2. They Were Right (And Wrong) About the Slippery Slope

3. Driscoll, “Real Marriage,” and Why Being a Pastor Doesn’t Automatically Make You a Sex Therapist

4. Esther and Vashti: The Real Story

5. Tripp Fuller and Bo Sanders: Is God Really Omnipotent?

And just when I was starting to feel discouraged about blogging, the good people at RISE Church in Harrisonburg sent me this: 

Dear Rachel ... from Brent Levy on Vimeo.

All I can say is, Thank You.

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Some favorites so far: 

Landon Whitsitt with “Mama’s Boy: Reflections on a Masculine Christianity”

JR Daniel Kirk with “Imaging the Biblical God”

Paul Anthony with “The Radical Femininity of Christ”

Frank Viola with “God’s View of a Woman”

...And that’s just a small preview! 

In fact, there were so many links to posts pouring in yesterday that many got lost in the shuffle of the 200+ comments after yesterday’s post.  So I’m designating the comment section below for LINKS ONLY. That will make it easier for me to sort through them, and pick out a few to highlight on Tuesday. 

So, if you posted your link yesterday, you might want to post it here again so we can find it. (I’ll delete any comments that don’t include links to posts.)

Thank you!

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**Important Update: Guys, please leave links to your posts here instead.**

“God has chosen to liken Himself to a female and we are the fruit of His womb.”
– John Calvin 

On Tuesday, at the annual Desiring God pastors conference, popular evangelical pastor John Piper spoke on the importance of maintaining what he calls a “masculine Christianity,” arguing that “God has given Christianity a masculine feel.” 

“God revealed Himself in the Bible pervasively as king not queen; father not mother," Piper said. "The second person of the Trinity is revealed as the eternal Son not daughter; the Father and the Son create man and woman in His image and give them the name man, the name of the male...God appoints all the priests in the Old Testament to be men; the Son of God came into the world to be a man; He chose 12 men to be His apostles; the apostles appointed that the overseers of the Church be men; and when it came to marriage they taught that the husband should be the head."

“Now, from all of that I conclude that God has given Christianity a masculine feel,” Piper continued. “And being God, a God of love, He has done that for our maximum flourishing both male and female... He does not intend for women to languish or be frustrated or in any way suffer or fall short of full and lasting joy in this masculine Christianity. From which I infer that the fullest flourishing of women and men takes place in churches and families that have this masculine feel.” 

You can read more of his comments here.

This is a strange way to talk about the Bride of Christ.  

And it is a dismissive, hurtful way to speak about women, who Piper seems to have forgotten were also created in the image of God, were appointed by God as leaders at critical times in the history of Israel and the Church, and were the first to whom Jesus appeared when he inaugurated his new Kingdom on Resurrection Day.

 Since these comments have been made public, I’ve been bombarded with requests to write a response. I certainly appreciate your confidence in me, but here’s the thing: There’s a double-standard out there in which a woman’s critique of patriarchy tends to get discounted as nothing more than the rants of an “angry feminist,” and, truth be told, I’ve grown a bit weary of hearing that charge each time I speak out about this disturbing trend in the evangelical church.

So instead, I’d like to challenge the guys to respond.  

 Here's how you can participate: 

1. Write a blog post that highlights the feminine images of God found in Scripture or that celebrates the importance of women in the Church. (Be positive and be creative!) 

2. Share a link to your post here.

3. On Tuesday, February 7, I’ll feature my favorite posts here on the blog, so be sure to check back. 

Ladies, you are of course welcome to join in—(we must continue to stand up for ourselves, even when we're criticized for it!)—but I’d especially like to hear from men this time. I think it’s important for those who are advocating an exclusively masculine Christianity to see that not all men agree with them. It’s also important for those of us who have grown weary of being treated like second-class Kingdom citizens to be reminded of the fact that there are indeed many Christian men out there who support and celebrate women in the Church.

(This isn’t about egalitarianism or complementarianism, by the way. It’s about the basic value and dignity of God’s daughters.  So please feel free to participate no matter your theological convictions regarding women in church leadership.)

I’m excited about what’s to come. In fact, I found the John Calvin quote above in this fantastic piece by Wade Burleson. 

