Comparing the ESV and NRSV

Here are three Bible translation charts. The first one is found all over the internet and clearly displays the ESV as more literal than the King James Version, while the RSV and NRSV are = less literal than the KJV. I am not sure where this chart originated.

The second chart is from Parchment and Pen. The NRSV is not found in this chart but the ESV is considered less literal than the KJV.

The third chart is a display of a software comparison of several Bible translations. It is worth noting that the ESV and the NRSV, which feature so far apart on other charts, are actually very close together. What I am wondering is if the first two charts are based on any evidence or analysis, or are just free hand sketches of what someone thinks is so.

Does submission lead to sanctification?

The discussion on gender continues. On this post Dave comments,

Kristen and Tim,

To take the slavery example Kristen gives.

Even if you have a wonderful owner isn't slavery still abuse? At the end of the day you are not free, you are not equal. In other words you cannot treat a slave so well that it is not abuse to be a slave.

So as far as I can see it would be true to say "Slavery is abuse. Period".

Should patriarchy really be different? Yes, there seem to be many patriarchal marriages where people are happy but isn't the system of patriarchy itself abuse as slavery is?

For some might the lack of awareness that they are not equal and not free be a sign of abuse?

I don't want to make the jump that all patriarchal marriages are abusive in terms of physical abuse. But equally I do want to say

a) physical, spiritual, emotional abuse is more common in patriarchal marriages.

b)if you are not free to be equal then isn't that a form of abuse? ("image of God abuse"?)

A female commenter on this post admits that submission is difficult, but offers the following justification,

As a woman and wife I often find this command of submission difficult but I believe that God’s word is inerrant, His ways are best, and that obedience to the biblical design of complimentarianism leads to great blessing and sanctification. We have only to look at the culture around us to see that egalitarianism and complemegalitarianism are flawed and ineffective.

My response is that all cultures throughout history have been flawed and ineffective. Women are better off today than ever before. Just because we are not aware of the many women in the 19th century, and throughout history, who remained single all their life, who became prostitutes, who lived in debtors prison, who were raped by husbands and strangers - just because our great novels do not often celebrate their lives - does not mean that they did not exist.

Egalitarianism offers women the chance to earn a living, save for old age, support their children and basically contribute to the well-being of their family when difficult circumstances arise.

If submission brings sanctification and blessing just because it is difficult, I think one could arrange to get cancer or some other suffering of that sort. I do not see the need for the soul-suffering that a life of inequality has to offer. Why would men want to enforce this on their wives anyway? It seems a perverse arrangment to demand of a wife something one knows is difficult and what one has no intention of living with oneself. Women already have to bear children. Isn't that enough?

Storied Theology on women

Daniel continues to write about the role of women - as equals in Plotting Women into the Gospel Story.

Gender Wars

Jocelyn Andersen has written a book called Woman this is War: Gender, Slavery and the Evangelical Caste System. Her thesis is that Patriarchy leads to abuse. Period. Dave Warnock supports this thesis here and muses more on what action his church should take here. He also intends to review Jocelyn's book. I look forward to this.

There are several important statements in Dave's post and comments. He writes,

Oh and friends in the Church of England, don't think we won't notice if you give in to a noisy minority and don't implement full and equal women Bishops. We are watching and waiting, I for one will not be willing to compromise on this.

I for one am tempted to say Methodists should not consider any more steps implementing the Covenant with the Church of England (such as Bishops ourselves) until a women is installed as the Archbishop of Canterbury.

I am fully with Dave on this. I do not think that any form of compromise with those who do not treat women as equals is useful. It is only under prolonged pressure and disapproval, that those who do not treat women as equals will shift their position.

It is similar to smoking cigarettes. Once society as a whole disapproved of smoking in public places, cigarette sales decreased. On the other hand, some forms of smoking have gone underground when made illegal - for example, marijuana. Will those who treat women as chattel and babymakers simply retreat further? I don't know, but like prostitution and pornography, I don't think we can compromise in hopes of mitigating these evils. We need to stand against them.

If laws and societal disapproval can decrease the number of people smoking, why not come out against treating women as non-equals in the home and church? Shirley Taylor on her blog, Baptist Women for Equality, asks this of us all.

PS Joel has also written about this issue here linking to a post on Daniel Kirk's blog. I have to run but will read these later.

Reading the Preface

I mentioned recently that gender language in the English Standard Version can only be understood as the translators intended it, if you read the preface. Yesterday a friend handed me a copy of this thesis about the preface of the King James Bible by Edgar Goodspeed. It is an excellent academic response to the KJV only folks.

The author points out the inappropriateness of publishing a book without its preface. There is the added problem that those who read the Bible often do not read a preface even if it is provided. Goodspeed writes,

Especially for students, the Preface, with its wealth of contemporary materials and attitudes, is indispensable. In a humanities survey course for college Freshmen, a western university recently purchased 43 copies of the King James Bible without the Preface. In no other field of study would such a course have been dreamed of. To approach that version historically, and as any student should, without the Preface, is simply impossible. What has been said of the importance of the Preface to the general reader is even more true of the student, and it is high time our teachers of the English Bible in colleges awoke to the fact. But how can they be expected to awaken to it, when very few of them have ever seen a Bible containing the Preface? For the past hundred years, from the point of view of everyone -- ministers, professors, students, general readers, pious readers -- the Preface has been virtually suppressed.

The chief edition of the Bible containing it since 1821 is the English royal quarto, published by the Oxford University Press. This is an expensive pulpit Bible, seldom seen in America, which we cannot expect colleges to place in quantities in their reading rooms. On the other hand, the British and Foreign Bible Society and the American Bible Society seem never to have included the Preface in their Bibles at all. It has been included in only two other printings of the Bible, so far as I can learn, in the past hundred years.

Cherry Garcia Ice Cream

I have been having a marvelous time in the States the last ten days, and am really enjoying the warm hospitality south of the border. After a delicious desert of Cherry Garcia ice cream tonight and watching the fireworks, I happened on this video. It turns out this is what I have in common with Wayne Grudem - Cherry Garcia ice cream. Listen and enjoy. No negative comments, please. But you can wonder what will happen to little Hannah if you like, the Grudem's grandaughter, who wants to be a pastor.

Websites for women

A commenter has asked,

Is there a group of "abused ministers wives?" I am about to lose my home as some of the continuing fallout from his harrassment after the divorce. No one is willing to help me. No one seems to want to help me. One church said, "We are not going to help YOU!" That seemed like a personal rebuff and hurt greatly. Of course, without support from my children and at age 63, the burdens become greater all the time. At this point in time, no one knows the despair I am going through or the depths of my anguish. Please don't suggest I pray.

I do know some "abused minister's wives" and perhaps some "abused ministers" but I do not know of a relevant group. I can only recommend that you read the following websites and blogs, which will affirm that other people have experienced the same thing.

No Longer Quivering
NLQ Stories (Journey has a similar story to yours)
NLQ Take Heart Project
Submission Tyranny
Women Submit
Emotional Abuse and your Faith
Baptist Women for Equality
Church Exiters
The Redheaded Skeptic is a great blog on this topic. Follow her story starting here and here.

Perhaps my readers could suggest other resources. Thanks.

Pastoring Women

What does this mean? Women who pastor, or men who pastor women? Shockingly, it is the latter.

Somehow I am not surprised that the following "sex act" theology comes from a relative of Bruce Ware. Here is what Owen Strachan wrote on the blog Pastoring Women in order pastor women,

These different roles depend, we should note, both on divine fiat and on the different constitutional and physiological realities which this creative force brought into being.[8] Generally speaking, God made men physically stronger, analytically inclined, and the initiator of the childbearing process. Women are often physically weaker and more emotionally and linguistically attuned than men, and they require physical initiation to bear children. The very bodies of women show that they are designed to nurture children, even if our culture wants to overlook these basic bodily realities. The wisdom of God’s will is embodied by the men and women who bear his image. What God has called women to be in spirit he has made them to be in body.

