Did you get a chance to see my post over at Thinking through Christianity? “Slaves, Women & Homosexuals: The Gender Debate and Biblical Interpretation”
It posted on a Saturday—making it easy to miss—because it took me much of the week to write it and it had to go live before Sunday in order to be a part of Rachel Held Evans’s “Week of Mutuality” syncroblog. In the post, I argue the Bible promotes egalitarianism… or at least a soft patriarchy.
Here’s a taster to wet your whistle:
Question: Which passages of Scripture are still applicable to modern Christians “exactly as they are articulated ‘on the page'” and which are not (13)? And how do we decide? Answering the how question requires a good hermeneutic: a logical, consistant, Bible-honoring method of interpretation.
Growing up in a complementarian church, I was always
bothered and confused about why they considered passages about women’s attire in church… hair, makeup, hats… “culturally bound” (no longer applicable today) but stuck strictly to the mandate that women should not teach men (in church or in a spiritual capacity), believing that verse to be universal—applicable as articulated on the page to all cultures in every era. No one could give me a satisfactory hermeneutic, and so I never could bring myself to hold that position, but I didn’t have a good hermeneutic for why either. When I read Slaves, Women & Homosexuals, it was as if someone had finally put into words what I had always felt. It was like Webb put muscle on my bones so I could stand… read more.
Several of the TTC writers made thoughtful contributions to the discussion, so be sure to find a comfy chair and stay a while so you don’t miss out. I particularly recommend:
- “Hello. I’m a woman. And I’m a minister.”
- “Complementarian or Egalitarian? Yes… And No”
- “Is the feminist issue really a slippery slope?”
Join the conversation. We’d love to hear from you (but keep it clean, kids).
speak what we feel 