t imagine how a male Christian can have a submissive spirit toward a female, be it his wife, or a gifted servant/leader in Christ’s Kingdom, including the local church?
Time To Be Constructive, Not Critical
The Director of Missions for the local Cherokee Strip Baptist Association is a member of the church where I serve. Our church has given well over $3,000,000 dollars to the Cooperative Program since 1992. In addition, our church has directly funded local and global mission efforts, spending millions of additional dollars on projects like the following:
1. A community planning center for the largest ethnic minority group in Enid.
2. A soon-to-be-opened women’s shelter for abused and abandoned women.
3. A men’s prison transitional housing center (the men come to Emmanuel Enid on Sunday).
4. A kitchen and shelter for the homeless in our community.
5. A hospital, orphanage, and community planning ministry in Niger, Africa.
6. Water well drilling equipment and training for over 100 water wells in Africa.
7. Direct mission support to missions in New York City, Guatemala, and a host of other mission points.
I share the above facts to only point out Emmanuel Enid is heavily invested in missions locally and globally. We love cooperating with churches from all different regions, churches who do things different from us. Yet, some have called for Emmanuel Enid to be removed from the Southern Baptist Convention because we have women in leadership roles at our church (I Timothy 3:8-12).
How Emmanuel Enid Does It
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| Lauren Daigle singing at Emmanuel Enid |
Unlike many typical Southern Baptist churches, we believe servant leadership in the local church and the home is never based on gender.
At Emmanuel Enid, we have a Leadership Team composed of 12 people, six men and six women. The 12 include the Chairpersons of our seven standing church committees (Finance, Personnel, Missions, Building and Grounds, Special Events, Emmanuel Christian School, and Deacon Service Committee), plus five trustees. The Deacon Service Committee has 30 servants on it, fifteen men and fifteen women, all of whom all meet the character descriptions found in I Timothy 3:8-13, just like Phoebe met the character qualifications of being a deacon (Romans 16:1).
Pastors at Emmanuel are servants. Nobody has authority over anyone. We serve according to our gifts. To us, a pastor is a “verb of service,” not “a noun of status.”
If you wish to read an official “white paper” on how Christ is the Head of His church and men and women serve as gifted, then I would urge you to download The Bible and Authority in the Church, a paper written by my father and me, print it off and regularly read it.
If a man or woman in our church has the gift of teaching, they teach. Christians from both genders who have the gift of prophesying preach. We don’t have rules about “mixed company” and we don’t restrict women from teaching in mixed company because we don’t see any universal restrictions against women in Scripture.
“In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy” (Acts 2:17).
Women preach at Emmanuel Enid on Sunday. When that happens, it is no different than a man preaching. “Sons and daughters will prophesy” is the Scriptural teaching.
Some Christian men seek to restrict females from serving as they are gifted by Christ because of the awful and unbiblical doctrine called “the inherent male authority over women.” Many years ago, I wrote a forward for Jon Zens’ book, What’s With Paul and Women:
“The viper known as ‘the doctrine of male authority’ has bitten the church. The toxin emitted by this errant teaching affects the females within our assemblies. It debilitates their God-given gifts, denigrates their Spirit-led ministry, and downplays their role as new Covenant priests. Those of us who have seen the church bitten need assistance, and help has arrived. This book will help you suck out the venom of male-only authority within the church. It will do so by helping you be able to articulate Jesus’ view of the equality of women and then revealing for you how Paul’s words in 1 Timothy 2 are consistent with Jesus’ own teaching and ministry. You will be able to point out to others how the modern institutional church has misconstrued and misinterpreted Paul’s writings on the subject, while at the same time ignoring Jesus’ words and life on the same subject.”
Objections to Shared Leadership
Some who read my writings on shared leadership object to what they read and point to three or four verses that at first glance seem to teach that women should be silent and men should lead.
Let’s be clear. I am saying the Bible teaches just the opposite of what those objectors say it teaches. I see the Scriptures to clearly declare that Jesus Christ and His early followers taught us that servant leadership is based on gifting, not gender; character, not control; and a spirit of service, not a position of power.
If I’m right, then I must respond to those few verses that seem to say something different than what I see the Bible to clearly teach.
.
For example, what about I Timothy 2:9-15? (see Artemis and the End of Us: Evangelical Errors Regarding Women).
How about I Timothy 2:12? (see ‘The’ Woman of Error in I Timothy 2:12).
What about I Corinthians 14:34-36? (see A Free Speech Ekklesia for All Brothers and Sisters).
What about Hebrews 13 and “obey those who rule over you”? (listen to this message).
Just like Southern Baptists were once wrong on the subject of slavery, so Southern Baptists today are wrong on the issue of male authority.
The Bible clearly teaches that both men and women are to minister and lead in Christ’s Kingdom and in our Southern Baptist churches.
The problem in the SBC is men acting like “Gentiles” (Jesus’ words) and seeking to exert power, authority, and control over people. Power. Authority. Control.
When Jesus is the only authority over His people, then His people – His people means every brother and every sister in Christ – are empowered to serve as Christ gifts and commissions us.
1 BAM
I hear you, but let’s admit there are people who are not hung up on authoritarianism who don’t believe women should preach. Do a little research on C. S. Lewis’s view on “priestesses”. He has some deep thoughts on the issue well worth reading.
In the late 1940s, President Truman integrated the US Armed Forces, eliminating the existing Jim Crow.
His rationale was with the Cold War ramping up, it made no sense to sideline 1/6 of America’s manpower.
Yet so many churches insist on sidelining HALF their manpower.
Over the last couple of years I have become increasingly convinced that the existing traditional system of 501c3’s is completely out of whack with what Jesus want His Church to be. I do not believe that Jesus wants professional pastors (at least as we now have them,) or professional musicians (I am a musician.) Nor is He into expensive special use buildings that are used only a few hours a week and the rest of the time sit collecting dust. He is not into our “seeker sensitive” programs either. He wants disciples who feed themselves and teach their own children instead of pawning it off on some young kid out of college who does not actually have much wisdom at how to deal with people. Entrust your children to the naive and inexperienced, now there is some great wisdom for you! (sarcasm intended)
We have swallowed a traditional way of doing things without asking if these ways are even listed anywhere in the Bible. When I look at what the 501c3’s have produced that I have gone to, and I have not gone to ones as near as horrible as some, the fruit varies from mediocre to bad. I have seen God work in peoples lives, but now I recognize that as a miracle. God has done things inspite of how bad the institution is. Inspite of the rumors and actual mean gossip of sheep against other sheep. Inspite of clueless and immature leadership. The greatest work I saw came from a man who later stated that “he had had an evil, religious spirit before as the head pastor. And that he got saved only after leaving the pulpit.” Call me a radical if you want, but I would prefer to see groups dedicated to their own maturity and dealing with the specific issues that are keeping them from full obedience. Let the laymen feed themselves and each other.
