Greg Anderson

It’s been a long while since I’ve commented here, but I wish you the best possible Cheryl, and it is my fervent hope that your enemies will come to naught in their efforts to harm you.

The winds of change are moving in the churches and the worst of the old medieval theologies are moving too. Out and good riddance.

Hi Cheryl,

I was just listening to J.S. Bach’s Easter oratorio “The Passion of Saint Matthew” and reflecting on a sermon given by a young woman just out of seminary. Bach’s Easter oratorio gives me goose bumps, and so did Stephanie’s sermon about how helpless (not dumb) sheep are from Satan’s cruel hatred, and how God hurts like a mother ewe when we hurt.

Here’s wishing you and your family a very Merry Christmas and a fantabulous New Year! Godspeed and may Providence keep you safe!

Cheryl, take as much time as you need to sort through business needs and take much needed rest. I think I can safely speak for all of us here in that we’re glad you’re safe and working through the usual ups and downs of fortune and day to day life. Bless providence that it’s not life threatening!

I hope things are okay Cheryl, I for one miss your posts and insightful analyses of St. Paul’s writings!

Cheryl,

Sorry to hear what happened with the truck and all. Bad things happen to good and bad people alike, and in many cases there is no distinguishing between good and bad folks whatsoever (Book of Ecclesiastes). There are some who will try and use this as a big AHA! I told you so!, in order to try and kick dirt onto your ministry. Don’t let them dear sister. God DOES NOT deal out bad things to those he loves no matter how many proof texts some will come up with to try and justify a warped sense of sovereign power.

Re: Mark #36 ,

With all due respect on this end too, I do not subscribe to reformed theology, nor do I believe in TULIP doctrine. But I’m sure that we could arrive at a sort of civil dialogue based on the non-negotiable articles of faith as delineated in the Nicene Creed.

There is indeed misunderstanding about my previous comment (#34). I never suggested that Paul’s writings are not authoritative. But rather, how much weight must they have when they do not directly affirm the non-negotiables of the faith? Or when they are at odds with the remaining witness of Scripture?

We are the products of Greek Hellenism here in the West. We cannot help but to want to harmonize every last alpha, beta, delta, and phi of Paul’s writings into a religious system that gives us meaning. The inherent danger of this approach if not checked with reason and common sense, is that it shackles the believer into a new Levitical code with no latitude of conscience.

Mark, re: #30

Your point about internal and external evidence concerning Paul’s Timothy letters is well taken, and if you’ll permit me, I’ll expand it.

Cheryl has demonstrated admirably that there is no compelling internal (Scripture) evidence that bans Godly women from teaching the Bible to men, because the apparent prohibition is repeated nowhere else in Scripture. Some will contend of course that there needn’t be any repetition because Paul has revealed a God-breathed prohibition and that’s that.

The problem with this view is that it makes Paul a new Moses, his letters a new Levitical code, and that Jesus’ death on the cross was not enough to satisfy a tyrant’s bloodthirst. In addition, it forces an interpretation of the Genesis account which is both unweildy and not at all in line with God’s character as revealed in the rest of Scripture. Kind of like trying to get the tail to wag the doggie rather than the other way ’round.

Let me begin by saying that I am in full agreement with the core essentials of the Christian faith, eg., the summary of faith embodied in the Nicene Creed. What I cannot agree with however, is trying to make an airtight-lock-stock-and-barrel belief system out of the personal letters of the apostle Paul. Inspiration is one thing, and so long as it touches the work that Jesus did for all humankind with an offer for literal eternal life for all who’ll believe and be transformed, I’m onboard. The rest? I’ll take it with so many grains of salt.

I actually read a piece somewhere by a Messianic Jewish pastor who taught that Mordecai was Esther’s “covering”, so that Esther could do the things she did (unbecoming for a women in God’s established order) without angering God.

On 1 December 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white passenger on a bus in Montgomery Alabama.

