By Becky Castle Miller

When I started reading Rachel Held Evans’ blog years ago, I disagreed with her on most things. Today, as I try to comprehend the news of her death, I realize I agree with her on most things. It was the combination of her kindness and her questions that made the difference.

Rachel was one of the first Christian feminists I encountered, and, more broadly, one of the first Christian progressives. I grew up very conservative, just like she did, and we’re the same age—both 37 this year. But she started asking questions before I did, so that by the time I was facing the deconstruction of my faith in my late 20s, she was ready to be a guide to me.

She was relentlessly kind and thoughtful. She loved God and loved people. She engaged the Bible with respect, curiosity, and enthusiasm. The good fruit of her life gave the lie to the false stereotypes I had been taught about liberals. Though her beliefs on many theological subjects were different than mine, I couldn’t deny that she loved and followed Jesus. This was weird for me. I thought people who weren’t “likeminded” or didn’t have the same “worldview” as the fundamentalist evangelical subculture I was a part of weren’t good Christians…or maybe weren’t even Christians at all.

Rachel’s questions about American Christian beliefs helped me question things I had never even considered before, like what kind of person was I to be okay with believing in God-ordained genocide of Canaanite women and children? She broadened and deepened my view of the church. Followers of Jesus can be quite different from each other, unified only in him, and diverse in other perspectives. Followers of Jesus could believe in evolution or even—gasp—be Democrats!

My work today in an international church, with the greatest diversity I’ve ever encountered in one fellowship, is partly possible because of the ways Rachel opened my eyes. The diversity of the people she connected with and cared for has been evident over the past couple weeks as she has been in a medically induced coma. Since Easter, the least-similar group of people I’ve encountered on the internet has come together to pray for her, using the hashtag #prayforRHE to share their memories and prayers—atheists and Christians, exvangelicals and conservative evangelicals, rich/famous and poor/unknown, gay and straight and bi, black and white and brown—all connected over Rachel, because all had felt loved and touched by her. People wrote that though they hadn’t prayed in a long time, they were praying for her. Others wrote that though they no longer believed in miracles, they were hoping for a miracle for her. Others, still strong in faith due to Rachel’s influence, prayed liturgical prayers, charismatic prayers, fumbling and halting prayers. Others didn’t pray at all but joined in the outpouring of love.

The same astounding breadth of humanity has flooded my Twitter timeline today as we come together again, this time to grieve her death. People are thanking her for saving their faith, and others for literally saving their lives. Tyler Huckabee tweeted, “The sheer number of people on here crediting RHE with keeping their faith alive is just staggering. What a gift.” Nate Pyle replied, “For all the accusations, the fruit is making the case of her faithfulness.” Others who have lost faith or never had faith are speaking with great honor and respect of her caring example. Susan Harrison tweeted that Rachel “was a pastor to a gigantic, building-less church of struggling, sometimes cynical, but ultimately hopeful believers.” She touched so many with her kindness and her questions.

What has stood out most to me is the avalanche of women writing that Rachel was instrumental in their understanding and accepting their call to ministry and seminary. Caris Adel tweeted, “A generation of evangelical women owe their freedom to her.” Pastor Abby Norman tweeted, “I followed her voice right into my calling.”

I am one of those women. Back when I thought “feminist” was a dirty word, Rachel’s advocating for women’s equal place in the church and in marriage intrigued me. After frustrations with the limits placed on me in the church because of my femaleness piled up to a breaking point, I was ready to reexamine what the Bible said about women. Rachel’s book A Year of Biblical Womanhood was the first egalitarian book I read. A moment frozen in memory is the sunny day I sat on the edge of my bed reading her work on Proverbs 31 and crying with relief to know it’s not an impossible standard or an endless to-do list. It’s a poetic celebration of a woman of valor. Thousands of women learned the Hebrew phrase “eshet chayil” – woman of valor – from Rachel, and we’re applying it to her today to honor her courage. I wrote about the impact of Rachel’s words on my egalitarian journey on The Junia Project, a website I first heard about through Rachel’s blog.

