Part 3: Christianity’s Radically Counter-Cultural View of Gentiles, Slaves, and Women.
Could the logic of Paul’s argument actually point toward the day when women with ministry gifts can finally take their Spirit-intended place of leadership in the body of Christ?
Part 2: The Case Against Women in Church Leadership-Exclusion Based Upon Created Order
It is hard to avoid the conclusion that–whether by creation or the Fall–women are more gullible than men and therefore unworthy of teaching or leading the church.
Part 1: Confronting the Bewildering Extremes.
The role of women in church leadership causes division among my Christian friends, untold heartache among my girl friends with ministry gifts, and all too often a huge black-eye in my generation’s view of the church. In truth, it would be easier to simply duck the question, but this really isn’t a halfway proposition. I have to decide if want to join a church that fully embraces women in ministry, or one that doesn’t. To join a church that says one thing, but practices another isn’t an option for me.
Surprise! Researchers who hog credit on scientific papers are less likely to win a Nobel prize than those who give younger academics a bit of the spotlight… of course it also helps to eat more chocolate!
What it takes to learn to listen to the timid wild animal that is the soul.
“Trying to live someone else’s life, or to live by an abstract norm, will invariably fail — and may even do great damage.” -Parker Palmer
When even The Hollywood Reporter wonders if this fall’s TV shows have crossed the line, it has legendary Hollywood producer Brian Bird wondering if it isn’t time to take his own industry to the woodshed.
It’s relatively easy to see the suffering Christ in black men who are already dead and aren’t threatening to hurt anyone. But can you see the suffering Christ in violent responses to injustice? Can you see the cross in the Molotov cocktail?
“True leadership is measured by what happens after you die.” -Myles Munroe
Einstein once famously proclaimed that “The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.” Yet we find ourselves at the position today where any non STEM subject has seen a de facto obliteration of its status and funding. That’s not a criticism of STEM subjects or their creative potential, but as Einstein was trying to tell us, those subjects are at their strongest when honed by a powerful imagination.
While he was off trying to save the world, Cooper’s kids had to grow up without a father. It didn’t matter that he loved them…because he wasn’t there to show them. Will we make the same choice for a less noble reason?
A Pulitzer prize-winning novelist writing of her intellectual debt to Jonathan Edwards in a major intellectual journal it is definitely worth a read:
“I have heard it said a thousand times that people seek out religion in order to escape complexity and uncertainty. I was moved and instructed precisely by the vast theater Edwards’s vision proposes for complexity and uncertainty…”-Marilynne Robinson
The current spiritual awakening on Chinese campuses could provide China with its best hope for a future of peace and prosperity. The moral strength provided by genuine Christian intellectualism could help shape the People’s Republic of China into the greatest nation on earth.