Gender, ministry, my office, and ABC News
ABC News is in the process of visiting “50 States in 50 Days.” Today they broadcasted their visit to my new state of residence, Kentucky. They actually filmed the piece last Friday.
How do I know that? Because in a state of 40,000 square miles and 4.2 million people, they chose my boss and our office as the launching pad for their story. Click here for the ABC video (Yes, the link does work. No, it does not work for everyone’s computer and/or browser).
I think it is hilarious because, given the parameters of the series, the story could have been about ANYTHING - as long as it touched briefly on the fall election and something to do with Kentucky.
They could have gone to Churchill Downs and asked folks leaving the races their thoughts on the race, for President that is. They could have gone to tobacco farmers to ask about health care or tobacco tax. They could have gone to the very poor mining communities in the east. They could have (and probably should have) talked about the very real racism that was evident in the Kentucky Democratic primary between Clinton and Obama. Not pretty.
Instead, (and for the record, I am certainly NOT complaining) they chose to come to my alma mater and place of employment, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
To ask about what? Basically, they wanted to find out if it really is true that we see no problem with a woman serving in the Oval Office (Palin, Clinton, Ferraro, etc.), but we do believe that Scripture limits the office of pastor (i.e. elder) to men.
Recently, there has been a certain amount of debate stirred up regarding women pastors, all on account of Sarah Palin’s role as John McCain’s running mate. Not that she is a pastor mind you, but the issue has been raised as folks everywhere have been talking about whether or not it is hypocritical for a woman to have a limitation placed on her in one arena (church), but not in the other (politics).
One such arena for this discussion recently was “On Faith,” the Washington Post online reigious forum from which our own “Civil Religion” takes its cues. HERE is the link to that discussion (I’ll go with Reynolds, Mohler, and Thomas).
At this point, I could give you a bunch of links that would take you to opinions on both sides of the issue. Instead, let me just throw you a link to some folks who are spending their whole lives thinking deeply and critically about issues of gender, sexuality, family, ministry, etc. It is called The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood.
Scott Lamb pastored Providence Baptist Church in St. Louis for seven years, and now serves as Director of Research for the President of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. 
“Whether or not it is hypocritical for a woman to have a limitation placed on her in one arena (church), but not in the other (politics)” depends on your definition of “church”. Is the church all who follow Jesus, where the woman would find her authority from pursuing truth, or is the church an organized religion where authority stems from office? If the former, it is hypocritical. If the latter - it is your church, do what you want.
The bible is THE MOST limiting book on women. It promotes slavery and other atrocities but people of faith seem to just overlook it’s message and cherry pick what it actually says.
I don’t think it will ever mater because no one ever really reads the bible… They just get told what it says by “people of the cloth” who take their money like the good sheep that they are…
Reminds me when Martha Burk wanted to change Augusta National because women weren’t allowed as members. Since they are a private organization they don’t have to invite anyone they don’t want to. If you are a woman, and you want to become a poster, start your own sect. Or, lobby for change within the group you belong to.
But the question ABC asked was stupid. You can’t exclude anyone from a tax-paid government position. A private organization can set whatever rules they want. It’s comparing apples to fire hydrants, but it is the only way they can make it appear that there is impropriety in a religious group.
It’s not a question of whether a church is allowed to choose its rules; of course it is. The issue is why do people who do not think a woman should be a pastor or priest think it’s fine for a woman to be V-P and possibly Pres.
Because the Bible does not prohibit a woman from being Pres., they say, it’s OK, whereas they believe the Bible does prohibit a woman from having authority over a man. But I guess they say that it means authority only in a church setting. And they used to say that slaves should obey their masters. Hey, that’s what scripture says.
They say that they are the biblical literalists and I pick and choose what I want to adhere to, but I say that most “biblical literalists” do not really adhere fully to the literal meaning of scripture (and thank goodness, or what would you do with the slavery passage?). I don’t claim to be trying to pick and choose different phrases to live by; I read the scripture as a revelation of God, useful for instruction and reproof, but not God itself.
What an odd religion to exclude women in that manner. Right up there with the catholics and their exclusionary position regarding women in the clergy. How very odd.
On second thought, I suppose these exclusions, which are supposedly based on writings that an author wrote some two thousand years ago, are no sillier than any of the other church rules based on the same thing. A mortal man claiming to have some special communion with God? Are we really to believe these religious “leaders” who interpret for us the words written so long ago? I don’t believe they have any more understanding of the words than any other mortal, man or woman.
The comment posters here would have been considered hate-speakers last week if you would have cut out christianity and pasted in islam.
Where are our left type p.c. police? It’s okay to berate christianity, but watch out with anyone else. Bias? What bias?
Point taken, Mike. Wide-sweeping generalizations are by their nature not valid nor probably useful. I should modify my own comments to change “they” to “some.”
I would say, though, that I’m not seeing anyone in these comments accuse Christians of being terrorists or guilty of criminal acts, which is what I often see people do online and often hear in conversation.
Were people’s comments on Islam banned by the P-D? Or are you talking about the DVD thing? I haven’t seen the movie, so I can’t really say whether it deserved to be rejected, as to me it’s a matter of degree. I think the P-D has the right to do whatever it wants; it’s not a public entity, but a private enterprise. But were I running it, I would tend to err on the side of allowing expression rather than suppressing it. But again, I have not seen the movie. If it’s a fear-mongering, hate-spreading vehicle, I’d likely reject it too.
But your point as to what’s hate-speech and what’s expressing an opinion about someone else….well, that’s legit. Obviously if it’s expressing something I agree with, I”m probably not going to see it as hate, whereas the other side will.
Good point Mike, Islam holds women down better than any ideology/political system/religion on Earth, but we’d all be called misunderstanding bigots if we commented on that…