Arlene

I think this is the Galatian hearsy… something attached to the gospel that turns it into something else.

after reading your post i thought about how that would affect salvation.

Perhaps Christ would not need to die on the cross to remedy sin. A woman could simply be save by obeying her husband.

I think that we get so caught up in the words that we forget the story. The story also has bearing on the meaning of the words. The story is that God created a place… a land… a garden and in it he placed all that was needed to provide for the people he would create. He created humans, and companionship and gave his people a vocation to be his image bearers governing and stewarding the garden.

We forget also that Moses wrote Genesis and taught the people when they were moving into the new land. The teaching had bearing on their experience of moving into the land of milk and honey. They were being called to live their vocation as image bearers and remain faithful to God.

The temptation about the serpant had to do with a teaching Moses was doing to help the people refrain from worshipping false Gods. The story of the tree and not eating its fruit had meaning for the people of God as they approached the new land.

I don’t think the meaning is about roles or authority … but it is written to a people and they are being called to remain faithful to the living God in the midst of a land of false gods. They are being reminded of their vocation.

Adam is possibly the representative figure but it is metaphorical for the human race. That doesn’t mean he is head. That is an idea brought into the story from other sections of scripture. If we want to interpret this well, we must pay attention also to the story Moses is telling. (and when I use the term story, i am not saying it is fiction… only that it is in a story form).

“Others state that a woman may teach the Bible to men as long as it is in her home or perhaps outside on the lawn, but if she were to teach men inside a church building, she would immediately be involved in committing a sin.”

The above idea is completely absurd. it is so obvious that this is from a protectionist, territorial, arrogant position. it’s not even worth debating. I can’t believe that in this day and time anyone would embrace such a notion.

I would invite all women to ask questions and find out where they church is and take action.

I actually agree with Carter and “the Elders” on this. I think it is most dispicible to use God as a reason to justify demeaning women.

It is taking God’s amazing name in vain and dragging it through the mud of human sin.

I wish more folks would leave their churches because of this, then leaders would know that this is an important ethical issue. instead, we put up with it hoping things will change. If we would just vote with our feet, things would change. I believe there are way more who oppose the subordination of women who are in the church today and are silent.

I wonder what would happen if we had the courage to walk out or resign like Jimmy.

The problem is… many churches, especially those who seek to reach younger generations, do not advertise their real views. if you look on their websites, they are silent. many become connected before they ever know the churches position on women. This silence is, i believe a secret shame.

I feel better. I actually agree then, with Jack. I think Ortland does indeed say what has not been said in the Bible itself. His view sounds more platonic than Biblical.

One of the classes I had in seminary reviewed the way in which during the 2nd, and 3rd century’s of the early church, our theologians integrated Platonic thought into their theologies. While some of it was helpful, some of it was not. I think the church at large adopted the culture’s (at the time) view of women. And the church has held this view for so long that it has come to be thought of as Biblical. That, then, is the lens through which scripture is vieiwed. Plato and ARistotle considered women to be inferior… of the flesh… easily deceived… temptresses. It compares to Ortland’s view of women. It would be fun to lay out the views of CBMW side by side with Plato and Aristotle and see if they match up.

I think that part of the Spirit’s task is to help us remove those lenses and see better or hear the word better. Ortland’s view is distorted by his lenses.

and your point is Jack?

Paul… i agree… we have authority to serve one another–none of it is over anyone–it’s power to serve. I was refering to the aspect of emotional maturity that helps persons develop voice and an inner sense of who they are in Christ. As persons become more grounded in Christ they have more inner authority. It is not an office but a maturity of persons in which we are no longer pleasers of men but anchored in God. Anyway… not sure i am getting my point accross. It’s not an office.

Paula,

I hear what you are saying and agree. I did not mean to convey the idea of authority over. I am speaking of authority in oneself.

It is a quality of embracing my full personhood in which I know myself. I can differieniate myself from another person. I can speak my own truth and say to another person what I think and believe and feel. I don’t need to have authority over someone… but my own voice has weight and strength. Not authority over… that would be external and coercive… but authority in my person, in my area of expertise or giftedness. It’s an inner thing born of Christ and maturity.

None of this authority is about power or control over someone.

I think there is false authority that is based in external control. It is immature and leaders with false authority must control, coerce, use force, manipulate etc to have the power they need.

Then there is mature authority. A leader with mature authority is a whole person who can authentically self-define his or her point of view, beliefs, feelings, thoughts. They do not need to hide or cover up. They are non-anxious and do not need to control others. They invite, speak the truth in love, listen, hear, listen, hear, listen, hear.

