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Christian Feminism...

Discussion in 'General Baptist Discussions' started by UnchartedSpirit, Jul 2, 2008.

  1. Timsings

    Timsings Member
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    That just about sums up the problem.



    Ahh! The voice of experience.




    None that you would notice. :BangHead:


    Tim Reynolds
     
  2. stilllearning

    stilllearning Active Member

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    Hi annsni

    You said.........

    Great response.
     
  3. nodak

    nodak Active Member
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    Here we go again with myths and misreadings:

    1. "The Bible says women cannot be deacons." Hmm--somebody should have told Paul not to mention Phoebe, I guess.

    2. "Women cannot be senior pastors." For the record, there is no such thing as a "senior pastor" in scripture. There are pastors, teachers, elders, bishops, evangelists, and a whole long list of offices and jobs but no senior pastors. There are no passages saying women cannot be something that isn't mentioned in the Bible!

    Now, I know good God fearing folks that are appalled at the thought of ordaining women. And I know good God fearing folks in favor of ordaining women. They both cuss and discuss the issue ad infinitum.

    And Satan laughs. He laughs because we are so busy fussing over who can do the work we don't get around to doing the work.

    If you are female and called to serve, serve. If your church or denom won't let you, leave and go elsewhere.

    If you don't fit that category, spend your time soul winning.
     
  4. donnA

    donnA Active Member

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    God never ever calls anyone to violate scripture. If He did He would be calling people into sin, a violation of who He is. The bible specifies women are not to have authroity over men, they are not to teach men.
     
  5. annsni

    annsni Well-Known Member
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    Very correct. I seriously wonder how many women who have been "called" to pastor have not been called to something else and they didn't follow that calling properly. Women can most certainly serve, teach and lead - but not the men in a congregation. However, that's not the only leadership, teaching or servant role there is in church (pastor).
     
  6. tinytim

    tinytim <img src =/tim2.jpg>

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    Here is my view on this, and I am part of the ABC/USA which recognizes women as pastors.. I have a few that are good friends of mine....
    So mind you I probably disagree with a lot of people here...

    But here goes....


    If a woman is sure God is calling her to preach or pastor, she had better obey God, and do it. She has to answer to God, not man.

    But I am not called to set under a woman's preaching or pastoring.

    There are great Christians on both sides of the issue.
    And it all depends on how a person interprets the issue.

    I can see both sides equally. But because of my cultural upbringing, I could never attend a church where the pastor was a woman.
    I can work with them in ecumenical situations, or denominational situations, and respect the office they hold. But I could not be a member in a church with a woman pastor. (which helps that I am a pastor!)

    I for one believe Pheobe was a deaconness..
    but in the NT, the deacons or deaconesses did not have authority.

    They were servants...

    So, there you have my 2 cents worth.
     
    #86 tinytim, Jul 8, 2008
    Last edited by a moderator: Jul 8, 2008
  7. standingfirminChrist

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    No one is 'called' to sit under a woman's pastoring.

    The Bishop "must be" the husband of one wife, not the wife of one husband.
     
  8. Timsings

    Timsings Member
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    Tim,

    This is an opinion that I can respect. It is worth a lot more than 2 cents. Well said!

    We have just called a new pastor (a new male pastor). During the interim (about 19 months) we had several women preach for us. Some of them did very well. Some were average. One spoke so softly that I could not understand one word she said, and I was sitting in the choir loft!

    We had several resumes submitted to our search committee by women (out of over 100 total). My daughter was on the committee. After the process was completed, I asked her when the last woman fell out of consideration. She said it happened fairly early because of their lack of experience. We had some church members who were pushing for a woman. We had others who did not want a woman. I was part of the majority who simply wanted the process to play itself out so that we could see who God had picked for us. He's been here two months, and we are very happy.

    (I thought about restating some of my earlier comments to conclude this, but I don't think I need to. I've probably shot my mouth off too much as it is.)

    Tim Reynolds
     
  9. donnA

    donnA Active Member

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    And I guess this man made opinion over rules scripture.
     
  10. blackbird

    blackbird Active Member

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    My thoughts exactly, DonnA!!!
     
    #90 blackbird, Jul 8, 2008
    Last edited by a moderator: Jul 8, 2008
  11. preachinjesus

    preachinjesus Well-Known Member
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    Here's the thing, it's not about me...you accuse, openly accuse fine Christian people on this very board of being "liberal" and "anti-biblical" and have never backed it up.

    You openly attack other Christians and libel them in some quasi-intellectual atempt at grandeur and have never backed up your slings and arrows with substantive evidence. I am frankly tired of it. If this were an actual church you would be at least required to submit some kind of evidence for you claims.