Because of this I see this argument of this post as simply irrelevant. If the men who are preaching and serving in leadership should not be there because:
1) They are not qualified for leadership according to Timothy and Titus. (90% of people in these positions do not pass the certification test.)
2) They are serving themselves and/or the wishes of the people in creating a religious experience that people want, instead of doing exactly what Jesus would have them do.
To take women that are in some circles forbidden to enter these groups and put them in there, unqualified or serving religious traditions instead of Jesus, solves absolutely nothing. It is like a racist bank that is doing all the wrong things, coming clean and hiring Blacks, Chicanos and Asians to work for them and them having them join in with the whites doing all the wrong things a bank should not do. That bank will go bankrupt either way. The bad fruit in what we call churches alerts me to the reality that they do not actually have the real Jesus as their head. I now view the 501c3 system as totally bankrupt.
To be clear, I like Wade and his stand against systematic church abuse and abusers, but I do not think the system that he and the tyrants serve has anything at all to do with Jesus’ Church He is building. What a terrible thing it must be for a man to serve a false system all of his life and die only to find out that all that work was wood, hay and stubble…
From the post: “Spiritual power trips often end in sexual predatory trysts.” @Wade_Burleson – Bold and true statement.
(Recent example: highly regarded Jean Vanier, turns out, was a predator. Ouch. Took Vanier off the Wild Mustang Mall website.)
This is really not that difficult: “All of you who were baptised ‘into’ Christ have put on the family likeness of Christ. Gone is the distinction between Jew and Greek, slave and free man, male and female — you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28)
True. Well, no one is perfect.
Thank you, Wade, for treating women simply as human adults.
it’s very meaningful.
sooner than later this will be the norm in this silly religion of mine. rather than the hurtful and degrading experience of being treated as a less than human sub species. oh, the stories i could tell.
Mr. Jesperson,
You offer some important insights. That being said, God tolerates a lot that God does not necessarily desire.
Max,
This verse, and context it is quoted in, is a good example of how individuals, and in the current case, the Calvanista’ crowd, selective use some verses, and ignore others..
“Distinction” to me means no difference…. Has anyone ever read how the Calvanista explain away this verse??
Someone here a few days ago said that people who really studies a lot is less certain about absolute truths in faith. I think it nicely sums up how I feel.
Most people I’ve met in churches who are really, really convinced of how the church is supposed to work don’t seem to really know the Bible very well when questioned. Everything they’ve decided is either because someone told them to believe it or they started with an assumption (such as God predestining lots of people to hell). It’s pretty easy to see both when you talk with someone. Someone who believes something because that’s what they’ve always been told really don’t know the Bible at all when pressed.
Someone who starts with an assumption will talk about that assumption to an obsessive degree. Those people also tend to spend a lot of time putting down anyone who doesn’t share their assumption. They only want knowledge that fits with their assumption and will ignore the rest.
In my experience, New Cals don’t explain away verses. They just ignore them completely. If you bring them up, they change the subject as if you never said anything. Or they give a completely unrelated quote from a New Cal leader and then change the subject. They are taught to not engage with any holes in their theology. That is a common tactic of cults to keep members from questioning what they believe.
Yes, the Good News Translation puts it this way: “So there is no difference between Jews and Gentiles, between slaves and free people, between men and women; you are all one in union with Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28)
Good news indeed! But a patriarchal church throughout the ages has labored to make it bad news for female believers, twisting Scripture to make their theology fit. The Calvinistas have followed suit by cherry-picking and taking text out of context to subordinate women, just as they have subordinated Christ.
I’m not sure if this question is rhetorical, but I’m seriously interested in a sincere answer. The handful of things I’ve read or listened to either completely ignore this verse or throw in a red herring argument focusing on gender identity (when the verse in question also includes ethnicity and socio-economic status). Or say “I don’t know,” which is at least fair and honest. have my own thoughts, but for complementarians out there, what are yours?
Or be pilots, doctors, engineers, politicians, etc. And then there are those who think it’s OK for a woman to operate on their gizzard, but just don’t want her preaching to them while she does it!
Pope Mohler spins it this way:
“… this is the kind of sloppy and agenda-driven exegesis that reveals the desperation of those who would reject the New Testament’s limitation of the office of pastor to men. In Galatians 3:28 Paul is clearly speaking of salvation — not of service in the church.”
https://albertmohler.com/2010/07/14/hard-to-believe-biblical-authority-and-evangelical-feminism/
So is Mohler’s rendition of the passage correct exegesis, sloppy exegesis, or agenda-driven eisegesis?
“Has anyone ever read how the Calvanista explain away this verse??”
+++++++++++++++
cbmw says things like ‘yes, equal, but differing in role’. it’s one of those things where the practice negates the theory.
(which the practitioners are oblivious to, & don’t seem to be able to comprehend).
(or else they are so concerned for purity of ‘biblical’ that they are willing to sacrifice human lives, albeit never their own or their loved ones)
i could easily name a few other examples of this in christian culture — i would guess there are many.
(which would be an interersting discussion topic)
Bah. You should try reading the Bible; then you’d be perfect like I am. But you won’t, for one simple reason.
You’re all rubbish.
Up yours,
Roger Bombast
You have no idea.
Best regards,
God
Almost everyone is against tokenism.
If an unqualified man left an unpaid pastoral position in a church, would you find it acceptable to replace him with a qualified woman?
My gizzard has been giving me fits. If preachy ol’ Dr. Mary Sue operates on me, I’ll make extra sure to request the general anesthetic. 😉
Ugh, this hurts my ears. Men and Women. Male and Female. Please don’t mix them.
That aside, I am glad Wade has attempted to maintain some parity at his church.
I want to make a general comment about ‘submissive attitudes’. I think it’s odd to think of them as some generic good. We need to use our brains and submit only when it makes sense and is best to do so.
WildHoney,
The standard dismissal I hear from comps WildHoney, seems to be that this is ‘only about salvation’. convenient. Meanwhile any word about any woman applies to us all.
I think the crux is who are you submissive to–God or another person? I don’t see submission to God as a priority of a lot of these men who demand the submission of others. I don’t think they want to be Christians. They want to be God.
It isn’t even about men and women, though systematically demanding submission of women makes it easier for them to demand submission from anyone. But these same men are the ones tricking men into signing covenants, harassing everyone into psychological torture through church discipline, and chasing people down who try to get out.
The problem, friend, is that they believe to be unqualified simply by virtue of not being a man. Impossible to not be a ‘token’ if one is never allowed to be qualified!
Anyways, Mr. J seems to prefer to rant about the entire institution of church, despite the fact that churches are made up in many different ways, rather than admit women into a teaching situation. What does it matter if it is a house church, a sunday school, or a mega if people still learn, grown and take care of each other?
