Last year I counseled at a weekend youth retreat, and they held gender-segregated Q&A sessions where the teens could write questions and put them in a box to be drawn and read and the counselors would attempt to answer them. Contrary to what I expected from a room of all junior high girls, NONE of the questions were about relationships… they were all real questions about the nature and existence of God, the historicity of the Bible, theological dilemmas… The same things that educated adults still look into.

So yeah I think girls and women are sold short, but I think it is also all across the board. It seems that the most intelligent thing to come out of most evangelical churches are things like seminars on intelligent design, worldview, apologetics, etc. that still only give people pre-designed comebacks rather than teaching them to contend for themselves. I think the lack of pursuing serious thought in the Evangelical Church is why so many people leave and why, in a lot of circles, atheism and theological liberalism are taken to be synonymous with intellectualism.

Personally I think the ‘Boundaries boys’ Cloud and Townsend do better stuff on childrearing - ‘Boundaries for Kids’ and ‘Boundaries in marriage’ and ‘Raising Great Kids’ are all fantastic books - and I’ve never noticed any hierarchical stuff in their writing. (Am I wrong?)

Are programs for men more likely to contain intellectual discussion and academic subjects?

I’m not sure that church programs for men are more likely to be more intellectual than programs for women. I think that the church, the conservative church, anyway, lost much of its intellectual moorings during the end of the 19th century. And we’ve never fully recovered since. In many circles it’s almost an oxymoron to have the words “intellectual” and “conservative” or “evangelical” (not to mention “fundamentalist”) in the same sentence.

Fortunately, there are exceptions to the rule, but conservatives are, in general, I think afraid of using their minds when it comes to church and the Bible. And that is such a pity.

Of course, it has been assumed, based on conservative interpretations of the Bible (at least since the middle of the 20th century or so), that women’s “proper” place is in the home and not pursuing academic careers. So there is that mountain to overcome as well. And that is another pity. I think that the best students in my Greek classes in Bible school were the 4 or 5 females who were allowed to take the courses. But what would they be allowed to do with that training?

My speciality is Bible translation. Fortunately, there have been hundreds of intelligent, perseverant, and intellectual women who have done wonderful Bible translation around the world. They have often helped translate the Bible where no men were available to go. And the doors were open for them to do that work overseas. But the doors have generally been closed for women to do Bible translation work in their home countries. There have been very, very few women who have been on English Bible translation committees. Again, such a pity! Such a loss for the church, for women, as well as for men who could benefit from what women can contribute intellectually.

For study on the issue of biblical equality there is a study guide to accompany Gilbert Bilezekian’s book “Beyond Sex Roles” and another good one is “Male & Female in Christ” by Carrie A. Miles and Lawrence R. Iannaccone. Both of these are available from the CBE bookshop online (cbeinternational.org) Another good study is “Gender & Giftedness” prepared for the Commission on Women’s Concerns of the World Evangelical Fellowship by Marilyn B. (Lynn)Smith and is a very thorough study of the topic from several angles. Good for churches or individuals wanting to thoroughly research what the Bible really says. This book is also available from CBE or the Evangelical Alliance of Australia.

In answer to the request for good material for parenting. The On Becoming series (Babywise, Childwise etc.) are available from Amazon.com and while coming from a hierarchical background, it isn’t presented in this secular series and the parenting guidelines are good common sense for both parents.

There is a page or two on ‘gender appropriate toys’ which you would want to ignore but that’s all I have found to be un-helpful and the good overcomes the not-so-good bits.