That’s what it took. Her courage set in motion a whole series of events that ultimately brought down the Jim Crow Laws in the old South. Maybe a demand for an apology from CBMW for the violence done to the Good News of Jesus Christ as Mara so aptly put it in comment #2, is what’s needed now.

It will be read by many, and many will wonder what the big deal is. Wondering generates questions, and questions are the first steps toward changed beliefs. Wilberforce knew this well when he set out to abolish the British slave trade.

TL #13,

You are very spot on when it comes to the morphing of words over time. Even relatively short periods of time. Consider for example, the following scenario of fiction from the U.S. Gilded Age (1st Gilded Age) in which some college age children of the meat packing barons of Chicago (circa 1897) are gathered in the parlor of the mansion of one of their fathers:

Edgar has recently learned to play Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata flawlessly and is confident that it will impress Katharine, the object of his amorous hopes. Poor Edgar! Just as he gets to the some of the most sublime bars ever written for the keyboard, Katharine rolls her eyes and exclaims: “Oh Edgar! not that awful old dirge again, can’t you play something gay? Something by that Negro fellow Joplin?”

Something gay? People simply do not use those kinds of expressions anymore because they no longer mean what they did over a century ago. My point is simply this, if a fairly innocuous word such as gay could have such drastic changes in meaning in little over a century, how much could the word kephale have mutated from the Axial Age (time of the Septuagint) to the time of Chrysostom?

re: SM#253 with reference to NN#173 & TL#178,

How come it is that when lotsa people are confronted with arguments they cannot reply to with their own salvos, they call in an airstrike from C.S. Lewis?

Is Lewis sposeta’ be the last word? I’d rather have self rule than the micro management of a benevolent tyrant anyday.

elastigirl #266

Once again, I think you’re spot on with the illustration from a film source! I think male rule and entitlement in marriage is largely titular in the real world anyway. Only those who want to make it part of a complicated religion get their drawers in a dither over it, because things have gone on like this since the world began.

Thank you for your replies Gengwall & Kristen! (#’s 82 & 83)
As far as I can determine from well over 700 comments now (counting the previous thread), it’s largely a question of Biblical interpretation. Aside from the essentials, who has THE right interpretation? Does it even have to have one?

Elastigirl #87~ You wrote:

“…As far as doing everything ”by the book” — sometimes I think christians feel that to be fully living their life for God, as much as is possible, requires embracing every word in their own Bibles (certainly the New Testament) as binding on their lives. For example, churches conduct baby dedications simply because that’s what Mary and Joseph did with Jesus. Does this make it necessary for us? Part of what it means to be a christian? I really don’t think so…”
And some churches will swear up and down that child baptism and dedications are wrong. Thank you for your entire comment Elastigirl! (#87) You have articulated well what I could not at the time.

Just out of curiosity, does everything in Christendom have to be done by the book (Bible)?

Or can we exercise our God-given spark of divinity and cultivate it through reason and common sense in order to serve the common good on both micro and macro levels?

Holy Toledo Batman! 400 and some odd comments and still going!!!

Re Tiffany #323, ~ you wrote:

“…It isn’t a 50/50 split oneness, or even a 51/49 split oneness, but a 100/0 split oneness. It is a good and joyful not forced freely given 100/0 split onesness… ”

I am not suggesting that you abandon your thesis affirming what many consider to be timeless and universal commands from the Apostle Paul concerning wifely submission to husbands — even though many of them are complete @**#oles (to use a colorful euphemism), but you might want to rethink what you use for illustrative support.

100/0 split oneness has no meaning because division by zero is undefined and will make any ratio meaningless. Why? Because in order for (100/0)=q to be a valid ratio, we have to find some number q when multiplied by zero will equal the original numerator of 100. No such number q can be found; zero multiplied by anything will always be zero.

The objection could be raised here that I am being nit-picky and overly pedantic. I think not, because if one’s foundation is rickety, it will carry over into what one sets out to show as valid.

and NN #207? I’m surprised that someone who holds a doctorate in Physics didn’t catch this.

