The CBE Scroll

Comment by Sonnet

December 29, 2009 @ 1:19 pm

“During this time I got married and struggled with the issue of submission, which in this case meant doing what others told me to do.”

I don’t know how many times I’ve heard some non-egals teach that submission for wives isn’t the same thing as obedience. But when you cut through all of their carefully crafted words as they explain the wife’s “role,” the bottom line is that submission for wives is the SAME thing as obedience to husbands. I think that they are either blind to this euphemistic use of submission or that some might be knowingly trying to mislead while trying to sound politically and/or religiously correct.

Then there are other non-egals who are more forthright and teach that submisssion and obedience are synonymous for women. And like you’ve discovered first hand, it leads to wives trying to serve more than one *master* and becomes a form of bondage. It leads to unequally yoking together husbands and wives on a spiritual level.

Liz, thank you for sharing how you were set free from this.

Comment by Donald Guffey

December 29, 2009 @ 6:22 pm

This story is such an inspiration! How many people have been wounded by wrong doctrine on this issue I wonder? CBE is great in two main ways. First it lets a person know that it’s alright to disagree with the powers that be. It’s alright to say I don’t believe this way of living out my relationship with Christ is for me. CBE provides comfort to those with deep wounds of gender inequality and it helps build up those who the Church will tear down either intentionally or in ignorance. Second CBE gives people a voice, the words needed to heal their lives and combat the opposition. I thank God for CBE and what it stands for. May we continue to change lives for the better in Jesus Name !! ^_^

Comment by Deborah

December 29, 2009 @ 7:46 pm

Liz,

Thank you for sharing your story. I almost feel like mine is too weird and convoluted to share in public–certainly it feels like it would take a lot of energy tonight. But I almost married a misogynistic pastor who did not value me as a person, convinced by many people and circumstances that I must. For me it was giving up everything that I knew God had called me to since I was a little girl, but I was nearly convinced that He actually wanted me to give all that up and “sacrifice my Isaac.” Truly this is a word that gives life! And I mourn over so many friends who are living what you did but who would only push me away if I hinted at it (and I’ve sometimes tried). I’m the “bad” woman b/c of my love… as one who longs for them to be complete humans. I wasn’t really a fan of the first few egal books I looked at–they weren’t nuanced enough for me to be convinced they honored scripture best. It took awhile for me to find authors w/ whom I connected the most–who confirmed what I’d felt God had shown me in my private scripture reading. And it was another year or two after that wherein I “jumped off the deep end” and joined CBE.

Happily splashing,
Deb

Comment by Charis

December 29, 2009 @ 8:12 pm

It would be good to hear others’ stories of how they came to see things differently and how it changed their lives

I wrote the following upon joining CBE:
Getting Out of the Box

We moved churches since then and still heard some of the “husband authority” stuff in the context of pastoral counseling for a seriously distressed marriage, but I immediately informed the pastor that I am an egalitarian and believe that I have equal authority in my marriage and in my home.

I’ll never turn back! :)

Comment by Elizabeth

December 31, 2009 @ 12:42 pm

Well,

I resonate with your story so much. I have been married to a wonderful man for 31 years and he is my faithful partner in life.

But, the voices from church that told me I was less, made me feel guilty for asking questions, not wanting a lot of children, desiring a career, in short, being myself, contributed to my leaving the church for 15 years.
While I let go of Christ, he did not let go of me. He restored my marriage, gave me two great daughters and a great calling to teach.

But much was lost and I still have it come up sometimes in my relationship to God.

Thank Heavens for CBE and for men and women of courage who read the bible rightly!

Comment by Lolly

December 31, 2009 @ 8:08 pm

I can relate to your childhood, Liz. I grew up Southern Baptist in the heart of the Bible Belt, so growing up I heard the whole “submission/headship” thing. However, within our own household, it was completely the opposite. My father is an introvert who prefers to be with his books, while my mother is outspoken. Therefore, she basically ran our house–paying the biils, administering discipline, etc. My parents also encouraged my sisters and I to go to college and be whatever we wanted to be. I think it was this contradiction that, subconsciously, laid the groundwork for me to become an egalitarian later in life.

Alas, our stories diverge there. I went to a secular university and so, to make a really long story short, I became an egalitarian before I got married and so was able to marry an egal man.

Comment by jlp

December 31, 2009 @ 8:15 pm

Liz,

I am so sorry to hear what happened to you. Thanks heavens for CBE!

Comment by joanne

January 1, 2010 @ 8:11 pm

I, too, had a similar experience, after we moved from the west coast to the east coast, during a vulnerable time in my growth as a Christian. Before that time I had not really been exposed to the full mantra of “submission,” so though it was a subject that was important to me, I had not yet been exposed to the whole obedience-to-ruling-husband, the idea of not speaking up or talking back, the only righteous career being to have many children, and home school them (yes, that’s the pinnacle of righteousness), and a woman’s value being found in her well-kept home, her well-cooked meals, her ability to decorate, sew, do crafts, and so on.

