The CBE Scroll

Comment by Lori Buckle

May 18, 2006 @ 9:15 am

See, God, I’ll tell you how it is down here. Women are leaving the church. Good women. Smart women. Strong women. And we don’t know what to do about it.

I’m surprised (and glad!) that somebody is talking about this issue in regards to women. It seems that nowadays, all you hear about is how men are leaving the church. In fact, substitute “men” in the above quote, and you’ve just about summed up what everybody’s saying about the state of today’s church. Why does it not surprise me that, once again, the culture is silent about women in the church, both those leaving and those remaining?

Speaking of which, I love this quote. We were discussing the “men leaving church” phenomena on another Christian forum, and a woman posted. “Yes,” she said, “Churches are now dominated by women, but most of the churches complaining would never allow a woman as their leader.” Great insight!

Comment by Beyond Words

May 22, 2006 @ 12:42 pm

When the woman in your church said, “Churches are dominated by women, did she mean in terms of numbers or in terms of their attitudes?

I’ve often heard it said that it turns men off when women “dominate” churches. I’m not sure what that means, however. It seems that sometimes just speaking up can be construed as dominating.

Comment by Lori

May 23, 2006 @ 2:39 pm

Are you referring to me? Because like I said, we were discussing this in an online forum, not in my church. I will say, however, that my church is made up of mostly women. I have no clue why that is, unless it’s down to the general malaise among men that we’re talking about. I think that’s what this woman was referring to, also. Since many men are staying away from church, then the people left in the pews would be women. :)

I think it’s interesting that historically, the Church has been dominated by women in terms of numbers. I just read an excellent article in Christianity Today that quoted an ancient writer. He criticized that “group of Christians” because they were mainly made up of “slaves and women.” And I’ve read in other sources that women made up the majority of missionaries in the past, and still do today. All this, of course, just makes it sadder when you realize that the contributions of women to Christianity continue to go unacknowledged.

Comment by Summer

May 24, 2006 @ 5:25 pm

Hi! I was really thrilled to find that CBE has a blog, and I was hoping that someone might be able to help me with a question I have. I am the president of a small Christian group here at university in New Zealand. We are one of the few (only?) egalitarian groups on campus. I am currently planning next semester’s schedule, and I would like to include some studies on the passages traditionally used to limit women’s participation in church (1 Corinthians, Timothy, etc). I have looked at the resources page on CBE but I am finding it difficult to determine which might be best for our group. Do you have any recommendations? I am looking for something that can be used in 4-8 studies.

Any suggestions would be great. I will be travelling to the US in June, and would hopefully be able to order multiple copies of books then. If this is not the appropriate place to which I should be writing, could you please forward me to someone more appropriate? I would appreciate it very much.

Comment by Lori Buckle

May 25, 2006 @ 12:35 pm

The book Why Not Women? by Loren Cunningham and David Hamilton is the best resource I have seen on this subject. It has a chapter on each of the controversial verses and offers an in-depth analysis of them, studying the original Greek, the cultural context, etc. At the same time, however, it’s written for the layperson, so it’s very accessible. My only regret is that it doesn’t cover the verses in Ephesians about submission. I guess that’s because those verses are usually quoted in the context of marriage, and the book wants to focus on women in ministry.

Comment by cokhavim

May 25, 2006 @ 2:03 pm

This question has been bugging me for a while. I understand that Jesus’ day and culture almost required him to be male, but I’ve recently heard the idea that Jesus will remain human forever, which seems to also mean that he will remain male forever. I’m no theologian, so could somebody please comment on that? If he will remain male forever, it would break my heart. Please say it ain’t so!

Comment by LJR

May 26, 2006 @ 4:06 pm

Cokhavim: Why would it break your heart? Yes, I know, males have mistreated women in many ways ever since… probably not too long after that whole fruit and snake incident in Genesis 3. To see a reminder of what so many of us have had to face on Earth when we are in eternity may cetainly be frightening. But is that what we’ll really see?

