Greg Anderson

Look at the brightside, at least CMBW doesn’t advocate honor killings for recalcitrant and uppity wimminz.

I agree with Kay.

Put another way, it seems that the New Testament (in many circles anyway) has become the new Sinai with Paul as the new Moses.

I have also wondered why many conservative evangelicals insist that submission is a one-directional thing within the confines of marriage.

Despite all of the counter examples you’ve listed here, this still seems to be the prevailing trend of thought amongst conservative evangelicals.

There is a larger picture which emerges here, and that is one of change. Change from a particular view of scripture to one that upsets the apple cart so to speak.

People fear change, and in many cases it is warranted, but not in this case. Mutual submission is not the church & family destroying bogey-man that many conservatives make it out to be.

Rather, it is an effective barrier against the rampant – behind closed doors – swept under the rug spousal abuse which has gone on for far too long in conservative protestantism.

Lin, woman vapors smell far better than man vapors any old day.

And Paula, woman is a step removed from the dirt Adam was assembled from. So any shouts of “unclean!” really wouldn’t make all that much sense.

Once again Cheryl, it would appear that your blog (and others too) is beginning to cause questions to be asked in churches far and wide.

Why else would Seavers and others who hold to patriarchal doctrine step up their vehemence in support of it?

My heart also goes out to this brave woman. May providence guide and guard her always.

It takes a brave human being to survive under such horrific bondage for as many years as she did.

This site and others like it are freeing one human being at a time from the religions of men and the slavery those religions can produce.

You must be doing something right Cheryl.

The well known Christian radio ministry here in Southern Cal., the one that I’ve mentioned before, the one with affiliates nationwide?

They’ve stepped up their frequency of messages relating to gender issues and how 1 Tim. 2:11-15 is binding law on the Church universal for all times and for all places.

It would appear that more than just a few sheeple in their congregations are beginning to ask questions. One of their big guns has even said that the blogosphere is redolent with false teaching on God’s ordained roles for Godly men and women.

As time goes on, there will be many who will be cut to the heart by the teaching ministry on this blog.

Some will repent and no longer hold dear and gifted sisters back from Bible teaching and exposition.

Others will rip their clothes (metaphorically), cast dust into the air and shout — AWAY WITH THESE PEOPLE !

I apologize to all here if it appeared that I went on the defensive.

Had I read more carefully, I would have known that my comments were not being stacked in the same bin as those who engage in non-legitimate criticism of Scripture.

I was careful to issue the caveat in comment #63 that I believe the Genesis account of creation as written down by Moses.

God’s majesty and power is NOT limited by time intervals as we know them, nor did I imply that it was.

The purpose of my comment was to show that there is a sharp divide between God’s majestic creative power, and what we can observe and measure directly.

If this means that I do not take all Scripture as literal stand alone truth, and some of it as poetic imagery, then so be it.

Cheryl,

I think it’s only fair to ask ourselves where Biblical literalism as stand alone truth ends and where poetic imagery begins.

For example, the account given in Joshua 10:12-14 and with apparent repetition in Psalm 19, was used for centuries as proof positive that the sun, stars, and planets all revolve around the earth.

We know today that geocentrism is simply not true. Not because we dug something out of Scripture to show that it’s not true, but because repeatable experiments and observations have shown that it’s not true.

Let me make one thing perfectly clear. I believe the Genesis account of God’s majesty and power, but I do not believe that the sun stood still for Joshua because the sun has never revolved around the earth. I believe that God stopped the earth’s axial motion for a day and used poetic imagery to describe it.

Paula #22

Excellent comment about how male supremacists (the evangelical type) try to use a sort of Biblical proof by induction to argue their case that all humans must fit into pink & blue boxes based on gender.

They cannot make it true for all x no matter how hard they try, because the rigor of empirical observation shows otherwise, and not all of the dominoes will fall the way they want them to.

Some (of the Calvinist persuasion) will argue that since the senses are tainted by the black ink of total depravity, they cannot be used to form any valid theological construct. But this really only amounts to a special plea designed to get around those pesky dominoes that won’t play nice.

Cheryl #30

Great post about the time line controversy as a road block to a young Earth view! If one of God’s attributes is sheer creative power, then it is not at all unreasonable to conclude that time itself, no matter how large or small the sub-interval, is as pliable (for Him) as the physical stuff he made from nothing.

Chris,

We are children of the western dream. We want an iron clad sorites and a steel tracked proof by induction in which all the dominoes fall where we want them to, in order to show that our claims are true for all x.

This is our inheritance from Plato, Augustine, Luther and Calvin. We cannot help what we are. Hellenism has served us admirably in art, science, and literature, but it is woefully inadequate when applied to theology.

Erasmus and LaPlace recognized this long ago, and before them, Solomon had this to say: … “And further, by these, my son, be admonished: of making books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh.” …

Paula,

That they will never do. (big guns of male supremacy coming here to dialogue)

It would amount to a tacit admission that Cheryl’s work rates more than a wave of a hand in dismissal.

1 Tim. 2:11-15 makes much more sense as a one-shot deal to correct a specific problem at Ephesus in a personal letter by Paul to his protege who was the pastor there.