Opportunities at church were limited, but not overtly so except in the area of teaching (boys sixth grade and up have men teachers), elders and deacons. Music has remained a funny quasi area where women can, technically, lead a music team, but it is not smiled upon by many in the congregation.

At first I didn’t realize how different things were on the east coast. But after awhile…I did, and began trying to apply these principles to my life.

It played havoc with my insides, and with our marriage. When my husband and I finally talked through everything that was going on with us, we found that this root teaching was what had caused a myriad of other problems. Fixing this one thing caused all the other things to right themselves.

We remain in this conservative church (it’s complicated) but we are egalitarians far more than we are complementarians, and are raising our three daughters to be the same. They are already making their own choices as to the kind of Body life they prefer (they are mostly grown now), and will have wisdom in the choice of husband, if they marry.

My own search for scriptural truth has gone beyong Ephesians 5 and has grown into an exploration of what lies beyond the institutional church, whose whole dynamic is about power — who has it, and who has to obey it.

Comment by Deborah

January 1, 2010 @ 9:46 pm

Reading the interesting responses, two thoughts are coming to mind:

–I wonder how many of us felt like we were jumping off a cliff the first time we bought a CBE membership. (Particularly those w/ stories like Liz’s.)

–I also imagine many of us attend comp churches for lack of options in our area or lack of options w/in our general theology/praxis?

I was thinking about Liz’s story again too–how it felt like a second salvation. I relate to that. I know if I read a passage about Jew/Gentile, it is now SO alive to me as a woman b/c it brings up how there is now no male/female in Christ. I didn’t even know how profoundly I’d felt like the outcast race, so to speak, until I learned of the full acceptance of my gender in its giftings.

Comment by Deborah

January 1, 2010 @ 9:48 pm

p.s.–May that newness wash us and many more this new year!

Comment by ls

January 2, 2010 @ 12:04 am

Thank you all for sharing a glimpse of your journeys to CBE. I was a very young 24 when I married my husband who was 30. We were both committed to higher education but lacked some nurturing of spiritually healthy families and community. We jumped around following various ambitions of his and I continued my education too before we started a family after 7 years of marriage. I believe that children increased my joy and joy capacity along with my sense of responsibility. There were always ‘red flags’ in the communication of our marriage, but I did not know how to pursue or resolve these deeply. I grew more distressed and focused on our children, while my husband grew more independent. We found a church and joined but the politics of placing leaders triggered my analytical skills and I did not feel ‘safe’ there with my children. I wanted to try a more conservative church, my husband also disliked the politics and agreed that I should try another church but he would not attend with us. I was fine with that at the time. The marriage and parenting issues boiled up and we struggled for many years. The conservative church had female board members when I joined, although I took it as a given that Biblical meant male pastors, as that had been my childhood experience. I was helped by several women at different times, whether they held leadership offices or not. As I grew to know Jesus better, I grew more aware of the shame and fear that was pressuring me and I grew to experience more freedom and hope and trust in God. I grew able to face the truth that our marriage bond was not deeply loving and there was much disrespect. I became a widow and single parent of early teenagers…although I felt alone both in the marriage and in parenting for many years before that. I am grateful, though, for the marriage and especially for my children. I am grateful that through the years of examination and seeking that I believe that Jesus is the One who is ‘faithful and true’. But ‘corporate church family’ is a harder thing to experience as a positive.