I will let commenters remark on the many stereotypes found here. But I want to point out that in the scriptures many sex acts which lead to the birth of significant children were initiated by women. Think of Rachel, Hannah, Ruth, and Tamar. I thought at first that most, if not all, historic conceptions recorded in the Bible were initiated by women, and that this was proper. But I have changed my mind.

It appears to me, on reflection, that a sex act can be initiated by either a man or a woman - this important role does not belong to exclusively to one gender. I think that is what Paul meant in 1 Cor. 7 - he meant that it belongs to the man to have the power to arouse the woman, and it belongs to the woman to have the power to arouse the man. This is the reciprocity that Paul writes about.

Anyway, there is lots more to life, and as we age and enter into caring for children, parents, siblings and friends, and life rounds out and fills in, the almighty sex act is not the central piece that this paragraph makes it out to be. We find ourselves to be siblings and friends, coworkers and colleagues, journeying together, finding that we have more in common all the time. We are all of us, women and men, vulnerable, courageous, kind, fearful, voluble and at a loss for words, dense and insightful.

Well, this blog is quite disturbing but it goes to show that some of what I have heard others mention, really is taught to women.

On a final note, I really like what Susan Hunt writes.

On how to find the meaning of a Greek word

Here is an excellent article by Bill Mounce on how we define biblical words. Here is my summary of his points.

• lexicons and translations
• Latin translation
• ancient lexicons
• occurrences of the word classical and Koine Greek literature
• range of meanings in these contexts
• context in the Bible

This is why I usually first study the meaning of a word in several lexicons and in translations starting from the Vulgate to the present day. From the lexicons, one can look up the use of the word in other Greek literature. This is the most basic evidence for what a word means. Context in the Bible is the last piece one uses.

However, you cannot establish from context that a word means something different from what it usually means in Greek literature, without proving that it cannot possibly have a meaning that falls within its normal meaning in Greek. Using "context" is not license to interpret a word in the Bible in accordance with your presuppositions and biases.

This is a very important list for the many times that complementarians and egalitarians differ on the meaning of a word in Greek.

rambling thoughts on feminism

Christian women are torn on the use of the word "feminism." Even if you never use it yourself, as I never did, it will be thrown at you - if you do not scrape the ground and play dead. Then what do you do? Stand up and say, "Not me! I would never agree with equality for women?" Not ruddy likely! So like it or not, a woman has to deal with this word.

The first time I told a colleague at school that I had been called a "...... feminist" online, she spurted a mouthful of coffee right out of her mouth. Clearly, I am not your typical in-your-face feminist in my bricks and mortar life.

The reality is that unless a woman is deprived of rights, she has little reason to ask for more rights. As a female teacher, I have all the rights of the male teachers, and as one of the majority, it is my duty to make the male teachers feel welcome and included. I have been in schools where female teachers do not make the men feel comfortable, simply by steering the conversation in directions that are not easily engaged in by both sexes. But in my present school, we love our male teachers, and make a concerted effort to express our appreciation and concern for what makes them feel included.

Anyway, I am rambling - what a mess. In my work life, I don't have to be a vocal feminist, but in the Christian community it is very necessary because normal rights that we need to carry on basic life and care for ourselves, our parents and our children, are being removed from women.

Here is the link that I meant to pass on about Sarah Palin. She is expanding the use of the term feminism. I am happy with that. Feminism should be a broad term like "conservative" or "liberal" or "Christian" and many other terms which take on meaning in their context. I am happy to be a "feminist," sometimes conservative, sometimes liberal and sometimes "Christian" .

Prodigal Thought

I have recently been reading Scott's blog, Prodigal Thought. In this post, he summarizes his series on the role of women, and continues it. Scott is taking a unique approach, which I am sure you will enjoy.

TC discusses his switch to the ESV here and here. It really bothers me that we do not have a Bible translation which most people can make peace with.

Ken Pulliam blogs about Biblical Counselling and Christian women. Paula has earned a place in the top 50 biblioblogs.

Finally, there has also been a fair bit of talk about an article entitled The End of Men. Mohler wrote about, also Gary Simmons and Julie Clawson.

Another June Wedding

It was a gorgeous wedding, very relaxed and fun. My son and his sweetheart were married down by the beach. There were no prepared speeches but we did have an open mike session. As you can see, it was very lively!

Charis has posted pictures of her daughters wedding, so I thought I would share.

Reminders about the ESV

Since a discussion about gender language in Bible translations has cropped up here and here, let me provide a reminder of why the ESV is not a good Bible translation with regard to gender.

Here is a passage from the preface to the ESV,

In the area of gender language, the goal of the ESV is to render literally what is in the original. For example, “anyone” replaces “any man” where there is no word corresponding to “man” in the original languages, and “people” rather than “men” is regularly used where the original languages refer to both men and women. But the words “man” and “men” are retained where a male meaning component is part of the original Greek or Hebrew. Likewise, the word “man” has been retained where the original text intends to convey a clear contrast between “God” on the one hand and “man” on the other hand, with “man” being used in the collective sense of the whole human race (see Luke 2:52).

In Greek there is one word for man, as a male, aner; and another word, anthropos, for a "human." Since in English we don't use the word "human" in normal discourse, when this word occurs for a single male, we translate it as "man." However, when this word occurs in the plural, we translate it as "people." So, in translating Greek, the plural of aner is translated as "men" and the plural of anthropos is translated as "people."

Let's look at these verses in the ESV,

and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. 2 Tim. 2:2

“When he ascended on high he led a host of captives,
and he gave gifts to men.” Eph. 4:8

And Jesus said to them, "Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men. Mark 1:17

And I tell you, everyone who acknowledges me before men, the Son of Man also will acknowledge before the angels of God Luke 12:8

In him was life, and the life was the light of men. John 1:4

Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. Romans 5:18

For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, 1 Tim. 2:5

For every high priest chosen from among men is appointed to act on behalf of men in relation to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins. Hebreww 5:1

For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. 2 Peter 1:21

According to the preface of the ESV, these verses should have been translated using the word "people" in order to be literal, gender accurate and transparent to the Greek.

If the ESV used "men" instead of "people" in order to be traditional and to preserve euphony, then the translators had better say so. They would need to admit that the translation is not all that literal, not literal at all when it comes to gender, but traditional, conservative, and preserving the rhythm of the KJV.

What is so wrong with admitting this? Why do the translators claim for their translation something that is simply not true? It's a tissue of nonsense, a tangled web of half truths.

Why use a gender inclusive translation

Here is Daniel Kirk on the topic, HT Joel,

To the overall question, why require a gender-inclusive translation? My overall answer is this: to keep transforming the culture of the church until we actually believe (and therefore act like) that women and men are equal members of the body of Christ, equally addressed by the word of God, and equally empowered by the Spirit to serve in it (and therefore lead it).

My student asked specifically about requiring the now defunct TNIV and the NRSV that was sponsored by the World Council of Churches and has not been well received in evangelical circles.
This is a crucial question. In my estimation the reason that these gender inclusive translations have not caught on in evangelicalism is precisely because conservative churches are theologically opposed to gender equality. It is because they are guarding against the sort of transformation that I think needs to take place that they choose to preserve and further language of masculine hegemony. In resisting even gender-inclusive language for humanity, however (e.g., not allowing adelphoi to be translated “brothers and sisters,” but instead insisting on “brothers”), the English translation expresses an exclusivity that was not there in the Greek. This is a case where “more literal” is not equivalent to “more accurate.”

The final couple of questions from my student were along the lines of who cares? and why bother? Why not use “mankind” and “man” rather than human? In addition to what I’ve outlined above, the reason I care is that women who are learning to locate themselves, as women, in the world, need to be told and have reinforced from every angle that they do not have to become male (or approximate maleness) in order to fully realize their humanness, to become who God desires them to be as restored image-bearers of Christ.

The church has been shackled by the idea that maleness is ontologically superior to femaleness. This has ramifications for how the church thinks about Jesus and how it thinks about gender among us humans.

