The un-civil rights of Christians

(From bWe Baptist Women for Equality’s Blog)

Today in church, I felt like I was the “N” word. I am a woman. I don’t live in the First Century, but what happened then still rules my church culture today.

My soul cried out. Tears came to my eyes. I wanted to kick, scream and throw something.

… (Read More)

Today the church badly needs a Christian Civil Rights Act. But don’t hold your breath. As long as Christians think they can continue to keep women from preaching and in submission to all males, they will do so.

But don’t hold your breath. As long as Christians think they can continue to keep women in submission to all males, they will do so.

 

Women – don’t look around when you’re singing!

Reply from Shirley Taylor of “bWe Baptist Women for Equality’s Blog”

Shirley Taylor lives and blogs within the Southern Baptist tradition.  Her stories of how women are theologically minimised and abused are an eye-opener.

Isn’t it intriguing how the different “Bible-based” traditions are concerned about different things? How astounding that the Church of Christ (USA) tells women that they shouldn’t turn their heads when singing in church for fear of preaching to men nearby.  Such practice and theology has its own internal coherence but they have lost touch with their women and the broader world.  What’s the ever-present message to women when they have to avert their eyes when singing their faith?  The practice sounds like one of the building blocks of domestic violence – if women can’t sing to men, they certainly can’t have their own voice at home.

Meanwhile the LCA’s version of repressing women’s ordination includes that:

• women’s ordination will threaten our unity with the Catholic Church.  There is a certain irony in this.
• women’s ordination is inspired by the second century Gnostic sect (Pr Greg Lockwood)
• we ask what the angels think about women’s ordination.. (Pr Frazer Pearce)  (Current edition of Together)

It would be interesting to compare and contrast the issues that different fundamentalist denominations have with women’s ordination. So much for them being Bible-based.

Shirley’s blog is found here:  http://bwebaptistwomenforequality.wordpress.com/

 

Female Jet Pilot? Sure. Preacher? No.

Rev Susan Sparks, New York, New York

From Rev Susan Spark’s blog on Huffington Post:

One third of the U.S. Supreme Court justices are women; more than fifty female astronauts have traveled into space; and forty-one women have won the Nobel Peace Prize. But place a woman in a pulpit and blood pressure and eyebrows immediately begin to rise; rise, that is, within the religious tradition of my upbringing: the Southern Baptists.

Read more.

It’s not so different in the LCA.  We have women doctors, lecturers, CEO’s, social workers, therapists, lawyers, singers, school principals, administrators, counselors, accountants, translators, missionaries  … and yet women are not fit for the pulpit.  Lord forgive us. If it was the post-war 1950’s, when the two Synods were discussing union, it would be understandable, but the 21st Century is another matter.

 

The structures of hate

A Kentucky Baptist Church has voted to ban interracial couples becoming members of their congregation.  They can still attend church but can’t take any leadership, except for funerals. Read more.

The stated reason is that it is “intended to promote greater unity among the church body and the community we serve.”  Let’s build our unity while we exclude those we are uncomfortable with.  Let’s work with people just like us.  Let’s not face diversity.

Whatever the language, we’re a racist species.  We are clever in the way we justify our prejudice, our conservatism and our hate.   However, it’s racism and it’s obscene.

The LCA treats women in a similar manner.  ‘You can come to church but you can’t have leadership.  Anything else would detract from our unity.’  We create structures in our own image, rather than allow our gaze to fall on Jesus embracing despised prostitutes and criminals (and of course women).  Just as the U.S. south has not recovered from the racism of slavery, the LCA has not recovered from its isolated, antipodean, German misogyny, and it’s obscene.

There can never be a justification for slavery, and there can never be a justification for misogyny, not in anyone’s name.

via Kentucky Baptist Church votes to ban interracial couples.