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Revisiting the Topic of Women in Public Ministry: My Recommended Resources (2022)
For more than two decades, I’ve taught a course on gender and its ramifications in the church and for women in public ministry. Since #MeToo and #ChurchToo combined with Christian leaders saying women have to endure abuse to be biblical and also that women shouldn’t teach in seminaries, I’ve seen a shift in attitudes. Add to that the one-two punches of Jesus and John Wayne by Kristin Kobes Du Mez with Beth Allison Barr’s book, The Making of Biblical Womanhood: People are revisiting what and why they believe on the topic. Some have sat up and said, basically, “Evangelicals have barred the front door against radical feminism while leaving the back door wide open to misogyny.”…
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Can a Wife Ever be a Spiritual Covering?
Pastor John Gray was recently interviewed on Sister Circle Live concerning hardships in his marriage and how his wife was the one to see him through. His comments have since gone viral and have garnered the following questions: Is the man always a spiritual covering for his wife? What happens when he is not? Can a woman biblically act as a covering for her husband? People have called into question his sense of biblical manhood, the role of a husband and the church’s view of the archetypical “Strong Women-” the good wife, that patiently endures the hardships of her husband while from a posture of prayer. Grey is quoted as…
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Resources for Revisiting the Question of Women in Public Ministry
For more than a decade, I’ve taught a course on gender in the church. And especially since #MeToo and #ChurchToo combined with Christian leaders saying women have to endure abuse to be biblical and also that women shouldn’t teach in seminaries, I’m seeing a shift in attitudes. Some of the more moderate folks are saying, “Stop already. That misrepresents us.” I’m hearing pastors get up and say, “I was wrong” in slut-shaming Bathsheba. I’ve been told by radio hosts, “If I had talked with you a year ago about this, I would not have heard you, but now. . . .” Something has changed. I’ve been inundated by requests from…
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Do Males “Image” God More Than Females?
Do male humans “image” God more than female humans image God? Both male and female were created in the image of God. Recall Genesis 1: “Then God said, ‘Let Us make adam in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule . . . God created adam in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them” (vv. 26–27). The image of God is male and female. One sex does not “image” God more than the other. And, in fact, male and female are interdependent. I once had a student who wept with joy when she learned this. She was…
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Heads and Coverings: Observations (Part 2)
In my previous post I shared some observations about 1 Corinthians 11:3–16, which speaks of women praying and prophesying in the church. After asking the Spirit for insight, observation is the first step in Bible study. Here are some observations sometimes missing in the discussion: • According to Paul, women could prophesy in the church. And the end result of prophecy was the learning and encouragement of the Body (14:31). So it was assumed in Paul’s day that everyone could learn spiritual truth from a woman. Even if one believes the gift of prophecy has ceased today, one’s reasoning behind women’s silence in the church today cannot be “grounded in…
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Heads and Coverings: Observations (Part 1)
My friend’s Facebook status this week struck a familiar chord with students who have learned Bible Study methods: “Stuck at 30 observations. Need 20 more!” No doubt she was doing the assignment that requires students to make 50 observations about a Bible verse, such as Acts 1:8. The assignment teaches people to notice every single, solitary detail about what the text says, the first step in studying the Bible—after asking the Spirit to grant insight, of course. As I’ve been prepping for a Role of Women in Ministry class I teach, I’ve been re-reading different authors’ understandings of 1 Corinthians 11:3–16, which speaks of women praying and prophesying in the…
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On 1 Corinthians 11 and Veils
Fifty years ago historians’ knowledge of women in the ancient world came from tiny bits and pieces scattered about. Such remnants included fragments of Sappho’s poetry, barely preserved in damaged papyrus full of gaps. Plutarch provides an engaging account of Cleopatra’s hold on Mark Antony, but he says nothing of her maritime knowledge or her ability to rule, and this year Stacy Schiff debunked his suicide-by-asp-bite myth. (Schiff calculated how much venom it would have taken to actually kill Cleopatra and her two servants.) So, entertaining as Plutarch’s account may be, our knowledge suggests he had a rhetorical agenda. We’ve studied urns featuring scenes from the legends of Dido and Lucretia…