Being submissive to ‘god’ to them is the same as submitting to their idea of what god says. Not your own. Not ‘truth’ whatever that is. Submitting to god is the same as submitting to them in this case.
Max,
And, if we listen to/follow Christ’s teaching, there are no “leaders”… we are all to be “servants”….. ??
Godith,
No argument from me on that note.
Headless Unicorn Guy,
More than half…
The New Calvinists prefer to distort Paul’s teaching to make it fit their theology/agenda, rather than listen to Christ’s teaching. They camp out in the epistles, not the Gospels. Therefore, they miss gems of truth from Christ like “But among you it will be different. Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant.” (Matthew 20:26)
I just had a vision cross my mind of the Pied Piper going in for a medical procedure and the last thing he saw was a female anesthesiologist putting a mask on his face!
(I actually modified this from a true story. A chemistry professor I know went in for a procedure and the anaesthesiologist (a guy in this case) asked him if he remembered that he was a student in one of his classes. The prof said the last thing which crossed his mind as he faded under the anaesthesia was what grade he had given the young man!)
Yeah, I think they make it up as they go to fit their agenda, which is control over the SBC and people in general. And the things they say change depending on who they are talking to–they try to come across as “reasonable” and “moderate” in secular settings, but support fairly extreme cult tactics within churches. So I don’t think it’s really about what they themselves believe, but what result they can get out of making others believe things.
Max,
“A chemistry professor I know went in for a procedure and the anaesthesiologist (a guy in this case) asked him if he remembered that he was a student in one of his classes. The prof said the last thing which crossed his mind as he faded under the anaesthesia was what grade he had given the young man!)”
+++++++++++++++
ha!
i have a similar story.
my mother-in-law was teacher, taught middle-school age, i think.
she was on the operating table (she stayed awake during procedure). the doctor came in, she cocked her head to one side and said, “Gerald, is that you? Does you mother know what you’re doing here?”
Classical cult.
And how does Mohler serve the church???
Does he get up early to prepare and bring the covered dishes? Does he pitch in and help clean the fellowship hall and kitchen when the meal is over? Does he scrub the toilets, mop the floors, dust the woodwork, clean the Windows, and vacuum the church carpets? Does he clean up the vomit when some kid doesn’t quite make to the toilet in time ……. And then there’s the church vans, the bloody noses, the Bandaids, the spilled drinks
Does he make the trips to Sam’s and Costco to keep the church pantries and closets stocked for various and assundry ministries —- in his own vehicle and on his own gas money? Does he do these things for no recognition and no monetary pay???
Does he even take his own suits to the dry cleaner?
Ha! What does he call “service”?
elastigirl,
LOL!
With his superior intellect of course!! After all, he has a bigger stack of books than anyone else! Folks like Mohler can’t identify with folks who really serve the church … service is not their goal; control is.
Yes that is certainly true. Yet we are told to pray “Your Kingdom come, Your will be done.” God tolerates our little serfdoms and our attempts to manipulate into getting our will done for a while, and then He gets His full and then here comes the discipline that stings. I am personally come to the conviction that God is totally fed up at the moment and the correction is already started. It is starting with a plague and will get more complicated as time passes. The quicker we repent and turn back to His ways, the easier this will be on us. Those who kick against the goads will end up getting the brunt of the worst of what is coming.
My “church” is a mental health support group where I am one of the leaders. The main facilitator is a female pastor who is leading the group, not as a pastor, but as someone who is married to a man with bi-polar disorder. The previous head was brought up in the group and is a wife of a pastor who was and is leading a youth group in El Salvador. I watched God work in her life and take her in about 16 months from being a complete wreck with bi-polar disorder, driving her parents, husband and kids nuts, worried about getting divorced, her life in total shambles, totally confused and broken, and being transformed by the power of God into a stable leader who is now spearheading the Spanish branch of the ministry. I felt priviledged to have her as a leader for six months when the previous man had a change in careers. Then she left to start a physical group at her church and started a Spanish speaking online group. I just found out that she is starting a second online group with a different time for Spain.
God can use anyone, but the church that this lady came out of had no power and no wisdom to keep her from falling so low. Her dad is the head pastor and mom is deeply involved to. So your question is totally irrelevant. Likewise the pastor lady has joined this ministry because she, as a head pastor, did not have the answers in herself.
So to directly answer the question, if the church is not a part of Jesus’ actual Church, then it matters nothing who replaces the man who left. It could be a gay Satanist, or a deceptive narcissist like Paula White or just a blah graduate of seminary. What is bankrupt is bankrupt regardless of who is brought in.
However, if the church is a part of Jesus true church then I would only hope that His Will is done in whomever replaces him. And I do not just throw out a certain inconvenient scripture of what Paul says. But I do not have enough details to answer your question in any further sense. A vague question deserves a vague answer.
Wade, do you believe women can hold any and all offices of The pastorate? Including senior pastor?
Bait-and-switch. For Galatians 3:28 to apply “only to salvation” and then say “but Gentiles can’t” or “but slaves can’t” or (gasp) “but women can’t” is to nullify the entire book of Galatians. (Yah know, that old context thing . .). Galatians is exactly about function in the church BASED ON equality in salvation. Biola University has an entire upper level course called Theology of Gender posted to YouTube and one of the lectures deals with Galatians and why it very much does apply “on the ground” rather that “just (esoteric, spiritually, not practical and I don’t have to work with “them”) salvation”. If salvation has no effect on service, on the real world for the ones being stomped, then it is a false promise, literally a bait and switch, because mere females can’t be “as saved” as men.
Speaking of Wade from Julie Roys blog: https://julieroys.com/podcast/karen-swallow-prior-discerning-discernment-blogs/
“I mentioned his name before, Jordan Hall, and somebody had mentioned on Facebook that MacArthur’s Masters University has been put on probation by its accreditor. And Jordan Hall responded, ‘MacArthur made a menopausal feminist accreditation hack angry and got dinged for it. It’s hardly a controversy.’ And I was just, my breath was taken away. I’m like, ‘You did not just say that. You did not just say that.’ This is a pastor and a blogger. And he’s calling somebody—well he’s deriding somebody for being biologically female by calling her menopausal. And so I said something about it. I was like, ‘That’s not okay. You can’t cut people down just because they’re biologically female.’ And then he came back at me and deriding me as a feminist, which you’ve read my book, Karen. I mean, ‘a feminist?’ I mean, there’s a lot of feminist Christians who are angry with me for some of the things I write, but I’ve never been called a feminist before. It was just so shocking. He wrote, ‘You’ve basically become a poor man’s feminist, liberal version of Janet Mefford. It’s been sad to watch your woke rebirth from afar.’ And I said to my husband, I said, ‘Neal, watch, he’s gonna write a hit piece on me.’ I’ve never had a hit piece before. This was kind of a new—I’ve had a lot of people mad at me for what I write. I get that. Because I report on things that people would rather not hear. But I’ve never been called, you know, I’ve never had a hit piece that just I mean, I read it and it was calling my journalistic integrity into question simply because I called Wade Burleson a, I think I called him a ‘Southern Baptist insider.’ We can argue whether he’s a Southern Baptists insider. He’s been a pastor and a Southern Baptist Church for 28 years, was on a missions board of the Southern Baptist Convention. He may be on the outs more now, but he still gets contacts and he still gets me information. So, he seems to be. But that and calling me a feminist, and I’m like, ‘Really?’ This is the most disingenuous post I’ve ever seen. I was just I mean, my breath was taken away. I was just like, this is ridiculous. It’s just not true. It’s a mischaracterization. This is my thing with being a journalist. I report on a lot of people I disagree with. But my goal is always if they read my piece, I want them to say when they read how I’ve represented them for them to say, ‘Yeah, that’s really what I believe.’ And then we can argue whether or not that’s the right belief or not. But to misrepresent, that’s what really bothers me.”