I also owe Rachel for helping me get to know Scot McKnight’s work. I was vaguely aware of him because I had seen The Blue Parakeet recommended so many places, and just after I ordered it, Rachel did a Q&A with Scot on her blog. I started reading his blog, where I later learned about Northern Seminary’s MANT degree. Rachel’s and Scot’s books and blog posts helped me see that women could be pastors, which is when my long-time sense of passion for ministry work finally made sense, and I realized God was calling me to pastor. That led me to pursue seminary, which is how I’ve ended up studying with Scot. Rachel was a key part of that whole journey—I wouldn’t be where I am today without her words. As I was searching Rachel’s blog today, I came across this beautiful letter she wrote to Scot, which is emblematic of her generous and encouraging spirit.

Today I was laying on the couch, hot tears pouring across my face and pooling in my ear, attempting to take in this loss and reading the reflections of her friends and family. I am grateful for Rachel’s impact on my life. I am also sad, and I am angry, and I have so many questions for God. I don’t know why God didn’t miraculously heal her. How wonderful it would be, I thought over the past weeks as we prayed, for God to heal her completely, amazing her doctors and all of us! How much that would bolster the faith of those who prayed so haltingly. And God didn’t, and that’s confusing and hard, and I want to know why. So I look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the age to come, and I’m also upset with God. As I was trying to find words for these thoughts, I found something Rachel wrote on grief in 2012, and I’ll let her have the final word: “So let’s grieve together. And let’s give one another the space to be shocked, to be pissed, to appeal to God, to be angry with God, to find peace in God, to question God, to want to take action, to want to wait, to blame, to pray, to be afraid, to be speechless, to vent, to lament, to speak up, to be silent, to pull our families close to us, to need some time alone.”

Becky Castle Miller is on the pastoral staff at Damascus Road International Church in Maastricht, Netherlands, as Discipleship Director. She is the co-author, with Scot McKnight, of the discipleship curriculum Following King Jesus. She conveys her five kids around town on bikes and studies New Testament in the middle of the night via Northern Live. Connect with her on Twitter and Instagram @bcastlemiller.

A week with a holiday in the middle mixes up a life a bit. In a good way, but we were wondering in this house all week long what day it was, but today’s Saturday and here are some fun Meanderings for your coffee time.

This is what I can do in retirement, but I’ll have to renew my lifeguard certificate to be a GeezerGuard.

Cooling off at a public pool this summer is tougher than in years past. That’s because fewer young people want to lifeguard these days, and some pools across the country have had to stay closed or have opened with shorter hours.

In Texas, cities are trying something different: recruiting senior citizens as lifeguards.

Kimberly McNeeley, with the City of Austin’s Aquatics Department, said the city of Austin, along with other Texas cities, had already tried a couple of things like boosting pay to $13 an hour to entice new recruits.

But the strategy only worked to a point.

So, McNeeley recently challenged her team to come up with an “outside-the-box” recruitment strategy to fill the city’s empty lifeguard posts. McNeeley said “outside-the-box” doesn’t mean: “Do what you always did.” Otherwise “you’ll always get what you always got.”

That’s when the idea to pull grandma and grandpa out of retirement and into lifeguarding surfaced.

To some, McNeeley’s idea is radical.

But it’s backed by the American Lifeguard Association.

B.J. Fisher, with ALA,  said seniors today may no longer have the chiseled bodies of their youth, but some are in great shape and “are very responsible.”

Plus, unlike many kids, older adults are perfectly fine with the “no cell phone” policy many cities have adopted for lifeguards.

David Brooks, Mr Rogers:

Often people are moved to tears by sadness, but occasionally people are moved to tears by goodness. That’s what happens to the audiences of “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” the new documentary about Fred Rogers.

The documentary demonstrates how Rogers’s children’s show got started and how he used it over 30 years to teach and accompany children. It describes the famous opening sequence — Mister Rogers going to the closet, putting on the sweater, changing his shoes. It describes how he gently gave children obvious and nonobvious advice: You are special just the way you are; no, children can’t fall down the drains in the bathtub.

Sometimes he would slow down time, be silent for long periods as he fed his fish. Occasionally “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” touched politics. During the civil rights era, when black kids were being thrown out of swimming pools, Rogers and a black character bathed their feet together in a tub. After Bobby Kennedy was killed, Rogers gently explained what an assassination was.

