Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!uupsi!njin!paul.rutgers.edu!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: henning@acsu.buffalo.edu (Karl colossal Henning) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: ambitious women may approach the altar now ... Message-ID: Date: 8 May 91 07:52:17 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: SUNY Buffalo Lines: 125 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu David H. Wagner writes: >cctr114@csc.canterbury.ac.nz writes: >> Well, maybe the Lord doesn't contradict Himself but that doesn't mean >> the Bible is always totally consistent. >I can understand how you might believe that, but I believe that the Bible >is verbally inspired by God. That means it says what God wants it to say, >albeit in the words of a number of different human authors. So Paul's >words, for me, are God's Words. Otherwise we have to start picking and >choosing what is God's Word, and while some think they can do that, I >don't. It seems to me that you must still make comparable distinctions from among mutually non-corobborative scriptural texts, but that you place this decision-making process at a different level. What I mean is, either you decide that THESE are probably god's words, but THOSE may not be, quite; or, they're ALL god's words, but -- gee -- what do you suppose he REALLY meant by THIS, which doesn't seem quite to jive with THAT? In coordinating scriptural texts from different contexts, for example, people can become so concerned with NOT QUESTIONING the "divinity" of a text, that they learn to impute to a "difficult" text a consonant "reading" which is NOT what the text SAYS -- such as, an earlier post to which I recently responded, where "judge not, lest ye be judged" became "interpreted away" to ACTUALLY "meaning", "do unto others as you would have them do unto you." >> Pauls' teaching here is quite >> different to the teaching of Jesus about women, the Old Testament teaching, >> and whats more its is also different to other things that Paul says. >> (assuming, of course, that we take it at face value.) >You might explain to us what Jesus taught about women that was incompatible >with Paul's teachings. I don't find Jesus setting up women as teachers of men >or choosing them as apostles. At the wedding at Cana he quite distinctly >put his mother in her place. Did you mean that last sentence to be quite as chauvinistic as it seems (to me, at least)? >> What about the place were Paul says that in Christ there is neither >> Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female. >Our moderator has already answered this one (which always comes up): men and >women have equal status before God, they have equal value, and are equally >saved by Christ. This does not mean that their God-pleasing roles cannot >be different. Paul also wrote, "We have different gifts, according to the >grace given us..." BUT -- the text to which you're responding makes a strong case for equality between the sexes; the text you bring up does not specifically address the issue of sex. Your text provides for a tolerant multiplicity, but does NOT even SUGGEST sexual hierarchy. >Our Council of (District) Presidents has decided that church-related >organizations may choose to allow women to vote, so long as the organization >upholds the Scriptural principle of male headship and female submission >(1 Cor 14:34, 1 Tim 2:11). Frankly, I think they stepped on a pretty >slippery banana peel on that one, but the basic idea is this: >Scripture teaches various things, just one of which is that women should >be 'in submission' and should not 'exercise authority over men'. This is >based on the facts of the creation story (as interpreted by Paul). The basic >principle, based upon God's creation, is eternal ... But what if that creation story is not entirely (strictly speaking) historical? What if it's allegorical? What if it's just a yarn? Your "eternal principle ... based on the facts of ... God's creation", which stems from Paul's interpretation, could be very shaky indeed. >The clearest application one can make of this principle is that a wife >should submit to her husband: 'wives, submit to your husbands, as to >the Lord,... husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church, etc.' To what man should a woman who is not a wife submit herself? Or doesn't this metaphor strike you as particularly grounded in the notion that a woman is socially insignificant, except insofar as she's attached to a man? Is the servant-master relationship traditionally asserted for a wife and husband REALLY the logical and eternal reflection of the relationship between man and christ? In a sense, perhaps, traditional Mormonism was braver and bolder, in holding (no doubt as an application of this text) that a woman COULD NOT BE SAVED, unless she was wedded to a "righteous" man. Just how many unmarried women could function in Paul's society? In colonial Salem, was it mere coincidence that the women accused of witchery were generally unmarried or widowed women, in possession of farms or estates which certain of their neighbors felt "ought" to be in the hands of men? Do you suppose that it is mere accident that most people accused of witchcraft are women, or does one write this off as mere social malcontentment with god's ordained order? In the late 20th century, to just what extent does a woman have to be married in order to be taken seriously, or to feel secure? >Secondly, it is very clear from 1 Tim 2:12 that a woman should not exercise >autority over a man as a man's master-teacher. The best translation of >this notion to modern practice is the pastor of a church. There is less in divine will about refusing to allow women in the pulpits, as there is of intersexual insecurity on the part of men in institutionalizing the lie that women aren't suitable/intelligent enough/wise enough/up to the responsibility, to teach (gasp) men. It is not merely a matter of "submitting to divine will as [unambiguously 'provided'] in scripture. It is a matter of selective (and biased) interpretation. "Oh ... look here, Lucy, says here you gotta submit to me; ain't life grand? BabaLOOOO" -- oh, yeah, men have the awesome responsibility of loving women as christ loved the church. And men shrink from that power, don't they? So who loves the unmarried women? kph -- "The study of crime begins with the knowledge of oneself. All that you despise, all that you loathe, all that you reject, all that you condemn and seek to convert by punishment springs from you." -- Henry Miller