Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!apple!sun-barr!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: tblake@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu (Thomas Blake) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: St Paul and Women Message-ID: Date: 13 May 91 06:09:42 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: State University of New York at Binghamton Lines: 24 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu OFM writes... >[The view that Paul hates women actually seems to be fairly rare, >though I have heard it from time to time. More common is the concept >that he is reflecting views of his culture on appropriate roles for >women. I think most Christians, even those who don't feel bound by >his arguments, understand that he considered women to be equally >children of God. --clh] Well, perhaps it's rare among scholars, but it's not so rare among a number of lay women I know. (Especially Roman Catholics.) They've been so beaten over the head with little snippets from Pauline Epistles, that they've been soured to everything the man ever wrote! They've been convinced that he was a woman hater, and as a result, they hate *him*! They've been convinced that these snippets (some of questionable authorship) are Paul's only thoughts on the matter of women, and so they won't read a wonderful work like Paul's letter to the Romans, where they might get a more balanced view of the man. The church has done a vast dis-service to its women and to Paul by using these extractions to "keep women in their place". Tom Blake SUNY-Binghamton