With respect to Jesus: the ESV gives some hints as to the necessity for certain people to hold onto Jesus’ maleness as a sine qua non of salvation. A translation that prides itself on rendering words consistently and accurately translates ἄνθρωποι as “people” in 1 Timothy 2:4, “…desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” With this desire for all people as the set-up, however, the ESV simply cannot bring itself to say that a human is a sufficient category for a savior. No, it has to be male: “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men [!, ἄνθρωποι], the man [! ἄνθρωπος] Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2:5).

We need to embrace gender-neutral terminology for humanity so that we can start to disentangle ourselves from skewed notions about maleness and salvation. And if you think I’m just making up the idea that the maleness of Jesus is an essential part of conservative evangelical theology, then maybe you can drop a note to Paternoster Press and ask why, after printing Neil Williams’ new book The Maleness of Jesus, they canceled the contract and are refusing to distribute it.

Of course, as soon as being male is required to represent humanity before God, then being male is required to represent God before God’s people. The continuing deafness of the evangelical world to the biblical passages that give counter-testimony to 1 Timothy 3 from the early church is another lingering effect of gender-exclusive Bible translation. So long as we think that to be truly human is to be man, and so long as we think that a man must be the mediator between God and man, women will never be able to participate as full, co-equal partners.

So yes, I care. And as a man I think it’s more important for me to champion this cause than it is for women to champion it themselves. Because the call of the gospel isn’t to spend all our time getting worked up over our own rights, but to spend all our time getting worked up over how life can come to the other.

Thanks very much, Daniel.

Just overworked

I don't expect to be blogging much for the next few weeks, and I haven't blogged much this year. However, I am not sick or depressed, nor am I a mirthless sourpuss feminist - just overworked. While I am absent, I will post my staff pic to keep you company.

(Well, I am a feminist - just not mirthless!)

Clubbish

I read Ron Hendel's critique of the Society of Biblical Literature a few days ago. I have not attended SBL but I do follow its meetings with interest. I then read this response. I don't myself think that there should be any place at SBL for faith committments, as long as these include an attitude which subordinates, or denounces women, queers and any other natural class of human beings.

I particularly take exception to the ongoing critique of feminist and queer hermeneutics as being "clubbish." First, I have no doubt that some of it is unattractive. So here I wish to address what I have found to be "clubbish" among evangelicals, and why I would not go anywhere into any physical space where there is a danger of their attitudes about women being given voice.

I am acquainted with a very vocal and well-known SBL theologian of the evangelical leaning. I sat and listened to him lecture 200 young people on how the cause of contemporary divorce is that women will not accept their role. This was his interpretation of Gen. 3:16 and this view is widely held by evangelicals. He is an influential theologian.

I questioned him on this since I was in the process of divorcing because I had suffered ongoing violence, being controlled by being shut in my room, hit and sworn at, combined with having Bible verses used to condemn me to hell.

The theologian in question did have any interest in this situation, but he vociferously questioned my right to remarry. I had no interest in remarrying, I simply wanted to be safe.

I found his lecture, his commentary on Gen. and his response to a woman wanting a divorce for violence to be incrdibliy callous and yes even "clubbish." But he gets rave reviews by evangelicals for being so "reasonable" and open-minded.

Unless one has actually been beaten, as many women and queers have been, for reasons relating to being a woman or a queer, then I suggest that using the term "clubbish" for the hermenuetic of feminists and queeers is not appropriate.

The appeal of Christianity is that Christ actually experieced being beaten, he did not claim a privilege not open to women and queers.

However, Paul did claim a privilege not open to women, slaves, and non-Roman citizens. He asked, as a Roman citizen, not to be beaten.

That women have not had such a legal privilege until recently, that they may experience this for much of their life, that being beaten can be just a normal consequence of being a woman, is still to fresh in my mind.

Perhaps feminists and queers are clubbish, but [some] evangelical Christians are callous to the most outrageous suffering in their midst and should clean out their own stables first. I firmly believe that any space where people are free to express their faith commitments, in such a way as to denigrate even the tiniest bit, women, homosexuals, or those of another religion or race, is not an appropriate place for academic exchange.

Paul and Thecla

James McGrath links to a post about Paul and Thecla. There is an interesting tradition that Thecla's eyes and hands were erased because they were a sign of her authority.

Bart Ehrman (if I remember correctly) shares a photo of the same fresco in one of his books, and points out that Thecla's "teaching hand" has been deliberately defaced (as have her eyes), by someone who found this depiction of her authority threatening. Crossan and Reed also make this point.

hilarious

I don't usually laugh out loud at America pronunciation. I try to muffle my mirth if I can. Of course, I expect to be the source of a little mirth myself. But listen to this. HT Nick.

Huguenot

Huguenot

I had never heard the first one before, but I am of Huguenot stock myself so I am familiar with the first rendition in the second link. Give me a call and hear how I pronounce it! is there anyone out there with the Oxford pronunciation?

Because it matters

This blog, by Danni Moss, was one of the first blogs that I read in the Christian blogosphere. I just read today that the author has died of cancer. I am so grateful for her blog, and I hope that her influence will remain. Its a long journey out of violence as a way of life.

Not a slam dunk

There has been a discussion on Cheryl's blog, where a commenter is very sure that kephale, meaning "head," as in the object on top of your neck, is a slam dunk for "authority". He perhaps thinks this because he has read this entry.

"Definition
the head, both of men and often of animals. Since the loss of the head destroys life, this word is used in the phrases relating to capital and extreme punishment.
metaph. anything supreme, chief, prominent
of persons, master lord: of a husband in relation to his wife
of Christ: the Lord of the husband and of the Church
of things: the corner stone"

However, if you were to look in a dictionary of classical Greek, i.e. English-Greek dictionary: a vocabulary of the Attic language by S. C. Woodhouse, you would not see either kephale or authenteo, as equivalents for the English word "authority."

One may argue that this is because Hellenistic Greek was just that different. In fact, the main difference in the lexicons is that one dictionary is theologically motivated and the other is not. Lexicons of classical Greek routinely include meanings from Hellenistic Greek.

Kephale was not a Greek term for "master" or "lord" occuring in any context other than interpretations of verses in the New Testament itself. There is no outside confirmation of this use, except that the word kephale was used for Jephthah. This is an unusual use of the word in the Septuagint, and is rarely discussed. I would be interested in discussing why, of all leaders in the Greek Old Testament, only Jephthah was called kephale.

This is an interesting topic for discussion - but not a slam dunk. Someone needs to mention to me one other person besides Jephthah, outside of the New Testament (but preceding or at the same time as the NT) who was ever called the kephale of a person or group that he or she was in authority over.

Passionately outspoken for Christian feminism

I have been reading too many critiques of feminism in the Christian blogosphere recently, as if it were to blame for anything one doesn't like. The premise seems to be that we have only had _______ since women have been declared equal under the law. Now fill in the blank with the economic crisis, earthquakes and oil spills. I would like to take credit for modern dentistry myself, but I forget how it is a consequence of feminism. Not that explanations are usually required.

According to Mary Kassian, a prominent Canadian Christian author and anti-feminist, "pornography, and rape and homosexuality and sexual perversion were uncommon and rarely encountered" in the 1960's, preceding the expansion of feminism. I personally thought all these vices were alive and well in Sodom and Gomorrah, where feminism doesn't seem to have had much traction.

In a blog comment on this post, Mary Kassian declares,

I think feminism and Christianity are incompatible. Feminism can’t be “redeemed.” If you’re interested in finding out more about the history and philosophy of feminism, I suggest you read my book, “The Feminist Mistake.”

However, Alex, a brave commenter and Christian woman, responds to Mary Kassian at length and with passion about the proper attitude of Christian women towards feminism. Here is one of her later comments,

We must remember that we owe a lot of our freedom today to the feminist of the past. The fact that you can write a book without using a male alias, the fact the we can get ‘equal pay for equal work’, the fact the rape is illegal in marriage, the fact the a women’s testimony is not worth less than a mans and many more freedoms have been won. Truly if you want to see the effects of feminism, look to the places without it. In places like Asia and Africa were girls are married of young, sometimes 13 year old to 50 year old men, were women are treated as the property of the father to be bought and sold, were women have babies so young that they suffer from fistulas, were women are worth less than a man, so much so that a Christian women’s testimony in court is worth a quarter that of a man’s and were 6 billion babies girls have been killed simply because they were female.

