Cheryl Schatz

Craig #71,

Thank you so much for such good words about my DVDs! You said:

1. Your strong view on the the bible and that you work hard to understand its true meaning. Your arguments are from scripture, not the world’s latest thinking. Also, you don’t shy away from the difficult passages, you tackle them head on.

I felt very strongly that God had called me to work hard on the Scriptures that seemed to support the complementarian position. We can play Scriptural pingpong all day long without any resolution. The problem is not that we do not have support for our position but that we have not made the effort to understand the Scriptures that the opposition uses. When the key Scriptures that complementarians use becomes a strong argument for our own side, then having answered the challenge, our own strong Scriptures then become a powerful position.

2. Your gracious approach to those who have a different view.

Thank you! I believe that I heard the Lord speak very clearly to me that I was not to rip at the sheep. My approach had to be with gentleness and respect.

4. You present the opposing view accurately and in their own words- you are not arguing against “straw men”.

One complementarian pastor who was giving us feedback in the editing stage advised me not to use the audio clips but only have someone read out the quotes. I disagreed. I believe that it was very valuable for people to hear the quotes from the original author with their own inflexion. That way it is not me that is putting an “attitude” into the quote that is not there in the original. Everyone can hear for themselves what is said in the way it is said by the original author.

The DVDs gave us lots of answers but also opened up a whole new set of questions as we look further into the subject.

Wonderful! I am glad that they were a catalyst for you for go beyond what was covered in the DVDs.

The lay out was excellent. I wonder though whether having you speaking from a pulpit may be a bit provocative for some, depending on where they are at in their thinking.

Actually it was a podium in a lecture hall, not actually a pulpit in a church. But you are correct in that a podium can look like a pulpit. We weren’t worried about the podium, but about having a woman speaking. If a person was offended by a woman speaking, then they wouldn’t even get as far as the part with the podium. They would have shut the DVD off long before that time.

After prayer and time for consideration we decided that I was the one who could present the real passion to this topic since I was the one who felt called to do the research and the one who wrote the script. If a man would not listen to the arguments from a woman, then he is not likely to be reached anyway. The ones that I can reach are those who have an open heart to listen to both sides.

You also made this suggestion:

A contents on the cover to make it easier to know which passages are dealt with and which DVD they are on would make it easier to find things for future study.

Yes, this would have been helpful. The concern that our ministry partner hard, though, was that some would just turn to the passage that they were interested in without seeing the passages in order. She has written several movie scripts that were produced through Jeremiah Films, and she is good at knowing what “flows”. She took my script and put it into an order that she said was best for a “flow” and she wanted people follow the flow from one section to another. But I do agree that it would have been more helpful to some to label them as to what topics were on each disk.

Overall excellent and thank you.

I am honored by your review.