One year after my children lost their father, our local church announced that a two year study had been done on whether to have gender language embedded in the church by-laws, as there was none currently. A fellow parent/mom asked me to write a letter. I was noticing in my experience that it was women around me, not the majority of men, who were seeking God in His Word and reaching out to others inside and outside their own families. I wrote a letter accordingly…what were the qualifications…I wanted to know…besides biology. Then I was in a discussion at a friend’s home and a female pastor was there who gave me tapes of Deborah Gill speaking on the topic. I also read material from a teacher on the other side of the issue. I wrote another longer letter. But, the momentum was already moving in the direction that was desired by some. One major difficulty for me was that no women were ever allowed to be in on the two year study discussions. Another difficulty was that the men who were in on the discussions were not all ‘qualified’ men either, by their own admission. So….for me it was basically, at the least, a mockery of the system and inconsistent application of scripture. I did ask in an open forum three weeks before a congregational vote if ‘they’ thought it would be an informed vote. The facilitator quickly said “No.” Also in that meeting it was ‘explained’ by the facilitator that there really is no Biblical provision for a female voice in pastor/elder leadership. To me, at the time, this meant a salvation issue and affected growth/maturity issues, parenting issues and the expectations for the communication and service of men and women in marriage and church community and I experienced it that way, ….a loss of hope that love was held to be the priority. But yet I had a desire and willingness to try and ‘learn’ what was truly Biblical, some of my children had friends there also. I was, though, not satisfied with trying to learn from their teaching. There were a few Biblical egalitarians(I was becoming familiar with those words) in the study group, so I was told, and one did direct me to CBE. In an attempted conversation with a member of the study group who was a leading complementarian I discovered that I approached and read the Bible differently than he. I was not sure that it was ‘right’ to be at ‘odds’ with leadership. The next two years were very troubling. Also, guilt was triggered. I was glad that I had read Frances Schaeffer discussing true guilt versus psychological guilt. I believed that people from both sides of the gender issue trusted Frances Schaeffer and even he felt he had lost his faith after what he experienced in leadership, so I had read. It was a very, very troubling time for me as a single parent of teens without extended family nearby and now church community connection shaken. Now I wonder about ‘teachers’/'teaching’. I ‘fit’ better in places where I get a sense that we are all in this together and the Teacher/Leader is the Holy Spirit and the facilitators shepherd and acknowledge their own shortcomings and are willing to live along side those they shepherd…and welcome, respect and honor questions even if they can’t answer them. The chords of my heart are struck by many CBE resources. I am very grateful for more awareness. When Sara Sumner, who was raised in a loving Christion home, writes in “Women and Men in the Church” that some teachers “speak out of both sides of their mouth”….it helps me realize that the ‘role confusion’ in the church….is not my fault, but it is there, and now I have purposeful resistance to what I believe is an ungodly pattern. It is my desire and privileged responsibility to seek what God, in His Word, has to say and invest in directions that I can believe are Biblical. I am in a better place today and I am grateful for strong, credible voices that have looked deeply into this issue and have much to say that is helpful for growth, awareness, healing and hope.

Comment by Don

January 2, 2010 @ 11:35 am

Thanks for sharing your journey.

It really is quite an amazing thing to realize that Godly people might be reading the Bible in a self-indulgent way AND it not seem that way to them at all, else they would repent. This possibility simply seemed preposterous before I started on my part in becoming egal.

Comment by Liz

January 6, 2010 @ 4:53 pm

Some of the comments reveal the fact that it can be a process of seeing equality in all its fullness and as God intended. We are so affected by our church culture and our upbringing and want to be true to scripture and what we instinctively know is right.

Perhaps there are readers who are on the journey towards freedom in Christ so please be encouraged that God is good and there is no shame in questioning or looking into the context of particular bible verses. Our relationship with God through Jesus can endure questions and honest admission of how some teachings seem wrong even though they may come from people whom we admire and even our friends.

Seeing yourself as God sees you and being freed from stereotypical expectations is the most healthy experience in life, second only to being forgiven.

Comment by Jon Trott

January 21, 2010 @ 2:27 pm

This story, and the comments following it, help me understand just what about this issue has caused me to become increasingly “offensive” over the years when discussing it. (I often show less charity than does CBE, whose staff and President Mimi Haddad are so gentle even while forthright.)

A dear older woman who serves as a confessor of sorts for me discussed my militancy on this theme of womens’ equality in the church. And I confessed that part of what drove me about it was that I sensed I was being *given* authority by women and men upon the basis of my gender. This can be lovely — ego building — until upon reflection I realize the entirely ungodly set of reasons behind it.

I have heard too many women say too many brilliantly spiritual things, including some that are aimed right at my own old nature, to be able to stand any hierarchical status quo rooted in gender.

My friend listened intently, and then said, “Oh. I guess I feel funny defending my right to teach… but I think I get why you seem more militant. You are defending someone else’s right.”

Please, I know I am a bad advertisement at times for gender equality — I get too angry about it. But I would like to hear more MEN talk about this, spill their guts about how it makes them feel. Gender equality is so close to the very heart of all we say we believe — equality not rooted in individual rights but rather in a mutual desire to defer to one another out of love. Isn’t that awful close to being a definition for grace itself?

Comment by Deborah

January 21, 2010 @ 4:00 pm

Thanks for being militant, Jon. Men can usually get away w/ it better than women, I think, who benefit from the cautious, diplomatic approach as things stand. I wish there were more guys ready to go there….

Comment by Liz

January 21, 2010 @ 6:14 pm

As always John, you have a wonderful way of expressing deep issues. Please don’t stop writing from your heart and don’t worry about being militant (in the nicest possible way!)

Trevor also expresses that it is hard to take when he knows that people are giving him position and honour just because he is male – what can one do with that ? Use it for good, I guess, but it is still annoying and not God-honouring to be held in esteem from a wrong premise.