In times gone past a woman’s testimony was so unreliable they had to be tortured to prove it because they ‘made up things’, in times gone past women older than 13 without husbands were considered old hags, in times gone past women were thought not to have souls, which was only begrudgingly over turned by the church who decided they ‘may’ have souls.

Surly we must look and thank our predecessors for the fact that we are not thought of as less than a man. Sure they made mistakes but so many freedoms we enjoy today are due to their brave fighting, their protests, imprisonments and pain for our freedom.
We must thank them by going forward to free women throughout the world from violence, humiliation and destruction.

Say what you like about feminism but first look to the sufferings of women around the world and think of how we can improve their living standards, improve their treatment to more than house slaves or cattle, improve their pregnancies so that they don’t die in birth or get pressured to abort babies girls. Say what you like about Western feminism but look to the women and girls of the developing world and help them. What they need are basic human rights and to be treated better than cattle. In the west this was achieved by brave men and women fighting for recognition. It was called Feminism. What will we do for people in the developing world?

We mustn’t lose sight of what it means to be a Christian woman, but part of what it means to be a Christian woman is to love and serve other women around the world. Call this movement what you like, Christian women fighting for and caring about other women around the world, in the past it was called Feminism, today who knows what we will name it but it must happen!

The problem with simply slamming feminism is that it draws attention away from our responsibility to women around the world who still need these rights; still need this love and care.

And may I add that there are still many women on this continent who need this love and care. As women, we need to care equally for both other men and women. But that is the premise of feminism, that women need to be cared for equally and as equals.

I am sorry that Mary Kassian cannot say thank you to the first Christian women who went to university, paving the way for her.

desire bordering on disease

I remember distinctly the first time I saw pornography. It was in a cheap hotel room in Rome and I was a young teenager. I still remember the nauseating feeling as I discovered the well used stash of magazines in the bottom dresser drawer. I didn't understand exactly what use they were put to - nonetheless, it was a sickening moment which has stayed with me till now as a vivid memory.

Another one of those moments was experienced recently while reading Keil and Delitzsch page 103 - the same mixture of nausea and disbelief, the same loss of innocence. I read,

The woman had so broken through her divinely appointed subordination to the man; she had not only emancipated herself from the man to listen to the serpent, but had led the man into sin. For that, she was punished with a desire bordering upon disease (תְּשׁוּקָה from שׁוּק to run, to have a violent craving for a thing), and with subjection to the man. "And he shall rule over thee." Created for the man, the woman was made subordinate to him from the very first; but the supremacy of the man was not intended to become a despotic rule, crushing the woman into a slave, which has been the rule in ancient and modern Heathenism, and even in Mohametanism also, - a rule which was first softened by the sin-destroying grace of the gospel, and changed into a form more in harmony with the original relation, viz. that of a rule on the one hand, and subordination on the other, which have their roots in mutual esteem and love.

I wish I had never read this, had never known that bible commentators thought these things about women, thought that being ruled was a mark of mutual esteem, etc. etc. Now I know that apparently some men, in spite of the fact that men are not innocent of creating pornography, believe that it is women who are diseased in their sexuality. Nice!

A woman can never study bible commentaries with the same freedom as a man. I personally - clearly many women won't share my reaction - regard reading bible commentaries as risky business, knowing that I am exposing myself to unmitigated nonsense, and in some cases simple filth. Blogging about the bible, for women, can never be a light hobby, a satisfying preoccupation. It is more like wandering through a minefield, or more like walking across my backyard, after the dog has been lounging around using it for his own needs.

I would really like to find this kind of thing funny. I do my best. But ultimately, I have to resort to other sources for humour, that elixir of life.

Responding to Adrian and Tim

Tim asks,

I wonder if any women readers would be willing to give me some very brief (just a few sentences) soundbites about one or more of the strategies you use.

Adrian comments,

I thought today I would highlight two blogs written by women, as Christian blogging especially is still something of a male domain. This surprises me a little as these days it is not a geeky activity, and since so many women are great communicators I would have expected there to be more.

Men continue to wonder about the voice of women. Which is very curious because women are speaking out all the time. Women are saying what they think about the way men interpret the Bible. Of course, every woman has a different opinion, we don't have a 'group think policy'. But some women do share a common view and they are getting together on it.

Shirley Taylor announces on her blog,

There will be a conference in Orlando Florida on July 24 called Seneca Falls 2 Christian Conference – trying to find solutions and to offer a united front in favor of gender-equality for Christian women. This conference is led by Jocelyn Andersen, author of the new book Woman this is WAR. You can order this book on her website www.womansubmit.blogspot.com.

A few female bloggers I have read recently are -

Shirley Taylor
Jocelyn Anderson
Waneta Dawn
scratchpaperthoughts

Over and over again, women are blogging about the need to be treated as equals. I don't have much hope right now myself. In the bibliosphere, I often see that those who defend patriarchy are not only tolerated but praised. Dan Wallace, Peter Kreeft, Bruce Waltke, and many other names come to mind.

It is v ery painful for me to think about what these men teach about women. If men think of "tolerance" as purely the acceptance of both complementarian and egalitarian men in one happy community, then it's all fine and dandy. But they should not ponder the absence of women.

Uganda's anti-homosexuality bill and Grudem's systematic theology

I read an article in the newspaper yesterday which suggested that the Anti-homosexuality bill in Uganda still has a chance of passing. Even if it does not pass, homosexual behaviour is punishable by incarceration in prison for up to 14 years. There was an appeal made for those Americans who went to Uganda and provided encouragement for anti-homosexuality legislation, to go back to Uganda and say that homosexuals are human beings whose rights should be respected.

I feel that a very popular book on systematic theology encourages Christians to lobby for stricter anti-homosexuality laws. In his Systmeatic Theology, page 893, Dr. Grudem writes,

It is right for Christians to attempt to persuade governments to make laws that protect families and private property and the lives of human beings – laws that both outlaw and punish murder, adultery, theft, and the breaking of contracts (things that violate the Ten Commandments), as well as prohibit homosexual conduct, drunkenness, drug abuse, abortion, and other things that are inconsistent with the biblical standards of morality.

Dr. Grudem needs to be aware of how many homosexuals and women suffer violent crimes linked to scripture exposition.

It is my opinion that anyone who blogs about the Bible ought to take on issues in Bible exposition which support, reinforce or act as justification for acts of violence against women and homosexuals. I know that it is more popular to ramble on about those darn creationsists, but I am more interested in how we can support victims of physical violence, not just intellectual exiguity.

If it weren't so tragic the whole thing would be comical. Theologians can go on and on about how unnatural anal intercourse is because it sometimes "results in ruptures and diseases." By this same criterion, heterosexual intercourse and in particular childbirth, must also be considered unnatural. But lesbian sex is just fine and dandy, not causing either this or that.

Walking on water

I don't know it this one has made the rounds in the bibliosphere yet. Enjoy a good chuckle. These guys really manage to keep a straight face throughout.

Sexism in Higher Education

A post on Sexism in Higher Education states,

The 2010 national breakdown in the United States: for every 100 men, 142 women graduated with a bachelor's degree; 159 women completed a master's degree, and 107 women earned a doctoral degree. Trend lines indicate that the imbalance is only getting worse. Go here for details. I agree with one of the commenters to the thread. The pump that produces the inequality is primed in middle school if not before. Since I work with 7^th and 8^th graders, I see it with my own eyes. Boys are not socialized in a way that allows them to compete on a par with girls in a knowledge economy.

It’s part of a larger problem in which the specific contribution of men to particular niches of social ecology – the family, the workplace, church and synagogue - is not valued whereas the specific contribution of women is. There are exceptions to this rule, but that's what they are: exceptions.

Our culture no less than previous cultures is crisscrossed by routinized patterns of gender complementation. Patterns of imbalance are, according to old-school social theory, indices of social oppression. That is an oversimplification, but one thing is clear. Current trends in the socialization of boys disadvantages them in countless ways.

