#biblical equality

“How ? Numerous passages in the bible clearly prescribe patriarchy, like Ephesians 5 !”

Firstly, compiling passages from the Bible to take a stance on a certain issue is a wrong approach. We need a model of interpretation (hermeneutics) based on its fundamental, guiding principles to understand these passages' meaning.

So while it's true that the Bible contains patterns of male supremacist prescriptions, Christian patriarchy was not intended as a permanent and universal rule but as a temporary cultural accommodation to facilitate the spread of the gospel (God's priority) and avoid scandal and repression of Christianity in societies that tolerated only patriarchy:

Source

Radical feminism can therefore be used as a tool to reinterpret and reform the Christian faith to align it with the principle of anti-male supremacy. However an important distinction should be made: "Christian radical feminism" is not the same as "radical feminist Christianity". The former, as the words sequence suggests, begins with Christianity and then incorporates radfem ideas to transform church structures and teachings, while the latter takes radical feminism as its starting point and uses Christian beliefs and symbols to primarily promote radical feminism.

I have carried this thought for years, and it will not leave me. I look at history — real history, not the rewritten kind — and one thing stares back: from the ending of the Dark Ages through the Renaissance, Reformation, exploration, science, law, and the carrying of the gospel to every corner of the earth, one branch of humanity — the European peoples, the white race under Christendom — rose…

Rethinking Proverbs 31Life Lessons Learned There’s a picture often painted in churches of the “ideal” Christian woman—quiet, domestically focused, often out of the spotlight. She bakes the casseroles, cares for the children, and steps aside while the men handle the business of ministry and leadership. But when we turn to Proverbs 31, we find something radically different. There, in one of…

Our ‪#‎ChristFem‬ recommendation for this week is CBE International (Christians for Biblical Equality): http://www.cbeinternational.org/

ABOUT: "Christians for Biblical Equality (CBE) is a nonprofit organization of Christian men and women who believe that the Bible, properly interpreted, teaches the fundamental equality of men and women of all ethnic groups, all economic classes, and all age groups, based on the teachings of Scriptures such as Galatians 3:28:

'There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus' (NIV 2011).

This is an excellent piece from J. R. Daniel Kirk (PhD), New Testament professor at Fuller Seminary Northern California.  Dr. Kirk is an author, and he blogs daily at Storied Theology (http://jrdkirk.com).

“Sometimes silence is golden. Sometimes, it’s just plain yella’.”

That one-liner is one of my summary takeaways from Christians for Biblical Equality's conference in Houston.

The gathering was a multifaceted engagement with God’s calling of women into all ministries of the church: there was teaching, digging into scripture, and, perhaps most importantly, a lot of storytelling.

Women in many parts of the church are told, through word and deed, that they are not needed for the church’s work. Not only are they in denominations that will not ordain them, they are in worship services where women will never be able to read scripture or preside at the table or, in some places, take the offering.

Dear everyone: this destroys women.

Listen to the stories of women who have had to fight to find a calling. Or the stories of those who have given up.

It forces them to live in denial of the calling that God issues in Christ as the Spirit of Christ gifts women to preach and teach and pastor. It is the ear saying to the eye, “I have no need of you.”

Dear everyone: this impoverishes the whole church.

Dear men, it is not enough to be supportive in your hearts. If your church is excluding women from service, you need to be creating opportunities to overturn that practice.

You need to speak. You need to ask.

Dear pastor, it is not enough to huddle with your buddies over beer or in your internet discussion room and talk about what a bunch of sexist b****** your fellow pastors are in your denomination.

If you are not working to change what women can do, you are promoting and sustaining the sexism that you deride in private.

If you are not opening up space in your church for women to preach and teach, you are promoting and sustaining the sexism that denies the truth of women’s identity in Christ.

Dear seminary professor, your job is to be a change agent. Your job is to transform the way that your students, and their churches, think about and act on issues of gender.

It’s not enough to “know” that women should be able to do anything. You need to show your students, from your scripture study or theology, that this is God’s intention for the church.

It is not enough to theorize about it in the classroom, either, especially if folks at your church listen to you.

Having secret friends who will not act creates little more than a secret consolation that will not comfort.

One of the reasons that Christians for Biblical Equality is so important is that it is reminding those of us whose worlds have “settled” the question that there are still thousands of churches where women are not being treated as equals. We need to continue to speak, we need to continue to agitate for change.

And this means men in positions of authority in particular. If you are a pastor, this means you.

If you are a professor this means you. If you are an elder or deacon, this means you. It is on us, inasmuch as God has entrusted the church to his people and we are called to be faithful in it and act to conform it to God’s will.

We must create the kind of church that will receive not just our sons but our daughters, not just our brothers but our sisters, in the fullness of who God is making them to be, in Christ, by the Spirit.