Church was weird tonight. In the last few weeks, our elders asked the congregants to submit whatever questions they had and the sheps would take a Sunday evening and provide their answers. The lion's share of the questions focused on our new worship minister and a few other of the "core issues of our fellowship". A few of the questions were pointed directly at the "role of women" passages from a few of Paul's New Testament writings. Growing up in a handful of different churches, I've heard the usual talking points about "usurping authority" and "submission" and what not, but tonight this subject struck me in a different way (the other cheek so to speak).
The difference wasn't with the issue itself because many of the same things I heard growing up were said this evening but it was the tone and tenor of the "conversation" that caught me. Why do we talk about the "role of women in the church", which is always in a restrictive/almost legalistic sort of way, as if the women of the church were not even present? What did Jesus say about the subject? How are we sure that what Paul was talking about wasn't cultural-and that our culture would support an entirely different set of directions on the "roles"? It is at least worth a second look...
skip to main |
skip to sidebar
About Me
Facebook Badge
Friends, Acquaintances, Folks of Interest
- Bills (Deborah and Pat)
- Bills (Jenni and Nathan)
- Bittles (Julie and Matthew)
- Bittles (Kelly and Josh)
- Blands
- Breedings
- Bunkhouse
- Carlin Brooks
- Crows
- Czech 'em out
- Dahls
- Divinos
- Dyniewskis
- Felker
- Gunselmans
- Helms (Houston Cuz)
- Keims
- Keith Brenton
- Kristen Chapman
- Lacey Mauk
- McFaddins
- McKinzies
- Samwise
- Todd Ramsey
- Trey Morgan
Old Posts
14 comments:
Yeah, church was weird tonight, and not just because it lasted an hour and a half! Glad I'm not the only one that realized it. Awhile back, I posted about "Sunday School Stress" as we discussed some worship issues in class for a couple of Sunday mornings. I had that same stressful feeling again this evening...I realized that as I would catch myself sighing these really heavy sighs this evening, not of frustration, but just a stressful feeling. It upsets me that there is such a dire need for such "conversation" about our corporate worship.
As for your questions about women's roles, bro, you gotta check out Keith's post on Worship, Gifts, and Women! He raises some interesting points that I think you'd really appreciate. Lemme know what you think! Talk later bro, much love!--mmlace
Last fall the Bible study I attend read the following book:
Slaves, Women & Homosexuals: Exploring the Hermeneutics of Cultural Analysis by William Webb
While the title makes it sound rather provocative it isn't that controversial. It offers quite a few insights into the problem of determining what exactly is cultural and what isn't. Of course everything should be taken with a grain of salt and I have my differences with the book, but it's interesting nonetheless.
Here's another iron for the fire. How are gender roles to be understood when communicated through a language that is gender neutral? Do we really believe that the Bible can transcend language and that it can speak through any language in which it is translated? How do we deal with the fact that any translation is also an interpretation as well? Example: I spent a summer in Hungary teaching English using the Bible. Hungarian is gender neutral. There are no gender pronouns and the word for spouse is the same whether you're referring to the male or female. Even Hungarians who speak English fairly well were just as likely to refer to me as she rather than he if talking about me in English. In that context the idea
that the wife should submit to the husband would translate as the spouse must submit to the spouse etc..
I was astounded hearing all the questions. Who ARE these people???
My head is not covered so I don't think that I should post at this time. ;)
I haven't heard an explanation yet about how a recorded woman's voice beginning a song in solo can teach or usurp authority from a man. She could be dead. She could be thousands of miles away, completely unaware how the recording was being used. Isn't that a question of intent?
Wow, the gender-neutral language question is one I've never considered. That would indeed be a challenge, because you'd have to tack on gender adjectives that would probably sound bizarre in Hungarian.
vic, my favorite question Sunday night was, "Is it really necessary to spend time hugging on each other at the beginning of a worship service?" The laugh it got in response was sufficient answer ... but one that might be more to the point is, "Well, if you read scripture as law, it's actually really necessary to greet one another with a holy kiss."
Ditto on the favorite question from Sunday night! Being the touchy-feely hugger that I am, this question was just beyond me! I even turned to a couple of my friends behind me as we were laughing and whispered “You’ve gotta be kidding me!” (Uh-oh…now that I think about it, that probably qualifies as not being “silent.”)
”Isn’t that a question of intent?”
