Don’t lose sight…

It is time to get our bearings.  If you get your “bearings” or find your “bearings,” you find out where you are or what you should do next. If you lose your bearings, you do not know where you are or what you should do next.

When a I am trying to discuss three books at one time, three different approaches to the same subject, it is good from time to time to stop and think about where I am going. 

I just finished Dr. Preston Sprinkle’s discussion of homosexuality in the First Century.  Before that I resurrected a post that I wrote for Christmas several years ago. Preceding the Christmas post, I dealt with Kevin DeYoung’s discussion of “Ought Nots” as he condemns homosexuality outright.  Before that I discussed Peter Gomes and his opinion on Anti-Semitism among Christians.

Where am I now?  I am ready to return to Peter Gomes and this time he is touching on a subject that is “close to home.”   I am a married man.  My wife is a Christian.  I think I am accurate in saying that my wife has never been called to preach God’s word, teach God’s word or write books about God, but she has strong feelings that women who want to do those things have a right to do so. 

What is the problem?  This is the 21^st Century.

Many denominations allow active female participation in preaching, teaching and writing about God.

The problem is there are passages in the Bible that speak against women participating openly in leadership roles in the church.  In the 21^st Century, a major denomination has taken a stand against female participation.  The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) has been debating the role of women in the church since the 1880s . In 1984, the SBC passed a resolution against women’s ordination, stating that women were excluded from ordained ministry to “preserve a submission God requires because the man was first in creation and the woman was first in the Edenic fall”.*  This past year they expelled some churches from the denomination because of female leadership concerns.

This is a denomination of 13,680,000 Christians.

More importantly to me, it is my wife’s former denomination and she does not agree with this stand.  She is a very intelligent, highly educated, independent woman who is not satisfied with saying that women are subservient to men.

I agree with her.  I have had a female pastor and in my lifetime, she was one of the most outstanding pastors I have ever had.

And that is where we are:  Chapter 7 of Peter Gomes’ book entitled “The Bible and Women, The Conflicts of Inclusion.”

*from “The Conversation” website, by Susan Shaw accessed on 1/23/2024.