My good friend on TMB, Dena, posted this idea once in a thread talking about the husband being the "head" of the wife, and whether that entailed authority over her or not, and if it entailed any authority at all, what would it look like? The thread got fairly heated as I recall, but I stopped paying much attention when I read Dena's post. Literally -- her post was so thought-provoking that I had to walk away from the computer and think about it for an hour or so. And the best part is, she discusses authority in the church as well as in a marriage. Here's what she had to say (with emphasis mine -- pay special attention to it, at the end!). Check it out!
Within the house church, we don't have titles, or positions, or offices... we have individuals whom God has called to various functionings... those who function as deacons (practical servants), those who function as elders (spiritual servants), those who function as teachers, shepherds, evangelists, prophets, apostles...
None of them are "over" anyone else... they're servant-leaders (servants who lead by example). There's no hierarchy -- just Jesus as Head, and all the other brothers and sisters functioning, as called, under HIM - in unity.
They don't have "special rights" to be above anyone else... but they do have "special responsibilities", as called by God, to serve others in their various capacities. We don't so much submit to the person, or the position, or the title... we submit to the calling that the Lord has on that person...! Because that calling is for the blessing of the rest of the Body -- it's the Lord Himself, working through that person, and it's really to HIM that we're submitting!
And the PURPOSE of their servant-leading is to bring the whole of the Body into full, functioning maturity -- to reflect Christ.
So, within marriage, God has called the husband to a particular responsibility ... he's usually larger, stronger, and therefore more able to be a protector of the wife than vice versa. He's designed by God to focus, to zero in, to concentrate, on one specific thing (while the woman is more global, balancing several things at once - each has it's strengths and weaknesses), and to take initiative in a particular direction.
We're designed to work in concert -- not with him as the "boss," but with him making a way for me to go (as he would if he were literally leading me through a dense forest/jungle... getting rid of the obstacles, making it easier for me to navigate.
Perhaps, since this world, the cultures, even the historical Church, tends to be suppressive of women, and God would know this would happen, as a result of the Fall, He designed men with the task of creating an environment for his wife to thrive... to protect her, to lift her up, to encourage her, to present her to others in a way so that others would respect her and receive what she had to share... so that she wouldn't be sidelined...?
It's not because I'm "less than", it's because the enemy has sought to destroy the influence of women, and thus, my husband's responsibility is to present me as a person worthy of equal honor in the Body ...
And, I'm to submit to what the Lord has called him to do... to not get in the way, but to cooperate with what He is doing.
Because the PURPOSE of the husband's servant-leading is to bring the whole of the marriage into full, functioning maturity -- to reflect Christ.
My previous research on "kephale" (Greek "head") showed me that it had a connotation of the husband as "point-man" -- the first one into battle. Physically speaking, this makes sense because men are nearly always physically stronger than women. But Dena points out that part of his job as protector might very well be to make sure she gets equally respected by others who might not otherwise listen to her.
Since Grey does an admirable job of that, and I adore him for it, I am definitely inclined to agree with Dena!
Showing posts with label equality. Show all posts
Showing posts with label equality. Show all posts
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Saturday, June 9, 2007
Feminists and the Church
In recent years, there is a huge schism between feminists and the church. Christians who believe in equal rights and respect for women are afraid to call themselves "feminists" because of hate-spewing bigots like Andrea Dworkin who literally gave feminism a bad name... and feminists who believe and worship Jesus are afraid to call themselves Christians because of misogynistic (and racist) bigots like Bob Jones and his ilk.
But in the roots of feminism, there were very close ties with the Christian community; in fact, the Salvation Army was especially active in promoting women's rights (and many of the first-wave feminists were active in the church as well). It seems that the first-wave feminists and the church of a hundred years ago were both a lot more enlightened than we are today.
Modern feminists, however, hate Christianity because it's so "patriarchal." The reason it is patriarchal is that there have been centuries' worth of wrong teachings concerning certain passages mostly penned by St. Paul. Women being silent in the church and not usurping authority over a man -- that was a directive for one particular church that was having a problem with the women shouting questions to their husbands (men and women didn't sit together), having them answered (loudly) by other women who didn't know any better than they, and just generally being disruptive. Women submitting to their husbands was essentially the same thing that husbands were being asked to do for their wives. Yet people have misinterpreted these passages for hundreds of years and used them to essentially enslave women through spiritual abuse.
What's happening, though, is that even in this modern age, churches are still preaching these mistaken views of women -- and it's proving a real hindrance to the educated, modern, thinking woman who doesn't know Christ.