Very interesting point. I remember my dad having a discussion over this topic with my aunt once upon a time. They were discussing the idea of women leading prayer. My dad’s viewpoint was that it wasn’t teaching, it was just people talking to God together. My dad asked my aunt if she would be comfortable saying a prayer with a man present, even if not during a worship service. He asked her, “If elder 'so-and-so' were present with us in this room right now, would you not even be able to, I dunno, say, bless the food?” Her response was definitely not, because women were not to usurp authority over men. He followed up with, “Well what if elder ‘so-and-so’ said, ‘Go ahead, by all means, give thanks for the food, you have my blessing!’ Then it’s not usurping authority, is it?” She still refused, but I never quite understood why. I also recall from that same conversation that evening my mom asking her “Why can I pass the plate from side-to-side, but not get up and silently pass it from front to back?” But that’s another post altogether, so I won’t go into that here. Perhaps one day on my own blog…
Here’s another question of my own, though; I’d like to know what y’all think. When I was in college, I went to a small, fairly conservative church…it was mostly old people and college kids (and even most of the college kids there were raised pretty strictly CoC). But we were a pretty close-knit group of kids; those people are some of my best friends--we hung out together all the time. My friend Keith would lead singing at church a lot of the time, and many times when we were hangin out on Saturday night or before church on Sunday morning, he would ask us what we wanted to sing and let us help him pick out songs. How is this not teaching, even more so than the actual song leading??? Think about it for a second. What does the song leader do different from all the other singers, besides set the pitch and tempo??? (I really can't think of anything.) We would never have a woman doing this. Yet we would allow women to have a hand in choosing the songs that will direct our hearts and our minds during worship? Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have a problem with this at all, it just seems inconsistent to me.
This idea was barely touched on the other night, when someone had asked the question about how the worship planning teams were formed and if women were to serve on them. This was probably the answer I was most interested in hearing, simply because I don’t know much about how my church goes (or has gone) about this. And it was just kinda skipped over, in an effort to save time, which was understandable. But I would be interested in at least knowing how this has been done in the past. (Keith Brenton, are you still out here? I imagine you’d be pretty knowledgeable about this process???)
Anyway, those are just a few of my thoughts on this subject. Alan, sorry for the novel-length comment…guess I have a lot of thoughts about this subject…
Baird, How the heck are you?
I am also not sure how a recorded voice (especially such an angelic voice) of a woman that only a handful of us have actually met can authoritatively be non-submissive...
I liked the question about the projectors...muy importante...
I'm living the dream man. Getting married in September. send me an email, I'd love to catch up. baird.steven at gmail dot com
Women have served on worship planning teams from the beginning. On at least one team - which has always divided up weeks to plan among its members - women have planned entire services. On other teams, women have definitely taken the lead in planning worship in many instances. Women have created many of the powerpoints, written HeartWorship articles for the bulletin and Web site.
In addition, at our church, women take an active role in planning and sometimes writing adult curriculum.
(That's not teaching?)
Interesting topic that you've brought up. Our minister addressed the same/similar topic a few weeks ago. In the end, I believe that the conclusion was that it was okay for women to voice as long as there was no intent to take over the class, service, etc. My feministic mind can live with that.
Being military, I'm often in a situation where a female Chaplin will be asked to lead a prayer. I have an issue with this, regardless of whether or not there are any "Christian" men in the room.
I once wondered what was better to do when there's a mixed gender group attending service on Sunday, but no Christian men present. Is it okay for a Christian woman to conduct communion or is it better not to do it at all? The person I asked said that having a woman conduct it was better then nothing at all.
Have a great weekend!
carolina girl, A woman SERVING the communion is NOT leadership, and of course, a woman should be able to SERVE communion, READ scripture, VOICE a prayer----none of those acts of worship are LEADERSHIP issues. We've bound I Cor.14 & Timothy scriptures in such wrong ways, it's sad. We sing in the assembly, yet we have people who are upset if a woman holds a microphone from her seat to help with the harmony parts. That also is not usurping authority over men. Common sense & balance, please. I was so proud of our shepherds last Sunday night. They've had SO much to deal with over such petty issues, & they handled themselves with dignity, apology, & concern. The service could've been alot longer if you knew how MUCH time they've spent studying the "worship wars" & the "women's roles" issue. There WILL be more questions in our fellowship as congregations across the nation grapple with these issues long long misinterpreted. It has helped me so much to attend some other congregations who are trying to make our corporate worship time more meaningful & expressive, & I wish more of our congregation would do the same. I've been to some really moving services & they weren't "off the deep end" as so many worry about. Study, study of the scripture is also so very important! I believe Our Father is sending "fresh breezes" to the church to get us out of stale & rote worship assemblies. I can't wait for what the future holds for us believers of HIM! Annie
AMEN! I couldn't agree w/you more, Annie.
Annie, You said just what I wish I would have said. Our shepherds at PV are leading us with humility and love. Thank you for your encouraging words.
I'm a bit confused then as to the meaning of leadership as I thought it was basically someone taking the initiative to conduct - or rather "take charge" of what was going on. So, somewhere I missed what leadership is all about.
Last night at Church the youth group took over service. In doing so, the women and men separated in order to conduct their own services. The women in the congergation did an excellent job of leading singer, reading scripture, and leading prayer. I would say that's leadership - the ability to motivate others. I wouldn't have been comfortable with women conducting that service if men had been in the room.
Have a great week!
Post a Comment