There’s nothing obviously moving here, and yet the audience is moved: sniffling, wiping the moisture from their cheeks. The power is in Rogers’s radical kindness at a time when public kindness is scarce. It’s as if the pressure of living in a time such as ours gets released in that theater as we’re reminded that, oh yes, that’s how people can be.

Moral elevation gains strength when it is scarce.

But there’s also something more radical going on. Mister Rogers was a lifelong Republican and an ordained Presbyterian minister. His show was an expression of the mainline Protestantism that was once the dominating morality in American life.

“Honey, I lost my toenails!” From what?

(CNN)After a young woman’s toenails started to separate from her toes, a doctor finally zeroed in on the reason: a fish pedicure, according to a report published Tuesday in the journal JAMA Dermatology.

Six months prior, the woman had dunked her feet in a tub of water filled with tiny fish called Garra rufa that will eat dead human skin when no plankton are around. It wasn’t until later on that she noticed her nails beginning to shed.

“I think that this is probably more common than we think,” said the report’s author, Dr. Shari R. Lipner, an assistant professor of dermatology at Weill Cornell Medicine and director of the nail division.

“We don’t see the [nail] shedding until months after the event, so I think it’s hard for patients and physicians — especially if they’re not even aware that fish pedicures can do this — to make that connection,” she said.

That’s good news:

CHICAGO (AP) — Go ahead and have that cup of coffee, maybe even several more. New research shows it may boost chances for a longer life, even for those who down at least eight cups daily.

In a study of nearly half-a-million British adults, coffee drinkers had a slightly lower risk of death over 10 years than abstainers.

The apparent longevity boost was seen with instant, ground and decaffeinated, results that echo U.S. research. It’s the first large study to suggest a benefit even in people with genetic glitches affecting how their bodies use caffeine.

Overall, coffee drinkers were about 10 percent to 15 percent less likely to die than abstainers during a decade of follow-up. Differences by amount of coffee consumed and genetic variations were minimal.

The results don’t prove your coffee pot is a fountain of youth nor are they a reason for abstainers to start drinking coffee, said Alice Lichtenstein, a Tufts University nutrition expert who was not involved in the research. But she said the results reinforce previous research and add additional reassurance for coffee drinkers.

“It’s hard to believe that something we enjoy so much could be good for us. Or at least not be bad,” Lichtenstein said.

Ted’s good word:

Right now in the United States we’ve reached a danger point, I believe, with a growing rift politically, which at the extremes is becoming more and more hostile. There seems to be no middle ground in which people who differ can stand and attempt to reason, and work through differences, to arrive to at least some conclusion, which in the nature of the case would ordinarily always be ongoing. I think this was what the Founding Fathers of the United States wanted as the ideal. Not that the U.S. has always lived up to that well.

The church needs to stand in that gap, regardless of where we are politically as individuals. This especially needs to be church led, and Christians should be part of it, of course. It is the salvation through the gospel, and the healing that comes with it that is needed today. What I said on Facebook yesterday:

What the church in large part needs to be here and now is a healing presence through the gospel. Salvation where needed, and the healing that comes with it, in and through Jesus. Across the political divides, and every other divide. What I want to major on and be part of.

We must confess where we’ve been part of the problem. And there is a time to speak up, don’t get me wrong. But how we do it makes all the difference in the world. If we demonize our opponents, and make it a good versus evil contest, then we fail to recognize and acknowledge our own part we’ve played in the breakdown, both in what we’ve done and left undone.

The gospel in and through Jesus is cross-centered, and we’re all included in the sin that Jesus took on himself there. We’re no better than anyone else; we’re all in need of God’s grace. Before there can be better solutions to problems, which are more God-honoring, there has to be a change in our hearts. And it must begin with us. We are the ones that must lead the way.

For it is time for judgment to begin with God’s household; and if it begins with us, what will the outcome be for those who do not obey the gospel of God? And,

“If it is hard for the righteous to be saved,
    what will become of the ungodly and the sinner?”

Emily Green:

In El Salvador’s capital, San Salvador, people drive around with their car windows closed to avoid petty theft. But when they enter neighborhoods controlled by gangs, they keep their car windows open, to show their faces. That way the gangs know they’re not an enemy.

In the center of one such neighborhood, known as La Dina, a tiny Baptist church sits on a narrow street. In a neighborhood notorious for violence, it is the one place gangs leave alone.