Instead of letting Piper get us down, let's celebrate - women, men, and the God who loves and empowers both! 

***

Update: Already there are some beautiful, affirming, and courageous posts rolling in. I'm certain these words will encourage the many women of faith who have grown weary from fighting for a place at the table.  Remember to try and keep it positive. The goal is to create an alternative. Some great examples include:
 

Landon Whitsitt: “Mama’s Boy: Reflections on a Masculine Christianity”
JR Daniel Kirk: "Imaging the Biblical God"
Ben Gosden: “Women’s Witness to the Gospel”  
Frank Viola: "God's View of a Woman"

**Important Update: Guys, please leave links to your posts here instead.**
 

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Well, today I’m happy to introduce a Christian Libertarian!

Caryn Dahlstrand Rivadeneira has been a Libertarian for more than ten years, and recently wrote an article for Relevant entitled “The Rise of Christian Libertarians” in which she noted that “the surprising surge of support Ron Paul enjoys from young Americans—and young Christians—suggests that perhaps the Libertarian-leaning aren’t so far off in right field after all.”

Caryn is a writer, speaker, and co-founder of Redbud Writers Guild. She’s the author of Grumble Hallelujah: Learning to Love Life When It Lets You Down (Tyndale House, 2011) and Mama’s Got a Fake I.D.: How to Reveal the Real You Behind All that Mom (Waterbrook, 2009), as well as hundreds of blog posts and magazine articles. Caryn is a regular contributor to Christianity Today’s Her.Meneutics blog and to Re:Frame Media’s Think Christian blog. Her work regularly appears in Relevant and FullFill, along with several other media outlets. Caryn lives outside of Chicago with her husband, three kids and one pit bull. You can visit her Web site at www.carynrivadeneira.com. (You can also find her on Facebook and Twitter.)  

You know the drill: If you have a question for Caryn, leave it in the comment section. At the end of the day, I’ll pick the top seven or eight questions and send them to Caryn. We'll post her response next week.  Be sure to take advantage of the “like” feature so that we can get a sense of what questions are of most interest to readers.  

Now I know political conversations can get heated, especially during an election year. Please remember the point of our interview series is not to debate or challenge, but to ask the sort of questions that will help us understand one another better. I’ll be monitoring the comment section to make sure the questions are civil and fair.

(You can check out the rest of the interview series—which includes an atheist, a Mormon, a humanitarian, an evolutionary creationist, a Catholic, an Orthodox Jew, a gay Christian, a Muslim, Quaker, and more—here.) 

Ask away!

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Within the first week of my freshman year of college, my Introduction to World Literature class included a reading of Gilgamesh, an ancient Mesopotamian myth about a hero who is described as 1/3 man and 2/3 god.

As we read the text together in class, I couldn't help but notice some striking similarities between this text and the familiar texts of Genesis and Ecclesiastes, but when we got to the part where Gilgamesh speaks with Utnapishtim, a survivor of the Great Flood, I disintegrated into a full-fledged faith crisis.  So much of the Gilgamesh flood story sounded just like “my” flood story from Genesis: Both accounts included a boat in which just a few people, along with animals, are saved from a universal flood.  In both stories, the boat comes to rest on a mountain and birds are sent out to find land. And both stories end with a sacrifice to a deity. And my literature book dated the writing of Gilgamesh before the writing of Genesis! 

I was at a conservative Christian college, and so my professor insisted that the texts had been misdated and that the story of Gilgamesh represented some sort of distortion of the historical/scientific account of Adam and Eve, Noah, and the flood. But my literary instincts had kicked in and I just wasn’t buying it. 

“The similarities between these texts must mean that they are of the same genre and share a similar context,” my English-major mind was screaming.  “Why would we regard one as history and the other as story when they use such similar images, styles, symbols, and plotlines? That just doesn’t make sense.” 

Twelve years later, Old Testament scholar Peter Enns has confirmed my suspicions, but in a way that has somehow managed to strengthen my faith rather than weaken it, through a fantastic book entitled The Evolution of Adam: What the Bible Does and Doesn’t Say About Human Origins.