Feminists and anti-feminists alike continue to fight yesterday’s wars. A pox on both their houses. Neither offers even a first approach to the real issues of the generation of boys and girls I see coming through the pipeline.

An article written in Alberta provides some insight into the nature of the disparity between men and women,

According to Statistics Canada data for 2005, for full-time, full-year workers in Canada—the most common measure of the gender gap in income—women earned just 70.5 per cent of what men earned, a number which hasn’t improved since 2000. When all types of work—including part-time and other non-standard work—are looked at, women earn just 64 per cent of men’s salaries.

In part this disparity is because most employment for women continues to be concentrated in a handful of traditional sectors, with two-thirds working in teaching, nursing or other related health care fields, clerical positions or sales and service jobs in the retail sector. Meanwhile, women still hold just seven per cent of jobs in transportation, trades and construction, and just a third of all manufacturing jobs.

Women also far outnumber men in part-time jobs, with just over a quarter of women working less than 30 hours a week, compared to just one in 10 men—and one in five women say they don’t work full-time due to personal or family responsibilities, a problem made worse by a serious shortage in affordable child care spaces across the country.

In Alberta, the recent years of a red-hot economy actually widened the gender gap, says Susan Morrissey, the executive director of the Edmonton Social Planning Council.

“We looked at the earning gap between males and females over the past 30 years, and the data shows that the gap between men’s and women’s earnings for full-time and full-year employment seems to grow during economic booms. During the boom men are more likely to go into occupations like oil and gas extraction and construction, where they get paid very, very well.”

Because few women work in these occupations, income in Alberta is more unequal than in Canada as a whole, with women who worked full-year, full-time in 2006 earning just 59.3 per cent of men’s salaries, down from a peak ratio of almost 71 per cent in 1995.

Combined with the high cost of living in the province, the income disparity has had significant consequences for women in boom-time Alberta.

“Woman are still twice as likely to live in poverty as men, and that’s been consistent across the board,” Morrissey says. “In 2006, 7.3 per cent of families where the major income earner was male were living below the LICO [low income cut-off] and 16.9 per cent of families where females were the major income earner were living below LICO. So there’s still a major difference between those two.”

It seems rather clear to me that men are going after the highest paying options, and women are left to slog it out at university and still earn substantially less than men. Some may say that this is an indication of how men are "disadvantaged", but they will have to defend their choice of vocabulary rather carefully.

Shallum's Daughters and the NET Bible

I am alive and kicking, and feeling very well, as it happens. All fall I moved around the house with a ladder and bucket of paint daubing away at the trim, and now I am putting in a path of paving stones in the back. But I do appreciate those who have emailed to ask if I am okay. I'm okay.

I had a good conversation with the Home Depot salesman today, suggesting that Home Depot should develop a women's line of packaging for such things as base rock. How many women can throw 55 pounds over their shoulders on a whim? In the interests of women's equality, as more women desire to do their own stonework, there really ought to be an effort to develop products for this market - you think?

Fortunately, the Home Depot salesman seemed to find me rather cute and not at all a virulent feminist. That is just a rumour that someone started about me in the interests of perpetuating the myth that women who don't bow and scrape to patriarchy are ugly. Ha ha. Anyway, the pathway is coming along very nicely, but I am a wee bit too tired to to work up an intellectual rant against the usual suspects. Or so I thought.

It turns out, however, that I don't have far to look to unearth more exegetical perfidy. Some exegetes really can be pathetically and contradictorily against women at all costs. Check this out.

The daughters of Shallum are recorded as helping to repair the walls of Jerusalem in Nehemiah 3:12. There is nothing at all ambiguous about the Hebrew text.

And next unto him repaired Shallum the son of Hallohesh, the ruler of half the district of Jerusalem, he and his daughters.

וְעַל-יָדוֹ הֶחֱזִיק, שַׁלּוּם בֶּן-הַלּוֹחֵשׁ, שַׂר, חֲצִי פֶּלֶךְ יְרוּשָׁלִָם; הוּא, וּבְנוֹתָיו

So how is that commentators can claim both that it is very unlikely that women would be doing this work, and therefore we may wonder if this is what the verse meant, AND, that it is so likely that women did this kind of work that it would not even be mentioned?

"Daughter" is a regular term for the hamlets which grow up about the city and which are dependent upon it, 11:24-31. Ryle prefers a literal interpretation that Shallum's daughters aided him in the work. But as women in the East were quite sure to have a large share in such a work as this, their special mention here is unnecessary. (cited in the Women's Bible Commentary, page 128)

This first commentator seems to find it so natural that women should labour that there is no need to mention it. But here is a contrary opinion.

The reference to daughters, while not impossible, is odd in light of the cultural improbability that young women would participate in the strenuous labor of rebuilding city walls. All other such references in the Book of Nehemiah presuppose male laborers. Not surprisingly, some scholars suspect a textual problem. One medieval Hebrew MS and the Syriac Peshitta read וּבָנָיו (uvanayv, “and his sons”) rather than the MT reading וּבְנוֹתָיו (uvÿnotayv, “and his daughters”). Some scholars emend the MT to וּבֹנָיו (uvonayv, “and his builders”). On the other hand, the MT is clearly the more difficult reading, and so it is preferred. NET Bible

Not only is there evidence that some manuscripts were changed to delete these women, but the NET Bible commentator appears reluctant to acknowledge that women would participate in the "strenuous labour of rebuilding the city walls."

I hardly know what to say. Exegesis has not improved since I last checked. Here are two men trained in the interpretation of ancient documents who present completely opposing points of view, all in the interests of explaining away a mention of women in the text. It is no wonder women don't want to blog in the bibliosphere where the NET Bible is still so admired by men.

I will hang out in hardware stores with men who find a woman who enjoys a little strenuous labour (of the productive but not reproductive nature) to be a pleasant diversion and not a sinful creature who is rebelling against God and the cultural norms of Bible commentators. Good grief!

Read an inspirational post about the daughters of Shallum here.

Christians and porn

According to this post, Christian men are more likely to watch porn than the average American male.

From Steve Farrar's Finishing Strong:


A number of years ago a national conference for church youth directors was held at a major hotel in a city in the mid-west. Youth pastors by the hundreds flooded into that hotel and took nearly every room. At the conclusion of the conference, the hotel manager told the conference administrator that the number of guests who tuned into the adult movie channel broke the previous record, far and away outdoing any other convention in the history of the hotel.

I have to ask myself what vice Christian women are more guilty of. Perhaps wearing more makeup, showing more belly, or cleavage? I wonder - do some forms of Christianity provide a more sexualized environment and therefore encourage the use of porn? I would be interested in your thoughts.

What some women bloggers are saying

There are now no blogs authored by women in the top 50 biblioblogs. There are a few that are co-authored by women, but none by a woman alone.

What are women blogging about? Some say children and home. Why not. But other women are blogging about what life was like under patriarchy.

A Wife's Submission

"The burden was so heavy, I could see no way out of it but my death. I wanted to die: my frame of mind was such that I would have embraced cancer or something as an escape hatch from God to bring me relief."

Submission Tyranny

"Even if the husband does not use physical abuse or overt emotional abuse on a daily or weekly basis, the fact that he requires his wife to continually and daily set aside her will, to live like a child without the freedom to choose what she thinks is best, so he can have things his way and feel in charge, is in itself domestic abuse."

No Longer Quivering

"I posit that the well-intentioned “Biblical patriarchy” adherents can’t help but support abuse, because the abuse is intrinsic to the teaching…which means that either God is abusive, or the patriarchy camp has got God figured out all wrong."

Woman Submit! Christians & Domestic Violence

"The false doctrine of female subordination to male authority lies at the very root of domestic abuse and domestic violence among professing Christians. The premise is despotic and abusive in and of itself. Domestic Violence among Christians will never be eradicated until gender equality is acknowledged and practically implemented."


bWe Baptist Women for Equality's Blog

"In the next few posts, I will get to basics and dethrone Male Headship."