The church underscores the growing ties between gangs in El Salvador and evangelical Christianity. In a country where Roman Catholicism has traditionally predominated, evangelicalism is growing and has gained the respect and endorsement of gangs — a rare point of agreement even for rival groups like Barrio 18 and MS-13, the country’s two biggest gangs.

It has also left many boys and men growing up in gang-controlled areas with stark choices: According to academic research and interviews with pastors and former gang members, their only alternative to joining a gang — or getting out of one — is to become a devoted member of an evangelical church. …

Tattoos cover his face. The number 18 is tattooed 18 times on his body, a reference to his past allegiance to the Barrio 18 gang. During his years in the gang, he says, he kidnapped and robbed, and he raped women. He was sentenced to prison for those crimes, and thanks to an evangelical pastor there, he found God. That was nine months ago. Now, he says, God knows about his past and has forgiven him.

If he had stayed active in the gang he would very likely have been killed, he says. Now that’s he is out, being a casual churchgoer isn’t an option. The gangs check up on former members to see how often they attend services and whether they are drinking or smoking on the side. They want to make sure former members don’t engage in criminal activity on the side that could ever pose a threat.

“I’m a Christian. And the gang respects that,” Montano says. “But if I fail as a Christian, they will kill me.”

Yes, she is fiercely opinionated: Martina Navratilova…

Q: What’s the highest price you’ve paid for being outspoken?
A: When Magic Johnson tested positive for HIV. Everybody was “Oh, poor Magic.” He slept with at least a thousand women by his own admission. I actually met Magic, I love him, I think he is an amazing person and, of course, basketball player. But what I said then, was that if this was a woman they would be calling her a whore. With Magic they were feeling sorry for him. If it was a woman they would say, “She had it coming.” I said that and I caught a lot of s— for that. I am like, this is the truth! It was such a double standard.

Q: Regrets?
A: None whatsoever! I just wish I had Twitter then.

One can’t map one’s recommendations onto to what one believes but this list of recommended reading by Bill Gates is at least fascinating:

Microsoft made Bill Gates a household name but it’s his work beyond the tech sphere that keeps him in the headlines. One half of The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, he pours his efforts — and money — into healthcare and poverty reduction, while funding Breakthrough Energy Ventures which tackles climate change by investing in clean energy research.

Gates is also a keen advocate of self-education. He believes that reading is key to humans bettering themselves, informing themselves about the state of the world, and creating a better future. Thus, he often shares what he’s reading. In fact, over the years, he’s recommended over 185 titles, spanning topics from global development to psychology. You can check out the following titles on Blinkist.

Here’s how to subvert gender stereotypes in the church:

1. Apply masculine metaphors (like spiritual warriors, athletes, bravery/courage) to all believers, including women.
2. Apply feminine metaphors (like maternal terms, romance and marriage) to all believers, including men.
3. Apply feminine metaphors to men in particular (like the work roles of women, like the Bride of Christ).

Yes, in other words, re-frame the issues through reforming gender stereotypes.

A story: one time a former student of mine, a known complementarian, called me to tell me how much he appreciated Jesus Creed. We chatted awhile and, since this person was not in the habit of calling me, I figured something was up. It was. He shifted topics to my chapter on Mary and said this: “I couldn’t relate because every story in the chp was about women.” Bingo! That’s the strategy and the unmasking of how often males use male-only stories without ever wondering if women can relate. Let the blue parakeet sing, and let the bass voice add its own voice to the song.

Yes, in other words from the above three item list, follow the apostle Paul according to Cynthia Westfall, in her fine book Paul and Gender. Yes, the apostle Paul.

Here is a fuller display of evidence with the above categories:

1. Apply masculine metaphors (like spiritual warriors, athletes, bravery/courage) to all believers, including women.

Spiritual warriors: Ephesians 6:10-17; Rom 13:12; 1 Thess 5:8
Athletes: 1 Cor 9:24-27; Phil 3:13-15; 4:2-3
Bravery, courage, manhood: 1 Cor 16:13

2. Apply feminine metaphors (like maternal terms, romance and marriage) to all believers, including men.

Maternal: Gal 4:19; 1 Cor 3:1-2; 1 Thess 2:6-7
Romance: 2 Cor 11:1-3
Marriage: Eph 5:21-23

3. Apply feminine metaphors to men in particular (like the work roles of women, like the Bride of Christ).

Eph 5:26, 27, 29

Mimi’s post, originally at Missio Alliance, illustrates how the term “complementarian” has a history. It was originally the term used by what is now called egalitarians; thus, they were complementarian without hierarchy. The term as used by complementarians is not so much complementarian but hierarchical in primary connotation with distinction of roles.