Scripture says we’ll be “like the angels” instead of marrying, so maybe we’re all sexless in Heaven. But then again, maybe we’re not. Maybe we’ll retain our sexes, but we’ll finally see how we were all supposed to be and not what sin caused. No more fear of abuse or rape. No more dismissals of our ideas solely because they came from a female body. In its place, mutuality, respect, and the ability to enjoy our common humanity and faith in Christ instead of all of this division over differences beyond our control. Our sexes may or may not be there, but it’s not going to matter. We’ll finally be safe.

Honestly, I can’t picture those kinds of relations between men and women. I’ve only met in person three men who are seriously committed to Biblical equality. (One of them is our own DP.) Even my SO, who tries to be egal-in-practice, has some chauvinistic blind spots he’s not willing to face. Everyone else I’ve dealt with was a hierarch… and some of those were the kind to make a woman’s fears quite justified!

The idea of seeing Jesus as male could frighten me greatly, but it doesn’t because He already has a track record of treating women like humans instead of property or worse. It’s in the Gospels for all to see. He’s not tainted by sin and the curse. He’s God in the flesh, perfect, unlike anyone else we’ve seen. To make things better, whether we’re sexed or sexless, we’re all going to be like Jesus with no concerns that some of us will bear more or less of His image. We’ll be like Him where it matters… not necessarily our physical forms, but our character, our spirits. Nobody can take that from us.

I can’t answer your question definitely, but I know we’re going to see Jesus and the church in ways we can’t even imagine. Whether we’re sexed or not, the devaluation of women will finally be over and we’ll all be one in Christ at last.

Comment by cokhavim

May 27, 2006 @ 8:17 am

It would break my heart because it would mean that the only member of the Trinity who has shared in humanity will never be able to share in *my* humanity as much as in the humanity of my brothers. I have read that maleness is only part of his human nature, and not his divine nature, and therefore we cannot think of God as male. However, if Jesus will remain human forever, then in Jesus his human and divine natures are inseparable. And if his maleness is inseparable from his humanity, then his maleness is also inseparable from his divinity. So in other words, though God was not male before, he is now, and will be male forever. And if God is male, then male is better than female. That’s why it would break my heart. Somebody please show me what’s wrong with this!

Comment by LJR

May 30, 2006 @ 10:24 am

When you look at Christ as male (if that’s what happens… remember, we don’t know if individual sex characteristics will still exist), remember that we as sinful humans living after the Fall have *never* seen what normal, Godly male/female relations were supposed to be. We honestly have no clue from personal experience what a perfect man or woman was supposed to be like. Men were never the beings God created them to be, and women never were either. We’ve all sinned, we’re all fallen, we’re all imperfect. We don’t know what perfect humanity in any form will be like. All we have to work with is a sinful, distorted, perverted idea of male/female relations even in the best of circumstances.

We have only two pictures of what male/female relations are supposed to be: pre-fall Eden and Christ’s own interactions with women.

In the first case, Adam didn’t start by pointing out differences between himself and the woman before him. And he didn’t try to rule her. He instead rejoiced in their unity, in what they had in common, in their shared humanity. No hierarchy, no rulership, no picking apart differences. Unity. Only after sin came did the emphasis on differences and the sinful hierarchy appear. Before the fall, humanity was humanity. The differences were either insignificant except for procreative purposes or accepted without judgment as evidence of God’s creativity.

In the second case, Jesus didn’t treat the women any differently than He treated the men around Him. AFA He was concerned, women had brains and souls, not just sexual organs. His refusal to disrespect women and His willingness to teach women just like He taught men blew the minds of those who believed in the status quo. He restored that unity, even though the human leadership of the church couldn’t hang on to that lesson for long. Not to mention that Jesus did suffer from some forms of prejudices in His life. He heard people insult his mother and call his legitimacy into question. That had to be painful. He was poor, and that brings its own problems. He was single and celibate in a world that expected Him to marry. He lived on a second tier of humanity just as we do, even if under different circumstances. Maybe He didn’t experience menstrual cramps and childbirth, but He has experienced so much of what we have known. If anything, He suffered as His female friends were hurt and mistreated; He certainly took heat when He treated them as God intended for women to be treated; He healed and restored ill women. He knew us better than any man ever did or ever will (sorry, guys!).

