I've had two occasions where I've felt 'incensed' recently. Neither of them involved commerce in the temple, so I'll admit right off that at least one of the occasions was an un-holy anger.
This idea of women in leadership, particularly senior leadership - I used to think it was someone else's cause. I've been a pretty happy neutral on that one. But recently I had a discussion with someone.. a male someone... who said he could never, ever disobey scripture and submit to female spiritual leadership. I almost swallowed my tongue. I was INCENSED... as in inflamed (hey, could the dictionary be wrong; shouldn't it be enflamed?) with anger.
How about the rest of scripture we routinely disobey??
(I think my heightened awareness comes from a paper I'm writing about consumerism. I thought it would be a good idea to contrast the American Dream and the words of Christ, since North America is known simultaneously as a Christian Nation and a Wealthy Nation. What I'm realizing is that there is a huge difference in these two 'gospels' - yet we manage to find ways to say that we embrace and follow both. Considering that Jesus said we couldn't love God and mammon, this has been a challenging realization for me. )
Anyway, back to how this relates to women/leadership - I lost my marbles when the comment about obedience to scripture was made. Because sometimes I think we simply don't live out obedience in the areas that seemed to be closest to the heart of Jesus. I think maybe we're supposed to look and live really differently than the people who don't know God.
But we sure know how to play that 'obedience' card when it suits us. And we know how to take certain passages and say they're relevant for all time, while saying that others aren't relevant in our day. (Met any slave-owners lately?) Its that contradiction that makes my blood boil. Is it possible that we adjust the message of Jesus to our worldview instead of letting Jesus' message BE our worldview?
(and if anyone named bubba is reading this, the anger was directed at the principle, not the person!)
Incensed #2 to follow..
4 comments:
I am incensed just reading this. Did the "incensor" leave in one piece?
Why is everything so complicated?? Can't we just love God and the rest work it self out?
My head hurts and i want a baby!!
Here we go, I'm officially posting a comment on your blog!
A few years ago I wrote a big long post on women in ministry leadership. It goes through some of the restrictive passages.
well said..
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