I have a great deal of respect for Julie. I do not doubt that God chose her to do what she is doing. It would not surprise me that if God chose a woman specifically as His investigative reporter as that is a part of the message. God is certainly against men lording their authority over anyone. It does not matter if it is children, men, women or all of the above who become victims. The Good Shepherd laid his own life down for the sheep.
ION: Fitba’
So, after an annus mirabilis, Liverpool have lost our unbeaten league record (to Watford on Saturday) and been knocked out of the FA Cup (by Chelsea tonight) in the space of 5 days. Next week we’re almost certain go be knocked out of the Give Us Yer Money Cup (by Athletico Madrid, who are too well-organised for us to score against and who have ) as well. Funny how quickly the wheels can come off.
GreekEpigraph,
At least some slave owners in Antebellum south allowed them to have church services… in fact, much our southern gospel music has its roots to pre emancipation times…
so, my point is, good old Pope Mohler is not the first to try to separate salvation from service!
They, and it’s not just neocals (non-reformed fundagelicals too), believe that Paul was a kind of New Moses to the Gentiles, with the Almighty still thundering out of Horeb through Paul. And they in turn speak for God through Paul.
I can’t answer for Wade, but it seems to me that the very idea of such an office as “senior pastor” is not simply without any basis or precedent in scripture. It’s an act of rebellion against the simplest and most basic commands Jesus gave the Twelve regarding how they were to work with other believers. So, obviously, I don’t believe women can hold such an office for the same reasons me can’t.
Contagious Moses Model.
“I’M MOSES!”
“NO! I’M MOSES!”
“NO! I’M MOSES!”
In answer to your question, it depends… When preaching on 1 Timothy 2, does Mr. Mohler lift his hands when praying, avoid anger and dispute, and remind women to take off their gold jewels and pearls? Context, context, context, Mr. Mohler.
I am wearing pearl earrings and my gold wedding ring today, if that gives any indication of my thoughts on the matter.
I’ve seen “Superior Intellects(TM)” in action.
AKA “Wile E Coyote. Super. Genius.” for real.
Some are literally Inhuman. Pure Intellect, NO humanity left.
“You don’t need any intellect to be an Intellectual.”
— G.K.Chesterton, one of the Father Brown Mysteries
How does that differ from “My Shlong’s Bigger Than Yours!” (unzip) “SEE? SEE? SEE?”?
Eh, sometimes it just means the ‘senior’ pastor in that it is the person who has been there the longest? That’s pretty common usage that may not convey ultimate decision making power or anything like that.
I’m sure you dont mean it like this but I sometimes find it irritating that so many responses to ‘hey, maybe women should be here too’ end up at ‘maybe this position shouldn’t exist at all’. Like, that doesn’t solve the issue we’re talking about of women being marginalized? We can remove all titles and people will still act according to their values, and if they dont value women or their input it won’t matter.
Then again, I think the strict about titles churches often give titles to men, while sometimes women have institutional power that the church refuses to formalize (or for employees, pay appropriately). Which is the other side of the coin.
Intellectual Abstract THEOLOGY, THEOLOGY, THEOLOGY.
Never mind that it wasn’t until the scientific/technological revolution after the Enlightenment that more than half of children born lived to see puberty, women didn’t need to Save vs Death every time they gave birth, a break in the skin didn’t mean automatic (and possibly fatal) infection, and there were other labor-saving devices than owning Slaves. Achieving more to improve man’s lot in one or two centuries than Theology Theology Theology did in the previous 1800.
Astute.
Telling women what the can and can’t do!
Never heard of a Senior Pastor in scripture.
Now you are sounding just like me. This is part of the reason why I do not believe that this is what Jesus is building as a church.
This very recent article by CBMW is an example of this. I highly recommend listening to the NT Wright interview highlighted in this article.
https://cbmw.org/2020/02/25/engaging-a-viral-interview-with-n-t-wright-about-women-in-ministry/
This clip by Paul Young does a great job undermining the way Calvinistas use a couple of clobber verses:
https://youtu.be/iqZQLAvgIWc
The Presbyterian Church in the USA (and its predecessor the United Presbyterian Church) has been ordaining women for 64 years:
For some, there has never been a time where there were not women ministers. But others remember when there were no women preachers, no women role models in seminaries and divinity schools, and no women engaged in pastoral care, at least not professionally. …
This year [2016] marks the 60th anniversary of women teaching elders in the PC(USA). On October 24, 1956, the Rev. Margaret Towner was ordained as the first woman minister in the Presbyterian Church. Despite the attention and recognition she received—her photo was featured in Life magazine and other publications—Towner said she “chose to avoid the limelight and continue my work in the local congregation.” …
In 2015-2016, 110-years of women deacons and 85 years of women ruling elders is also being celebrated. Elder Sarah Dickson was the first woman ruling elder, and Elder Tillie Paul Tamaree was the first Native American woman ruling elder, both ordained in 1930, and there have been numerous women deacons over the past 110 years.
https://www.pcusa.org/news/2016/5/24/pcusa-celebrates-60-years-womens-ordination/
Either women have souls, or we don’t. If we have souls, no man/men has a right to stand between a woman and God/Jesus/the Holy Spirit.
Complementarians teach (whether knowingly, or not) that a man/men stands between each and every woman and God. All communication/instruction/ gifts, etc, from God involving or directed to a woman must be filtered through the interpretation/judgement of a man/men.
Why does a man have to serve as a buffer between a woman and Jesus? How does that make any sense at all …… To anyone???
I’m sick RSV and sinus infection, so I hope this makes some sense. Now, off I go to my chicken soup and meds!
I am appreciative that “Gifted Women and Men Can Lead and Preach at Emmanuel Enid”, but if women can “preach” there but cannot be ordained, it strikes me that again, it is tokenism for the women.