That said, I also need to say that I don’t believe that Jesus is the only part of the Godhead who has shared in our humanity. God’s Spirit lives in each one of us and is with us in everything we do. The Holy Spirit doesn’t disappear the minute we women walk in the ladies’ room or the OB/GYN ward. The Spirit is as much with a woman in childbirth as with a man in battle. The Spirit is also not gendered, but is still a definite Person in the Trinity. Maybe the Holy Spirit hasn’t walked around with one definite body like Jesus did, but that’s because the Spirit is in all of us without regard to our plumbing configurations.

Even if that is not enough, God the Father has revealed Himself in the Old Testament with definitely male and definitely female pictures of who He is, with no contradiction, no confusion. Even as we call Him “Him”, we know that God is not a gendered being, but transcends sex. He made male and female alike in His image with no hint that one is less than the other.

There’s no way to sum it up except to say that, assuming we do have sexuality of some sort in Heaven (and even that is no given), we don’t know what men and women were really supposed to be like or how we were really to interact. We just know it’s going to be better than anything we can imagine now. We women are not left without someone in the Trinity who does not know our struggles and cares, for the Father revealed Himself in many ways using feminine imagery and the Spirit lives in us and is always with us. We are joint-heirs with Jesus, not lesser heirs. We are fully made in God’s image, male and female alike. We are fully gifted, fully capable of handling responsibility, fully able to surrender to God, fully usable in His hands. There will be no “male is better than female” for if we are all in His image, and He is the all-powerful and all-good God, then there’s no way his “female” characteristics will be worse than His “male” ones. We’re not going to be hurt. Our hearts won’t break in Heaven, no matter what happens. We’ll finally be safe.

Comment by Brian Andrews

May 31, 2006 @ 9:48 am

Jesus couldn’t have been a girl for at least a couple of reasons. Since just after the Fall, the promised Messiah has always been referred to as male (e.g. Gen. 3:15; Isaiah 53; Zech. 6:11-12 mentions Him by name, Joshua or Y’shua; Heb. 1:5-6).

Second, Jesus serves as the second “Adam,” the one who saves us from the consequences of the first Adam’s actions. It was Adam’s sin that caused the fall. Sin and death entered the world through one man, Adam, who was the head of the human race (Rom. 5:12). Adam served as a “type of the one who was to come”, namely Jesus (Rom. 5:14). “For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive” (1 Cor. 15:21-22). The Messiah had to be a (perfect) man in order to redeem us from the power of sin and death that came as a result of the sin of the first (initially perfect) man.

Comment by Light M.

June 1, 2006 @ 10:41 am

Brian, I am thinking aloud here. I don’t necessarily disagree with all your points. But it seems to me you are suggesting that Christ’s maleness (as opposed to his humanity in general) somehow has a salvific function here. Would you go so far as to say that?

Comment by Brian Andrews

June 8, 2006 @ 10:07 am

I wouldn’t say his maleness, per se, was salvific. But Christ did have to be male in order to be the representative of the human race. God created Adam first, then Eve. The same word “Adam” refers to the name of the first man, and the name of the human race (Gen. 5:1-2). These are two indications that God assigned headship of the human race to the man Adam. Christ had to be a man because God assigned headship to the man (See e.g. 1 Cor. 10:3). It would be out of God’s order for a woman to be the Messiah. This is not to devalue women or to say that women are spiritually inferior or weaker. It’s simply a matter of order and authority and how God set things up.

In like manner, God chose the Israelites to be His own special people. He did not choose Ethiopians, Italians, Dutch people, Indonesians, Russians, Mexicans, Indians, or any other ethnic group. But that doesn’t mean God is racist or that He doesn’t love non-Jews or that non-Jews are inferior. His choice is His sovereign privilege to accomplish His will in His way. Jesus had to be a Jewish man in order to be the Savior.