Mayday

"One of the things that led to me parting company with the complementarian new church setting I was in was a realisation that I was married to my wife, not the church. " (Okay, this one is a guy.)

Julia O'Brien

Julia O'Brien has an excellent blog about the Hebrew Bible. She provides insightful thoughts on why Christians might not want to celebrate a Seder meal at Easter. Many Christians I know do this, but I shrink from practicing the traditions of others. She has recently written articles on Violence and the Bible and Who cares about the Prophets.

Michael Spencer

Michael Spencer of Internet Monk has died. I know many will remember his posts, his influence, the long threads and the wide-ranging topics.

Woman this is war

Jocelyn Andersen is releasing a new book this year called "Woman this is WAR! Gender, Slavery, & the Evangelical Caste System."

Her blog subtitle says,

The false doctrine of female subordination to male authority lies at the very root of domestic abuse and domestic violence among professing Christians. The premise is despotic and abusive in and of itself. Domestic Violence among Christians will never be eradicated until gender equality is acknowledged and practically implemented.

I have said things like this, and there are so many that argue that this cannot be true. It goes like this.

1. Non-Christian men abuse their wives.
2. Women, both Christian and non-Christian, abuse their husbands.
Therefore, there can be no connection between domestic abuse and Christian teaching.

To #1, I would say that this false Christian doctrine has its origins in the same sexism that drives the domination of women by non-Christian men. The teaching of male dominance within Christianity has its counterpart outside of Christianity.

To #2, I would say that there are many ways that women and men can be abusive to each other. (If this happens, it is better for the couple separate. However, the welfare of the children must be taken into consideration.) I do believe, however, that there are many unique ways that the teaching of male authority causes serious abuse and distress, and there are ways that it intensifies the naturally abusive nature of any relationship gone bad.

The testimony of many other women indicates to me that there is a deep and unique way that the teaching that God created women to be under the authority of their husband damages women. A woman who is being abused by her husband has the usual stress - increased vulnerability to ill health, both physical and mental. She also is taught that God has intended this for her. The church is a powerful community for women in this situation, and an abused woman may feel an increased need to belong, as well as an increased sense of alienation and isolation. By appealing to the authority of God, those who teach male authority, intensify the already miserable condition of someone who is being abused.

The teaching of male authority -

gives the abuser the notion that he is entitled to be obeyed and submitted to
gives the abuser the expectation that he has the right to get his way
gives the abuser justification for abusing someone who will not obey him
gives the abuser the sense that men and women are so different that a feeling of common humanity between them is eradicated and there is no empathy

The teaching of male authority -

gives the abused the sense that it is her fault if she is abused
gives the abused feelings of shame for being in this situation
gives the abused no hope since divorce is denied and separation with a view to reconciliation is dangerous
gives the abused the sense that this is God's best for women

To sum it up, let me quote from A wife's submission,

The burden was so heavy, I could see no way out of it but my death. I wanted to die: my frame of mind was such that I would have embraced cancer or something as an escape hatch from God to bring me relief.

My thoughts exactly. I often used to think of what a relief it would be to die of cancer. How many men sit in church and think of how much more pleasant it would be to die of cancer than be a Christian male? Share my thought of 30 years of church attendance just for a moment.

Thank goodness - tomorrow when I go to church, I will spend more time picking the lint (or white dog hairs) off my Easter jacket than I will wishing I would die of cancer. I will know the delightful freedom of being like a man, free to worry about my finances, my job, my children, etc. etc. but I won't have to sit and think that I would rather die of cancer than continue to live the kind of life God intended for me because I am a woman.

The Illiad

I was stung by a passing comment in the bibliosphere recently. It was this simple, "A girl’s actually interested in the Iliad? Very nice." He was surpised eh, that a female would 'actually' read the Illiad.

I guess I was in my early teens when I read through much of the Illiad in Greek. It doesn't provide strong female characters - but it does contain many female characters.

In my imagination, I was Briseis, torn from the tent of the heroic warrior Achilles, to provide sex for a king who was so callous as to sacrifice his own daughter to the gods. I was Andromache, mourning for both husband and son, dragged off to a end her life in slavery. I was Cassandra, always Cassandra and still Cassandra, doomed to know the future and doomed to never be believed.

It really ticks me off that some random biblioblog commenter would think that a woman would not read the Illiad.

Waltke on Evolution

There has been an expresssion of support for Bruce Waltke and concern that he has felt the need to take down a video which expresses his views on theistic evolution. I am happy to see many strong voices in the bibliosphere support the scientific foundation for beliefs about the origin of our physical world.

But I wonder how many bloggers would express concern about what else Bruce Waltke teaches from Genesis. He teaches that Gen. 3:16 suggests that divorce in our contemporary society is caused by women resisting their role in life, which is to be a helper to the male. He firmly places the blame for divorce on women. When questioned personally about this - that is, I asked him if this applied to divorced couples he knew - he admitted that it didn't. But nonetheless, he taught a lecture hall full of young adults that women are to blame for divorce.

When confronted with a woman who was seeking divorce for violence, his first concern was to establish whether that woman would want to remarry, and whether she know that the Bible would not condone this. She actually had never considered remarriage at that point in time.

Bruce Waltke is a personable and gentle man. However, I honestly believe that certain beliefs about women stunt the normal senses, and create callous disregard for women. I pray that Dr. Waltke will be released from his blindness regarding who is to blame for all the divorce in the world, and perhaps some day admit in public that there is no reason to take all the sin in the world and place it on the shoulders of women. We have enough of our own, thank you very much, without carrying the sins of men also.

Over and over again, I see in much of Christianity, a tendency to put women on the cross.

Clark Pinnock

I would like to link to this post regarding Clark Pinnock, and post here a review of his contribution to theology,

Clark Pinnock is a theological giant in our day. His influence has been great, especially in Evangelical circles. This news of Alzheimer’s disease indicates that his active contribution to theology will now diminish if not cease.

Pinnock’s personal theological journey has been intriguing. He moved from affirming a more or less conventional and/or fundamentalist view of God to the Open view he considers more faithful to the biblical witness.

In this journey, Pinnock consistently considered the Bible his primary source for theology. He gave particular weight to biblical narrative and the language of personal relationships found in Scripture. Although he rejected a Fundamentalist view of the Bible, he remained committed to honoring the Bible as his principal authority for theology.

Open theology offers a coherent doctrine of God, says Pinnock, in which each divine attribute “should be compatible with one another and with the vision of God as a whole.” For instance, Pinnock wishes to offer a vision of the God who “combines love and power perfectly.” Unless the portrait of God compels, he says, the “credibility of belief in God is bound to decline.”

Open theology as Pinnock presents it depicts God as a self-sufficient, though relational, Trinitarian being. God graciously relates to the world as one self-limited out of respect for the genuine freedom of creatures. Creatures genuine influence God. God is transcendent and immanent, has changing and unchanging aspects, gives to and receives from others, is present to all things, and has supreme power. God’s love, says Pinnock, includes responsiveness, generosity, sensitivity, openness, and vulnerability.

Open theology rejects traditional theologies that portray God as an aloof monarch. Influential theologians of yesteryear often portrayed God as completely unchangeable, ultimately all determining, and irresistible. By contrast, Pinnock says the biblical vision presents a loving God who seeks relationship with free creatures. “The Christian life involves a genuine interaction between God and human beings,” he says. “We respond to God’s gracious initiatives and God responds to our responses . . . and on it goes.”

The future is not entirely settled, according to Open theology. This means that while God knows all possibilities, God does not know with certainty what free creatures will actually do until creatures act. Classic views of God’s foreknowledge are incompatible with creaturely freedom, says Pinnock. “If choices are real and freedom significant,” he argues, “future decisions cannot be exhaustively known.”

Open theology does affirm that God is all knowing. God knows all things knowable. Believers should not understand divine omniscience as the idea God possesses exhaustive foreknowledge of all future events, says Pinnock. After all, future possible events are not yet actual.