As I stated in posts on other topics, when I was still in the pastorate (a Southern Baptist “Moderate”; ie “liberal” to many) I could not craft a meaningful response when a woman came to me to talk about the call to ministry she felt God was issuing. Thus, I supported their call before the church on through ordination.
Forgive me, at first I thought you were sick of the Revised Standard Version. Get well soon! And yes, what you wrote makes perfect sense. 😉
Yup.
BINGO!
Right there! There’s a work-around for all Scripture when given by men moved by holy pragmatism.
How long do you (generic you) think a church would last if the honchos started enforcing Paul’s hairdo and jewelry rules for women?
Actually, you might be surprised. My dad worked for a while, maybe 10 or so years ago, at a public school that happened to have a large population of very conservative Christians. A student told a woman teacher that she was going to hell because she wore make-up.
But then, is that any more extreme than not allowing a woman to even read aloud from Scriptures during a church service? Just a different application of a very literal interpretation of the same select set of verses.
I didn’t mean it like that, no, but I take your point.
The fundamental problem with mohlerness, and any other form of biblianism, is that it presupposes that Jesus is dead and gone and that the canon of scripture (as determined by a series of councils of the church in Rome!!!) is his last will and testament. That’s even before one begins any discussion on whether they have really selected the correct verses (rather than other verses that contradict them) and, thence, whether they have calculated the correct interpretation of those correct verses. This is absolutely not how the bible describes Jesus’ own use of the Hebrew scriptures.
I believe that Jesus’ right to be the undisputed head of his church should be recognised. This means that, just as he (in the person of the Holy Spirit) fundamentally redirected the early church when he filled uncircumcised Gentiles, and just as he appeared first to women when he rose from the dead and sent them to instruct the apostles, so he should be free to gift, call, appoint, and any other verb, anybody he chooses for any role whatsoever. And this is REGARDLESS of race, gender or social status. So yes, if we need teaching and Jesus has clearly gifted one or more women to do so, then the church should acknowledge this and very deliberately and openly listen to them. If that means calling them “teachers” or “preachers” then that’s what they should be called.
On a very slight tangent, let it be known that there are many commands in the bible that I have no intention of obeying no matter how urgent, relevant or important they may appear. You see, whilst I absolutely ascribe equal value to those commands, they have a different role.
Nick Bulbeck,
Which is cool, isn’t it? I get to proclaim how I’m biblically submitted to the Word of God in the Scriptures, while at the same time living exactly how I want and treating everyone else just as it suits me!
I hope it’s obvious that this, and my previous comment, are meant as parody. The “equal-in-value-separate-in-role” excuse deserves no better; it is vacuous and self-serving.
Nancy2(aka Kevlar),
I read something a pastor wrote how everyone in the church is all equal in worth no matter if that person preaches a sermon or cleans the church toilets. Ha! I can guess who cleans the church toilets-mainly women. And since said church was complementarian-those preaching of course could only be men! Made me feel small.
I am glad you clarified. For a second there I thought you had become a Calvinista…
I assume his denomination pays their cleaners the same as they pay their clergy.
In churches that insist on unpaid clergy as the One Biblical Way, the cleaners might be paid more.
My church doesn’t hold to women being ordained, ( in either of the New Testament offices, disclaimer, I believe women can hold the office of deacon, but not of pastor)
I am just curious if Wade holds to a distinction between pastor and senior pastor, inside the SBC, there is an ongoing debate about the office of pastor, somehold to the office of pastor and senior pastor being different, and some don’t make any distinction…
Nick, I am not settled on the senior pastor position, I tend ( today anyway) agree with you…
I haven’t either, that’s why I’m curious about how Wade breaks all this down.
In the SBC their is a debate ( among our many other debates) about a individual pastor ( leader), and the elder board leader model.
I think the senior pastor issue is an offshoot of this debate…
There’s no such thing as equality if only one group is deciding how equality is defined. It always ends up benefitting the group making the decisions. “Sure, we’re equal, but I’m going to give you all the tasks I don’t want to do so I can do big things for God.” Nope.
It’s a common response to this issue, though. The last SBC church I attended made the very claim that “women could be pastors as long as the senior pastor was a man.”
And I’ll be honest, I think they had that belief because they got benefits for being SBC and donations from their television ministry. I’m not even sure they really believed it, but they weren’t willing to step all the way out and risk losing money. Is that really a belief then or is it convenience?
Difference between pastor/senior pastor?
We don’t “ordain” anyone and consider everyone a minister. Some gifted Christian men and women are “paid” by our 501C-3 non-profit (a non-profit registered with the Secretary of State) for doing non-profit work. We make a strong and clear distinction between the non-profit and the Kingdom. Non-biblical “ordination” creates a separation between professional clergy and laity – something the state used to require when church and state were united in Europe. We do not say denominations are “sinning” for ordaining people (either men or women), we are just pointing out the practice is nowhere found in the New Testament. Gifted Christian men and women serve as Christ gifts, and there are no “render by gender” spiritual gifts. Men and women prophesy; men and women teach; men and women encourage; men and women serve; men and women are the body of Christ and He alone is the head. So the question of “do you hold to a distinction between pastor and senior pastor?” has as an answer “No.” To us, pastor is a verb of service, not a noun of status. Minister is the same word as pastor (shepherd) and in the Bible, every Christian pastors/shepherds/ministers/disciples others according to their giftedness and calling. We DO license some Christians because the state wishes to know who is a licensed minister for tax/legal/ reasons. Otherwise, if our non-profit is ever destroyed or ruled illegal by the state, the Kingdom continues and every Christian would continue to serve as gifted. Hope that answers your question. The confusion seems to be denominations have confused themselves with the Kingdom. We never spiritualize our non-profit and make it more than it is, and we make no apology for paying some men and women in our non-profit but they have NO SPIRITUAL AUTHORITY over anybody.
Pastor Burleson makes an important point that much of the organized church just doesn’t get. Whose job is the ministry? Every believer has a part, as s/he is gifted by God!
The Kingdom of God on earth in the here and now operates outside denominational boundaries placed on believers, without regard to the teachings and traditions of men. Before there was a Southern Baptist Convention and others patriarchies established by mere men, there was God. Before men started exerting authority over the church, Jesus alone held supreme authority over the Body of Christ. He still does in the Kingdom of God as He moves through believers across the planet. The authority of Jesus is waning in the American church; much of what we do in church is not really the Church at all.
I suppose Southern Baptist theologian Bruce Ware was thinking along these lines when he stated:
“It may be best to understand the original creation of male and female as one in which the male was made in the image of God in a direct, unmediated and unilateral fashion, while the female was made image of God through the man and hence in a indirect, mediated and derivative fashion.” (Bruce Ware)
If women are merely derivatives of men (according to Ware), does this imply that a female believer’s salvation is of lesser significance and its OK to silence and subordinate them in the Body of Christ? These folks continue to drift farther into heresy … they twist Scripture to fit their theology, taking text out of context to support their aberrant faith. There will be a payday someday for using and abusing God’s children.