Comment by Alex

June 8, 2006 @ 1:46 pm

Brian,
I noticed from your blog that you are a pastor and it looks like you are involved in a great prison ministry as well. My question for you, regarding your last post is how would you handle the same question if it were for the purpose of pastoral care? Let’s say a woman visited you and had this concern; maybe she had a difficult life and was unable to see Jesus without seeing the masculinity. This in turn meant she didn’t think she could be a Christian. Would you say anything differently to her?

Comment by Brian Andrews

June 8, 2006 @ 9:08 pm

Hi Alex,

I guess I would explore with her what might be the roots of her difficulty with seeing Jesus as masculine. A similar situation is when people—men and women—have difficulty seeing God as Father. I’ve done a lot of healing prayer ministry with individuals. Many people have had bad relationships with men—particularly fathers. The men in their lives may have been abusive, emotionally absent, hypercritical, passive, etc. This leads to a lot of wounding. Sometimes those wounds cause them to react in unhealthful or sinful ways. Sometimes people project their view of their earthly father onto the Heavenly Father. This can create a barrier in their relationship with God. This has happened to me. I’ve needed healing in this area of my life. It’s taken me years to be able to experience God as Father.

So with this hypothetical woman who was an unbeliever and came to me: I’d probably ask her about her life experiences, what brought her to this point. I’d be silently praying that the Lord would give me insight into her life—just like Jesus had insight about the woman at the well. I’d try to find a point of connection, if I could, between her life and mine. I’d share my testimony. I’d offer to pray for her for healing of any wounds. I’d try to point out the differences between the men she has known and Jesus and/or God the Father. If she allowed me to pray for her, I’d ask the Lord to reveal Himself to her, to minister to her fears, to comfort her, to heal old wounds.

Some truths are hard to swallow. For example, many people are not willing to admit that they are sinners, repent, and make Jesus Lord of their lives. I don’t think it’s crucial to press the masculinity of Jesus with a seeker. What seems to me to be most important is communicating who He is, what He has done, and why the person needs Him. I wouldn’t “hide” the fact that Jesus is male if the issue came up, but I would highlight His majesty, wonder, grace, mercy, power and the fact that He is not like any other man. She can fully trust Jesus with her life on earth and her eternity because He loves her with an everlasting, unconditional love; He gave His life for her, conquered death, and lives forever.

Comment by Kathryn Vance

June 11, 2006 @ 10:27 pm

The Bible brings out the fact that God is both male and female. Maybe that woman had a good mother and she could relate to the Mother-love of God. As to Jesus being male, the Word also says that it does not yet appear what His resurrected body is like but that we shall be like Him for we shall see Him as He is. Maybe now that He is in a superior body it is neither male nor female, and words that describe Him as such now are solely due to our limited understanding of an infinite Savior. I remain confident that the only member of the Trinity to wear a human body will be able to relate to women as much as He relates to our brothers. Kathryn

Comment by Brian Andrews

June 12, 2006 @ 6:32 am

Kathryn,

Please give specific Scriptures which demonstrate “the fact that God is both male and female.”

As far as Jesus being able to relate to men and women, He absolutely can! Can Jesus relate to me as an African-American even though He was born Jewish? Of course! Just because Jesus took on a specific human form does not mean He can’t relate to those of another gender or ethnicity.

Comment by Kathryn Vance

June 12, 2006 @ 2:52 pm

You can start with Genesis 1:21 and 1:27, in which it is revealed the female was made in the image of God and given vast dominion as a ruler, like God. God was revealed to Abraham as the Breasty Nurse (Heb. language). The prophets spoke of the God who feeds us as a mother. In the New Testament, Jesus lamented over Jerusalem as a “hen gathereth her chicks under her wings”. We are “born from above” by the Holy Spirit at the New Birth (John 3:5, 1Peter 1:23, 1 John 3:9, to name only a few). These are just some of the female images for God. I hope that that lady had a good mother and that maybe these images can help draw her nearer to the Savior. The rigid view of God as a male is closer to a pagan understanding of God, and is unscriptural. Kathryn.

