Paula

I think a better way to understand a spouse is to just talk to them. Why ask about generalities when the person we know is right in front of us? Why go to surveys and pop psychology when we can just talk to each other? Do we do these things with our friends or coworkers? And if we object that “he just won’t open up” or “she can’t put it into words”, then I think basic communication in the marriage needs major help! This is supposed to be our best friend, right? If I need a seminar about other people in order to understand a particular person, something is very wrong.

Instead of discussing “male brains” and “female brains”, why not have couples just discuss the two brains that matter to them?

I’ve often said that in online conversations, when the parties don’t know each other’s gender, that it’s almost comical how people try to guess anyway. Many times I was presumed to be male, and once was even reprimanded for “shirking my duty as a father and husband” because of my egalitarian arguments. I got a major laugh out of that one. (Yes, I finally told the guy I’m female, and he was strangely silent after that.)

The internet is a good case study in mistaken presumptions about male and female brains. I’ve seen very emotional posts by males, and very technical posts by females. And as we know, females can be very hostile and aggressive, and males can be gentle and nurturing.

My point is that the “exceptions” disprove the rule. Were our behavior and thinking dependent upon our physiology, there would be no exceptions at all. In fact, the idea of gender-based thinking and behavior is exactly like race-based arguments. It ignores the “exceptions” which disprove the rule.

(blogged about that a while back)

P41,

You say “Feminist Theology”, a common epithet. Where is that defined? Do you understand the difference between a belief that one gender has supremacy over another, and a belief that neither has supremacy? The former is either masculinism or feminism; the latter is egalitarianism. So unless Cheryl is pushing for female superiority, which she isn’t, you have made a public false charge against someone you call a “sister”, and you need to repent.

No, it isn’t Cheryl who has been “beguiled”, but male supremacists. They “love to have the preeminence”, the “best seats”, to keep their position. They love to “lord over”, control, dictate, judge, and restrict. Egalitarianism, in stark contrast, seeks to “esteem others as better”, to treat all equally, to tell everyone the truth that sets them free. We do not seek preeminence, control, supremacy, or any other such worldly and culture-defined traditions of men.

Jesus said “Not so among you”, and “the first will be last”. Think about how those statements apply to male supremacism. Think about 1 Cor. 13 and whether you exhibit this most basic “fruit of the spirit” when you call believers deceived without any evidence. Couching such accusations in words like “sister” and “I’m praying” and “sorry” does not hide your message of judgmentalism.

Why do you say such things to fellow believers? Why is it so important for males to retain a place of supremacy and preeminence? Cheryl and many others have shown the Biblical basis for equality, using only the Bible and nothing even close to “feminism”. You have falsely accused, because the egalitarian teaching is anti-supremacy by definition.

PS: Chery is being way too nice to you. 😉

Thanks, Greg, I didn’t catch that the first time, sorry.

Tanx Cheryl!

Jason, I agree, we egals are pretty much outcasts now. We are automatically lumped with the theologically liberal (yet, of course, we dare not lump comps with the abusive and dictatorial!). And the theologically liberal will not tolerate our insistence on Biblical fidelity, viewing us as those dangerous fundamentalists. It’s a real mess.

True, Greg! Frighteningly true.

Tanx Lin 🙂

But honestly, it didn’t take much effort to “out-scholar” him. He made such elementary errors of Bible reading (I couldn’t call it exegesis because there wasn’t any) and logic, which seems to be common among comp “scholars”. Suzanne has called Grudem out on numerous blunders of basic Greek.

I read the article linked in post#22 and blogged about it today:
Straw Man Burning

Sure…
http://www.fether.net

I didn’t know this post and comments existed till today, when I was doing a search on anti-egalitarian writings. I came upon a blog that mentioned the “Bayly brothers” and decided to look. It was a former participant of that blog who had been banned, lied to, lied about, gossiped about, and called names. She was a “Piper” comp. but disagreed with the blog owners about some minor point, and for this “crime” they treated her like an unbeliever.