What did women do? is a question I ask in Blue Parakeet, and I happily commend the work of Mimi Haddad all the time.

Mimi Haddad is President of Christians for Biblical Equality International.

Do egalitarians overlook the deeper truths of Scripture to promote social-economic equality? Does our commitment to biblical gender equality render us secular wolves dressed as biblical lambs?

In “The Bible Never Says All Men Are Created Equal: How the New Testament Offers a Higher Calling than the Declaration of Independence,” Andrew Wilson wonders why Galatians 3:28 is so often cited as the biblical basis for gender equality when the Greek term for equality, equity, and fairness (isotes) is strangely missing from this passage.

The question of oneness

According to Wilson, Scripture does not teach that Jews are equal to Gentiles; that slaves are equal to masters; or that women are equal to men. For Wilson, the point of Galatians 3:28 is not that Jews and Greeks, slaves and free, and males and females are equal in Christ, but that they are made one in Christ. Wilson argues that oneness is too often confused, thinned, and compromised by an “all men are created equal” rhetoric enshrined in treatises like the US Declaration of Independence.

Wilson does, however, acknowledge the biblical notion of equality (in 2 Cor. 8:13-14 and Col. 4:1) as it elevates right, fair, and dignified treatment regardless of “class, sex, race or subgroup.” Yet, for Wilson, Christians too often substitute Scripture’s deeper path of oneness, partnership, and joint-inheritance for individualist notions of “equal access to entitlements and privileges.”

Wilson claims that this error leads some toward a “sameness” that flattens the rich diversity within the body of Christ (e.g. if the whole body were an eye), particularly between men and women. At his core, Wilson is seeking to trade what he sees as an anachronistic and secular modernist concept of equality for a more biblical approach.

Of course, given the historical and cultural distance between Paul’s world and ours today, it is challenging to accurately interpret Scripture without imposing modern concepts on ancient voices. And for years, critics of egalitarianism have argued that biblical gender equality is not only a foreign concept to the Bible, but it is also one that promotes gender confusion and sameness.

Perhaps it is not that gender equality leads to gender confusion or sameness but that our oneness in Christ gives rise to a sameness of social ethic. Let me explain.

An example of exegesis

Though the word “equality” (isotes) is not used in Galatians 3:28, the passage is seen as the foundation of gender equality—not because physical differences are obliterated but because ontological differences are! That is, any rationale for superiority based on race, class, or gender is eclipsed by our newness of life in Christ—an ethic that stands at odds with all oppression.

To be one in Christ as Jew and Greek, slave and free, and male and female is to become a new creation which experiences a new realm of existence that ultimately conquers not only death, but also sin and prejudice (Romans 6:1- 23). In other words, Galatians 3:28 is the highest expression of individual and therefore corporate renewal. For this reason, the passage was inscribed on ancient baptismal fonts to illustrate the renewing power of Christian rebirth.

Remember, the early Christian baptismal fonts were often shaped like tombs or wombs. The idea being, when you entered the waters of your baptism, you died with Christ to all false gods and to sin’s domination and entered oneness with Christ. It was also the womb that birthed your new life, your new ontology or existence. In rising out of the waters, you became a new creation. That is why Galatians 3:28 was inscribed on ancient baptismal fonts to signify the impact of our new existence. As Paul notes in Galatians 3: 27-29:

As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.

To be clothed in Christ does not alter our physical selves, making us one sex, race, or social class. That would be absurd. Being clothed in Christ makes us one body, harmonious in Jesus despite the hostilities arising because of our physical selves and their social privileges. While our physical selves and their social station persist, even so, we now belong to Christ and inherit not only life eternal, but a higher ethical life.

For this reason, the eminent Bible scholar, F.F. Bruce asserts that Galatians 3:28 promotes not sameness of race, class, or gender but sameness of new life: a new race of people are born of the Spirit and are therefore no longer divided by social or economic hostilities.