Comment by Brian Andrews

June 15, 2006 @ 10:09 am

Kathryn,

You wrote: “God was revealed to Abraham as the Breasty Nurse (Heb. language).” Please give some Scripture references for this.

Comment by Kathryn Vance

June 15, 2006 @ 2:35 pm

That would be hard to do since that is not in our English Bibles. It is only found in the original language.

Comment by Kathryn Vance

June 15, 2006 @ 2:52 pm

I looked it up in the King James and Genesis 17:1 is translated as ” I am the Almighty God” and while that is certainly true, it does not really say what God said there. “I am the Breasty Nurse” is what was actually stated there in Hebrew, and it of course really means ” I am your nourishment, I am all that you will ever need. Look to me for everything.” Our English rigid insistence upon a male God reflects our ignorance and unfamiliarity with the Hebrew Scriptures.

Comment by cokhavim

June 19, 2006 @ 10:01 am

The Hebrew is “El Shaddai.” Shaddaim means breasts. It is well known that the name El Shaddai has been associated with “God with breasts,” although, I’m sorry I can’t give you a reference for that off the top of my head. My biblical Hebrew professor told me that. He says that this theory for the interpretation of this name of God has remained uncontested.

Brian, not everyone who is hurt by hierarchicalist teaching is hurt because of past experiences. I for example, was never abused, but had great men in my life. The reason why I was bothered by Jesus’ maleness is for purely theoretical reasons, as I am a theoretical thinker.

Kathryn, you said, “As to Jesus being male, the Word also says that it does not yet appear what His resurrected body is like but that we shall be like Him for we shall see Him as He is.” Thank you for reminding me of 1 John 3:2. Funny how I recently memorised the entire book, and forgot about this verse. The only thing that bugs me now is that Jesus’ resurrected body was male when he appeared to the disciples. Or at least, I assume so because otherwise it would have been noteworthy enough for the gospel writers to mention. However, 1 John 3:2 indicates that nobody has yet seen Jesus as he is, including John himself, so his resurrected body as the disciples saw it, could not be “as he is.” So thank you Kathryn for pointing out that verse. It helped me a lot.

Comment by Alex

June 19, 2006 @ 1:47 pm

A very difficult, but important question has been raised in comments #6 and 8, with some good discussion thereafter. Paraphrased: Is Jesus eternally male? If Jesus is God and Jesus is eternally male then is God male?

I really had to think hard about it, and I came to the conclusion that one possible biblical answer is from 2 Corinthians 5:16-17: “So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” (TNIV). Christ, although we thought of him as a male human being, is not to be thought of in those terms any further. If to regard someone by gender is to regard them according to the worldly point of view, then that is not the way to perceive those in Christ according to Paul in this verse. The Greek has “flesh,” as in “we no longer regard anyone according to the flesh” which makes the connection to gender stronger IMO.

Comment by Brian Andrews

June 20, 2006 @ 7:53 pm

Re: Comment #21

I just have to correct a misquoting of 1 John 3:2 in Comment #15. The Scripture says, “Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is” (ESV, emphasis mine). It does not say that what Christ’s resurrected body is like has not yet appeared. 1 John 3:2 does not say that no one has seen Jesus as he is. In fact, over 500 people at one time (1 Cor. 15:6) saw the resurrected Jesus, and saw Him as a man.

I’m curious, what theoretically bothers you about Jesus’ maleness?

Comment by Kathryn Vance

June 23, 2006 @ 10:53 pm

I can’t blame anyone for feeling uneasy when long-cherished traditions are challenged. It’s human. We all grew up with descriptions of God as a male Deity. I read a saying in one of these blogs that goes “When God is male, the male is God.” How sad. How true. Male and female are made in His image. Yes, folks saw Jesus after His resurrection, and they saw Him as a man, one who could be touched and handled. Paul saw Him on the road to Damascus, yet he still had to say that it “doth not yet appear” what kind of eternal body He had, and that there would come a day in which we would be like Him for we would see Him as He is. Those who want to keep God male are adhering to their religious upbringing as a security blanket, although I find nothing secure about it. If God is male then women are eternally inferior to men. God is spirit, and infinite. “Male” and “Female” are finite attempts to explain Him.