This is what I call “Christian Cannibalism”. I’ve experienced it often myself in other venues.

pinklight, there is indeed a “break off” happening in the churches. God is beginning to separate sheep from goats, and we need to take warning. Persecution is coming, and the persecutors will be “of our own household”. It is a spirit of cannibalism; it devours its own kind. That’s why I do not associate with people having that kind of spirit. If anyone is treacherous, dishonest, backbiting, slandering etc., I am resolved now to not even try to talk to them. My blog is there for people to read if they choose, but they have to be willing to listen.

This is somewhat off-topic, but there is a question comps need to be asked:

A common charge against egalitarianism is that it would “emasculate the church”. Since the church is the Bride of Christ, then how can it be “emasculated”? How do you emasculate a bride?

Yes, Kerryn, comp. theology is circular. It draws meandering lines around gifting and tears the body of Christ in half. As someone else stated (can’t remember which blog), comps use a “pink hermeneutic” that says “A man can do anything not expressly forbidden in scripture, but a woman can’t do anything not expressly allowed for her in scripture.”

My problem with the idea of Adam and Eve only being friends in the garden before the fall, is that they were told to “be fruitful and multiply”. We simply aren’t told whether they tried or not, only that their first child came after the fall.

But the comps have males not esteeming females as better than themselves. And yes, I prefer the terms “male supremacist”, “hierarchialist” (no spelling of which the dictionary says is right!), or “subordinationist”.

1 Cor. 15:20-28 is one of those cases where we have to pay careful attention to the difference between God (theos) and Father (pater). God means all of God; I can’t find any way to restrict “theos” to only part of the Trinity. So let’s see what it says in a literal reading starting with vs. 24, where we start seeing “theos” and “pater”:

24 Then the end, when he shall have given up the kingdom to him who [is] God and Father… 28 … then also himself the Son will be put in subjection to him who put in subjection to him all things, that may be God all in all.

But the real problem is in the many pronouns, the “hims”. If we look closely, the only thing that is clearly given to the Father alone is “the kingdom”. From there, the “hims” refer to Jesus, or vs. 27’s disclaimer wouldn’t be needed.

So my view is that Jesus hands the Father the kingdom, and everything else is subject to Jesus, except the Father. What it doesn’t mean is that Jesus Himself is subjected to the Father.

Egalitarianism is so simple: everybody “esteem[s] others as better than yourself”, serve means serve, and equal means equal. But male supremacism has to have disclaimers to explain what limits a “king” has, where the line is between a boy and a man, and Pharisaical nonsense like whether a woman giving directions to a man is “authoritative”. That’s why there is no consensus on it, and why people keep claiming “misrepresentation”, and why egals are always having to deal with “well, that’s not what I personally believe so I don’t have to defend that teaching”.

If the Bible’s statements clearly supported male rule, then there’d be no room for so many variations in male-centric theology, or any need to figure out what to do with men who are abusive, especially when it is their own theology that is often cited as giving men this right. Of course they issue disclaimers about men needing to be kind, but they never can agree among themselves on the definition of abuse, or whether a truly subservient wife has the right to complain. There are too many stories of pastors telling abused women to just take it joyfully, even to the point of death, and using standard CBMW-type theology to justify it.

Yes, we can indeed lay much blame for such things on CBMW. They give legitimacy to male supremacy, and people trust them. Their teachings have consequences, including the silencing of women’s spiritual gifts and the turning of many from the gospel because it is alleged that God created all women as the inferiors of all men. Jesus said that Sodom and Gomorrah would stand up in the last days and condemn towns that had rejected him, and I believe the world will likewise stand up and condemn the silencing and suppression of women as taught by CBMW.

Let’s not bring the “misrepresentation” charge here. I’ve seen it done elsewhere and no matter how much clear evidence is presented by us, they still make the claim. In order to back up the claim, they’d have to cite wording from the document in question which indicates it, rather than simply assert it.

Another issue is when they (I refer to pro-CBMW people who cite misrepresentation) say for example, “Yes, that document says the husband has authority over his wife, but this document says he has to be godly and kind”. The problem there is that the quality of rule isn’t the issue, but the fact of rule. If CBMW says the man rules over the woman, qualifying the character of such rule does not make it better. In fact, when pressed to answer whether a husband who does not rule kindly is still in charge, they have either been silent or evasive. If CBWM were not teaching male rule, they’d need no such disclaimers anyway.