As I’ve commented here and at blogs elsewhere, why do people and parishioners want to put themselves under such tyrannical belief systems?

Why do people let others do their thinking for them? Is it fear? Just plain laziness?

I have one comment left for John MacArthur, it’s both colorful and visceral but it gets the point across far better than a rant chock full of fifty-cent words:

BULL**** !!!

Mark,

Until only recently I was a life long Lutheran.
I go back far enough to remember the times when Lutheran Pastors wore the Cassock on High Holy Days, and you couldn’t tell Pastor Harzheim from Father Doyle the Jesuit.

When I began to investigate for myself what the scriptures say and what they do not say in light of God’s whole counsel, I could no longer believe in the doctrine of original sin nor in Luther’s repudiation of free will.

Religions of the Christian variety are nothing more than ideological belief systems based on varying intepretations of scripture, but they are certainly not “hills to die on”. When they become hills to die on, they strip us of our humanity.

Cheryl has never preached anything here at her blog but the good news of Jesus Christ, so I’ll sign off with the words of Jesus:

“…But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in…”

Cheryl,

Thanks so much for your moderate and amiable reply!
Although we may not agree on every point concerning the nature of fallen humanity, we can certainly agree that civility and the free exchange of ideas without rancor goes a long way as a positive example to the non-Christian world.

Re Cheryl #63 & #76

1) When I argued that humankind also has the ability to fulfill the law of Christ, I was thinking in terms of Galatians 6:2.

Restoring, helping, and doing good to one another does indeed fulfill the law of Christ, whether it is done by Gentiles outside the house of Israel, or done by the Jews within.

If man’s default condition can only be evil by nature, how can he by nature (Romans 2:14) do the things contained in the law as Paul claims?

I am simply affirming that humans are born with a spark of the divine (made in God’s image) and the free will to exercise that spark.

caveat: This in no way says, nor does it imply that I can effect my own resurrection (apart from Christ) into a brand-new corporeal (flesh) body (Job 19:25-27) that does not wear out and die (Revelation 21:1-6). Only Jesus can do that for me.

2) I do NOT agree for a moment with the world view of modern humanism (Rogers et. al.).

But I do agree with the classical humanism of Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536) as touching his call for moderation and tolerance in stark contrast to the dogmatism of the reformers (Luther & Calvin).

caveat: The humanism of Erasmus is NOT the same as the secular humanism of today.

3) I do not deny that we all wage an inner war between choosing to do good things or opting to continue in the pursuit of wickedness.

And yes the heart is deceitful and wicked (Jeremiah 17:9); no contest, but the Bible also speaks of a merry heart and a clean heart.

In context, Jeremiah 17 is about the sin, idolotry, and ill-gotten wealth of Judah, not the default condition of the human heart, because in verse 10, God says that he searches the heart to see what its real motive is and what the payout will be.

4) I believe that we have inherited physical death from Adam in conjunction with the knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2:17)

Genesis 4:7 also tells me that I have been given the ability to do the right thing and slam the door in sin’s face.

Unless this set-up has somehow been changed or abrogated in the remainder of scripture, I am having a difficult time finding an inherited trait that forces me to open the door, make nice with sin, and let it have its way with me.

Cheryl # 63,

Thanks so much for the friendly reply!

I can’t respond right now to my earlier comment (# 62) which you so graciously answered, but I fear that I didn’t represent myself as clearly as I would have liked to.

Hopefully I can respond soon to my earlier comment with a caveat or two that might enhance clarity.

Cheryl,

I think that a propensity to sin and an inherited sin nature are not the same thing, and I think you’ve made it clear that they are not.

One can also argue that humankind has an inherited ability to do great good and therefore fulfill the law of Christ (Romans 2:14-16).

So where’s the rub? Do humans have no ability to do the right thing and make the world a better place?