Comment by Kathryn Vance

June 23, 2006 @ 11:46 pm

I made a mistake: the reference about “seeing Him as He is” comes from John the Apostle, not Paul.

Comment by Brian Andrews

June 24, 2006 @ 8:09 pm

Comment #24: Paul saw Him on the road to Damascus, yet he still had to say that it “doth not yet appear” what kind of eternal body He had

In Comment #25, the reference to Paul above was changed to John.

Please quote the Scripture where it says it “doth not yet appear” what kind of eternal body Christ had. I have referenced 1 John 3:2 in Comment #23. If you are not referring to that Scripture, please state what Scripture you are referring to. If you are referring to 1 John 3:2, you have misquoted it.

Comment by Brian Andrews

June 24, 2006 @ 8:40 pm

The newly-elected leader of the Episcopal Church USA, Katharine Jefferts Schori, in her acceptance speech referred to “Our mother Jesus.”

She has also gone on record as having voted for the ordination of a gay bishop.

This is one of the main problems with blurring the God-ordained distinctions between the genders—a blurring that is found in egalitarianism. Jesus can be our Mother, and homosexual practice is no longer sin, but is blessed and affirmed.

Comment by cokhavim

June 25, 2006 @ 3:33 am

RE: comment #23 and #26

I also noted the misquote, but it doesn’t change the previous conclusion. If we already know that we will be like him, but it is not yet revealed what we will be, then it cannot be revealed what *he* will be (or is). (ie, if x=y, but x is unknown, then y must also be unknown).

What bothers me theoretically about Jesus’ maleness is exactly what I wrote above in comments 6 and 8. “If God is male, then male is better than female” is a quote from Paul Smith in his book, “Is it OK to call God ‘Mother’?” Comment 24 also began to describe the problem. For more on this problem, and other theoretical problems of God being male, read Smith’s book, or the article entitled “God, Metaphor and Gender” by R. K. Wright in the book “Discovering Biblical Equality.” These books are available on the CBE online bookstore. These establish the egalitarian position that God cannot be male (nor is God female). I have no desire to describe these arguments when others have done so much better than I can. Please read up on them yourself.

After we’ve established that God being male is problematic, we then need to address Jesus being male. The books I mentioned, and others on the topic, address Jesus being male on Earth, but none of these address my question of whether or not Jesus is *eternally* male. If he is, then we return full circle to the problems of God being male (refer to comments 6 and 8).

RE: comment #27

This is a combination of two logical fallacies: “guilt by association” and “slippery slope.” Please refer to the free articles on the CBE website under the topic of homosexuality, or William Webb’s second article (whose title slips my mind) in the book “Discovering Biblical Equality,” or Webb’s book “Slaves, Women and Homosexuals” (also available from the CBE website).

RE: comment #22

Thanks for that 2 Cor. verse. It also helped me greatly along with the 1 John verse. And it’s very relevant as the context of the 2 Cor. verse is the resurrection of the dead. Thanks for “thinking hard” about it and grappling with the question along with me.

After much praying and thinking about this, and meditating on resurrection passages, I can see God guiding me and pointing me to an answer (which I can’t quite articulate yet). I am deeply touched that what matters to me matters also to the Most High.

Comment by Kathryn Vance

June 25, 2006 @ 9:44 pm

It was historically necessary for Jesus to be a man. In Jesus’ day, women were not the equal of men in Israel. It was humiliating for a man to talk to a woman in public, even his wife. Women were given little education, although even in the ancient world there were exceptions; in all probability, His Mother Mary could neither read nor write. Granted, their position was better in Israel than in much of the world; still, female testimony was held to be so worthless it was not allowed in an Israelite court of law unless male witnesses could not be found. The rationale given was that women were natural liars because Sarah, Abraham’s wife, lied about not laughing. They were held to have little mental ability, and were destined to be housekeepers anyway, so why educate them? Jesus flouted all these restrictions in every dealing He had with women. He raised women to equality with men. The question is, could He have commanded any following at that time if He had been a woman? Not likely. Is it eternally necessary that He remain a male? I offer the humble belief that it is Not Likely!

