Good article, Mary Ann. Thanks for sharing it.

I was a bit surprised that Patterson comes right out and suggested that a woman’s primary purpose was to reproduce. Even Genesis does not do that. According to Genesis, that was a part of being human for both the man and the woman. It was never delegated as the sole responsibility of the woman. If that were the case, then some might rightly conclude that women only need men to share the seed and then everything after that is woman’s work. But we know better. Children need their fathers as much as their mothers.

People here and on the ECA forums get the logical fallacy business all the time. For the last six years, I’ve watched people attempt to turn ‘mutual submission’ into ‘you evil women want to run the show.’ Uh, where’s the ‘mutual’ and the ‘submission?’ Ignored. I’ve watched people attempt to turn ‘holding ministers accountable’ into ‘hating authority,’ both on ECA and Fundamentalist debate forums. Uh, aren’t ministers people too, with tendencies toward weakness and frustration and a need for moral and emotional support in the tough times? Godly accountability does not mean punishment or persecution. It means recognizing ministers are human and not super-creatures who don’t have hearts and souls. And of course, the whole spousal abuse issue always gets turned into ‘y’all just hate men, that’s your problem.’ (I even remember that from my pre-biblical equality days on the BBSs.) That one gets really wild because the best advocates for the abused wives have most often been the happily married women! (Shame we didn’t have any of those on the BBSs back in 1998. Maybe that one guy would have been convinced to rescue his sister from her abuser.

The focus on God does get completely lost so much, and a focus on worldly power takes its place. Whether it’s KJVOs saying everyone else won’t even get to heaven if they use the wrong Bible, racial separation and superiority issues that have been taught even into the beginning of this century, Word Faith making health and wealth a test of godliness, or the sexual hierarchy doctrine – it’s all a matter of keeping the power in the hands of one preferred group at the expense of both the other believers and the world at large. Never mind that it’s not power anyone’s supposed to be after, but Christ. The lust for power and control obscures the mission of the church as it blinds the ones grasping for that little extra edge over those ‘other’ people.

That’s why biblical equality makes sense. Ministry becomes serving instead of control over others. The pedestals are history. Husbands and wives can have real intimacy and unity instead of a power imbalance. Our focus is free to be on Christ and not on what the person ahead of us is doing or keeping the person behind from getting ahead or whatever. All that wasted energy and all that modeling of the world’s power structures can fall aside, and we’ll all be more free to serve God as he has gifted us. It’s all about Christ, not our own gain.

As far as whipping Chief into shape, you wish! I’ve met the one person who is more stubborn than I. (He’s just a lot nicer about it.) Actually, I’ve become more flexible about things in my gray-headed old age (ha). He’s still a tough cookie, though. He got too set in his ways when he was single. Nagging is counterproductive, so I tell him things just once and let him figure out if something is important or not. If it’s important but he doesn’t figure it out, I just take care of it myself unless it is something I just cannot do alone. Otherwise, we just go about our business and don’t worry about jockeying for position or what’s men’s or women’s work or whatever. What he does best he does, and what I do best I do. Micromanagement is so not for me.

After reading what had been being said here, to be honest, I was at a loss as to what to do, seeing as it had become what it had. It came down to making a judgment call, and so I went ahead and stuck with blog policy, and deleted a great number of comments that I felt were in violation of that policy. I’m sorry to play moderator so visibly, and once again I apologize for the meaningful comments that may have been attached to any of the excised material, but if comments cannot contribute to a safe and respectful environment, they will disappear.

Also again, if there are any questions regarding the line between censorship and editing policy, I ask that you please read ‘Comment Guidelines,’ above.

There are plenty of other egalitarian and/or complementarian blogs where we can participate in the destruction of one another rather than healthy argumentation. I once again implore you, please do not let the CBE Scroll be one of them. I will keep fighting for this.

Please also forgive me for the fact that my trust level is still very low. I remain weary of the way Christians who are egalitarians have been mischaracterized on this and the other blogs. I don’t want to be caught up in that any more and regret any part I might have played in it. I am ready to move on to concentrate on the mission of CBE.

LMCC, remember the Preterists on Jungle? Anyway.

I’ve been married for about five years now. The things that my wife does well, I let her handle. The things that I do well, she lets me handle. We work together, and we submit to each other (I clean whatever I can, I do chores, I keep up the house, I watch the kids so that she can go out with kids) and she does her best to do the same for me. We’re aware of each other’s needs, our goals, our dreams, and we try not only to support each other in this, but also to model Christ as well as we can for each other, so that each by their testimony will spur the other to be more and more like Christ. Which, as the disciples we are called, is what we’re meant to be doing.

