Yalo

I’ve always believed that the first three chapters of Genesis are poetry – not in a literal sense, of course, but in the sense of being a beautiful, dramatic account of the Creation. Comps turned them into some kind of a legal document enumerating male perks and privileges. And the list keeps getting longer and longer.

On a related note, I’ve always wondered about the connection between Calvinism and complementarianism. The vast majority of Arminian denominations – particularly of the Wesleyan variety – seem to lean toward egalitarianism, while most Calvinist churches seem to be staunchly complementarian in their views.

“It appears to me that they want women’s gifts to be used outside the church instead of inside.  Let them evangelize and win the lost, they say.”

It has always been the case. Even in the 19th century, when the movement for greater equality in the church was still in its infancy, women were allowed to use their gifts outside the church.

William Baxter Godbey, the author of “Shall the Women Preach?” wrote, “Amid this universal cry [referring to the number of the unsaved], I am glad not a church in Christendom is found mean enough to say no to the women. All the churches on the globe endorse women preaching by sending them to preach to the heathens. Where is the church that has not her women this day in the heathenfield? “Brother Godbey, my church doesn’t allow the women to preach.” You are mistaken; your church has already sent out women to preach to the heathens over the sea, and you ought to be preaching to the heathens at home.”

(Sorry for the formatting glitch, feel free to delete the previous comment)

A major part of the problem is that we still view the body of Christ as a zero-sum game of a kind. It is the “either-or” mindset lurking beneath these ideas that I find particularly disturbing. Can’t we have churches that are welcoming to women and men alike?

Also, it is a revealing fact that women are often implicitly assumed to be expendable nonentities. If a certain characteristic of the typical modern-day church is found to put men off, then the architects of the feminization brouhaha instantly conclude that it should be discarded straight away. If men are able to function normally only as long as women are silent and invisible, as in Jewish synagogues, then of course churches should be promptly restructured in this manner. Who cares about women anyway?

I am all for making sure that men are welcomed at churches and if it is in our power to take some realistic steps to achieve this goal, then we ought to do that. However, it is important to draw the line somewhere.