Max,
In my church, our pastor starts ever service with the line that we are all pastors…. further, during communion, we are suppose to pass the plate and tell the person next to us, “this is the body of christ, broken for you, this is the blood of christ, shed for you”…. which many of do not do..
This week he made the comment that we tell each other this since we are all allowed to give each other communion..
… which never “dawned on me”…… I think reading TWW, and hearing all of these reports of “preachers” trying to claim some form of “authority”, I now appreciate what my preacher said, and why we do it “our way”…. far cry from “ 9 Marx” churches
Illegitimate authority … a counterfeit, not the genuine.
Jeffrey Chalmers,
My wife corrected me! Our preacher calls us “ministers”, not preachers…..
i guess letting my wife correct me means I am not a comp?
This answer is not vague.
I don’t like the use of ‘non-biblical’ here personally, but I disagree that it creates a separation between ‘professional’ clergy and laity. For one thing, in my (not sbc) denomination, we ordain ministers, deacons, elders, etc. Deacons and Elders are lay people themselves. Ordination consists of being prayed for by the church. Lots of people in my church have been ordained in this manner (we have rotating deacons and elders), and can serve communion. Mr. Rogers was an ordained minister whose public ministry was working with children.
Ordination can be a much broader thing.
Q: Who said “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me”?
A: Jesus
Remember Him? I see things so off-track in the American church, I often wonder what happened to Him?! If you lift the Name of Jesus and the Holy Spirit out of the church in many places, religious stuff would still go on and churchgoers wouldn’t realize the difference.
This is pagan theology, literally. The idea that women are “unformed” or “incompletely formed” or “derivatives” of men came from the Ancient Greeks, not the God of Israel. They thought that explained women’s lower body temperatures, that female babies didn’t get “baked” long enough or hot enough in the womb and so came out female instead of male. Check your source, Mr. Ware.
You might as well say that Adam was formed first, God realized he (God) could improve upon his creation, and so he created Eve.
He’s hanging out where He’s wanted.
Not where He’s NOT Welcome.
I didn’t know he was a disciple of Aristotle!
Where the male provides 100% of the child as a Homunculus in his Seed; where the female is only the incubator for the Seed, and when the incubator causes defects in the growing Seed it becomes a (ugh) girl while undamaged Seed always becomes a boy.
It’s increasingly clear that such theologians themselves didn’t get baked long enough in the womb.
FYI, Jesp is over in the comment threads over at Warren Throckmorton’s blog. Latest comment regarding the Gospel for Asia scandal was “I have personally seen a holding cell in Hell for those who claim they are sheep, but are actually wolves or goats.”
I don’t know if this means he’s claiming (yet another) vision of Hell or what. If so, claiming a guided tour of Heaven or Hell is a flashing yellow alarm light to me. (His icon over at that comment thread is Mr Spock, which just does not seem to mesh with his above statement.)
Is this why their Inerrant Correct Theology comes across as half-baked?
“AUTHORITAH!” at the right hand of Eric Cartman of South Park.
HeadlessUnicornGuy,
Yeah, I don’t find that surprising at all.
Like separate but equal…not a thing.
‘We both have different roles it’s just that mine are the well paying, respected, easy ones, and yours is the grunt work in the background that gets paid pennies. But sure, we’re “equal”.’ Miss me with that.
Thank you. I’ve read enough to (think) know that but I appreciate your clarificiation.
I don’t think titles are important, except that where titles exist they should be open to the best qualified/called person. Where functions exist, it is the same thing.
There are pastors, ministers, servants, preachers, etc. who “claim” authority and feel a need to “spiritually govern” with it. There are pastors, minister, servants, preachers, etc. who have no desire for any authority but simply desire to be a loving and graceful shepherd. Then there is “implicit authority” that a parishioner will grant to their spiritual leader; ie, “Because you are my pastor, minister, servant, preacher, etc., I grant you some sense of authority over me.” It is in these moments that a parishioner will learn much about their spiritual leader whatever the title. When someone chooses to offer their authority to a leader, how that leader utilizes that authority tells you much about their interpretation of spiritual leadership and the meaning of “authority.”
A deified canon whose REAL message is “NO POPERY!”
Chesterton once used the image of an outsider watching a bells-and-smells Catholic procession — vestments, mitres, croziers, consecrated Hosts in procession, Holy Book held aloft, censers swinging, aspergillia sprinkling Holy Water onto the crowd. And posed the question which reaction made more sense —
1) Turning away saying “This is all bunk!”
or
2) Running into the procession, grabbing the Holy Book out of the priest’s hands, and preaching “THIS IS THE! WORD! OF! GAWD! AND ALL OF YOU ARE OF SATAN!”?
http://newlifeterrehaute.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/toilet.jpg
I think the main purpose of that “aberrant faith” is to feed their starving, unholy egos.
No, it’s not any more extreme at all. Scripture has always been a pick and choose thing.
To an outside, casual observer, these words (senior …… board leader ……. Etc) could easily make a church sound more like a law office than a house of God.
I agree, many are using this vague heading as a cop out….
This whole business about being “equal in value but separate in role” sounds so patronizing to me. Like someone patting me on the head and saying, “There, there, you’re important too. Now go off and play while the grownups handle things.”
Is there a difference?
I agree completely with this statement. My point of view pivots on this issue: is Jesus really the acting head of the Church with humble servants taking orders and obeying them rather or not they agree with them, or understand them, or if they line up perfectly with their personal theological beliefs? Peter obeyed even though he did not fully understand the vision he had where he was told to go and kill and eat that which is unclean. If Peter acted like our modern leaders he would have told everyone that the Devil had given him a vision and would have continued spurning the Gentiles.
There is plenty of evidence that most of our institutions are being run by people wanting to play God instead of obeying Him and trusting Him fully. This blog tends to focus on the symptoms of the problem, but those symptoms point towards a cause for them. To me it is really clear now that Jesus is not actually Lord over most of the institutions that have been set up in His Holy Name.
Interestingly, Adam was kicked out of the Garden of Eden, but not Eve. She apparently left by choice
Agreed with all of this, but when I saw Jesus for the fourth time He showed me what the next coming move of the Spirit was. It is being quiet before God and experiencing and receiving the fear of the Lord in our hearts. My level of this is simply inadequate, even though I appear to be much more concerned about this than most Christians I meet. In a time when many Christians are more concerned about presidential and local politics, who will be their next leaders and whom will ultimately win the offices, I am much more concerned about what God is doing in the world. I think the latest round of judgment coming as correction has started. Just look at what COVID-19 is targeting:
1) A “church” in Korea is the epicenter there where the head pastor claims to be Jesus incarnate, and there is now a murder investigation against this man for not cooperating with the authorities.