Those with mature authority use respect, are respectful. They earn trust because they are trust worthy. their authority comes from within them as a mature, Spirit-filled person. They are emotionally mature.

I was thinking about this post this morning and thinking about the command God gave in the garden. His command was, “do not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.” If God commanded the first couple to not eat from the tree. how could the first couple be punished for breaking the order of God in creation, the woman taking the place of the man as head and the man following in submission.

That would make God incredibly unclear as one who gave commands. The serpant also refered to the eating of the tree as the tempation to disobey God. I don’t know how patriarchialists and complimentarians get that sin had to do with the failure of the woman and the man to adhere to their roles.

would not God have been more clear in his commands and said something like this, “Adam, i have made you head and you must not abandon your headship and follow your wife. She is to follow your leadership.”

To me that would be far more clear of a command.

For Richer, For Poorer, Materialism’s Corruption of Marriage
http://www.carriemiles.com/
click on the article For Richer, For Poorer, PDF version
for a brief explanation of her perspective on marriage in a world of thorns, current issues, and the redemption of love.

http://www.carriemiles.com/

link to Carrie Miles book, Redemption of Love

Interesting post. Have you read the work of Carrie Miles? She has an interesting perspective on the world of thorns as an economic reality after the fall. In the world of thornes there is a struggle for life and because of the multiple conceptions, women gravitate toward roles that keep them near the home and able to care for the children. Roles evolved according to economic need in the world of thorns. This vulnerability also created the circumstances in which the woman was dominated by the man. Close to the hearth, the woman did not experience nor did she have the time to engage in the outside world. This led to views of women intelligence as lesser ect, that women needed beauty to attract a man who would be able to provide for her and her many children. It was about survival. children also were born as workers…so the family could survuve in a agraian culture in a world of thorns.

Miles then goes on to speak about redemption and reversing the effects of the fall. It’s a fascinating book and very relevent. I love her discussion on Redemptive Love that returns to the vision for marriage that moves beyond survival toward the kind of mutual love God intended for us to have. And for the lives of shared reigning as God’s vice regents. It is about a restoration of mutual reign and God-based love.

I think Ortberg is really off based when he grounds original sin as insubordination of women and failing to be head in men. Sin corrupted the world after the fall in all ways. If Ortberg were correct, we would not need Jesus to redeem us. We would only need roles.

I think Christ did much more than that. Orberg has reduced salvation to living out roles.

Christ redeemed us and the world… we are in the already but not yet period. One day, all things will be put to rights at the return of Christ. In Ortbergs world, women will remain in subordination eternally.

thanks, Cheryl… my questions are rhetorical…
I just don’t think their logic holds up with the teaching of the gospel.

EWW… the whole post is troublesome.

Didn’t Christ’s death tear the curtain?
Do we not have free access to the holy of holies through Christ?
Do you think Christ even redeemed women?
Are women part of the Priesthood of believers?
Is the sin of Eve forgiven?
Do women stop being female when they teach or preach?
Does a role define what a woman is and how she is gifted by the Spirit?
Do all women pastors support homosexuality? (the posts imply that)

It’s not as neat and tidy. No where in scripture do i see women excluded from the preisthood of all believers, the gifts of the Spirit or the full redemption found in Christ. A woman is also clothed with Christ. She also has free access to God through the Spirit.

I am a mother but that is not all… i am proclaimer of the gospel, follower of JEsus, saved by the blood of the lamb, gifted by the Spirit and deeply loved by God, forgiven. I am clothed with Christ and can enter God’s presence without fear.

What do they think a woman is? Unbelievable!!!

cheryl, in comment three. good point… the curtain has been torn. the priesthood belongs to all of those who are united with Christ who is the high priest. we can boldly enter the temple clothed with Christ and covered by his atoning blood.

someone else commented about a woman not regarding the law. Christ is the fulfillment of the law and we who are united with him have a new source for living the life God called each of us to live. The bible says we live by the spirit, not by the flesh. considering only sexuality is only of the flesh. The Spirit has been poured out on all flesh. Even WOMEN Flesh.

how come i always get a sad face?

for people who proport to be biblical, that is some pretty serious eisogesis. i guess you can read your view into anything. Which tells me that it’s not really about the bible, its about their traditions that they have elevated to the level of the bible.

this sounds to me like a new fear tactic to lay on women if they seek to be a pastor. I cannot believe that anyone still buys into this stuff.
Once again, i am appalled.