I’ve seen attempts to have “dialog” with CBMW supporters, and so far they have failed. The CBWMs insist upon equal representation in egalitarian venues, but never allow such fairness in their own. They insist on having control of the vocabulary and topics of the discussion, making restrictions on egals, but do not permit such restrictions on themselves. This is exactly in keeping with the teaching that men have no restrictions in the church or home, but feel qualified to define such restrictions for women, even though the Bible never gives them that right.

I say we need more egal-only venues, or the word won’t get out.

I’m not joining his kingdom. He apparently has a lot to hide.

Now Cheryl, I’ve never seen you put in less than $1.50. ;-P

Is that message board still closed to lurker viewing?

… Which, when you think about it, shoots down the whole “only men could be priests in the OT so only men can be elders” thing. Unless they’d like to claim elders represent all the people to God, as an intermediary.

I believe it was in Groothuis’ book Good News for Women that she point out that a priest does not represent God to man, but man to God; prophets represent God to man. So the husband as a priest wouldn’t symbolize his being over his wife, but as her equal under God.

So even if the Bible did call him her priest, which it doesn’t, it wouldn’t be a position of authority.

Charis,

You have decided that I must consider you as my enemy, and that I have called you personally a heretic. Not so. I believe you have been deceived, but that doesn’t make you a heretic. The heretics are the ones who promote false teachings.

The terms “contemplative prayer”, “spiritual formation”, etc. are new terms (or borrowed from known mystics), terms which are being promoted as mystical and something that had been “lost”. Like it or not, that’s what those terms mean. Calling ordinary “thinking” prayer by those terms is not only unnecessary but confusing. Your personal definition is just like what I was saying would be the case if I called myself a Scientologist but didn’t have anything in common with them (which I don’t).

Yes, people recite prayers without meaning. But that hardly justifies using a term to describe “real” prayer that is identical to one that is being promoted as mystical and mind-emptying. “Contemplative Prayer” and “Spiritual Formation” are the titles the mystics give to what they do.

You’ve been warned about the books, and there’s nothing more I can say that will convince you of their danger.

When you say “Are you all sufficiently alienated, suspicious, and fearful of anything and everything I say?”, you’re saying we are afraid of the unknown. That’s not true at all; we know what we’re talking about, and it is against the Bible.

I could say that same thing in other venues. In most egal boards and blogs, I’m the black sheep, because I reject this mysticism wrapped up in Christianese. I’ve taken quite a lot of heat for this. Yet I’ve never accused them of fear, or called anyone but the teachers heretics. I tell them they are deceived, and I post warnings. Then I leave, because they become very hostile and unwilling to listen.

I’m not telling you to leave, and I do not consider you my enemy. But please don’t accuse me of being fearful or ignorant about these terms you use. Do read that Velvet Elvis article, it’s a real eye-opener.

What people act like in other religions or sects is irrelevant to what the truth is in the Bible. Truth is the standard, not how people act. All I’m doing is telling the truth, and exposing false teachings. If you consider me your enemy for this, I hope that someday you’ll see that I warned you because I cared, not because I’m afraid or ignorant or un-Christlike. Jesus strongly opposed false teachers, and I’m only following his example.

I can quote Paul too:

Gal. 5:7 You were running a good race. Who cut in on you and kept you from obeying the truth? 8 That kind of persuasion does not come from the one who calls you. 9 “A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough.” 10 I am confident in the Lord that you will take no other view. The one who is throwing you into confusion will pay the penalty, whoever he may be. 11 Brothers, if I am still preaching circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case the offense of the cross has been abolished. 12 As for those agitators, I wish they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves!

1 Cor. 4:18 Some of you have become arrogant, as if I were not coming to you. 19 But I will come to you very soon, if the Lord is willing, and then I will find out not only how these arrogant people are talking, but what power they have. 20 For the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power. 21 What do you prefer? Shall I come to you with a whip, or in love and with a gentle spirit?

Paul’s “think differently” statement, in context, is about “straining for the goal”, not accepting false teachings. That would make him contradict himself. He could be very “in your face” with the arrogant and the false teachers.

Note that I said we don’t condemn the people. We call them heretics, not condemn them to hell.

The people who teach error are to be named. They are heretics if they teach falsehood and do not repent when confronted. Since eastern mysticism is false religious teaching, then all who teach it are heretics.

