“As a child, I my father told me that bees make honey from flowers, but spiders make poison from those same flowers. We can do the same with how we handle the Bible.”
Rev. Rethie van Niekerk, paraphrased.
It is a memory I buried for more than a quarter of a century. Read the rest of this entry »
All the block-ee children sat
and heard of the builder who made them to rule the toy mat! 
She built some from round blocks in orange and red
their names will be “Jellels” was what she said.
Others were made from squares of wood in green,
those she called “Bootles”, and the builder was keen
to tell how those blockees what she had to say:
She said she made block-ees to be like her in some way
She wants them to rule, and together defend Read the rest of this entry »
There is a picture that would have fitted my previous blog post better. This one: Read the rest of this entry »
I’ve been hearing amazing things all day at the CBE “Truth be Told” conference. I have heard that women can be mighty, that we can preach to mixed-sex audience, that unseen women matter, that women do not need to hide away, that women can … And in my heart, I said: “Amen, preach it, sister!”
I have been so overwhelmed that I stood up to give a standing ovation (Dr. Miranda Pillay). I’ve been so overwhelmed that I could not remember to clap my hands, my whole mind was still on the message I heard (Pastor Janice Kaufmann-Chafunya). When I heard of how humanitarian rights tie in with the basic Bible message I could not make notes fast enough. When I heard of how to spread the message to children (I teach children’s church) I missed even more potential notes: there were moments when my mind wandered because I started to think up ideas of how to implement this with children…
In short, I enthusiastically believe all of this! But… do I really? Read the rest of this entry »
I freed a thousand slaves I could have freed a thousand more if only they knew they were slaves. Unknown, sometimes attributed to Harriet Tubman
Please, do not come after me with pitchforks. Or knives, clubs, or handguns, or any other weapons. This article will mention prostitutes and and respected church women who try to please God side by side. Before any church women get offended: I am not comparing your sexual lives. Before any prostitutes get offended (you have most likely got some condemnation from religious types along the way): I am not comparing your personalities. I am only discussing a type of argument that have been made about many women.
I was in a training session today where CBE hoped to influence leaders in an egalitarian direction. Someone asked:
What if a woman chooses to do something objectifying, like having a sugar daddy? I don’t think we can tell her anything without taking away her agency. Is that still objectification?
Similar questions are asked about other choices women make:
What if a woman chooses to be completely submissive to her husband?
What if a woman chooses to stay with a partner that controls and hits her?
What if a woman chooses to allow a partner to control and hit her? (BDSM)
What if a woman chooses to be a prostitute/ porn actress?
In short, how do we treat these equals before God, when they make choices that does not display their equal status? Read the rest of this entry »
Focus on the Family recently suggested something that seems, at first glance, to flatter women. I did not feel flattered at all. They suggested women are the number one way to change men for the better:
… the most fundamental social problem every community must solve is the unattached male. If his sexual, physical, and emotional energies are not governed and directed in a pro-social, domesticated manner, he will become the village’s most malignant cancer. Wives and children, in that order, are the only successful remedy ever found. – Glenn T. Stanton
This is highly problematic, to say the least.
From the theological perspective :
Have Focus On The Family never heard of Jesus and being born again? Surely Jesus is better at changing humans – even the alleged “malignant cancer” called unattached males – from the inside than any woman is? How could a Christian™ organization say that women, not Jesus, is the only remedy for men’s bad tendencies?
Stanton also says: Read the rest of this entry »
You know the comp claim that the marriage relationship is a symbol of the relationship between the church and Jesus, right? (From here on I will use the acronym SOREJAB for Symbol Of the RElationship between Jesus And his Body.)
And how, under their doctrines, women should stay at home and not preach and obey men like the church stayed at home and did not preach and obeyed Jesus?Just kidding, of course. The church preached and did not stay at home, and spread the message of God as far as they went, and obeyed Jesus.
But here is the thing. Jesus, except for the hard part of dying to save us, which we could not do for ourselves, seems not to be so much into “roles” that is only for him or only for the church. Here are texts which make me believe he was not much into such “roles.”
2 Cor. 3:18 And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. – NIV
Christians become more like Jesus? Is women supposed to become more like men, then, by SOREJAB doctrine?
Mark 10:45 For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” – NIV
Is serving only the role of Jesus, not the church? Of course not!
John 14:12 Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. (NIV)
If SOREJAB is good Bible interpretation, women should do the same things their husbands do and even greater things. Which is, of course, not a gender role. If men and women should picture Jesus and the church (Biblical Manhood and Womanhood doctrine), John 14:12 would blow gender roles (the prime purpose of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood doctrine) out of the water.
