The Bible records a law that requires men to take the place of sole master in the home. We find this law in the book of Esther chapter 1 verse 22.
Let me first give a little background. King Ahasuerus was a very wealthy and powerful king who reigned from India to Ethiopia over 127 provinces. [...]
Read Full Post »
The 2010 Together for the Gospel conference is on right now as I write this article. The conference this year is called The Unadjusted Gospel and according to J. Ligon Duncan III’s blog post on CBMW’s blog, complementarianism is a necessary testimony of the Gospel that cannot be denied or the witness of the Gospel [...]
Read Full Post »
On Sunday March 21, 2010 a meeting was held to determine the fate of principal John Hartwig who had been suspended earlier for engaging in conduct “unbecoming a called worker”. The Baraboo News Republic in Baraboo, Wisconsin documents the letter that was sent to school parents that announced Hartwig’s suspension:
In a letter to school parents announcing his [...]
Read Full Post »
Posted in Adam and headship, Answering complementarian arguments, Authority and Women, Authority and leadership, Egalitarian vs complementarian, Headship/submission, In the beginning - Genesis, Old Testament scriptures, Opposing viewpoints, Prejudice in the church, The fall of man on Mar 21st, 2010
In our continued topic of common objections to women in ministry, we come to the claim that Eve usurped Adam’s authority when she spoke to the serpent. To deal with this claim, we will be looking at both the claim that Eve rebelled against Adam in the garden and the claim that God gave Adam [...]
Read Full Post »
“…Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.” Luke 10:41-42
In the complementarian Christian community there is a lot of pressure to keep women away from a place that doesn’t belong to them. Because of the teaching that there is a “biblical manhood” and “biblical womanhood”, and the way we [...]
Read Full Post »
In our discussions on Genesis there has come one puzzling question. If Adam alone sinned willfully and the woman fell into sin through deception, then why did God punish Eve so severely for her sin?
I would like to propose that we have misunderstood what happened when God dealt with Adam, the woman and the serpent. [...]
Read Full Post »
Another reason some complementarians claim for denying women opportunities to minister in the church is that it is said that women are more easily deceived than men so men alone are permitted to minister in the church. A good example of this kind of rationale is found here with this excerpt:
But why should Eve’s being [...]
Read Full Post »
Another common objection to women in ministry is the claim that when women speak and lead publicly it dishonors men.
The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW) speaks of this as dishonoring the “calling” of men:
We would say that the teaching inappropriate for a woman is the teaching of men in settings or ways that dishonor [...]
Read Full Post »
Posted in 1 Timothy 2, Authority and Women, Injustice towards women, News, Opposing viewpoints, Prejudice in the church, Southern Baptists, Spiritual gifts, Women Pastors, Women serving in the church on Nov 17th, 2009
On November 11, 2009 the Georgia Baptist Convention adopted a policy that ended its 148 year relationship with First Baptist Church of Decatur, Georgia. According to the Associated Baptist News,
Pastor Julie Pennington-Russell read a letter at the end of both worship services Nov. 15 from Robert White, executive director of the 1.3 million-member state convention. It [...]
Read Full Post »
Here is an especially moving call to husbands to rethink what the term “head” means:
View This Video on You Tube
Send article as PDF to
Read Full Post »
Posted in 1 Corinthians 14, 1 Timothy 2, Answering complementarian arguments, Authority and Women, Challenges, Complementarian errors, Debates, Egalitarian web sites, Handling Opposition, Injustice towards women, Opposing viewpoints, Prejudice in the church, Reaching out to Complementarians, Southern Baptists, Women Pastors, Women serving in the church on Sep 2nd, 2009
Responses to question #5
In the last blog post Cheryl Schatz posed her fifth set of questions to Mike Seaver regarding their discussion/debate on women in ministry. Links to all the previous questions and responses is at the end of this post. This discussion will be Cheryl’s response to Mike’s answers on question #5 and Mike’s rejoinder. Mike’s [...]
Read Full Post »
Posted in 1 Corinthians 14, 1 Timothy 2, 1 Timothy 3, Authority and Women, Authority and leadership, Debates, Egalitarian vs complementarian, Injustice towards women, Opposing viewpoints, Prejudice in the church, Spiritual gifts, Women Pastors, Women serving in the church on Aug 26th, 2009
Responses to question #4
In the last blog post Cheryl Schatz posed her 4th set of questions to Mike Seaver regarding their discussion/debate on women in ministry. Links to all the previous questions and responses is at the end of this post. This discussion will be Cheryl’s response to Mike’s answers on question #4 and Mike’s rejoinder.
