Truthseeker

Lin, your comments are so true, and I find myself doublechecking my own motives and lenses when I read the bible-wondering if I have become overclouded with my egalitarian understanding.  And I have been accused of doing so by my spouse.  (I think my spouse does the same 🙂  Yet, I find I cannot, in good conscience, adopt any other view, in light of all I am learning.  As you said, however, those who are married to their view will be the most difficult to pry lose, no matter how good the questions or teachings are.  Because I so wish to be on the same page with my spouse on this issue, and we aren’t, I still struggle to not try to force the ‘good questions’ or ‘good teaching’ on my poor spouse.

On another topic, what kinds of church circumstances have those of you who are egalitarian found for yourselves?  Are you a lone ranger in a comp church and toughing it out-gracefully or otherwise- or have you found a church that is actually egalitarian without being liberal?  I am finding some churches-being new to this area and state-that are egal. and non-liberal but they almost always are very seeker-sensitive and naive to some of the new-agey things creeping into the church, like contemplative prayer, etc.  Haven’t decided which is the lesser of the evils:  a strict fundamentalist church (my spouse’s) or an egal church with loose boundaries?! (And I would have to go without the spouse.)  Interestingly, none of the egal churches have true bible studies-they do book studies by popular authors!  The fundamentalist church does bible studies but the format is very tightly controlled by the teacher so questioning is very difficult to do, though not impossible.  Still keeping an eye out for a home group that would be suitable but haven’t found one of those, either.