Cheryl

Hi Martin,

Dave Hunt is a very good apologist in my opinion. We will attending his conference this summer and then I will get to meet him in person.

As far as Sandy Simpson and his DVD – yes there were things that I disagreed with too but on the whole his expose of the movement was very good. I contacted Sandy and asked if he would be willing to review WIM from an apologetic standpoint. I knew that he was against women teaching men so I was very interested to know how he would handle WIM. The first DVD he had areas of agreement but had not watched the other DVDs when I followed up with him. I have since emailed him again about the other DVDs and he said that we should agree to disagree and he wouldn’t answer me further. That was very disappointing to me. Sandy is used to picking apart teaching and showing where it is false and he has not even tried with my DVDs. My thought is that before he can say that we can agree to disagree at least he should be able to show me where I have “missed it” in scripture. He was unable to provide a refutation just like all the other Pastors/Apologists that I have sent the series to who are complementarian.

I do understand that it is overwhelming for them to see so much evidence to support women teaching the bible to men. Yet an apologist’s heart (and I have one of those!) should be keen to refute the opposition’s points. The fact that he is choosing to not respond because he just wants to agree to disagree is very surprising to me to say the least. I can read complementarian books and almost instantly I am able to see the problems with their reasoning and the way they use scripture. I never read their books and just say that we will have to agree to disagree. The reason is because if their point is valid I am under obligation to consider it. If their point refutes mine then I must struggle with the passage to understand how my point more accurately fits the context and how their point cannot fit the context, the grammar and the sentence construction. If in the end, I can see how the bible refutes my view and that they view is faithful to scripture, then I must humble myself to change my view. That is doing my job as an apologist.

Anyway, although I admire Sandy as an apologist and I greatly admire his love for God and his strong desire for truth, I cannot see how he and others could see me as wrong but then either cannot prove how I am wrong or choose to not open scriptures to me to show my errors. If they had evidence to prove that I am in a position of sinning against God just because I teach the bible to whomever wants to hear me, including men, then as brothers in Christ they should love me enough to show me where I am wrong. The fact that they don’t either means that I am not wrong or they don’t have enough love to do the hard work to disprove me. That is the way I see it as an apologist.

I am so glad that you found links to other apologists. Some of these others have also been very helpful to me too especially Dave Hunt. I truly believe that every one has something that we can learn from other brothers in Christ even if they have some beliefs that I consider wrong. I want to love them in spite of our differences.

Blessings to you Martin,
Cheryl