Therefore, what Christ accomplished on Calvary (soteriology) in creating a new race, shapes and is inseparable from how the church functions (ecclesiology), namely placing God’s work ahead of race, economic, or gender barriers or hostilities.

Putting it all together

While Wilson fears that egalitarians read Galatians 3:28 anachronistically, that was—I believe—Paul’s point! Newness of life is lived differently, and therefore parts company with ancient prejudices. Christ placed New Covenant people and their practices at odds with their own culture (both Jew and Greek) precisely because oneness in Christ meant that the eyes, ears, hands, and feet of the church are no longer Jewish, free, and male, nor are they androgynous.

Rather, the eyes, ears, hands and feet of the church are both Jewish and Greek, they are both free and enslaved, and they are both male and female. This is why the disciples found Christ’s welcome of women and Greeks so unsettling. And, those living under Roman law also maintained a hierarchy of free over slave, and male over female, and as such they were equally disturbed by the church’s egalitarian practices. But Paul persisted.

In writing to the church in Galatia, Paul is astonished that they so quickly succumb to a perverse gospel: one that pleases people but in doing so, offends God (Gal. 1: 1-10). But, as Paul tells us, the gospel he received was not of human origins but revealed through Christ (Galatians 1:12).

The gospel promoted not circumcision of the flesh but of the heart (Romans 2:29). It did not divide people by food taboos, but united them through agape meals where all were welcome at the table. Though born of the spirit, the church at Galatia experienced divisions based on race, class, and gender which stymied their life, service, and witness as the church.

Therefore, the oneness Paul evokes in Galatia is not access to spiritual renewal (soteriology) because they were already believers. What Paul is calling for is the functional and ethical renewal (ecclesiology) of newness in Christ. They were born again, but now they needed to grow up! For the sake of the church and its mission, the privileges of the Jew are now those of the Greek, the privileges of the free are now those of the slave, and the privileges of males are now those of females.

They were born again, but now they needed to grow up!CLICK TO TWEET

Philemon and Onesimus

Consider the life of Onesimus, Philemon’s slave. Paul calls masters to give their slaves “what is right and fair” (2 Corinthians 8:13-14) just as he tells Philemon to receive Onesimus as a brother, a term that points to their oneness and new life in Christ (Philemon 1:16). Onesimus and Philemon share a spiritual rebirth—a spiritual or ontological sameness with ethical and functional consequences. What is the result of their new life in Christ?

Philemon releases Onesimus, who becomes useful not only to Paul but to the entire church. Onesimus becomes bishop of Ephesus. In releasing Onesimus, the ethical realities of unity, oneness, fairness, love and justice triumph over prejudice and domination.

Consider also the depth of oneness on display in Ephesians chapter 5, not only between believers who mutually submit to one another (5: 21), but also between husband and wife in marriage. Notice that Paul appeals to those with the most cultural privilege to be the first to love as Christ did, sacrificially. Husbands must be the first to demonstrate the new reality (or ontology) of oneness in Christ, not because of their gender, but because of the cultural privilege that came with gender. Paul is asking them to live out a deeper and eternal reality (and social ethic). The gift of Christ is not like the curse, as Paul states in Romans 5:15.

Our sameness of spiritual rebirth imparts a new social ethic, including service without prejudicial barriers. Our material or bodily differences remain part of the rich diversity God intended for humanity, and are the foundation of a strong and vital church. Unfortunately, they have too often resulted in division, marginalization, and oppression—as noted in the church at Galatia.

Yet, Paul evokes our union in Christ and our unity as Christians as the basis of our ultimate identity and destiny—shaped not by our physical birth but by a shared spiritual rebirth.

Our new being and ontology is not a material state but an invisible, eternal reality. Thus, when egalitarians (or biblical mutualists) argue that it is not race, gender, or class that equips an individual for service but character. They appeal to a new social ethic mandated by oneness in Christ. The sameness egalitarians celebrate is not androgyny but a sameness of spiritual rebirth.

We are committed to service without prejudice because we are a new creation and therefore, one in Christ. Indeed, equality is a thin word compared to the oneness that results from our rebirth in Christ. And yet, equality of service is precisely what our oneness inspires—a dismantling of human barriers and hostilities that will change the world.