72 Lin,

You said:

“Cheryl, I am so grieved to hear what is happening with the Canadian Government and your ministry. Moving may not be fruitful as I suspect the US is not far behind. I pray that God will be Glorified and the Gospel proclaimed.”

I too believe that the persecution is bound to intensify until we are all persecuted for righteousness sake. The fact is that the cults are protected under Canadian law even while they rail against the church saying we are all of the devil, while those who bring the gospel to those in the cults are persecuted and sanctioned. Yet my heart says that there is often a cost in following Christ and the discouragement of this action cannot cause me or any of us to retreat. We were genuinely shocked too at first but we have resolutely set our faces to carry on no matter what happens. No one said that ministry would be easy and so it goes on.

“The biggest shock to me over the past 5 years has been the vitriol coming from professed Christians. I have been the recipient of it in devastating ways. We forget that the way is narrow (Matt 7) and that many will not be acknowledged by our Lord. This is a wake up call for all of us.”

I have seen some of this shocking behavior from Christians before but never to the extent of what I have seen because of the women’s issue. The one thing that encourages me about the strong and growing vitriol in the complementarian camp is that it is causing some to have their eyes opened. The fruit of this teaching is speaking volumes to those who are desiring to be Christ-like. The best thing that can happen to the complementarian camp is for there to be more people on the extreme end that will be like Matt who is set in his mind to die holding women back from using their God-given gifts in the pulpit. The more extreme they become, the more people will become grieved and they will leave as they see the true divisive nature in this movement. Their worst enemy is their own militant leaders.

“To make keeping women out of ministry the focus of ones life and ministry is scary.”

I agree, it is very scary. The problem many will have in leaving hierarchy is that their work will be seen as worthless if they have spent all of their time and resources on stopping godly women. It will be a real humbling experience to admit they have been wrong and their entire ministry has been based on a lie.

“You may never know the impact you have had on people with your ministry. The grace and love you show toward those who disagree is contagious. Your ministry about women did not change my mind so to speak…it drove me to scripture to study deeply to see for myself. I am sure that is your intention. One thing I realized is that I did not have the creation account correct at all. And that is the foundation for everything! I owe you a debt of gratitude.”

Lin, I really, really appreciate this word of encouragement. You are correct in that I was trying hard to force people to get their nose into scripture and to rethink the traditions that do not have strong biblical roots as we supposed they had. Once the foundation is shaken in the man-made tradition, we have an opportunity to show how God’s word does not contradict itself and we can hold to both the inspiration of scripture as well as biblical equality.

“You are a wonderful, godly teacher.”

I am humbled by your words.