“The early chapters of Genesis are not a literal or scientific description of historical events but a theological statement in an ancient idiom, a statement about Israel’s God and Israel’s place in the world of God’s people,” Enns explains. “The core issue raised by ancient Near Eastern data has helped calibrate the genre of the biblical creation accounts. The failure to appreciate that genre calibration is responsible for much of the tension in the evolution discussion....To observe the similarities between the creation and flood stories and the literature of the ancient Near East, and to insist that all of those other writings are clearly a-historical while Genesis is somehow presenting history—this is not a strong position of faith, but rather a weak one, where Scripture must conform to one’s expectations.” 

Enns goes on to remind readers that “a text’s meaning is rooted in its historical and literary context,” and to argue that the historical and literary context of much of the Old Testament can be found in the questions and concerns of post-exilic Israel. 

I first heard Enns present these ideas at a conference hosted by the BioLogos Foundation in 2010, and it was as if a light clicked on in my head.  As a lover of literature, it made perfect sense to me that the best way to understand an author’s meaning is to study the time and culture in which the author wrote, to get a sense of the sort of questions people were asking at the time. Taking this approach to the Bible does not weaken it, but rather respects it for what it is, not what we want it to be. 

The Evolution of Adam not only answers just about every question I had after Enns’ Biologos lecture, but also includes a lengthy and thoughtful treatment of the apostle Paul’s Adam, again seeking to understand Paul’s intent within his unique context and culture. Enns is quick to note that it is Paul’s view of Adam rather than the Genesis account itself that causes most Christians to wrestle with the implications of evolution, and so it is Paul’s view of Adam that must be investigated. 

“Paul’s use of the Adam story,” Enns concludes, “serves a vital theological purpose in explaining to his ancient readers the significance for all humanity of Christ’s death and resurrection. His use of the Adam story, however, cannot and should not be the determining factor in whether biblically faithful Christians can accept evolution as the scientific account of human origins—and the gospel does not hang in the balance.” 

This may seem like an impossibly complicated topic to cover in a mere 147 pages, but Enns manages to do so with astounding clarity and insight. He is of the best scholarly writers I’ve ever encountered because he somehow manages to be thorough, personable, and readable all at the same time.

In The Evolution of Adam, you’ll find accessible introductions to everything from source criticism to the New Perspective on Paul, which will make you feel oh-so-caught-up on all the important trends in biblical scholarship.  (Try not to show off at parties.) 

For me, this book served as both a reality check and an inspiration—a rare combination that you just won’t find in most books that take historical and literary criticism seriously. I wish I could get into all the details of what made this book so helpful, but this would require a series of posts that will have to wait for a later time. 

For now, just know that The Evolution of Adam comes with my heartfelt, enthusiastic recommendation. Learning to love the Bible for what it is, not what we want it to be, means taking its context and history seriously. Enns has managed to do that in a way that both enlightens and encourages. 

I’ll conclude with a quote from The Evolution of Adam that ties together perfectly yesterday’s post and today’s: 

For many, it is important for the future viability of faith, let alone the evolution-Christianity discussion, that we recognize and embrace the fact that the Bible is a thoroughly enculturated product. But it is not enough to merely say so and press on, with a quaint nod or an embarrassed shuffle of the feet. It is important for future generations of Christians to have a view of the Bible where its rootedness in ancient ways of thinking is embraced as a theological positive, not a problem to be overcome. At present there is  a lot of fear about the implications of bringing evolution and Christianity together, and this fear needs to be addressed head-on. Many fear that we are on a slippery slope, to use the hackneyed expression. Perhaps the way forward is not to resist the slide so much as to stop struggling, look around, and realize that we may have been on the wrong hill altogether.

Be sure to check out the Brazos Press Web site this week. You can enter win a giveaway in which the grand prize is a book package that includes:

• The Evolution of Adam by Peter Enns
• Inspiration and Incarnation by Peter Enns
• The Bible Made Impossible by Christian Smith
• Testing Scripture: A Scientist Explores the Bible by John Polkinghorne
• The Mind and the Machine by Matthew Dickerson

(Five runners up will receive copies of The Evolution of Adam by Peter Enns) 

If some of these titles sound familiar, it’s because most of them are on my list of books to read and discuss on the blog. So go enter! 

