Alison

Mara,

I’m not sure you’re being a pain. I’m with you. I get tired of certain men insisting on keeping women from fully expressing their Spirit-given gifts of leadership and wisdom in the name of “keeping them in their place”. I would say that’s quenching the Spirit, something that both men and women are explicitly told NOT to do (and props to whoever can find that Scripture, since my brain can’t think of where it is).

If it’s any encouragement, keep encouraging the women you are working with and ministering beside (and to). As they claim their God-given gifts, they will have a huge impact, especially on the fear-and ego-driven men who insist on keeping them down. This (hopefully) works something like a root driving itself into a wall: it keeps working its way down, expanding as it goes, and eventually it will bring the wall down, since it has weakened it all the way to its foundation. Once the wall (in this case being gender separation theologies) comes down, we’ll find that there was really nothing to be afraid of after all, whether we were on the side of the hierarchicalists afraid of women claiming their God-given gifts, or women too afraid to use them. We’ll find that the freedom we have is a beautiful thing, and one we’ll use to build up to the Body, not tear it down.