The woman at the well did not teach falsehood.

So tell me, what practices has the church lost, and why call ordinary Biblical prayer by a new name if nothing has changed?

Charis,

When you use a term that is identical with a mystical practice, you have to expect people to assume you mean the same thing. Not qualifying your belief, and not asking which kind of prayer the people who oppose it are talking about, isn’t helping. It would be as if I told everyone I was a Scientologist but didn’t believe anything like the teachings of Scientology; how should I expect people to react? If you don’t do the Contemplative Prayer of the mystics, it would be unwise to keep using that term.

Why not just call it prayer? How is it different from Biblical prayer? I can’t imagine a kind of prayer that doesn’t involve focus on the God I’m praying to, or thinking about his words, so why give it a special name? What you described is no different than prayer has ever been in the Bible, so why give it a new name, along with Spiritual Formation– another widely-used term for mystical pagan prayer? Sure, we all know about people just mouthing the words and not meaning them, but that isn’t prayer at all, it’s just going through the motions. So again I ask, why give ordinary Christian prayer a new name, unless something has changed?

The monks the proponents of Contemplative Prayer refer to did the opposite of thinking about God. They were doing the mind-emptying kind; that’s a documented fact. Their practices were identical to those of the Hindu gurus. So here again, you associate yourself with terms and people who do or did practice eastern mysticism. Why?

As “good Bereans”, we **must** read everything with a critical eye. We must “test the spirits” and look for error. To neglect this is dangerous and unwise. We cannot know the truth unless we test everything against the scriptures. Only when a writing passes the test can we look for what may benefit us or build us up. Test first, swallow second. I think that’s what Cheryl was referring to.

The church does not have “lost practices” or techniques; it has lost faith and doctrine. Jesus and the apostles never listed “practices” but beliefs. The “practices” of love, righteousness, joy etc., are the good “works” that flow from real faith. But what CP means by “practices” include “prayer walking” (labyrinth), repeating a word or scripture passage till a “new meaning” emerges, “the silence”, etc. Those are known occult techniques for entering an altered state.

What “practices” do you think have been lost? The “fruit of the Spirit” are still listed in the Bible, as are many other teachings about how Christians should behave. We are also told to pray like Jesus did, or like Paul, who called God “daddy”. Those have not been lost, so what are we missing?

It is our duty as Christians to discern error and expose it. We must stand for truth, and that can’t happen without standing against error. We must accept the “wheat” and discard the “chaff”, that deadly “mixture of truth and deception”, whether it is us or another who has it. We don’t condemn the people, Charis, but the teachings. We cannot ignore falsehood just because we aren’t perfect. The Christian life is a life of self-examination along with everything else, and we need to listen when other believers point out a dangerous or false belief in us.

Surely Paul never claimed to be perfect, but he nonetheless spent a great amount of time and many words to point out false teachings and name knowing false teachers. He warned, he taught, he scolded, he comforted. He never tolerated even the smallest “mixture”, the tiniest falsehood, and never used his own imperfection as an excuse to keep quiet.

not about one doctrine

Christians, and even a pastor had what I secretly disdained as superstitious and animistic beliefs. I thought my faith was superior…. Nowadays I know better. They were onto something.

Charis, these are very disturbing statements, because they contradict basics of the Christian faith grounded in the Bible.

The first one, “not about doctrine”, is countered by:

1 Timothy 1:3
As I urged you when I went into Macedonia, stay there in Ephesus so that you may command certain men not to teach false doctrines any longer
1 Timothy 1:10
…for adulterers and perverts, for slave traders and liars and perjurers—and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine
1 Timothy 4:16
Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers.
1 Timothy 6:3
If anyone teaches false doctrines and does not agree to the sound instruction of our Lord Jesus Christ and to godly teaching,…
2 Timothy 4:3
For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.
Titus 1:9 He must hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught, so that he can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it.
Titus 2:1
You must teach what is in accord with sound doctrine.
2 Thessalonians 2:15
So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the teachings we passed on to you, whether by word of mouth or by letter.

There are many more, but clearly doctrine matters. Much of the NT was written to combat false doctrine.