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They said that if I questioned a 6,000-year-old earth, I would question whether other parts of Scripture should be read scientifically and historically. 

They were right.  I did. 

They said that if I entertained the hope that those without access to the gospel might still be loved and saved by God, I would fall prey to the dangerous idea that God loves everyone,  that there is nothing God won’t do to reconcile all things to Himself. 

They were right. I have.  

They said that if I looked for Jesus beyond the party line, I could end up voting for liberals. 

They were right. I do (sometimes).  

They said that if I listened to my gay and lesbian neighbors, if I made room for them in my church and in my life, I could let grace get out of hand. 

They were right.  It has. 

They told me that this slippery slope would lead me away from God, that it would bring a swift end to my faith journey, that I’d be lost forever.

But with that one, they were wrong. 

Yes, the slippery slope brought doubts. Yes, the slippery slope brought change. Yes, the slippery slope brought danger and risk and unknowns. I am indeed more exposed to the elements out here, and at times it is hard to find my footing.  

But when I decided I wanted to follow Jesus as myself, with both my head and heart intact, the slippery slope was the only place I could find him, the only place I could engage my faith honestly. 

So down I went. 

It was easier before, when the path was wide and straight. 

But, truth be told, I was faking it.  I was pretending that things that didn’t make sense made sense, that things that didn’t feel right felt right.  To others, I appeared confident and in control, but faith felt as far away as friend who has grown distant and cold.

Now, every day is a risk. 

Now, I have no choice but to cling to faith and hope and love for dear life. 

Now, I have to keep a very close eye on Jesus, as he leads me through deep valleys and precarious peaks.  

But the view is better, and, for the first time in a long time, I am fully engaged in my faith. 

I am alive. 

I am dependent.

I am following Jesus as me—heart and head intact.  

And they were right.  All it took was a question or two to bring me here. 

***

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“Both read the Bible day and night, 
But thou read’st black where I read white”
- William Blake

In the coming weeks, we’ll be diving into some excellent books about how to read the Bible—N.T. Wright’s Scripture and the Authority of God, Peter Enns’ Inspiration and Incarnation, Eugene Peterson’s Eat This Book, and more—but before we get there, we’ve got to do a bit of deconstructing. We’ve got to talk about how not to read the Bible. 

 To do this, we’re working our way through Christian Smith’s The Bible Made Impossible. In it, Smith tackles the problem of “biblicism.” 

“By bibliclism,” writes Smith, “I mean a theory about the Bible that emphasizes together its exclusive authority, infallibility, perspicuity, self-sufficiency, internal consistency, self-evident meaning, and universal applicability.” 

Biblicism falls apart, Smith says because of the “the problem of pervasive interpretive pluralism.”

 “Even among presumably well-intentioned readers—including many evangelical biblicists,” he explains, “the Bible, after their very best efforts to understand it, says and teaches very different things about most significant topics...It becomes beside the point to assert a text to be solely authoritative or inerrant, for instance, when, lo and behold, it gives rise to a host of many divergent teachings on important matters.” 

“The ‘biblicism’ that pervades much of American evangelicalism is untenable and needs to be abandoned in favor of a better approach to Christian truth and authority,” he concludes. “By untenable I do not simply mean that it is wrong, but rather that it is literally impossible, at least when attempted consistently on its own terms. It cannot actually be sustained, practiced, and defended.”  

While Smith does not question the inspiration and authority of Scripture, he questions attempts to reduce the Bible to a “blueprint for living” with a simplistic attitude that begins with, “God said it, I believe it, that settles it.” Instead, Smith argues that “Jesus Christ is the true and final Word of God, in relation to whom scripture is God’s secondary, written word of witness and testimony.”  (More on that later.)

In Chapter 2, Smith delves more deeply into the extent and source of pervasive interpretive pluralism, and in doing so, he tackles what has been a pet peeve of mine for many years—the misuse of the word “biblical.”

 My issues with the word “biblical” go way back. 

