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A Rare Ivory Box in Italy and Women at the Altar: What Ancient Art Reveals
My 2025 started extraordinarily with a two-week pilgrimage across Italy. A maiden trip hosted by the Visual Museum of Women in Christianity, our group began in Rome, ended in Venice, and in between visited Pompeii, Orvieto, Assisi, Siena, Civita di Bagnoregio, Vicenza, Florence, Milan, Padua, Ravenna and Torcello. As we toured ancient churches, baptisteries, basilicas, cathedrals, catacombs, crypts, mausoleums, a prison, and art and archaeological museums, we considered this question, “What does the visual record of ancient art show us about women's leadership in early Christianity?”
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How Does Jesus and His Interactions with Women Inform Our Beliefs?
Scholars agree that Jesus valued and elevated women. At the same time, scholars disagree as to whether Jesus’s affirmation and ministry to and with women have a bearing on whether to limit the ministry of women.[1] An essential element for deciding about women’s functioning in the church, in other words developing your theology of women, is a review of the New Testament accounts of Jesus’s ministry to, and interactions with, women.
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My Pastor Broke My Trust Which Catalyzed My Journey to a New Ministry
Has a ministry leader ever broken your trust? A decade ago, a Bible church pastor and my soon-to-be boss broke mine. I had been the ministry leader for women for three years, and my leadership team was preparing a five-week class for women (a ministry initiative approved by the pastoral staff through a detailed, formal process). We wanted women to have the opportunity to learn how to study the Bible in-depth, including word studies, using commentaries, etc. Pastor Tim [name changed] stopped by my office and said ... “There is now unanimous agreement not to offer the class." I was stunned and shaken.
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A Historical Review: Black Women Who Won the Battle to Preach
Any review of women’s religious history is incomplete “without an adequate grasp of the groundbreaking work” of Black preaching women.[1] Historian Bettye Collier-Thomas in her book Daughters of Thunder: Black Women Preachers and Their Sermons, 1950–1979, explains that during the nineteenth century and the twentieth century, “in most black religious traditions, women won the battle to preach.”[2]
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Refuting the Lie: Woman is Defective in Her Nature
I've lost count of how many times I've wanted to climb the highest summit and roar like a lion. For too long, I believed the lie, that by God's design women are less valuable than men.
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I Believed the Lie
Not many years ago, I realized I’d internalized a lie. A lie that wreaks havoc. One that many others have believed too. I believed the lie that the Divine One values his sons more highly than his daughters—that, by design, woman is inferior to man. The Lie of Women’s Inferiority In a human sense, this lie plays out by characterizing men as deserving of life’s focus and spotlight, with women functioning as accessories. In a reverse example, Ken tells Barbie in the movie Barbie, “I don’t know who I am without you… There’s no just Ken. That’s why I was created. I only exist within the warmth of your gaze.”…