Comment by Psalmist in Texas

June 27, 2006 @ 3:57 pm

Brian: Whatever Jefferts Schori’s–or your–beliefs about homosexuality may be, she stands in a tradition over nine hundred years old in referring to “Jesus, our Mother.” Anselm (first Archbishop of Canterbury) and Julian (anchorite at the church of St. Julian of Norwich) both used this imagery, referring back to Jesus’ own likening of himself to the mother who shelters her young. Julian’s imagery especially referred to the Eucharist, in which like a mother, Jesus feeds the faithful with his own body. Neither has ever been declared heretical or even unorthodox.

Perhaps in your zeal to paint all egalitarians the ugliest possible color with the broadest possible brush by raising the scary woman du jour, you forgot that her reference to “Jesus, our Mother” is both biblical and historical.

Maybe you would strengthen your point by giving scriptural references to the actual “God-ordained distinctions between the genders” that you’re so convinced we egalitarian Christians are blurring so badly. Perhaps, too, since you appear to be blaming homosexuality on said egalitarians, you’d show something–anything–that proves that opinion to be anything beyond non sequitur.

Comment by Kathryn Vance

June 27, 2006 @ 10:22 pm

Ezekiel 16:48-50 seems to indicate that the sexual deviancy of Sodom and Gomorrah was a direct result of oppression against the poor and idol worship. The sexual immorality we see today may also be as a result of white oppression against African Americans, which as every Southerner should know, did not end when slavery died. Blacks have been mistreated horribly even up into our own time by a system of American apartheid called Jim Crow segregation. If you want to bring sexual moral decline to your nation, just mistreat people and subjugate them for centuries, forcing them to overthrow that rule when they have had enough. Such oppression isn’t about color; it is about power. That seems to be the lesson of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Comment by Kathryn Vance

June 28, 2006 @ 1:09 pm

Cokhavim: I am glad I was able to help. Thank you.

Comment by Kathryn Vance

June 30, 2006 @ 7:18 pm

Where are complementarian women? It seems that, while egals in these blogs are represented by men and women,most comps seem to be men. Thankfully, egal. men have the inner freedom to speak out. Have comp. women nothing to say? Don’t they have any inner freedom to join the discussion? Must they have the permission of some man before they can speak up? What a sad position to be in, and it reveals the spiritual bondage they may be in without knowing it. Comp women, please have the inner freedom to speak up. Christ paid dearly for that freedom.

Comment by Brian Andrews

July 2, 2006 @ 6:14 pm

From Comment #31: The sexual immorality we see today may also be as a result of white oppression against African Americans, which as every Southerner should know, did not end when slavery died.

Who are you claiming is sexually immoral as a result of “white oppression”? Whites because they are the perpetrators? Blacks because they are the victims? People from every ethnic background in the U.S.? I don’t understand your point.

Comment by Brian Andrews

July 4, 2006 @ 7:05 am

Re: Comment #33 Where are complementarian women? It seems that, while egals in these blogs are represented by men and women,most comps seem to be men. Thankfully, egal. men have the inner freedom to speak out. Have comp. women nothing to say?…Comp women, please have the inner freedom to speak up. Christ paid dearly for that freedom.

Kathryn, I don’t know about comp women commenting on this blog, but here are some great blogs by comp women that I read:
girltalk
Solo Femininity
Not Your Typical Pastor’s Wife

Note: The last one is a shameless plug for my wife’s blog!

Comment by Donna L. Carlaw

April 16, 2007 @ 3:53 pm

Kathryn Vance:
Where are complementarian women? It seems that, while egals in these blogs are represented by men and women,most comps seem to be men. >>>>

I know what has happened to me where egalitarians have been in power in the discussions. I have been banned - that was after dozens of hate emails and even some intimidating phone calls, as well as many more denials that any of that ever happened.

Just FYI.

I’m still here, though.