Don't get me wrong -- many churches and pastors will spout the party line of Galatians 3:28. They'll say that men and women are equal in Christ, but that God has given them different "roles" -- to men, a leadership role, and to women, a subordinate, helping role. Umm... correct me if I'm wrong, but that doesn't sound too equal to me... or if it does, it's only equality in the Orwellian sense.
So when Christians start to witness to feminists, they have to be aware that feminists are even less likely to like Christianity because once the church starts telling them how equal they are in Christ -- "You're equal, but you've gotta submit to your husband. No, he doesn't have to submit to you; it's a one-way street -- but don't worry! You're really equal!" -- they're not gonna go for it.
They're not going to listen to anything that has to do with how "sacrificial" the husband's love is; they're going to hear "he gets to make the decisions," and "you have to do what he says." Not only that, but many churches would also say, "Oh, you're equal to men in Christ -- but you can't teach them anything; your ministry is limited to women and children. Maybe boy children if we're feeling magnanimous. But don't worry-- you're really equal!"
Might as well be sitting around chanting "Two legs, bad! Four legs good!" and "All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others."
Orwellian church? I'll pass, thanks.
But in the roots of feminism, there were very close ties with the Christian community; in fact, the Salvation Army was especially active in promoting women's rights (and many of the first-wave feminists were active in the church as well). It seems that the first-wave feminists and the church of a hundred years ago were both a lot more enlightened than we are today.
Modern feminists, however, hate Christianity because it's so "patriarchal." The reason it is patriarchal is that there have been centuries' worth of wrong teachings concerning certain passages mostly penned by St. Paul. Women being silent in the church and not usurping authority over a man -- that was a directive for one particular church that was having a problem with the women shouting questions to their husbands (men and women didn't sit together), having them answered (loudly) by other women who didn't know any better than they, and just generally being disruptive. Women submitting to their husbands was essentially the same thing that husbands were being asked to do for their wives. Yet people have misinterpreted these passages for hundreds of years and used them to essentially enslave women through spiritual abuse.
What's happening, though, is that even in this modern age, churches are still preaching these mistaken views of women -- and it's proving a real hindrance to the educated, modern, thinking woman who doesn't know Christ.
Don't get me wrong -- many churches and pastors will spout the party line of Galatians 3:28. They'll say that men and women are equal in Christ, but that God has given them different "roles" -- to men, a leadership role, and to women, a subordinate, helping role. Umm... correct me if I'm wrong, but that doesn't sound too equal to me... or if it does, it's only equality in the Orwellian sense.
So when Christians start to witness to feminists, they have to be aware that feminists are even less likely to like Christianity because once the church starts telling them how equal they are in Christ -- "You're equal, but you've gotta submit to your husband. No, he doesn't have to submit to you; it's a one-way street -- but don't worry! You're really equal!" -- they're not gonna go for it.
They're not going to listen to anything that has to do with how "sacrificial" the husband's love is; they're going to hear "he gets to make the decisions," and "you have to do what he says." Not only that, but many churches would also say, "Oh, you're equal to men in Christ -- but you can't teach them anything; your ministry is limited to women and children. Maybe boy children if we're feeling magnanimous. But don't worry-- you're really equal!"
Might as well be sitting around chanting "Two legs, bad! Four legs good!" and "All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others."
Orwellian church? I'll pass, thanks.
Wednesday, June 6, 2007
The "Covering" Doctrine of Authority
Our church is big into the concept of "covering." We wanted to offer a Crown Financial Ministries small group study to our fellow parishioners a year ago, but when I broached the topic to the pastor's wife (who is in charge of the majority of the ministries there), she took control of the idea. I had been thinking to meet in our home, but she said no, they'd rather have it there in the church meetingroom so they could have it under their "covering." They didn't want to use Crown materials, but instead use "HomeBuilder" materials instead, which apparently has a financial piece to it. She did offer us the chance to lead the finances class, but only in their building and using their stuff, and she specifically said it was so that we could be under their "covering." (Never once did she ask to see the Crown materials that we already had -- it was their way or the highway, it seemed.)
Last summer they did a whole big video series, 3 months' worth, called "Under Cover" by John Bevere. The whole point of it was all about respecting the authority which God has placed over you -- which is all right and good -- but then he said that the church (read: pastor) is the principle authority that God has placed over you.
He said that pastors should be obeyed; the example our pastor came up with was that if he asked all the men to wear Hawaiian shirts to church on Sundays, and they didn't have a spiritual, Biblical reason not to, then they should all wear them. Because he, the pastor, was placed in authority over us, and we owed him our respect and to a certain extent, our obedience.