Biblical evidence for Open theology’s view of omniscience comes in many forms. Dozens of biblical passages, for instance, record God saying “perhaps.” This uncertainty on God’s part means the future remains open, not completely certain. The Bible also says God makes various covenants. These covenants suggest God does not know with certainty everything to occur in the future. God often asks Israel to choose one course of action over another.

For instance, Jeremiah records God offering two possible futures for Israel: “If you will indeed obey this word, then through the gates of this house shall enter kings who sit on the throne of David…. But if you will not heed these words, I will swear by myself, says the LORD, that this house shall become a desolation” (Jer. 22: 4-5). God’s particular course of future action depends in part upon Israel’s choice. God apparently does not know with certainty what Israel’s choice will be. Other Old Testament passages exhibit covenant language in which the future is yet to be decided, and God does not know with certainty what will actually occur.

God cannot be in all ways timeless, say Open theologians. We best conceive of God’s experience as temporally everlasting rather than timelessly eternal. To say God is in all ways timeless implies God is totally actualized, immutable, impassible, and outside of time and sequence. Such a God is static and aloof, says Pinnock, not relational and responsive. The temporally everlasting Lord is the Living God of the Bible.

Those who embrace conventional theology have difficulty accepting Open theology. This difficulty arises because Open theology challenges certain well-established traditions, argues Pinnock, not because it opposes the Bible. Open theology themes appear throughout the biblical witness: “the idea of God taking risks, of God’s will being thwarted, of God being flexible, of grace being resistible, of God having a temporal dimension, of God being impacted by the creature, and of God not knowing the entire future as certain.”
One of Open theology’s greatest assets is its fit with Christian experience. It addresses well the demands of ordinary life and practices of the saints. “It is no small point in favor of the openness model,” Pinnock argues, “that it is difficult to live life in any other way than the way it describes.”

Open theology releases people to live their lives meaningfully, says Pinnock. “As individuals we are significant in God’s eyes… the things we do and say, the decisions and choices we make, and our prayers all help shape the future.” Our lives and life-decisions really matter.

Open theology is preferable in other ways. It points to a friendship with God possible in cooperative relationship. Most conventional theologies implicitly or explicitly reject friendship with God. Open theology emphasizes the reality of freedom we all presuppose. Many conventional theologies directly or indirectly reject creaturely freedom vis-à-vis God.

Open theology corresponds with our intuition that love ought to be persuasive rather than coercive. It emphasizes sanctification in the sense of growth in grace and decisive moments. Open theology corresponds with the view that God calls and empowers growth in Christ-likeness.

Christians should especially prefer Open theology to conventional theology on the issue of petitionary prayer. Most Christians believe their prayers make a difference to God, including influencing at least sometimes how God acts. Pinnock argues that petitionary prayer does not genuinely influence now the God who foreordains and/or foreknows all things. Petitionary prayer cannot change an already settled future.

“People pray passionately when they see purpose in it, when they think prayer can make a difference and that God may act because of it,” argues Pinnock. “There would not be much urgency in our praying if we thought God’s decrees could not be changed and/or that the future is entirely settled.”

Above all, Open theology emphasizes love as God’s chief attribute and priority for theological construction. “God created the world out of love and with the goal of acquiring a people who would, like a bride, freely participate in his love.” Love was God’s goal, and giving freedom the means to that goal. “God is inviting us to join in his own ongoing Trinitarian communion and conversation,” says Pinnock. God “wants us to join in and share the intimacy of his own divine life.”

God’s loving nature is unchanging, but God’s experience, knowledge, and action change in the divine give-and-take of interactive loving relationship. “The living God is . . . the God of the Bible,” says Pinnock, “the one who is genuinely related to the world, whose nature is the power of love, and whose relationship with the world is that of a most moved, not unmoved, Mover.”

Because of this, Open theology “is a model of love.”

godless love

George Eliot deconverted from evangelicalism in her 20's. She was known as "godless" in both beilef and practice since she lived for much of her life with her "husband" George Lewes, although they were never legally married. Her relationship put her outside the boundaries of Victorian society.

However, Queen Victoria was always a strong fan of George Eliot. (In an aside, this reminds me that the queen was also an enthusiastic fan of Annie Oakley.) Victoria was not a promoter of complementary gender roles, as we would imagine them today. She was, nevertheless a romantically attached wife, as were George Eliot and Annie Oakley. These women were all of them pro women, as well as pro marriage.

Adam Bede was George Eliot's first novel, and recounts an incident which the author knew from real life, of a young peasant girl becoming pregnant by a man above her station. Of course, he could not marry her, and the book tells the dark story that ensues. Another sympathetically drawn character in the novel is a young female Methodist preacher, who visits the girl later in prison. We also hear her preach a sermon on compassion and empathy.

The unbelieving George Eliot is still able to depict a preacher in a positive light, highlighting her words of compassion and love. She in no way polemicizes gender roles in ministry in this book, and the young preacher does marry and happily retires from public ministry to become a wife and mother. There is no dichotomy of alienated feminist and domestic wife. For George Eliot, the true woman, is one who is both compassionate and equal, both preacher and wife.

Regarding love, Eliot writes in this novel,

What greater thing is there for two human souls, than to feel that they are joined for life — to strengthen each other in all labour, to rest on each other in all sorrow, to minister to each other in all pain, to be one with each other in silent unspeakable memories at the moment of last parting? (ch. 54)

George Eliot

I have been immersed in a biography of George Eliot, The Last Victorian by Kathryn Hughes. And I had recently finished a biography of Jane Austen, not so interesting. Although I love the novels of Jane Austen as much as anyone, and could sit through some film treatments of her work over and over, her books did not have the same impact on me that George Eliot's novels have had. I had read The Mill on the Floss at a young age, along with Tess of the D'Urberville's by Thomas Hardy in my teens. But to tell the truth, I don't think I really appreciated them at that time.

When I read Middlemarch, at about the age of 40, I felt that it had been written about me. That if only I had read this book in my teens, then I would not have lived the life I lived. I later found some copies of George Eliot's books that had belonged to my grandmother - after my mother had died. Did my mother keep these novels from us girls? I'll never know. If we had been forewarned of the consequences of living within a patriarchal framework, would I have resisted? If you have not read Middlemarch, you might enjoy it. I will always wonder if Eliot's books were kept from me so that I would accept living within the confines of patriarchy more easily.

George Eliot's biography is fascinating. Under her real name, Marian Evans, she translated The Life of Jesus, by D.F. Strauss from German. Her life story is a spiritual and emotional journey through social and theological mazes that we find hard to imagine today.

In the Victorian era, about one third of women did not marry. They could not own property, could not get a university education or work in any profession except as a governess, and were dependent on the goodwill of a father or brother for a meagre income. The fight for more rights for women was fueled by this vast marginally employed workforce, women living at the whim of men who did not put them first in any way, shape or form.

Marian Evans was an exception. She was able to make a good living from her novels, and helped to support her common law husband, and his first wife and children. She also supported the first wife's many children by her lover. The laws were too complex to ever allow this couple to divorce so the first wife of Evans' common law husband, was never free to marry her lover. He didn't want her anyway, because he was preoccupied with supporting his own wife and children. Well, you have to read it for yourself.

This is the idyllic life of couples in a day where divorce was difficult. Wouldn't we like to go back to the good old days, when, if a woman was not as clever as George Eliot - clearly the most brilliant woman in England in her day, she might easily end up a prostitute, one of the few other occupations for women in patriarchal England.

Liberal or Conservative ... in the past

James McGrath and John Hobbins have been engaged in a discussion regarding the inerrancy of the scripture. Dr. McGrath is arguing for a liberal approach to inerrancy. In this post, McGrath outlines why he calls himself a Christian although he does not believe in the inerrancy of scripture. This would be consistent with a "liberal" theological position. He writes,

So why am I a Christian? A short answer would be that it was within a Christian context that I had a life-changing religious experience. But given that I do not espouse Biblical literalism and inerrancy, some might ask whether I am still a Christian, and my answer would be that taking the whole Bible seriously is certainly no less Christian than quoting it selectively while pretending to believe it all and take it all literally.