When I attended apologetics camp as a teenager,  I was told that those who hold a “biblical view of economics” support unregulated free market capitalism. (Even then, it occurred to me that such an economic system didn’t even exist in the ancient near Eastern culture in which the Bible was written.) I was also told that God wanted me to forgo traditional dating in favor of “biblical courtship.” (Again, no one mentioned the fact that, in the Bible, young women could be sold into marriage by their fathers to pay off debt, that marriages were typically arranged without the bride meeting the groom until their wedding day, and that women were considered the property of their fathers and husbands.) 

It was the popularity of books calling for a return to “biblical womanhood” that inspired me to follow all of the Bible’s commandments for women as literally as possible for a year in an effort to highlight the inherent selectivity of discussions surrounding “biblical manhood” and “biblical womanhood.” (As you can imagine, the experiment itself required some serious selectivity.) As expected, I found that most of the folks calling for a return to “biblical womanhood” aren’t actually calling for a return to the ancient near Eastern familial structure, but for a return to the nuclear family of pre-1950s America. They apply proof-texts to support a paradigm in which women submit to their husbands, stay out of church leadership, and find their ultimate calling in the home as mothers...while ignoring those passages that instruct women to cover their heads when they pray, call their husbands “master,” and function as the property of their fathers and husbands.

You can find all sorts of books proclaiming to put for the “biblical” view of something-or-another. Some of my favorites include: 

-100 Biblical Tips To Help You Live A More Peaceful and Prosperous Life
-Crime and Community in Biblical Perspective
-God's Creatures: A Biblical View of Animals 
-Beyond Good Intentions: A Biblical View of Politics-Biblical Psychology  
-Biblical Strategies for Financial Freedom
-Biblical Economics: A  Commonsense Guide to Our Daily Bread
-Biblical Principles of Sex
-The Big M - A Biblical view of masturbation
-The Biblical View of Self-Esteem, Self-Love, and Self-Image 
-The Complete Husband: A Practical Guide to Biblical Husbanding 
-Holding Hands, Holding Hearts: Recovering a Biblical View of Christian Dating
- Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood

In Evolving in Monkey Town, I write about how, when we talk about “biblical economics,” “biblical politics,” and “biblical womanhood,” we’re essentially “using the Bible as a weapon disguised as an adjective.” 

Smith rightly notes that, with this approach, “different groups of Christians end up invested in different interpretive paradigms, learn to ignore certain potentially threatening leftover texts, and are persuaded that the remainder of leftover texts can be explained away on an ad hoc basis when they are ‘rightly understood,’ read in proper context, or otherwise “correctly’ interpreted.” But “no paradigm accounts for all the texts," he says.

[This is why Junia is not a part of most complementarian discussions about “biblical womanhood.” The fact that she was a prominent and influential apostle does not fit the paradigm in which women are forbidden from assuming leadership in the church. So this biblical woman is, curiously, not a part of “biblical womanhood.”  Of course, this tendency to overlook goes both ways. Those who advocate for "biblical equality" often overlook those passages in which women are clearly regarded by the writers of Scripture as less than equal.]

It seems to me that the ease and carelessness with which many Christians employ the word “biblical” is one of the biggest barriers in the way of learning to love the Bible for what is, not what we want it to be. At the heart of a prescriptive use of the word “biblical” is a desire to simplify—to reduce the Bible’s cacophony of voices into a single tone, to turn a complicated and at times troubling holy text into a list of bullet points we can put in a manifesto. 

In a series of posts entitled “Better Conversations About Biblical Womanhood,” I argued that this approaches glosses over some important realities about how we actually engage the biblical text: 

We all project.
We all select.
We all lose things in translation.
We all bring outside influences (tradition, experience, reason) to the table when interpreting the Bible. 

But here’s the thing: Whenever I bring up this pet peeve of mine at family gatherings or among friends, I get nothing but blank stares and frustrated responses. The conclusion people seem to reach is that, cutting back on “biblical” pronouncements means throwing out the Bible altogether and concluding that it has nothing to say about the questions that most impact our lives. 

[I was in a conversation about this with someone I love just the other day and he noted in frustration, “Just because something’s in the Bible doesn’t make it biblical"...which kinda left me scratching my head. We just seem to be missing each other on this one.]