To me, that smacks of cultism, to be quite honest.
Whatever happened to God's being our authority?
Another thing: I know several pastors and their wives in real life, and they all say that they can't have real, deep, open friendships with people in their congregation. They can't "confess their sins one to another" unless the "one another" is a bunch of other pastors. Why not? Because it undermines their authority for people to think that their pastor struggles with the same sins they do. This is a perfect example of "authority" coming between people. In order to keep their authority, they must show a different face to their congregation than they do to their group of pastor-friends. When they should be concentrating on building relationships (loving your neighbor as yourself), they concentrate on saving face.
People call pastors "shepherds" and the congregation "sheep." But really, isn't the pastor just another sheep and Jesus is the Shepherd? You can't have equality between people when one of them is constantly set up above the other as a spiritual authority. It's one thing if they take turns: If I go to another congregant and ask for counsel, then for that moment she has spiritual authority over me... but at the same time we're still peers, in that I can choose whether to follow her advice or not. AND by the end of the conversation we're back to being peers again. And then she might need counsel from me.
If I go to the pastor for counsel, I go as a supplicant, someone who is constantly "lower" than he is. His advice has the ring of authority to it, and there's usually a strong undercurrent of "you must do *this* to be in the will of God," where the peer would more likely say "you must pray and figure out for yourself how to be in the will of God." And after my counseling session with the pastor, he's still the one in authority over me, and I'm still the supplicant. There's no equality there. He's never going to ask advice from me. There's no submitting one to another there, as Ephesians 5 directs us to do.
Now, a huge part of the church idea of "covering" is also protection, as I mentioned already -- specifically in this case, protection from spiritual error. Yes, the pastor's word will carry the ring of authority, because he wants me to follow his advice and wants to protect me from error...
But isn't it the Holy Spirit's job to protect us from error? And if I have this man, even as a pastor, as a "covering" -- an intermediary between me and God -- it seems as if he is trying to do too much. He's trying to do God's job. If God wants to teach me something that our pastor's ordaining denomination does not believe, then the pastor would actually be protecting me FROM GOD, wouldn't he? (And yes, there are a few issues where I suspect this is the case)
I do agree that we need teachers of the scriptures, yes. But do we need one person who is constantly in authority over us, who can't allow himself to be real with us, and who essentially comes between us and God? Whether it's authority, protection, or whatever, his "umbrella" is still between us and God.
The more I think about it, the more the concept of "covering" seems like
a) control, as in wanting to keep control of the congregation and what is taught and all, and...
b) fear and lack of trust in God -- that God won't be able to correct any possible errors that may crop up.
I see it at our church -- our pastor and his wife are very, very busy people, because they have so many ministries going on. However, they don't delegate as much as they should, because they want to stay in control of what's going on -- and they call it keeping us under their "covering."
Disclaimer: No, I'm not bashing pastors in any way; I know they work hard and can get burned out and most of them do a great job. I'm just complaining about the concept of "covering" that some of them teach. All too often I've heard people use that word when it really meant "control."
(The Baptist church I grew up in called it "male leadership" and was a lot more subtle about it... but there still weren't any women heading up any church ministries.)
It seems as if I am embarking on wilderness journey here, questioning things I've been taught by one church or another. The doctrine of "covering" just strikes me as wrong, in the sense that I've been taught by our pastor and his wife. It's like saying that Jesus' sacrifice wasn't enough; we still need go-betweens, between us and Jesus.
And here I thought the curtain of the holiest of holies had been torn all down the middle -- it really seems as though the "covering" people want to sew it back up again. Whether the covering is supposed to be the husband, for a woman, or the church/pastor/elders, for the husband -- they still get between us and Jesus.
I've also heard it taught (I think I've mentioned this before) that they view it as protection, to help protect you spiritually from demons, from false doctrine, etc. Well, for many many people what it actually protects them from is directly experiencing God's grace and presence!
I have the Holy Spirit inside, to protect me from false doctrine... I have the authority of Jesus' blood to protect me from demons (and again, the Holy Spirit to help with discerning them)... and I don't need anything getting in the way of my access to God.
Covering is starting to sound like a euphemism for "control" to me.
Call me crazy, but I'm pretty sure the Holy spirit should be the only one in control.
Last summer they did a whole big video series, 3 months' worth, called "Under Cover" by John Bevere. The whole point of it was all about respecting the authority which God has placed over you -- which is all right and good -- but then he said that the church (read: pastor) is the principle authority that God has placed over you.
