“The pastor opened a manilla file folder and slid out a few sheets of paper. I spotted my name on the folder, Facebook-blue across the top of one page, and my blog header on another. My mind raced as I tried to process. The pastor has a file on me. My gut was right. They don’t like who I am.
‘Someone has brought your blogs and Facebook posts to my attention.’ He pointed to the print-out of my Facebook wall and a couple of blog posts, peppered with underlines and notes.
‘You shared a post on Facebook that supports egalitarian views of men and women, in direct opposition to our church’s teachings. You know that we believe men are to lead and women are to submit. We are asking you to stop sharing things that disagree with the teachings of our church.’” read more
From more extreme stories like that of Malala Yousafzai to more relatable stories like this one from my friend Joy Bennett, the world is hearing the voices of women in a way it hasn’t before. Women are able to connect with one another, share their stories, build platforms, and garner followings—with or without the permission of the power structures that would otherwise regulate their voices. No longer must a woman sit frightened and silent through a sermon that demeans her; now she can connect with women from around the world who understand and who are beginning to speak up.
Dan often encourages me with this reminder: I may be forbidden from speaking at the church down the street because of my gender, but through the blog, I often speak to more people in a day than pass through that church in a year.
That’s both exhilarating and frightening. What a responsibility!
So my prediction is that patriarchy won’t survive the information age. Well, I suppose some form of it will survive till kingdom come, but I predict it will be greatly diminished. I just pray that evangelicalism won’t be one of the last holdouts.
What do you think?
[This is meant to be a conversation-starter. What else is there to consider? ]
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