While I’d like to think that A Year of Biblical Womanhood is a humorous and disarming critique of overzealous attempts to prescribe “biblical womanhood,” I still struggle sometimes to articulate the alternative...which brings me to some important questions for you: 

1. How do we allow the Bible to inform and guide us while remaining cognizant of our tendency to be selective and without abusing the word "biblical"?

2. How do we engage with the truths from Scripture without reducing this diverse collection of ancient texts to a blueprint or list of bullet points? 

We’ll talk about Smith’s responses to these questions over the course of the next two or three weeks. But in the meantime, let’s wrestle through this together!  (Note: If you have written reviews/responses to The Bible Made Impossible, please feel free to link to them in the comment section.)  

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Around the Blogosphere...

Best Video:
Jon Stewart rails on Newt Gingrich’s blatant hypocrisy

Best Info-Graphic (nominated by Courtney Dale):
Visual.ly with “Big Numbers”

Best Imagery (nominated by Ty Dishman):
Dan Bouchelle with “My Bible is Crowded”

“My Bible is crowded and if I’ve learned anything through the years it is that I can never read the Bible alone. Even when I am alone, I read my Bible in community. My Bible was preserved by others, translated by others, printed by others, interpreted and taught to me by others, and incarnated in the lives of still others. The attempt to have an exclusive encounter with God’s words is more than naïve, it is downright arrogant. Can I still hear God in all these other voices? Yes I think I can. In fact, that may be the only, or at least the best, way to hear God. It is all these voices that help me distinguish the Nephilim from Lord. If I can’t convince most of those voices to be at peace with a reading, I’m probably on shaky ground thinking it is from God. Where the voices chime in together with an 'Amen' I am on fairly safe ground."

Best Insight: 
Kristina Robb-Dover with “From Marital Sex Guru to Chastened Ex-Wife: Why I Prefer the New Lauren Winner”

“What I am talking about here is the way that we evangelicals have historically equated both marriage and a born again conversion with 'The Promised Land.'  If you’re not married, then, in essence, you haven’t 'arrived;' and, if you’re not a 'born-again' Christian, then you haven’t truly 'arrived,' either.  There is little appreciation for the nature of conversion as an ongoing process made up of many steps forward and backward along the way; or, for marriage as only one option among a couple, or even a few, equally viable, equally “holy” alternatives for living out one’s God-given vocation...I don’t have to dig too deep into my own experience to recognize the hang-ups that this glorification of marriage and a one-time conversion experience can foster.  Having been married twelve years now, I am struck (sometimes painfully, sometimes serendipitously) by how marriage, much like conversion, involves an ongoing process of falling in and out of love, losing and then finding oneself, and being, in essence, “converted” and transformed over and over again.  The notion that marriage itself, much like being born again, is somehow the telos- the end of our restless striving and longing- is not only flawed but destructive.”

Best Writing:
Genevieve Thul with  “Lament for the Eldest”

“I am at the Throne early every morning, like it says in Lamentations 2, Arise, cry out in the night, as the watches of the night begin; pour out your heart like water in the presence of the Lord. Lift up your hands to him for the lives of your children. I pray for your healing when you bury your thick head of hair into my shoulder and I can feel the sobs welling up inside you but they never are birthed to breathe the air of this world. I wish I had a key to unlock your sorrows so they could be purged and mopped up. Instead you are like a glass jar with a tight lid. Nowhere for the pressure to go. I pray you don't bury it in your own bones.”

Best Point:
My Fascinating Life with “I Blame Post-Feminism” 

“Fellow Christian mothers, I think we have our own specialist version of this kind of thinking. Churches are usually pretty good about valuing motherhood, but I think that sometimes the intense focus on that aspect of what Christian womanhood means can lead to us devaluing a lot of other amazing things that women can (and do) do for God. if we let ourselves believe that THIS IS IT! the time that means something in my life! then we are going to struggle to lead worthwhile, Jesus-focussed lives as our children grow and leave us."

