A Hearty Endorsement July 9, 2009
Posted by Matt in Christian Beliefs, gender.Tags: church of christ, gender
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If you are not a reader of Rude Truth, JTB’s blog, then now is the time to check it out. She has started an excellent project revolving around gender in the churches of Christ.
As most of you know, I have strong feelings regarding gender roles in churches, particularly in the churches of Christ. Having young daughters really put things into perspective for me and I truly hope that things will change and that they will not always be saddled with feelings that they are of less worth than their male counterparts or to suffer the humiliation of exclusion. And, if things do not change, I want them to have the strength to leave.
I’m curious if your readers (who aren’t already JTB fans) actually check this out. Particularly those who seem to fear anyone making waves in the CoC.
I’m also curious if you and your wife would ever consider leaving the CoC (and if you feel you have the strength to do so, like you hope your daughters will someday possess). With all due respect, I think the issue of gender roles in church will hang with the CoC like a dark shadow. It will always be there.
Sorry to be a kill-joy, but I guess I don’t understand the undying allegiance so many have to the CoC. I know no church is perfect, but the CoC prides itself in not changing. Shoot, they actually think they look like the NT church, and that’s the shtick they’re going for.
Matt- I don’t expect you to answer my questions… it’s just food for thought. (And perhaps I’m letting off a little steam since I know of so many blogs of folks who were raised in CoC and are currently highly frustrated with the CoC, but they continue to stick within the CoC…and their blogs continue to vent frustration– day after day after day.)
Prior to us becoming a part of the church that we attend now we had been away for a few years. If it wasn’t for the people that we love in the church we are a part of, I think I can say that we would not be in a CoC now. I’m definitely not somebody that is hung up on any particular type of church.
Who knows what the future will hold? I am a person of faith whose past church experiences have, for the most part, been very poor. All I know is to keep plugging away, doing what I believe to be right, until it becomes apparent that we are no longer welcome. We are happy with our current church, particularly with the friends we’ve made and the opportunities to help those in the community, but there are issues that remain contentious for us, especially those regarding the role of women.
I hope that things change, but I fear they won’t.
JTB linked to a bunch of great articles at gal328.org. I just started reading them, but this one was encouraging from a husband of a woman who has been a preacher within the CoC (as has he):
http://www.gal328.org/articles/Pape-Change.html
I don’t know this guy and his wife, and I’m just starting to get to know of them. His last few paragraphs in particular really rang true with me:
“At the very least this: The time for whispering encouragement to promising young women behind closed office doors has passed. In light of what I now know, I have more respect for the sincere practitioner of patriarchy than for the egalitarian who would encourage a young woman to take up her cross and run the gauntlet of the Powers alone. The benevolent patriarch does not throw his daughter to the wolves. How much less the true egalitarian!
Those who are fully convinced must either choose to stand publicly and unequivocally with gifted women on the side of justice, or they must be forthright about their refusal to do so. They must begin to tell our gifted young women the truth, even if the truth turns out to be that they should run, not walk, to find a church context that embraces and celebrates the miracle of God’s gift and calling in them. This is not a radical idea; it is common Kingdom sense. And if this means, as it surely will, that we must begin to bless the leaving of many, so be it. Perhaps then the pain of the status quo will begin at long last to match the often-cited “pain of change” that has resulted in so much hand-wringing and so little justice in the past.”