Cheryl Schatz [...]
Read Full Post »
Posted in 1 Corinthians 14, 1 Timothy 2, 1 Timothy 3, Authority and Women, Authority and leadership, Challenges, Debates, Egalitarian vs complementarian, Injustice towards women, Opposing viewpoints, Prejudice in the church, Spiritual gifts, Women Pastors, Women serving in the church on Aug 24th, 2009
This is question #4 of a 10 question discussion/debate between Mike Seaver and Cheryl Schatz on the issue of women in ministry. The discussion will take the form of five questions posed by Cheryl Schatz with answers by Mike Seaver and then five questions posed by Mike Seaver with answers by Cheryl Schatz. Each question and [...]
Read Full Post »
This is question #3 of a 10 question debate between Mike Seaver and Cheryl Schatz on the issue of women in ministry. The discussion will take the form of five questions posed by Cheryl Schatz with answers by Mike Seaver and then five questions posed by Mike Seaver with answers by Cheryl Schatz. Each question [...]
Read Full Post »
In the last blog post Cheryl Schatz posed her second set of questions to Mike Seaver regarding their discussion/debate on women in ministry. Links to all the previous questions and responses is at the end of this post. This discussion will be Cheryl’s response to Mike’s answers on question #2 and Mike’s rejoinder.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Regarding Mike’s denial [...]
Read Full Post »
This is question #2 of a 10 question discussion/debate between Mike Seaver and Cheryl Schatz on the issue of women in ministry. The discussion will take the form of five questions posed by Cheryl Schatz with answers by Mike Seaver and then five questions posed by Mike Seaver with answers by Cheryl Schatz. Each question [...]
Read Full Post »
Jimmy Carter writes “Losing my religion for equality“
I HAVE been a practising Christian all my life and a deacon and Bible teacher for many years. My faith is a source of strength and comfort to me, as religious beliefs are to hundreds of millions of people around the world. So my decision to sever my [...]
Read Full Post »
This post is from an inspiration I got from Katie Cole’s blog and a two part segment on Youtube on the issue of women in ministry from the series “Designing Women”. Katie writes:
One Bible verse, quoted to me out of context on its own, is no longer sufficient for me.
I think you will find the [...]
Read Full Post »
When does explaining God’s word make one an enemy of the church? According to Mike Seaver, a woman who is allowed to teach the word of God to men, even if she is under the authority of her husband and even if she has received authority from her pastor to teach the bible (and assuming [...]
Read Full Post »
For those of you who are experiencing church abuse or know of someone who has experienced abuse from a church leader, Dr. Barb Orlowski has her book online at churchexiters.com for only a little while longer. Barb is now working on the final stages of publishing her dissertation and so anyone interested in her research [...]
Read Full Post »
This is the eighth in a series of simulated interviews with the Apostle Paul taken from the position of what he might say if we could transport Paul from the New Testament account through a time tunnel into our present day.
Doug, a strong complementarian will be questioning Paul on his own strong hold today. The [...]
Read Full Post »
Posted in 1 Timothy 2, Answering complementarian arguments, Authority and Women, Authority and leadership, Conversation style post, Egalitarian vs complementarian, Misrepresentations, Opposing viewpoints, Prejudice in the church, Spiritual gifts, Women serving in the church on Mar 16th, 2009
This post will be a simulated interview with the Apostle Paul taken from the position of what he might say if we could transport Paul from the New Testament account through a time tunnel into our present day. We are interested in asking Paul his reasons for what he wrote about women and what he [...]
Read Full Post »
The picture above represents not only the “bride” of Christ held back and controlled, but women in the “bride” of Christ held back and controlled. It is a great concern to me that there are many in the body who think that authoritarian control is needed to keep people in line and to keep the [...]
Read Full Post »
Many people think that God was especially hard on Eve after she was deceived by the serpent in the garden. In fact hierarchists have determined that God was so hard on Eve by punishing her with a multitude of lashes for her sin, that some might get the idea that God punished the one who [...]
Read Full Post »
The issue of women in ministry allows us to the opportunity to ask questions about the hard passages of scripture and to work through these passages to discover God’s intended meaning through the inspired context. But in many quarters, questioning is a “sin” that will get a reprimand from a strong authoritarian leader. Is it [...]
Read Full Post »
