The CBE Scroll

Right on the heels of this year’s Sheri Klouda debacle at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary comes yet another example of president Paige Patterson’s move to ‘establish family and gender roles as described in God’s Word for the home and the family.’

This fall, Southwestern Baptist will be offering a new academic program in homemaking, a bachelor of arts in humanities degree with a 23-hour concentration including such classes as ‘Clothing Construction’ and ‘Meal Preparation.’ Such classes, Southwestern Baptist must believe, are in keeping with their stated goal of letting a woman (and I mean woman, as no men are to be admitted to the program) ‘choose from a variety of programs what is appropriate for [her] own diverse interests and unique giftedness within the boundaries of biblical priorities.’

Southwestern’s dean of women’s programs stated for the Associated Press that the program was instituted in order to strengthen families, as a woman’s ‘first priority is her family and home.’ In the words of president Paige Patterson, ‘If we do not do something to salvage the future of the home, both our denomination and our nation will be destroyed.’

National destruction? Quite a price to pay for a lack of homemakers.

The online journal E-Quality is seeking papers for its upcoming issue, themed ‘Youth Groups and Equality.’ In it, we hope to provide practical resources for youth workers and parents as they address biblical equality with their students. Article ideas include, but are not limited to:

1. What are the unique needs of our students today? Do they need to hear the message of equality? How do we reach them with that message?

2. How do we encourage our students to care about justice and advocate for those who are oppressed? How do we present the issue of women in leadership as not only a theological debate but also a justice issue?

3. Does a focus on racial reconciliation help students better understand gender reconciliation? How do we foster youth group environments that celebrate and encourage guys and girls of all races and ethnic backgrounds?

4. A Bible study geared for students on the biblical basis for shared leadership between women and men.

5. A book review of Ginny Olson’s Teenage Girls.

The deadline for this issue is September 7th. Please write Megan at mgreulich@cbeinternational.org as soon as possible if you are interested.

The weekend was truly inspiring as egalitarians from around the world shared their stories, struggles and successes. It seems that each of our attendees had their own journey into biblical equality to compliment and ground the academic scholarship of the conference. Even in the midst of a hectic schedule, the focus was not on present frustrations but on the joy of finding fellowship with other believers and sharing stories of struggle and hope. We truly experienced the presence of the Holy Spirit through meeting these people, through the academic content of the workshops and general sessions, as well as through the worship of hearing, singing, and seeing art being created before our eyes.

Many people have said that they plan to make CBE conferences an annual part of their summer plans. As a reminder to them and everyone else involved with CBE, our next conference will be held July 18-20, 2008 in Toronto, Ontario! We can hardly wait to see what God will do in this coming year.

Is a woman’s value based on the shape of her body? How many of us were influenced through our culture to believe that the most important thing about being a woman was her visual appeal to men?

In my case, my family was very good in the way it valued women. My father didn’t look at other women, even though my mother was overweight. There were no suggestive magazines around. But even though my home environment was positive, the overall culture emphasized that what was most important about a woman was the shape of her body. Women who dressed suggestively were praised and favored by men. They were celebrated by the culture. I found myself tempted to dress in a manner that emphasized my body. Thankfully, between my home environment and my Christian faith I was able to resist the temptation and never acted on it.

Through the grace of God I no longer have this temptation. It’s not that I don’t want to get married, I do. But, I no longer see the shape of my body as being important.

How seriously are women being deceived by our culture into believing our value is based on the shape of our body, with those women with more curvy features being considered more valuable than women with less curvy features? I know it affected me as evidenced by the years it took for me to lose the desire to dress suggestively.

How has it affected your life?

Well the CBE conference is over, like a whirlwind, so I’m catching up with some posts about the last two days.

The Saturday sessions we chose were filled with in-depth historical examinations of empowered women in the Church. Starting with Mimi Haddad’s excellent lecture on ontology, gender, and women’s authority in the church, we looked at Paula, Apollonia, Hildegard, and Catherine of Siena to name very few. These were all women who behaved contrary to the popular ontology assigned to them by the culture of the day. This was especially true from the patriarchal absorption of the church after Emperor Constantine.

Also discussed was the Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy. The church’s reaction was a form of anti-intellectualism. This in turn resulted in a fear of liberalism, trading a more rigorous interpretation of Scripture for a ‘plain reading’ of the Bible. Hence, so much unchallenged complementarian thinking polluted the church’s waters. I loved this statement from Mimi: ‘Just because you challenge assumptions of tradition doesn’t make you impious.’

During the question and answer period, there was one particularly bold question asked by a man in the audience, one that I’d like to ask again here and see what you all think. The man asked why it was that women continue to attend churches that only oppress them. There was an array of answers given by many gracious women in the room. I felt very enlightened by all their impassioned, thoughtful responses.

But what do you think? Why stay in such a church?