Paula

Lin, #149:

Notice the strawman argument we see being used everywhere about egals:

Technically, it’s the “slippery slope” fallacy: A causes B causes C causes D… It proposes causes and effect where none exists. Of course, when any of us tries it on them with “patriarchy causes domestic violence”, they scream bloody murder.

Notice Grudem makes the first step rejection of Biblical inerrancy. While I know some egals that do reject it, I could say the same about comps. If a small percentage of egals (does anyone have statistics, or are these mere assertions?) rejects inerrancy, and a small percentage of comps do as well, then can both be accused of being on this slippery slope of Grudem’s invention? Somehow I think he’d come up with an excuse.

His second step of course is declared wrong without comment, making it evil simply by being on the list. Then, oh the horror, churches allegedly do something more evil than reject inerrancy: wives are told their husbands aren’t de facto leaders! After all, it’s farther down the slope, so it must be more evil.

Where he gets “sidelining” patriarchal pastors, he doesn’t say; it’s just another assertion. And of course, once these guardians of divine misogyny are pushed aside, we gullible slope-sliders will certainly rush out and find all the homosexuals we can and set them up as leaders. (Note for the expressionally challenged: this is sarcasm.) Notice above all the presumption of a church hierarchy with “high leadership positions”, as if we’re talking about a mega-corporation and not a living Body.

The only “predictable” thing about Grudem’s slope is that it’s completely fabricated or at least equally applicable to both sides. And of course the mixing of “feminism” and “egalitarianism” as interchangeable terms.

BTW #1: When I see “vineyard”, I think “doctrines of demons”.
BTW #2: As Psalmist said, the def. of inerrancy depends on who you ask. Personally, I take the view of the Bible being the inspired Word of God, perfect in its original autographs, and that with the wealth of ancient documents we have, we can trust the original language texts as accurate. The only issue is with dictionaries and translations.

Lin, #152:

“Finally, Grudem returns to the issue of homosexuality, arguing that the hermeneutic employed to advocate egalitarianism leads, if pressed consistently, to the normalization of homosexuality as well. “The approval of homosexuality,” he notes, “is the final step along the path to liberalism.” ”

Ironically, I’ve seen comps do this exact same thing, and I wrote about it Here:

And in so doing, we see the same presumptuous view as that of the gay theologists: that “Paul couldn’t have had ______ [fill in the blank] in view when he wrote this”. That’s it, their proof of historical interpretation: an assertion. If they want to have this lame eisegesis as their “proof” then they’ll have to accept the same from the gay theologists.

They were arguing that Paul was only easy on slavery (then read the article to see how they twist in the wind when applying their reasoning to women) because he couldn’t have had certain ideas in mind when he wrote about it, and this is exactly what gay theologists do: they say Paul couldn’t have imagined a monogamous homosexual relationship based on devotion, but only the Greek practice of homosexuality between a master and slave. So Paul, they argue, couldn’t have been condemning such a relationship.

Almost comically, the solidly comp. article I referenced argues against Grudem’s “trajectory” hermeneutic. At least he openly admits that he considers the very idea of men being merely equal and not superior to women as “danger”, a “challenge”, a “manifesto”. He asserts our position to be “weak”, and that (again, oh the horror!) church as patriarchy has always known it is in great peril. Yes, definite scare mongering.