Ortland’s interpretation is unbelievable… who would buy what he is saying. It is incredible. That a woman needs definition would mean she is truly an empty headed nothing to be filled by whatever a man imposes on her. How can she be fully human without her own identity? Ortland has made himself and all men God.

I am just amazed that anyone would take their views seriously.

this is scary and appears spiritually abusive.

that’s a funny cartoon.  it reveals the disconnect between the gospel and the community that is supposed to be formed by the gospel.

The gospel has implications not just for heaven and eternal life but for how the new community formed by Christ is to function.  I think Paul, Peter and the disciples were applying the gospel when household codes came up for discussion.  i don’t believe the codes are normative but the application for the gospel to a specific cultural mindset.

Paula, it is always good to clarify it for others and contend for the faith we hold.  Anyway…   on another note more generally

It is sad to say that this whole masculinity movement is really off track theologically.  And it is like watching theology morph before my eyes when I hear them re-write it in masculinity terms–not to mention the Trinity re-write.

I read in John Eldrige’s book Wild At Heart that… (a pharaphrase) it was men that fought Hitler, men that won the revolution and by gosh it was a man that hung on a tree.  He implied that it was masculine men that saved the world from evil and that masculinity had something to do with redemption.   He shows his ignorance of theology… Jesus was indeed a man but it is not some how Christ’s maleness that saved us.  If that had been the case… any manly man could have done the trick.  It was God incarnate in a human that rescued humanity from the fall.

Further this whole masculinity thing creates a Christ and a salvation that is hard to identify with.  If being Christ like has to do with masculinity, then how do I be Christ like?  My attempts to be Christ like are at best inferior because I am a woman.  I can’t become a man and so become manly.  That’s why being Christ like has more to do with Christ’s character and acts of justice than his male flesh.

Anyway, this subject gets me hoppin mad for sooo many reasons, primarily the redeinition of basic theology.

Hey Paula, I could not agree with you more.  I think lifting up Christ draws us away from the masculinity movement.  they are lifting up the flesh, specifically the male flesh.  They are re-writing the gospel to reflect a fleshly perspective defined by maleness not by the Spirit. 
When Paul said there is neither Jew nor greek, slave or free, male and female because we have been clothed with Christ… he was referring to the judiezers who were obssessed with male-circumcized flesh as the mark of God’s people.  But Paul said that community was redefined by Christ and the clothing we have in Christ and the fleshly divisions and ways of being in community are removed through faith in Him.  We become sons… not through circumcisions of male flesh but through faith in Christ.

Christ’s body redefines us all and we are all part of Him.  Our human, fleshly ways of ordering community are challenged by the union we have with Christ through the Spirit.  The Spirit constitutes community and communal ordering, not fleshly structures based on ethnicity, class, or gender. 
I think lifting up Jesus has much to do with delivering women from oppression… i did not mean to imply that it did not.
Thanks for your challenge.

Amen Cheryl… if we lift up Jesus, he will draw all men (people) to himself.

Maybe we should preach more Jesus and less man stuff.

if we cut to the core of things… there is a shame and significant anxiety around what is woman, feminine, female.  I truly believe that this reveals a hatred of woman and is part of what needs healing in this world.  So much fear is created and fear is not from God.

cheryl, seminary was such a delightful experience because i realized how i did not fit into “women” groups that focused only on home, appearance and family.  While family and home was important to me, i so wanted to learn about Jesus.  i had a logical mind and so many things i was hearing just did not add up.  In seminary, i found other women who wanted to learn and think deeply about theology and scripture.  for the first time, i felt like the women around me.  I don’t know if I was odd or if the women’s ministry of church was that shallow.  i wondered if the other women found it so too but did not speak up.

growing theologically was very spiritually transformative for me.  And I wake up thinking about theology too.

Lin, i worry about women returning from war and finding a stereotypical church environment on gender that discounts their experiences and assumes how they should be.    I worry about the emphasis on an cultural femininity and how returning vets will find fellowship and support.  I think vets may find only disconnect around their experience.

i have just one more thing to say.  I object vehemently to the notion that men do not like to learn and study the bible.  One of the masculinity movement’s claims is that men don’t like to sit around and discuss the Bible and that learned seminary trained men like pastors are somehow effeminiate or less than men. (do we consider Martin Luther feminine, or Augustine feminine)?  That is absurd and demeaning to men and creates a climate in which stupidity reigns.  All of us need to discover the truth of the scripture and become good students of Jesus.

Forgive my angst… but that’s really absurd.