2) The centers of Islamic worship in both competing schools of Islam have been effectively shut down. It appears that the worship of Allah in Qom has actually spread most of the disease in Iran.
3) A careful look at other places and regions are equally fascinating for plagues are certainly a historic biblical means of judgment that God has used before.
100% it is.
These guys solution to inequality is just to wave some words at it and pretend that makes it all better. It doesn’t.
Are you claiming Private Revelation Visions?
When AIDS first surfaced, I remember Christians saying the same thing about who HIV was targeting. Including how “plagues are certainly a historic Biblical means of judgment”. Keep your guard up against reading too much into a current event or over-spiritualizing its significance; during my time in-country I saw and heard some real doozies.
As a result (and from surviving Angry God Worm Theology), I am always a little leery of the word “Judgment” in such contexts. All too often it means “Thee (NOT MEEE) gets it in the neck”.
“ABRACADABRA!” = slurred Aramaic for “I Speak And IT IS SO!”
Yeah. clearly those kids getting blood transfusions were asking for it. /s
I apparently totally missed the ‘COVID-19 is a plague from god targeting…asians? And now italians I guess? for some reason’ bit above. Yikes.
Ken F (aka Tweed),
“This very recent article by CBMW is an example of this. I highly recommend listening to the NT Wright interview highlighted in this article.”
++++++++++++++
id love to hear NT Wright’s interview. as to CBMW’s article, i dunno, i’m already agitated and irritated enough as it is (taxes)…
imagine being CBMW, being Denny Burk or Owen Strachan or John Piper, & people’s experience of you is so irritating & antagonizing it’s some dread thing, like plumbing problems, car trouble, and lots of houseflies all at once.
boy, that sure sounds like God. 😐
Thanks very much for this discussion. Do you believe women should receive the same licenses as men?
I’m really confused about the ordination comment, as I think I’ve read on TWW that SBC pastors are ordained by the local church.
Moreover, I admire the lengthy process from discernment through rigorous seminary training and ordination in a few traditions. Thus I’m surprised to detect a hint that this is a less than valid way to test and develop a calling. I’ve been prayed over by some ordained folks, including a woman or two, with advanced degrees. Somehow all that training did not disqualify them from helping me in Christ’s name. I’d appreciate any further insights.
Friend,
Define “ordination” as you see it (in your mind) and I’ll be happy to further comment.
I appear to have picked up my own personal scoffer here. But the things I have mentioned are no laughing or mocking matter. The reality is that God allowed, with our forefathers, a WWI and WWII and a Great Depression and the 1918 Spanish Flu. He must have had a good reason for that and I fear that because we have not learned our lesson, nor heeded His ways overall, that we are going to see things like these come again. 90% or more of what claims to be Christian is simply not. But to scoff at the rest, what remains that is real, is not a good thing…
Ordination in the SBC is if you perform weddings or if the church decides you need it to be a pastor. It’s not really required to be a minister at all churches.
Many small SBC churches will ordain just about anyone as long as they are male, so it seems a bit pointless to me. A longtime acquaintance of mine just went around from church to church until he found someone who would ordain him (his local church refused). At least in many of the mainline churches, there’s a serious and lengthy process to ordination that requires some semblance of work and character to get through.
I personally prefer “commissioned”, as with missionaries in the SBC, as I feel like that is closer to what is described in the Bible. But I also believe that everyone is a minister, and like Wade said, some just get paid to work for the nonprofit local church.
I would also add that this is a Christian blog site and most of the commenters here do claim to be Christian. And while there may be a lot that we disagree on, we do claim to believe in Jesus and He did talk about hell as a real place with “weeping and gnashing of teeth.” So the fact that people have died from COVID-19 this year and some of them ended up there is also no laughing matter.
My personal testimony is that in the year my oldest brother died I was shown this place for a couple of minutes as a warning to him. He had less than 12 months to live and his course was leading him there. It is the most real experience I have ever had. And rather or not you believe me, if you are a Christian, you should believe Jesus. Eternity is a long time. I sincerely hope that no one who reads this actually does go there when they die.
Perhaps you should read the parable of the wheat and tares in Matt 13 where the problem was attributed to the action of an enemy. Or perhaps the passage in John 9 where the disciples asked Jesus about the sin that caused the man to be born blind. For thousands of years people have been blaming God for all kinds of problems. What if God is not as guilty as assumed?
I suppose I was cruel by posting the CBMW link. But the NT Wright interview is right up front with no need to have to read any of the article.
In one tradition, ordination is a sacrament, and a ritual that gives the ordained person an ability to consecrate the elements of Communion. That’s about it… anybody can preach, teach, sing, read the lessons, or help serve Communion.
Ordination also marks the transition from hearing a call to assuming certain vocational responsibilities. This is often 5-year process, during which the person meets with a discernment committee, earns a 3-year degree, undergoes rigorous professional training (clinical pastoral education, etc.), and also has a psychological evaluation.
A path exists for people to be ordained without the formal preparation, but that doesn’t happen very often.
When you reply, please also let us know if you think women should receive the same licenses as men. 🙂
That’s an awfully cruel God you’re portraying here. The 1918 flu killed my aunt as a tiny innocent girl. Covid-19 is striking the elderly and people with respiratory conditions. And do you really think the world wars were God’s way of punishing us for not obeying?
Exactly, precisely what are we supposed to do to stop God from smiting us?
Yes, I know we’re supposed to obey, but how? What are we supposed to change?
What made God decide to use a pangolin virus on us?
I revere C. S. Lewis, but that’s a highly insulting term when used in the Christian context today. Lewis lived in Oxford in the mid 20th century; I can hardly imagine a more stifling and hidebound environment, exceedingly dismissive of women even though brilliant women were thriving at Somerville, St. Hilda’s, St. Hugh’s, and the other women’s colleges at Oxford. Margaret Thatcher read Chemistry at Somerville in the 1940s.
Lewis wrote that in 1948. Queen Elizabeth has been head of the Church of England since her coronation in 1953, I believe. The Church of England began ordaining women to the priesthood in 1994. Bishop Rose Hudson-Wilkin has been a chaplain to the Queen.
Wade, I think your church has found a creative way to “include” women as preachers, prophets, etc. without having to take a stand on ordaining them. To ordain no one and question the historicity of ordination is an easy out. To include everyone in proclamation and create a process that does not deal with the ordination issue serves your purpose. Good for you. Whatever works!
I don’t know that that’s apparent given this: “Then the LORD God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil. And now, lest he reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever…””
As both of their eyes were opened and she was able to reach out her hand to a tree before and eat of it, wouldn’t that issue apply to her?
Katharine Bushnell dwells at length on this very topic in her seminal work God’s Word to Women.
I don’t think that God (for the most part) is in the business of direct anger and punishment mode toward his humans. I think it’s more along the lines of a great big giant roulette wheel (set in motion at the fall of humankind) that calls the shots in this world and the game of life.