I find very helpful an answer to this question that Marcus Borg has also articulated. I am a Christian in much the same way that I am an American. It is not because I condone the actions of everyone who has officially represented America, or that I espouse the viewpoints of its current leaders. It is because I was born into it, and value the positive elements of this heritage enough that I think it is worth fighting over the definition of what it means to be American, rather than giving up on it and moving somewhere else. In the same way, the tradition that gave birth to my faith and nurtured it is one that has great riches (as well as much else beside), and I want to struggle for an understanding of Christianity that emphasizes those things.

McGrath counts himself as a liberal both regarding inerrancy and his theological position. He asks John Hobbins if his position could be better represented as liberal regarding inerrancy and conservative with regard to theology. Here is his reading of John's position,

In your view, Scripture is inerrant, and it inerrantly has different voices, and so its function is not to communicate the view of one of these authors or the other, but to (presumably inerrantly) illustrate to us that it is out of this conversation that truth emerges. This frees you to accept all that liberal and mainstream scholarship has to offer, including its recognition of a diversity of voices (and even invoke Hegel), and yet from that plurality to choose to draw as many conservative conclusions as possible, at least enough to justify continuing to think of yourself in those terms and bear that label.

Now, there's nothing wrong with that, but it might be fairer if you were to acknowledge that you are thoroughly liberal in your view of Scripture, and only conservative in (some of) what you choose to build upon it.

John responds with this,

Conservative Christians today, though of course we want to be as intellectually responsible as possible in how we affirm it, stand with the early Christians. Liberal Christians do not (and the neo-orthodox in the mold of Karl Barth do not either; I’m not sure about Schweitzer; a lot of paleo-liberals were orthodox in a number of ways).

Those of us raised in environments where preachers claimed that our community was closer to that of the early Christians know how hollow this claim is. We can never recreate the worldview, the mental framework, the presuppositions and conditions of the past. We can never enter the mindset of previous eras. This is a mirage. All we can do is mine the past, excavate the remains, and assess the extricated fragments as best we can.

We cannot say that the early Christians were conservative vs liberal, in the sense that these words are used today. We can, however, note that some people are liberal with regard to the scripture but conservative in social and theological positions, or vice versa. Many visitors here are selectively liberal in many of their stances, but conservative in their view of inerrancy.

My One and Only

My apologies for not posting more often. Lots of other stuff in life to keep me busy. Here is a movie I really enjoyed watching with my kids. My One and Only. It is a refreshingly funny story of a single mother and her two sons seeking their fortune and perhaps a new man, set in the 1950's. There are many touching lines about the absent father(s) and an uncle presents a strong male role model. Nothing man-hating about this movie, but not a classic Hollywood ending, although definitely a Hollywood ending. You have to see it. Nice to have this kind of comedy around.

PS Here is a post at Wade Burleson's blog on a similar topic, although not a comic treatment. He cites a letter he received,

I know many of you do not care for Barak Obama, and as pastor (not to mention an elections official), I'm not endorsing or condemning Obama in anyway. However, I've heard him say something recently concerning the one time that he met his father at the age of ten that has resonated with me and it's this: "I considered the absence of my father to be a strength."

I say all that to say this: My mother, when left alone, was able to work and be a mother raising a future attorney (my sister) and a future Christian minister (me) doing doctoral studies at the seminary. It was only when the man returned to the home from time to time that much of my mom's work was undermined and at times, seemingly destroyed (and would've been if it had not been for God's grace).

Absent fathers - and mothers - are longed for. They may sometimes appear to be written off, but privately they are longed for. However, reality does teach some people, those who are open to facing reality, that absence is sometimes a blessing.

John Hobbins keeps women from talking to each other

The position of women in the bibliosphere is an odd one. There is no active woman blogger among the top 50 at the moment. And no wonder. Really what woman would want such an association.

John Hobbins made an interesting post here concluding with this statement, "If this topic has been touched on by other bibliobloggers, I haven’t run across it."

Since it is a topic which I originally raised on John's blog, and have blogged about repeatedly, I wanted to comment to that effect. I was able to. However as soon as Marilyn showed up, all my comments following hers, were removed or blocked.

If anyone wants to ask John about this, please do. Or don't. It won't have much effect anyway.

Titanic vs Lusitania

I am well aware of having missed several great conversations in the bibliosphere. I hope I can catch up. But this one is fascinating.

The CBMW gender blog has posted on the difference in the behaviour of men during the sinking of the Titanic and the Lusitania. On the Titanic, women and children were more likely to survive than on the Lusitania.

What accounts for the difference? The researchers looked at several factors, but settled on one that appeared more obvious as they considered the question -- the length of time it took the ship to sink. As the report explains, on the Lusitania "the short-run flight impulse dominated behavior. On the slowly sinking Titanic, there was time for socially determined behavioral patterns to reemerge."

Put plainly, on the Lusitania the male passengers demonstrated "selfish rationality." As TIME explains, this is "a behavior that's every bit as me-centered as it sounds and that provides an edge to strong, younger males in particular. On the Titanic, the rules concerning gender, class and the gentle treatment of children - in other words, good manners - had a chance to assert themselves."

Note carefully the assumption here that "the rules concerning gender, class and the gentle treatment of children" are ascribed to "good manners" and "socially determined behavioral patterns." In other words, the male decision to give priority to the welfare of women and children is just a learned behavior, a social convention.

Is that all there is to it? There is a huge question looming in this -- is it right for men to act with care and concern toward women and children, or is this just an outmoded relic of Victorian morality?

What do modern feminists do with this? Those who stake their lives on the elimination of all meaningful gender distinctions must, if honest, take what they see on the Lusitania as the inevitable result of such a worldview. Are we really to believe that the moral call that makes men act against their own self-preservation is just a socially-constructed artifact of manners?

Aboard the Lusitania, young males acted out of a selfish survival instinct, and women and children were cast aside, left to the waves. Aboard the Titanic, there was time for men to consider what was at stake and to call themselves to a higher morality. There was time for conscience to raise its voice and authority, and for men, young and old, to know and to do their duty.

I suppose some might class me as a modern feminist, although I fit few stereotypes, for those who know me. But let me answer anyway. As a mother of adult age children, male and female, I would strongly object to an older woman taking the place of a younger man in a lifeboat. I do understand the dictum "women and children first," but it is not by any means the only way to organize survival in a crisis.

I would rather go down with the Titanic than accept the subordination of women, just so I could be dumped screaming in a lifeboat, and watch a young adult male of my acquaintance go down with the ship.

Another problematic aspect of this study is that the men on the Lusitania did not put children first. This suggests that young men do not have a natural protective instinct toward children. And yet many suggest that mothers do have a natural instinct to sacrifice for their children. This is a disturbing study. On the one hand, the men on the Titanic did sacrifice for women and children. On the other hand, the men on the Lusitania did not. Perhaps it suggests that men are human too, just like women, and should not be given authority over women.

Its an interesting study, but one not one which supports the erroneous notion that men should be in charge of women.

The Pearl's disciplinary methods

I have been reading No Longer Quivering lately and find it very distressing. I can hardly imagine homes like the ones described there. Not all of them are Quiverfull - a variety of traditions are represented. The common thread is male authority.

The latest post was on the Pearl's and the death of Lydia. I hardly know what to say. It sounds unbelievable.

Tim Keller and rule and submission

This is from Tim Keller's paper,

A head only exercises authority to over-rule when he believes his spouse is doing something destructive to her or the family. In a marriage, where there are only two "votes", now will the stalemate be broken in cases where there is not just a difference in taste or preference, but in cases where both parties believe the other is seriously mistaken? There can be no unity unless one person has the right to cast the deciding "vote". That person knows that, along with this "right' comes the greatest accountability and responsibility.

Keller does not recognize that men can do anything destructive. He speaks of only women being destructive. He denies reality.

Keller suggests that women have diminished responsibility and diminished accountability in law for their own children. I believe this is against the law.

I would like very much to interact with Marilyn on John's blog but I can't because I can only post on John's blog during my lunch break at work. But Marilyn can only comment in the evening. I guess that keeps the pace nice and slow.