He said that pastors should be obeyed; the example our pastor came up with was that if he asked all the men to wear Hawaiian shirts to church on Sundays, and they didn't have a spiritual, Biblical reason not to, then they should all wear them. Because he, the pastor, was placed in authority over us, and we owed him our respect and to a certain extent, our obedience.
To me, that smacks of cultism, to be quite honest.
Whatever happened to God's being our authority?
Another thing: I know several pastors and their wives in real life, and they all say that they can't have real, deep, open friendships with people in their congregation. They can't "confess their sins one to another" unless the "one another" is a bunch of other pastors. Why not? Because it undermines their authority for people to think that their pastor struggles with the same sins they do. This is a perfect example of "authority" coming between people. In order to keep their authority, they must show a different face to their congregation than they do to their group of pastor-friends. When they should be concentrating on building relationships (loving your neighbor as yourself), they concentrate on saving face.
People call pastors "shepherds" and the congregation "sheep." But really, isn't the pastor just another sheep and Jesus is the Shepherd? You can't have equality between people when one of them is constantly set up above the other as a spiritual authority. It's one thing if they take turns: If I go to another congregant and ask for counsel, then for that moment she has spiritual authority over me... but at the same time we're still peers, in that I can choose whether to follow her advice or not. AND by the end of the conversation we're back to being peers again. And then she might need counsel from me.
If I go to the pastor for counsel, I go as a supplicant, someone who is constantly "lower" than he is. His advice has the ring of authority to it, and there's usually a strong undercurrent of "you must do *this* to be in the will of God," where the peer would more likely say "you must pray and figure out for yourself how to be in the will of God." And after my counseling session with the pastor, he's still the one in authority over me, and I'm still the supplicant. There's no equality there. He's never going to ask advice from me. There's no submitting one to another there, as Ephesians 5 directs us to do.
Now, a huge part of the church idea of "covering" is also protection, as I mentioned already -- specifically in this case, protection from spiritual error. Yes, the pastor's word will carry the ring of authority, because he wants me to follow his advice and wants to protect me from error...
But isn't it the Holy Spirit's job to protect us from error? And if I have this man, even as a pastor, as a "covering" -- an intermediary between me and God -- it seems as if he is trying to do too much. He's trying to do God's job. If God wants to teach me something that our pastor's ordaining denomination does not believe, then the pastor would actually be protecting me FROM GOD, wouldn't he? (And yes, there are a few issues where I suspect this is the case)
I do agree that we need teachers of the scriptures, yes. But do we need one person who is constantly in authority over us, who can't allow himself to be real with us, and who essentially comes between us and God? Whether it's authority, protection, or whatever, his "umbrella" is still between us and God.
The more I think about it, the more the concept of "covering" seems like
a) control, as in wanting to keep control of the congregation and what is taught and all, and...
b) fear and lack of trust in God -- that God won't be able to correct any possible errors that may crop up.
I see it at our church -- our pastor and his wife are very, very busy people, because they have so many ministries going on. However, they don't delegate as much as they should, because they want to stay in control of what's going on -- and they call it keeping us under their "covering."
Disclaimer: No, I'm not bashing pastors in any way; I know they work hard and can get burned out and most of them do a great job. I'm just complaining about the concept of "covering" that some of them teach. All too often I've heard people use that word when it really meant "control."
(The Baptist church I grew up in called it "male leadership" and was a lot more subtle about it... but there still weren't any women heading up any church ministries.)
It seems as if I am embarking on wilderness journey here, questioning things I've been taught by one church or another. The doctrine of "covering" just strikes me as wrong, in the sense that I've been taught by our pastor and his wife. It's like saying that Jesus' sacrifice wasn't enough; we still need go-betweens, between us and Jesus.
And here I thought the curtain of the holiest of holies had been torn all down the middle -- it really seems as though the "covering" people want to sew it back up again. Whether the covering is supposed to be the husband, for a woman, or the church/pastor/elders, for the husband -- they still get between us and Jesus.
I've also heard it taught (I think I've mentioned this before) that they view it as protection, to help protect you spiritually from demons, from false doctrine, etc. Well, for many many people what it actually protects them from is directly experiencing God's grace and presence!
I have the Holy Spirit inside, to protect me from false doctrine... I have the authority of Jesus' blood to protect me from demons (and again, the Holy Spirit to help with discerning them)... and I don't need anything getting in the way of my access to God.
Covering is starting to sound like a euphemism for "control" to me.
Call me crazy, but I'm pretty sure the Holy spirit should be the only one in control.
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