Sometimes ya’ win and sometimes you lose.
“Time and chance happeneth to them all…”
Luckyforward,
I fear that you have nailed it, but will hold out some hope that this is a more open approach, or maybe something incremental.
Mr. Jesperson,
And some early Christians were fed to lions while Romans watched with glee…….
And just look at what happened to Jews in WWII…………
I guess God really had it in for the all of them!
Good question. When they got caught, Eve told the truth but Adam blamed both Eve and God. Her response was very different from his. The text says Adam was expelled. It is silent on Eve.
So does Paul Young’s book Eve. He based it on her book.
Friend,
Thank you. I respect your view of ordination. I don’t have the same definition. I believe the body of Christ includes every Christian, and all members of the body are called to serve and minister as they are gifted, no preparation process required. In terms of our 501C3 non-profit, some men and women are “paid” to vocationally minister and there ARE job descriptions and job qualifications for those positions, with the character qualities the same for all Christians who lead, both men and women. Yes, we license both men and women, but that is a state requirement, not the church.
Thanks for your response. I know that you have worked hard to combat abuse in the church, and that you favor egalitarian relationships between men and women.
In your church, are women already serving in every single one of the positions open to men, performing identical job responsibilities? I just took a look at the Leadership page on the Emmanuel Enid website, and it doesn’t clearly reflect an egalitarian approach: https://www.emmanuelenid.org/leadership
If your church ordained everyone on that Leadership page tomorrow, would it risk expulsion from some Southern Baptist entity?
I have a real problem with people taking the existence of disease (or other such catastrophies) and using it to try to make some sort of statement about what God thinks. They are almost always simply telling us their own biases.
In light of Deuteronomy 28:63 ISV Just as the LORD delighted to prosper and increase you, so now the LORD will delight to destroy, exterminate, and banish you from the land that you are about to enter to possess it.
We are studying the Old Testament law juxtaposed to Andy Stanley’s latest book Irresistible
How do you reconcile this Old Testament passage
Not that GOD was warning Israel, but further that he would delight in bringing these events to pass, ugh….
The only women listed are working with women and children, respectively.
…and the Singles Servant is a grandfather, married over 43 years.
Friend,
Oh man. I went to a new church once and they directed me to the ‘singles’ sunday school and the ‘leaders’ were a weird 21 year old married couple? I was in my late 20’s at the time. I never went back.
Benn,
“How do you reconcile this Old Testament passage
Not that GOD was warning Israel, but further that he would delight in bringing these events to pass, ugh….”
++++++++++++
jumping in, here (pardon me)
if the bible is inspired (and i think it is), it came through the channel of various human minds. varying degrees of static, fuzzying-up GOD fm.
static, like misinterpreting (to some degree) the combination of God communicating and events as they played out, ascribing to God what was not God.
and static like ‘redacting’ the text (as they say) for political reasons, among others.
(but this is old news — coming through the channel of my mind which didn’t sleep well last night)
It’s a fair question Benn, one that’s been tennis-racquetted back and forth between two extremes for a long while.
Did God really command and sanction the violence and cruelty we read about in the Hebrew Bible or did he not?
I simply do not know, although I have my own thoughts in terms of ‘what if?’.
What I cannot do at this juncture on my faith journey, is Huey (helicopter) a lot of that stuff out of that when and where, and make it apply in this here and now.
elastigirl,
“(but this is old news — coming through the channel of my mind which didn’t sleep well last night)”
+++++++++++
speaking of channels that are tired… i can conceive of Paul being tired, sick, food poisoning, etc. and that fuzzying up his ability to be a clear channel.
well, no one is a clear channel – not even Paul.
my approach — hold it all loosely, and keep the main thing the main thing. (more old news). how could i go wrong there?
is God really going to say,
“yeah, yeah, i see you were kind, honest, and generous, sacrificing yourself in the process… Yet i hold this against you: you have forsaken Section 118, point C, subpoint iii.7, paragraph 2. Consider how far you have fallen!”
I once heard it described as God letting his kids tell the story.
There have been women “servants” in SBC life for the last 150+ years. I would go as far to say that without female believers, many SBC churches would have shut their doors long ago. They beat the men folk by a mile in serving the Lord and the Body of Christ. (I offer that perspective as a 70-year Southern Baptist; I’m done with SBC now). However, if you try to ordain these precious, spiritually-gifted female souls as a pastor or deacon, your goose is cooked in SBC!
This is so irritating to me as a single woman. The moment someone younger than me gets married, suddenly they are considered “more mature”. I’m “middle-aged” and barely legal married kids are considered my spiritual mentors. No.
Our current church does many things well, but is (in my opinion) too focused on “life stages” for Sunday school, so a lot of people fall through the cracks. They’re starting a singles’ college and career group for people in their late teens into twenties. (The third to be launched in the last 10 years that I’m aware of.) Having a relative at the church who is in her 40s and never married, I asked why it’s not open to all singles. The response was that a sister church in our area did that and had a bunch of “older” single men come looking for younger girlfriends.
On the one hand, ick. On the other hand, why punish middle-aged single women (and men, I might add) as a group for the actions of a few inappropriate men?
In a moment of frustration with the situation, another relative observed that it would have been better for her if she’d had a child out-of-wedlock, because at least then she could attend the “parents of school-age children” group. It just seems rather backwards.
Indeed. As a similarly aged single (ish) person, I prefer groups vaguely age based, or open to all, over ‘single’, ‘married’, ‘young families’ etc…I have more in common with 40 or 50 year olds married or single, than 22 year olds.
Yeah… before we had kids, my husband was on a teaching rotation for the various classes, so we got to experience a lot of them. We felt the most affinity with the empty nesters, and jokingly wondered if that meant something was wrong with us. I was late 20s, he was early 30s at the time.
Wild Honey,
Most of my friends are married with no kids or grown kids at this point (with a few exceptions) spanning from 30s to 50s, and this has been true for years. People with young kids just have a lot of kid related social events/responsibilities, so they don’t always have time to do things. I’m actually meeting a friend with kids this morning (regular meet up) but we might have to cut it short due to birthday party stuff. You have to be more flexible with friends with young kids in your time.
Anyways, as relates to church it makes some sense to hook up people who have *time* but I don’t like this shifting everyone into these little groups because it leaves people out who might really get along.
Lea,
Agreed.
Lea,
“I don’t like this shifting everyone into these little groups because it leaves people out who might really get along.”
+++++++++++++
who wants to be sorted, anyway? like a kitchen utensil.
It’s called “Salvation by Marriage Alone”.
A real kicker when you realize that in its early days, the Church provided a Family and (cosmic/Divine) Lineage for those without one in a time and place where Family and Lineage were everything.
In my profession, this is called a “workaround”.
Like Dilbert working around a pointy-haired boss.
Students of hogwarts?
And with too many churches, The Fix is In for House Slytherin.