    Additionaly, from one pastor to another...you can't act like this. If you want to be a "truth speaker" to root out false teaching that's fine, but back it up. Seriously, put some action to your claims.

    No I haven't. You're being overly dramatic and again not engaging my criticisms.

    As do I, but you're again avoiding the issues.

    You can't just dismiss a question because it is "beneath you." Seriously, I have asked you to show us evidence for your flagrant accusations against your brothers and sisters in Christ. You can castigated and libeled many on this board in Christendom in general (even in this thread you have suggest Russell Dilday is a false teacher amongst others.) Stop dodging the issues...back it up. Otherwise leave.
     
  12. preachinjesus

    preachinjesus Well-Known Member
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    Very well said good sir. I appreciate your input here. :)

    I think women as deacons is a Scripturally tenuous position, but have worked with churches who have them in the past. One thing to remember is the term for deacon in Greek is a gender transitive word...it can be either masculine or feminine...just a fun little point. :)
     
  13. tinytim

    tinytim <img src =/tim2.jpg>

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    \
    No it doesn't overrule scripture, but there are many ways to interpret Paul's writings, and when you put them up against the full counsel of scripture where there are examples of women preaching (philip's daughters), women leading men... (Deborah), and the deaconess (Pheobe)
    You start seeing how even Bible loving Baptists can interpret the Bible to allow women to pastor.

    For instance, do you take everything in the Bible literally?
    If not how do you know what to take literally and what to not take literally.
    Some Scripture was written to be symbolic, some literally, and some to a certain cultures that don't exist anymore.

    The key to proper interpretation is to look past the words, and find the meaning that God wants us to pull out of the passage.

    So take SFIC's example of Paul writing to Timothy that Bishops must be husbands of one wife.

    A couple things to take into count..
    ARe you 100% sure the word "Bishop" means pastor... If so, why are you 100% sure? Have you studied the historical hierarchy of the 1st century church, or are you taking your pastor's word for it.
    If Bishop does not = Pastor, then could it be possible for a woman to be a pastor of a church, but the Bishop over her must be male?


    Another thing was the fact that Paul was writing to a Male dominated culture.. If this is the case, are you 100% sure that he only meant men could be Bishops... or was his emphasis on fidelity in marriage.

    If he was emphasising marriage fidelity, then it leaves room for the interpretation that it could be one spouse for one spouse, and if this is the case, then it would not prohibit a woman being a Bishop.

    All I am trying to say is that Christians today seem to want to take the easy road in theology, and not struggle with hard issues. This issue is not as cut and dry as some seem to make it. Especially when you have to explain away a lot of women that God used in the Bible to spread his word, and to be leaders...

    I don't really care which side of the issue you come down on, as long as you have really studied it for yourself, and not just taking other's words for it.

    Like I said earlier, I could never have a woman pastor.
    But I know a lot of good Christians that disagree with me, and I understand why...

    The mature thing to do is to agree to disagree, and try to understand and respect the other side of the issue.
    I may not agree to women pastors, but I can respect those that do, and it does not mean they don't cherish or follow the Bible.. It means we interpret it differently.

    They are not my enemy... Satan is.
     
  14. Joe

    Joe New Member

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    You hit the nail on the head :thumbs:
     
  15. gb93433

    gb93433 Active Member
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    What role did Mrs. Criswell play when she taught adult Sunday School classes to mixed groups of men and women?
     
  16. gb93433

    gb93433 Active Member
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    While what you write is true. The problem is in doing what God wants. The truth is that many have added and others have taken away from scripture while very few hit it dead on. The religious politicains do not like those who wiull nto play the political game and instead seek to do what scripture commands.

    I can assure you that if you were to ask every SBC leader and seminary professor about what true discipleship is and ask them about the disciples they have made you would get some very interesting answers.

    The truth is if one goes back through the documents during the time of the early church most fundamentalists American churches are surely deficient in the role of women in ministry. Most will say that a women cannot be a deacon or pastor. What they fail to realize is that the early documents show that there were deaconesses in the early church that served a vital function among women and children.
     
  17. gb93433

    gb93433 Active Member
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    Have you ever wondered why Patterson wanted to hire Claude Thomas?