Most Startling:
CNN Photoblog with “Putting a Face on Nigeria’s Paradise Lost”

Most Disappointing:
Publishers Weekly with “Shame on Today”

Most Relatable:
Elizabeth Esther with “What Not to Say to Someone Struggling with Their Faith”

Most Practical:
Sharon Hodde Miller with “How to Empower Women in Your Church”

“This research is fascinating, and it has led me to wonder about its application to women in the church. There are many stereotypes out there about women that are both sociological and psychological, so the cycle can be tough to break. If women believe they are not capable of thinking theologically, or leading and teaching in the church effectively, then that stereotype perpetuates an unfortunate cycle in which women are hesitant to even try.”

Most Honest:
Stephen at Matthew Paul Turner’s site with “On Faith, Perfection, and Control”

“One reason I am no longer a Fundamentalist – and I use the term here in its popular and not historical understanding – is because it came easy to me. It allowed me to follow what I see now as my basest instincts. The prioritizing of abstract principles and alleged or imagined biblical truths over the complexities of real life was an easy path for me to take."

Most Vulnerable: 
Preston Yancey with “Coming Clean About the Women in Ministry Issue”

“I want to confess to you that I haven’t fully made up my mind. I still need time to think and pray. For I am at heart, I think, a complementarian. At least in so far as I think men and women do have complimentary roles to one another in marriage. Now if that means that I have to say only women should stay home or that a man is the only one allowed to work, then cast that label aside and find something else to call me. But if egalitarian means that anything a man can do a woman can do with no qualification whatsoever …Part of me cries YES! and part of me cries NO!”

[I’m solidly egalitarian...which, by the way, doesn’t mean I don’t think there are complementary differences between men and women...but I really respect folks who are honest about the fact that they are struggling through difficult issues, that they haven’t figured out all the answers yet. Kudos to Preston for his honesty and vulnerability here.]

Wisest: 
Ann Voskamp with “Why You Really Need to Think About Losing”

“When you wake to losing someone, you win love.When you realize that what you have, you will lose —  you win real eyes. You win grateful joy.”

Bravest:
Glennon Melton (Momastry) with “A Mountain I’m Willing to Die On”

“The first time you’re born, you identify the people in the room as your family. The second time you’re born, you identify the whole world as your family. Christianity is not about joining a particular club, it’s about waking up to the fact that we are all in the same club. Every last one of us. So avoid discussions about who’s in and who’s out at all costs. Everybody’s in, baby. That’s what makes it beautiful. And hard. If working out your faith is not beautiful and hard, find a new one to work out. And if spiritual teachers are encouraging you to fear anyone, watch them closely, honey. Raise your eyebrow and then your hand. Because the phrase repeated most often in that Bible they are quoting is Do Not Be Afraid. So when they tell you that gay people are a threat to marriage, honey, think hard.”

Cutest:
Dogwork.com with “Dogs Say Grace Before Meals”

Smartest:
Pete Enns with “Once More, With Feeling: Adam, Evolution, and Evangelicals”

“Evolution is a threat, and many evangelicals are fighting to keep Adam in the family photo album. But in their rush to save Christianity, some evangelicals have been guilty of all sorts of strained, idiosyncratic or obscurantist tactics: massaging or distorting the data, manipulating the legal system, scaring their constituencies and strong-arming those of their own camp who raise questions. These sorts of tactics get a lot of press, but behind them is a deeper problem -- a problem that gets close to the heart of evangelicalism itself and hampers any true dialogue...It has to do with what evangelicals expect from the Bible.”

 Best Conversation-Starter:
Kurt Willems with “Preaching Against Evolution in Evangelical Churches Creates Atheists”

[Read the comments after this one!] 

Best Analysis:
Fred Clark at Slacktivist with “Mark Driscoll is a Wee Little Man”

“But the cheating isn’t what caused this to flare up into a Defcon 1 crisis for which the entire church leadership had to be mobilized. That only happened because this particular sin involved sex. There’s a fundamental confusion at work there — one that can be found in many, many places other than Driscoll’s mega-church. It’s the confusion that sees sexual betrayal as bad because it involves sex rather than because it involves betrayal. The same confusion leads many Christians to see sexual predation as bad because it involves sex rather than because it is predatory. This arises from a warped and stunted notion of sexual ethics which offers nothing to say about the subject other than that it’s acceptable within marriage and unacceptably wicked in any other context. Thus even a malicious act within marriage is commended while even a loving act outside of that context is condemned.”