But Christians do not have anything to do with “animistic beliefs” and superstition:

You have abandoned your people, the house of Jacob. They are full of superstitions from the East; they practice divination like the Philistines and clasp hands with pagans. (Isaiah 2:6)

They are not Christians who add to the gospel or subtract from it. That’s what the Bible says, not me. They are not Christians who have what the Bible clearly says are pagan beliefs, even if combined with the gospel. No, the lost are not “on to something”, they are lost, and we have nothing to learn from them except the “ways of death”.

Last, whenever you argue that quoting others means taking them out of context, the burden of proof is on you to prove that the person has changed the meaning of the quotes. You’d have to go to the original writing to check the context, and then prove that the meaning is different. The charge must be proved, not merely asserted.

Charis, we’re all trying to warn you about compromise. It is deadly. If anyone believes that Jesus is God in the flesh who died for us and rose again, that person is a sister or brother in Christ. But anyone who considers the gospel only part of the answer has not accepted Jesus as the **only** Way, Truth, and Life. “There is salvation in no other name.” So additions and subtractions are not part of the gospel; they make Jesus’ sacrifice and resurrection inadequate, and his Word defective or untrustworthy. The animists, the superstitious, are not saved because they add to the gospel.

Cheryl, thanks for providing pinklight’s answer.

This “lesser deity” is the exact heresy of Arius which Athanasius argued against and won. When such heresy can be swallowed whole by the bulk of leadership in the churches, the “church” is dead on its feet.

Hi Charis,

“Emerging church” is itself a “broad brush”, a general catch-all for non-traditional churches. Many who use the term do not align themselves with eastern mystical practices, but many do. That’s why, as far as I know, I haven’t use “emerging church” as a synonym for “mystical”. But like “complementarian”, there are many people who use the term but don’t agree on its definition, so I try to make it clear what I’m referring to when I use those terms. Also, I try to make it clear that I’m referring to teachings and movements, not every individual in them.

As for links from my blog, please remember my Disclaimer. But I am convinced that eastern mysticism has greatly infiltrated the churches, and it is not harmless or condoned by the NT. The fact is, contemplative prayer and spiritual formation are from eastern mysticism (EM); those who have been in EM know it when they see it. They wrote books because they saw that there was no difference between the teachings of CP / SF and EM. In other words, these former mystics are saying “if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck…”

I have not judged anyone’s salvation over CP/SF, but I strongly believe it is EM and thus foreign to the teachings of the Bible. I say what I do, as also is true for the links from my blog, because I must sound a warning when I see danger. That’s my mission.

Charis,

I agree that evil in any form must be confronted. It may not be my business what God is doing with someone else, but it surely is my business to expose sin and stand against it. That’s why egalitarians have to speak up and not remain silent. Whether the message is received or rejected, we must speak the message. I will not defer to evil or sin in the naive hope that it will just go away. “Resist the devil and he will flee from you.”

Regarding emergent church, the same principles hold. If something is sinful or spiritually dangerous, and I do not speak out, that is surely sin on my part. I will not defer to evil, no matter how harmless it may appear, or how long its been practiced, or how many influential people say it’s okay. If it could possibly be just a “gray area” where Christians can disagree I wouldn’t say anything. But I know better, and have read a lot about it, and examined its roots.

My motives for both cases are the same: Warn people so they can escape a trap. I must speak the message regardless of how it is received, because I honor God more than my personal popularity or any kind of political or spiritual correctness. Such messages are offensive and confrontational. But that’s what “salt” does.

Most people, when they learn that God is a “helper” using the same word as that for Eve, conclude that “helper” cannot denote inferiority because obviously God can never be inferior to man. But Grudem is so desperate to make Eve inferior that he would stoop to the level of putting God under males at times. That’s blasphemy.

So in his mind, God as “helper” does not prove that Eve is not inferior, but that God is. Very twisted and evil.

I should have added that Mt. 18 is difficult to follow in cyberspace. This whole thing is already in front of “the whole congregation”, and what happens if he refuses to listen? Who will “throw him out”? The wolves are guarding the sheep so to speak, and they would sooner throw us out.

This same refusal to listen and hostility toward dissenters is seen in people like Rick Warren, Pat Robertson, and many others. Apostate leaders in “churchianity” will be the true believers’ worst enemy during the coming Tribulation, as they were from about the 5th century through the Reformation.