48 Gengwall, very good points!

49 Cindy K, thanks for bringing up the foundation of the “sex is evil” belief. I do think that our misunderstanding of what happened when God confronted Eve lends itself to the misunderstanding about sex. There are a lot of people who still think that sex wasn’t the original good creation and only came after sin entered the world. We need to dispel this myth.

You said:

My first sexual experience was one of violation and was sick, but I never tagged sex as sick in my head.

Praise God that you were not destroyed for life by that terrible experience!

And that’s something that I fear so much about these gender teachings. They make anything gender oriented either evil or a sacrament. They are neither.

Amen! The teachings of “biblical manhood” and “biblical womanhood” seem to suggest that we cannot follow Christ in the same way. They suggest that our faith must be lived out in a way that is tied to our gender and so it appears that somehow women have lost out in being as good a Christian example since Jesus was male and only males could then live out the gendered example of Jesus. This is hogwash. It seems to me that this is what separates us in the body when we think that our spirituality is gender specific. Are the fruits of the spirit gendered?

With sin came the consequences: painful childbirth, but still not a disease but a promise of hope and blessing.

I liked how you brought hope and blessing out of this rather than discipline and God’s turning his back on women. This is the way that I read scripture as well. Good job!