Mara #4,

I think it’s very much due to FEAR on two fronts:

Some women fear that if they go against what their Church leadership decrees, it is the same thing as willful rebellion against God himself, and that they will share in the second death (lake of fire) which is reserved for unbelievers, apostates, and in some circles, recalcitrant believers.

Secondly, many women will balk at freeing themselves from this stuff because they fear that they will no longer be a “club” member in good standing.

The need to be wanted and validated by those with similar interests and belief systems is a need that is shared by all humankind; and when this is no more, what then?

Although there are of course exceptions, men do not generally have a need for intimate community like women do.

If they only knew how Islamic they’re acting. (fundamentalist Islam that is)

Just last week I read a piece on Huffington Post’s religion section where some Muslim women got together and protested a Mosque which adheres to the strict separation of the genders during worship.

It’s funny how it doesn’t matter which fundamentalist religion you pick, but all of em’ are run by uptight men who hate and despise human freedom in any shape or form.

truthseeker #’s 304, 339, & 391

I too had for many years believed in the doctrine of “inherited sin-nature” from Adam as being true without question.

The doctrine of original sin is one of the cornerstones of Catholicism, Lutheranism and Calvinism.

I no longer believe this doctrine because I fail to see how it can be legitimately supported by the Biblical record in context.

I believe that the doctrine of orginal sin is largely a product of Greek dualism advanced by Augustine and other post Constantine fathers.

Hellenistic Christianity views humankind as sharply demarcated components of body, soul, and spirit, whereas the ancient Hebrews had no such baggage, and saw humans as INTEGRAL units of body soul and spirit with no lines of demarcation.

I realize that this thread is not really a forum for this comment, but on the other hand I feel that this issue (original sin) is very germane to the topic of whether or not all women through Eve should be punished for her part in the Fall of the world.

In a court of law, with the Biblical text as the only admissible evidence, I doubt very seriously that a jury could be convinced that Eve unlawfully usurped Adam’s place as ruling regent.

Since Ortlund’s arguments cannot be substantiated by the Biblical record itself, the likelyhood is high that the bench would rule them as hearsay and throw them out even before a jury was allowed to deliberate.

Re Cheryl #129,

Even though the text does not explicitly state that Eve was not pregnant prior to the fall, the weight of evidence as you have shown would argue that she wasn’t.

I still cannot agree however, that increased pregnancies in the pre-flood world was an act of compassion on God’s part to preserve humanity.

If the record of scripture is inclusive that all pre-flood humans lived to great ages with no “die-off”, then it seems reasonable to me that the antediluvian humans were close to breeding themselves out of existence.

If I remove a crucial bolt or assembly from a perfectly running machine and it sets in motion a whole host of unintended and bad consequences, I did it to myself and God had nothing to do with it either in a compassionate sense, or from action as a vengeful deity.

Still Cheryl, I would hate like heck to have to face you in a court room as a prosecutor trying to convince a jury that a woman is in sin for teaching the Bible to men.

There’s an African proverb that goes something like this:

“If you educate a boy, you educate an individual.
Educate a girl, and you educate a community.”

Kudos! go out to you Cheryl for establishing and educating a wider community out here as to what God’s word says and what it does not say.

I can’t say that I agree though, that increased pregnancies was God’s ordained way to ensure the survival of humankind so much as it was just another aspect of a broken and messed-up creation.

I firmly believe that a woman’s reproductive rights are inherent and inalienable to her and nobody else, not Mullahs, not Imams, not Protestant preachers, Vatican hierarchy, or even her husband.

Why is it that so many in evangelical protestantism swallow this stuff hook line & sinker?

With the exception of a smattering of mainline denominations who embrace egalitarianism, the vast majority of parishoners in Bible believing sects will not dare to question this teaching.

Is it a fear based thing? Fear of being consigned to flames of woe upon departure from this world? Or is it mostly fear of being excluded from a club (church) that gives one validation and a sense of belonging?

Frank, you are right and I stand corrected.

The subjegation of human beings based on gender, race, religion, national origin or sexual preference is no laughing matter.