Sam

To answer the question of your post – NO

A friend of a friend had one of those brought back from the dead experiences a few years ago and reported that the people she saw in what she was pretty sure was heaven were genderless. What would be the purpose of gender in heaven? Perhaps we make way too much of it here and try to base our opinions on Scriptures which can be understood in a number of ways.

When I was a contractor, and needed to sub out part of a job, if I had not used a particular sub before, I would chat with them awhile about their work and we’d discuss how to do certain things in their area of specialty. If they knew what they were talking about, and everything else about them seemed acceptable, they got the job. If their explanations were just plain wrong, then I would not use them because I figured I couldn’t rely on anything they might say or do.

Similarly, if the people you’re talking about here are this far off center on these issues, I personally would not trust anything they have to say on any topic in their supposed areas of specialty (the church/theology/Bible interpretation). I think we could be certain that some/many of their other ideas are also off base. We should avoid such groups and not support them with our involvement, attention or money. They only get away with this baloney because people continue to support it.

This is too, too weird! Is this post, and the comments, for real or a tongue-in-cheek insiders joke for SBC people?

Thank you for answering my question! I’ve been on vacation and just now saw this post.

I’ve been reading the Bible since I was a small child and never found any of this stuff about women (or men) needing someone to cover them. To call it a fairy tale is too kind. It is an invention, a lie if you will, made up by people who want to control others.

Study world religions, past and present, and you will find that most really strange ideas usually are inventions by someone who wants some advantage over other people, so they tell the other people that the gods or the holy writings support them and their strange ideas.

This “covering” teaching is an invention, a lie, and often results in spiritual abuse.

We’ve had only one experience with a complimentarian group. When we first visited the group, some were very friendly. We asked for a statement of belief and any other materials that would explain their beliefs and teachings. They were very careful not to mention anything about their positions on the role of women.

We saw women on the platform and assumed that women were equally involved. Wrong! We eventually figured out that the group had a complicated set of unwritten rules. The only thing that mentioned anything in writing, we (much) later learned, was one word – ONE WORD – in the bylaws, under the qualifications for elders that said “men”. Like who visits a church and asks for a copy of the bylaws before deciding to attend again?

Women could only teach women and children (and boys only up to a certain age). Women could sing on the platform, but not lead singing, in case they made a comment that might be interpreted as teaching. Women could speak on the platform if they were answering questions from a man in an interview, which was considered “covering” her. Women were allowed to speak in a Bible study, but not teach if men were present, although women were encouraged to attend only womens’ Bible studies. Etc. Etc. Etc.

There were many other issues with the group – Which could mostly be summed up by saying it was a social club with a central core of club members. Other people were allowed to attend mostly to help pay the bills and do jobs, but you had to be dumber than dirt to figure out they were really not part of the “in” group.

So we moved on once we figured out this stuff, as over 98% of all new people did (I kept the statistics and this is a correct number). The church was losing people and I actually heard one of the two or three most powerful men in the church say that he wasn’t concerned, because “giving hasn’t gone down and they aren’t core people anyway”.

I suppose we were a bit slow to figure out their actual stance on women, but it seemed that there were those who understood it clearly and that was why they attended. The way some of these men treated their wives and daughters was uncomfortable and we took away the idea that a group that holds such a position on women tends to attract some men who have unhealthy attitudes toward women. They seem to especially like churches that they feel back them up with teaching and their interpretation of Scripture. This is not to say that all of the men in such a group are this way.

Since I just recently ran across this site, may I ask a couple of questions?

Based on my previous comment, you have probably figured out that I think men and women are equals, including in the church. Gender should not be a consideration in any role or position in the church (unless we’re talking about who sleeps with the kids in the boys or girls cabin at summer camp, or some such thing) in my understanding. Understanding the Scripture to teach otherwise, in my opinion, is to misunderstand Scripture.

Likewise, I understand men and women to be equals in their relationships to each other, including in marriage. I think it reasonable that husbands and wives should submit to each other in some ways, but think it unreasonable that women alone should submit to or obey their spouses, as apparently some teach.

Therefore, I am wondering who your readers and and those who comment are. Are they women in ministry positions and or/leadership positions or ???? I have read that there are 300,000 to 350,000 “churches” in the USA. Do you know what percentage of them do not allow women equal access to leadership roles? I grew up in a denomination where this has never been an issue, and did not even know it was an issue in some denominations until I was an adult. Of course I now know that there are churches that subscribe to all manner of strange teachings, and often claim to find these teachings in the Bible.

Then my primary question – Why on earth would any woman put up with this nonsense? But then I suppose that goes to the question as to why anyone would put up with any sort of an abusive relationship.

When I was a kid, I clearly remember those who argued ’till their dying breath that the races weren’t equal, and used the Scriptures to support their claim. Of course most people would now say that was an erroneous interpretation of Scripture.

One would think that the complementarians (Good grief, who coined such a word anyway? – It wasn’t Jesus) would figure out that they too are now seen by most people as being in a similar position. This is pretty much a done deal in much of American Christianity.

I find it most interesting when I post such opinions on blogs the nasty responses that I receive. Now who could be posting such responses, since Jesus tells His followers to “love your neighbor as yourself”? My personal experience is that there are those who do, and then there are those who spend so much time arguing over things such as why women are somehow not equal that there is little, if any, time left to love their neighbor, or even to know their neighbor.