The amount of extra-Biblical construction, extrapolation, and inference required to make it a universal law for the church age is staggering.

“… No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says: He is always convinced that it says what he means…”
(George Bernard Shaw)

Once again Cheryl, great stuff !! Man, I sure wouldn’t want to go up against you as a prosecuting attorney in court. As soon as you gave closing arguments and declared that the defense rests, I’d darn sure be doing some serious damage control.

Good stuff Cheryl! You even answered the charge that Paul need only say something once for it to be a binding law for all time. And that’s the real rub here.

Was Paul legislating new law in an Old Testament sense when he wrote to the various fellowships throughout the old Roman empire, or was he only expounding on what was already written in the Old Testament and fulfilled in Jesus?

That’s the real question here, and I think Christians of every persuasion will agree and disagree on this until Christ returns for his church.

Paula # 28,

Fascinating observation about conveyor belt churchianity. When you consider that American protestantism is largely the product of our Puritan (reformed) forbears and consolidated into an industrial model during the 1st gilded age, it makes sense that institutional churches place such heavy reliance on it.

On the other hand though, I can understand that gengwall’s position is much like the founders convened at Philadelphia in 1787, when they saw a need for an authoritative document that would hopefully restrain the worst abuses of human nature.

So long as there is human foible and weakness there will be scandal in even the finest of secular and religious organizations. Those who crave power and control will do just about anything to lay hold of it, and do away with transparency in order to maintain it.

No wonder Jesus answered Pilate and said “My kingdom is not of this world…” Question is though, how does the church universal navigate this world without becoming corrupted by its worst abuses?

I think all have brought up valid points for discussion here.

One of the biggest fears that any authoritarian regime can have is transparency. Fear that what the regime is doing behind closed doors will be uncovered and found wanting. Burleson is right, no legitimate organization need ever fear transparency.

Aside from the essentials which are spelled out clearly in the Apostle’s creed, what other doctrines in addition to patriarchy have been manufactured out of the thin air between the pages of the Bible?

Eee-gads! I went to the pyro-site and browsed around a bit.

Between their right-wing political barbs and unabashed misogyny, I can’t decide which they’d benefit best from; meta-mucil or just plain old fashioned prune dosage.

I almost cringe when I think of what Phillips could manufacture out of the story of Esther with Mordecai as her “covering”.

Cheryl,
You said:
“The reason is because Eve had to be a DNA descendant of Adam’s so that the kinsman Redeemer that came through her would be traceable back to Adam before he sinned…”

Not only traceable, but also untainted by Adam’s bloodline. This fact implies that the human female ovum is uncorrupted in its natural state.

Why else would God choose a young virgin woman to bring his spotless lamb into the world? (Isaiah 7:14)

I’ll issue the caveat right now that this is only hypothesis on the one hand, but not at all unreasonable on the other.

It means that the machinery of slow death is not coded and set in motion (Romans 5:14) until the ovum becomes a fertilized zygote by a human male sperm cell.

Paula #’2 & 4,

After reading about (written by I decline to say whom) how Esther could only operate as she did by the “covering” afforded by Mordecai, I really did guffaw and darn near spit some of my coffee onto the keyboard to boot!  Cheese Cloth Umbrella! ……. still laughing!…

I can’t for the life of me figure out why people would want to put themselves under such horrific bondage.

Is it a herding instinct?  A lemmings over the cliff thing?  Throngs in rapt beatific vision at Nuremberg over every pronouncement of the Fuhrer? (1933-1938)

Heck, somebody could do a whole master’s thesis on it.

Perhaps John MacArthur would prefer that female congregants above a certain age wear some kind of Christian burqua to worship services?

It’s really too bad in a way that so many insist upon finding a demon under every rock and a snake around every limb.

No Christmas tree,  no this, no that,  the Summer and Winter solstices are evil — this, that and the other.

What a horrible bondage of fear to live under!

The original 12 signs of the zodiac (Hebrew Mazzaroth) were very useful tools used by the ancients to gauge planting and harvest times with precision — better than any mechanical western clock.

My point is simply this.  We will see what we want to see in God’s beautiful creation.  I prefer to see the good, even though it’s been marred by sin.  Jesus’ star is a lamp of hope for me personally.

Lin #’s 37 & 38,

Words like incredible (which is quite worn-out these days anyway), incredulous, and a host of other adjectives, can’t even begin to describe the debacle that must have been for that mega-church!

If they follow the autocratic “Moses” model for church governance, good luck trying to replace those responsible.  But if they’re representative with respect to governance style, vote them out!

You know, if it weren’t so ludicrous it’d almost be funny.  I remember several years back there was a fundagelical radio personality here in Southern Cal. who went on a rant about the “feminization” of the church and how it lessens the effectiveness of the good news of Jesus Christ.

Lessens the effectiveness of the Gospel?  Not unless you have your theology mixed up with Jack Bauer and John Wayne.

Podles argues cogently about why men shy away from church but I think that the larger reason why you don’t see as many men in the pews on Sunday morning, is because they’re too freakin’ lazy to get their butts out of bed and accompany their wives.  Weekend play time, whether it’s ski boats, football, or nursing a hangover will often take precedence.