Anne Graham Lotz, Jimmy Carter and It’s Time!

Yes, Billy Graham’s daughter has experienced — sadly and to the detriment of the church — discrimination as a preacher because she’s a woman. Some in power think they need to decide if God equips women to preach. Some are quenching the Spirit’s free work in our world.

How do you respond to Lotz’s observations? Are you seeing improvement and or decline in your church?

From Anne Graham Lotz, a post from a few months back that deserves some conversation (more at the link):

Jimmy Carter has my respect as a former President of the United States. His humanitarian efforts since leaving the presidency reveal his heart to do what he can to make our world a better place. I especially appreciate the emphasis he is now giving to the worldwide status of women and girls in his new book, A Call to Action.

I have only had the opportunity to read the introduction, but I applaud Mr. Carter’s defense of the equality of women. I agree that women are being discriminated against at almost every level. In almost every nation. In almost every culture. Simply because they are women.

I have experienced this discrimination firsthand. I am a woman. And I am a preacher. That combination has cost me privileges and position in the man’s world in which I have moved.

I have stood up to speak and had men turn their backs on me.

I have been offered a seminary professorship, only to have the offer revoked when I refused to sign a statement that said women were to submit to men.

I have had invitations withdrawn because of the threatened furor my presence on the platform would create.

Multiple times, I have been directed to speak from a microphone positioned on the sanctuary floor of a church because I was not allowed into the pulpit.