[I disagree with the assertion that Mars Hill is a cult, but I think Fred’s point about our tendency to see sexual betrayal as bad “because it involves sex rather than because it involves betrayal” is spot-on, and his concerns about Driscoll’s preoccupation with sex and power are, of course, warranted.]

Best Series:
At the Lord’s Table: A Blog Conversation (organized by Preston Yancey)

Best Storytelling:

Ben Emerson with “Numbers 27: The Status Quo Gets a Beat Down” and 
Fred Clark with “Five Women Who Changed God’s Rules”

Best Reminder: 
James Martin at the CNN  Belief Blog with “Reclaiming Jesus’ Sense of Humor”

“It’s time to set aside the notion that Jesus was a humorless, grim-faced, dour, unsmiling prude. Let’s begin to recover his humor and, in the process, his humanity.” 

On the Blog...

Most Popular Post: 
2 Reasons Mark Driscoll’s Popularity Doesn’t Discourage Me

Most Popular Comment:
In response to the above post, AML wrote this:

“Rachel, I have really enjoyed your posts and your insights.  I do, however, want to offer this as gently and as lovingly as an anonymous blog-comment will allow: It seems as though you have been defining yourself, in part, by your enemies.  Although I agree with much of what you say about Mark Driscoll, as someone who is for you and not against you, I do want to suggest that maybe you have begun to overemphasize Mark Driscoll in your own ministry by setting him (and his ideas) up as the antithesis of your ministry, thus defining your own ministry in terms of Mark Driscoll.  This might be an emphasis that limits the effectiveness of your ministry, and eventually, focusing on our enemies ends up exhausting us and leaving us with little to offer to others.  Plus, I think the enemy is very well pleased when we target our frustrations at areas of the Church; he loves to see us at war with other believers and he thrives in divisive environments that distract us from coming together for the sake of Christ.  I do want to affirm you as a talented and treasured woman and that your ministry has been fantastic and inspiring.  I see this tendency springing up in your writings, however, and as someone who cares about you and about the work you're doing, I just wanted to caution you against these things.  Peace and God bless!”

[My response to the comment generated a lot of "likes" as well, but I’d still love to hear your thoughts on that critique. I’m truly open to input on this one.]

This Week...

- We’ll discuss the word “biblical” as part of our Bible series. 
- I’ll review Pete Enns’ new book, The Evolution of Adam. (Short version: I loved it!)
- You asked for it! Look for "Ask a Christian Libertarian" 

What caught your eye online this week? What's happening on your blog?

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It's back! The second Epic Fail Pastors Conference is scheduled for March 22-24, 2012. 

I’m a fan of this conference for a couple of reasons: 

1. When I wrote a post entitled “Dear Pastors – Tell Us the Truth,” I was overwhelmed with responses from pastors who felt that the Church was no place to openly discuss their fears, their failures, their hopes, and their dreams. This conference creates a safe place for those sort of conversations to happen. 

2. Having been a part of a church plant that dissolved, I know first-hand what it feels like to fail...and to need a community of people with which to honestly struggle through that failure without fear of judgment.

We live in a culture that holds up celebrity pastors as the ideal: Big numbers. Big personalities. Big egos.

If that’s your thing, this conference probably won’t be for you. But if you’re looking for something else, please know that, in the words of JR Briggs, “you are not alone. There are other broken ragamuffins trying to love and serve Jesus.” 

The other day, my former pastor called me up and said, "Hey, wanna try and do something really big that will probably fail again?"

I love that he's not afraid to use the f-word!

Check out the Epic Fail Web site. 
Check out JR Briggs’ blog. 

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We were only able to answer a few of your questions in the video, so I’ve gone back through the comments after yesterday’s post to respond to the questions we don’t tackle here. (Find out which one stumped us both!)

Check out Dan's Web series: Learning with Lawrence
Check out Dan's Web startup: Wylio 

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