    The following is from http://www.thegreenbible.org/article_detail.cfm?AID=10397


    [FONT=&quot]Patterson's wife, Dorothy, endorsed one of Doug Phillips' books, and Phillips spoke fondly of an hour he and Paige Patterson spent discussing African safaris when both were speakers at a Memorial Day conference in 2003.[/FONT]
    [FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
    [FONT=&quot]Vision Forum believes God's command to "be fruitful and multiply" still applies to married couples. In her lecture Kunsman spoke of "militant fecundity" associated with the movement.[/FONT]
    [FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
    [FONT=&quot]"It is the duty of Christians to bear large families full of godly seed to populate the earth and bring forth what God intended us to have, particularly in America," she said. "That's how we're going to get our Christian America."[/FONT]
    [FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
    [FONT=&quot]Russell Moore, theology dean at Southern Seminary, said Southern Baptists need to increase their birth rate if they are going to keep up with growing denominations like Mormons and the Church of God.[/FONT]
    [FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
    [FONT=&quot]Phillips says it's a waste of money to invest in an expensive college education for daughters. [/FONT]
    [FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
    [FONT=&quot]"It seems very pragmatic," Kunsman said in her lecture. "Why pour a lot of resources when you've got 10 kids and sons to train? You don't want to train your daughter in quantum physics."[/FONT]
    [FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
    [FONT=&quot]Phillips says in his own words: "We do not need MORE female Christian lawyers, doctors or artists, but MORE godly women raising MORE godly children who will fill the earth and subdue it to the glory of God. And does it really make economic sense to invest tens of thousands of dollars for a woman to get an advanced education (often having to go into debt to finance that education) that she will NOT use if she accepts that her highest calling is to be a wife and mother?"[/FONT]
    [FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
    [FONT=&quot]Paige Patterson worries that the fact that 60 percent of college and university students are now female means that men will become underrepresented in the intelligentsia and women will ascend into new roles that distract them from the home.[/FONT]
    [FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
    [FONT=&quot]Vision Forum believes that "Christians should not send their children to public schools since education is not a God-ordained function of civil government and since these schools are sub-Christian at best and anti-Christian at worst."[/FONT]
    [FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
    [FONT=&quot]Mohler has called on responsible Christian parents to develop an "exit strategy" from public schools.[/FONT]
    [FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
    [FONT=&quot]Phillips also promotes the Family Integrated Church model, which caters to homeschool families and rejects the program approach used in traditional churches that divides families into age groups and segregates them for religious activities.[/FONT]
    [FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
    [FONT=&quot]The Fundamentalist Baptist Bible Fellowship denounced the Family Integrated Church as "doctrinally errant and schismatic." Southern Seminary, meanwhile, adopted it as a new model for its School of Leadership and Church Ministry.[/FONT]
    [FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
    [FONT=&quot]"We think this is the direction that our churches really need and want and there is a great vacuum in evangelical theological education for such a program," Mohler said in describing newly hired Dean Randy Stinson's family-integrated ministry emphasis.[/FONT]
    [FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
    [FONT=&quot] ========================================================[/FONT]
    [FONT=&quot]I wonder where they stand on Proverbs 31:14, 16, 17.[/FONT]
    [FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
    [FONT=&quot]I grew up on a dairy farm where all of us worked. When I read about people who subscribe to such non-agrarian nonsense perpetuated by Christians in the past 50 years or so that never existed before that time it doesn't make me wonder about their efforts and realism. I see them as living a life of fantasy in la la land. I wonder how many hay bales Mrs. Paterson ever lifted. I wonder how many fields she plowed, and how many cows she milked? My grandmother who died at the age of 97 in 2004 helped my grandfather on the farm until they had enough money to retire. She drove trucks, lifted hay bales, drove the tractors and helped milk the cows. Growing up I saw a mom and a grandmother helping their husbands with the farm work that needed to be done. Everyone worked both in the house and in the fields. We did whatever needed to be done. By the time I was 18 I knew how to do farm work, cook, bake, and sew simple things. [/FONT]
    [FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
    [FONT=&quot]My daughter has been helping me in my business each summer since she was about 10 years old. It has been a good attitude adjuster for her. She has developed some skills and has gained a better attitude about helping others. When some of our neighbors were gone for a short time during the winter she has helped me clean snow from their driveways.[/FONT]
    [FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
    [FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
    [FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
     
  18. Revmitchell

    Revmitchell Well-Known Member
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    1. Who are the many?
    2. Someone else brought up Dilday The trustees saw that he needed firing and I agree with it. If that bothers you to bad.
    3. I quoted the statements that are biblically unsound.
    4. If you want someone to leave you know the way out.
     
  19. gb93433

    gb93433 Active Member
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    Don't be surprised that after you have studied your Bible more that you will find a few surprises. I think all of us who have lived a little longer have gotten a few surprises along the way. Some who you now think are such great leaders will be seen crashing. It seems that more and more we are hearing about it in the national news.
     
  20. Revmitchell

    Revmitchell Well-Known Member
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    Phoebe was not a deacon and there is no such thing as a Deaconess.
     
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