In May of 2002, we were both in Delaware (she had moved out there to be with me) and she had just lost her job, at a time when we both needed to be employed in order to afford an apartment (we were already engaged at that time). Since there wasn’t time to get a new job for her before we needed to be elsewhere, I made the decision to move us back to her home in Arkansas, where she had a trailer in her parent’s back yard… until we were married, I could live in the trailer, and she would live at her parent’s house.

I made this decision based on faith that God would watch over us in the process, on knowledge that she was desperately unhappy in Delaware and would be much better off with her friends and family, and it would be cheaper, relatively, to live in the trailer. I didn’t want to live in Arkansas, but I submitted to my wife’s needs, to our needs as a family, and to where God seemed to be leading (and believe me, he has blessed incredibly through it).

At the same time, April submitted to my decision that we would move, to my reasoning on the matter. We discussed it, I made the decision, and we moved. We acted in mutual respect and mutual submission. We’ve made other decisions on the same basis since then, and God has blessed it. Yes, there have been struggles, and arguments, as there will be in any relationship. But overall, our marriage is full of blessings, even if I’m not as dictatorial as some patriarchal preachers would prefer.

We’ve adopted two children, but both April and I work, because there’s no way to afford to live otherwise, especially with the debts that we have. But this has also led us to churches where we are strengthened and enriched in God and daily led into opportunities to minister to others, and to live out testimonies for God.

I think that any time somebody calls us out for not ‘obeying God,’ the first question that comes to my mind is ‘is the act that is being required one of love, or one of domination?’

In the society of the Old Testament, the laws set forth through Moses were an improvement over the laws of the current society. It kept the Jews from killing off wives who they no longer preferred, or killing whole families in vengeance, and all sorts of other things. It instituted principles of grace, and mercy, and forgiveness into their very society, in a people who had none of those things.
The new covenant brought to us by Christ fulfills these things even more… where the old covenant, with it’s enormous list of laws (so abused by the Pharisees) was only about action, Christ’s new covenant fulfills God’s intent by ruling simply over the heart, rather than only action.

1. Agape the Lord your God with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

2. Agape your neighbor as you Agape yourself.

3. Agape each other, that you will be known by your love.

When I hear people openly decreeing that by not following this law, or that rule, that people aren’t going to be going to heaven, that they’re heretics, that they’re breaking God’s law, I don’t hear agape. I hear defense and self-righteousness. I hear pride.

Oswald Chambers tells us that in his interpretation of Christ’s ‘timber in your eye’ bit, what Christ is saying is that not only do you need to be without sin, but without judgment, for judgment itself is sin. ‘By the means with which you judge others, you yourself will be judged.’ I see plenty of judgment on this forum… somebody is sending God a very clear message on his preferences.

Without judgmental attitudes, we can see clearly, have discernment, wisdom, and compassion. If I come to you in a spirit of agape and humility to approach you with your sin or error, and you see in me only my love for you and my loving hope for your correction, then you take away love, not judgment.

Peter says ‘I will never deny you Lord!’ and Jesus (knowing, as he does, that we all fail far more than we think we will) says sorrowfully, lovingly, ‘Peter, you will deny me three times before the cock crows thrice.’ Not judgment, not condemnation, not righteous accusation. Sorrow and love.

If a woman speaks to me with wisdom from God, with wisdom from learning, from our church fathers, from the ages, from the Holy Spirit acting in her, should I be thinking ‘How can God use this knowledge in me?’ or should I be thinking ‘How dare that woman think to instruct me?’

We love to quote the phrase ‘God’s wisdom is foolishness to the world’ when it suits our needs, but we are all, in truth, fools far more of the time than we would prefer. Oh, the pride of this generation, of this world!

Equalitarians desperately look for the relationship where, in love, both spouses submit to one another in the furious, passionate love of Christ, and through his leading find grace and wisdom in this broken world. I know for sure that LMCC wouldn’t have settled for anything less than an incredible, godly man… who she is currently whipping into shape!

My brothers and sisters, let us not hit this ‘submit comment’ button any further until we know that we proceed not from outrage, or righteousness, but from love.

Will there be those whose logic is flawed, whose efforts will be to attack us merely for wearing a name? Certainly, as there always will be. But for them, only sorrow and love.