Weekly Meanderings

February 18, 2012 By Scot McKnight

Jim Martin provides a question all pastors need to ask. A good one, Jim. And Bill Donahue asks a good question, too. Good one, Bill. And while we’re at it, read this one by Kurt Fredrickson.

Speaking of pastors, this series by Mike Cope is among the finest sets of posts any pastor can read. Thanks Mike. (When a child dies…)

Brad Wright on a world without grace — thanks Brad. Patrick Mitchel on where the world’s headed, and he had a real nice series that complements our Junia is not alone theme.

Tim Dalrymple blogs about blogging about controversies, and offers good suggestions. Speaking of which… Ben Witherington on John Piper: “John Piper is concerned, as are other Reformed writers and thinkers, for instance some in the Gospel Coalition, with what is perceived to be the stripping of male dignity and honor in our culture. He seeks to rub some healing balm in the wounds of men who have been assailed about their male chauvinism and macho approaches to women and life in general, especially in this case, men who are ministers. But as I have mentioned before on this blog, the problem with the church is not strong women, but weak men who can’t handle strong women, much less tolerate women in ministry. So, they have to provide rationales for these views. And to do so requires all sorts of exegetical gymnastics, ignoring of contexts, and even dubious theology and anthropology… I decided to let this percolate for a while before I reacted. Let me be clear that this sounds like a classic over-reaction to what is perceived to be the malaise of our culture.”

You know you’re a scientist if you… do this!

I’m excited about the potential of this network: the Ancient-Future Faith Network. And I’m glad my friend Fr Rob reviews Lauren Winner’s new book, a book I encourage you to digest.

Dave Strunk on the “confessional” evangelicalism and Al Mohler: “In essence, Mohler’s defense of confessional evangelicalism is indistinct from a more generic yet still orthodox version of evangelicalism. Mohler does an excellent job, as always, of defending evangelicalism against its foes on the left and right. What Mohler fails to do, though, is to offer a compelling apologia for the benefits found in confessional evangelicalism.”

Good set of ideas from Proverbs by JR Briggs.

This is why the Churches of Christ have struggled, and this is what we all need because we are all in one family: “This group, the XCMA (X County Ministerial Alliance), always begins by discussing the week’s lectionary passage (don’t know what a lectionary is? Look it up … and think about getting out of your denominational house once in a while), which this week happened to be from John 17. Jesus’ prayer that “they may all be one.” Each of us got to share a few thoughts about this passage. When it was my turn…I repented. I apologized on behalf of all the members of the Churches of Christ who had been hateful and divisive and exclusive and mean. I upheld these ministers’ identity as believers and Christians and expressed a desire to be unified with them, lest the world not recognize that Jesus was sent from God. And guess what…I got a standing ovation…in fact the only ovation of any kind, along with many handshakes and hugs. Then an older Baptist minister was asked to close us in prayer. He prayed for our group, our churches…and for the “dear brother who has joined us today to take a stand for unity,” and continued to pray for me and the Churches of Christ and since I thought I heard his voice break, I glanced up at him to see tears rolling down his cheeks. He finished and came and embraced me and told me stories of how many times he’d been told that he wasn’t a Christian, how often he’d been excluded and shunned by my brethren. And as a final tear fell from his chin, he thanked me for my simple act of participation. And so I learned that we have done wrong, that we’ve damaged our own reputation, that we’ve failed to earn respect. This IS important…we can’t afford to be arrogant…we just need to be Christians only…not the only Christians.” And this was at the bottom of that very post: “He has since removed the post from that blog. You see, for this and other views deemed too ecumenical, he was relieved of his position and now ministers in sales to support his family. He tells me that he has not preached or written in five years, but is starting to want to again.”

Why do you love U2? (Ireland.) (more…)

The Evangelical Awakening

February 8, 2012 By Scot McKnight

David Hempton, one of Ireland’s (and America’s) finest historians of all things evangelical, most notably its Wesleyan/Methodist axis, observes two features of the great evangelical awakening:

First, that it was “largely a generational movement of young people.”

Second, “… most surveys have shown that the majority of the rank-and-file was female. … One does not have to burrow very deeply into the archives of Evangelical awakenings to detect the ubiquitous influence of ‘pious women’ over siblings, husbands, children, parents and friends. Female piety was the lubricant of revival.”

From The Church in the Long Eighteenth Century, 149.

Junia, you have been with us all along!

Saturday (Not a Book) Review: Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

February 4, 2012 By Scot McKnight

This post is by Scott Bryant.

A few weeks ago, I picked up Scot McKnight’s new e-book entitled Junia is Not Alone. Interestingly enough, the very week that I purchased his book, the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly arrived in my mailbox, complete with a cover caption that read: “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo: How an Intense New Thriller Brought the World’s Coolest Heroine to Life.” This, of course, got me to thinking.

Why would a magazine choose to describe Lisbeth Salander as the “coolest heroine?” What is it about Salander that has fascinated us as a society? What is it about her story that seems to ring so true? While the theories abound, I think the film’s director, David Fincher, gives us a great insight when he describes how they developed Salander’s look.

“Trish Summerville, the costume designer, and I talked a lot [about Salander’s appearance]. Trish has some of the most beautiful piercings and little studs in her nose, but that’s jewelry. By contrast, Lisbeth’s piercings … actually look painful and self-violating. We went back to that first idea of Sid Vicious[1] with a safety pin through his cheek and what it meant. That was not a way of saying, ‘Look at me, I’m special, I’m different, I’m committed.’ It was a way of saying, ‘Get away or you’re going to get blood on you.’”

You see, in many ways, Lisbeth Salander, as first conceived by Steig Larrsen, represents the next step in the cultural evolution of the female archetype. She is the post-feminist, warrior – the literary and celluloid sister of Lara Croft,[2] Buffy Summers,[3] Angelina Jolie,[4] and even the pre-pubescent Hit Girl. But is that all that there is to her character? Is she nothing more than an avenging angel? Again, Fincher and his team are right there to help us understand. [By the way, if you like the posts here click one or more of the share buttons below. They are very slow in showing accurate numbers, but it does help spread the word.]

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Shifting Footings

January 2, 2012 By Scot McKnight

The complementarians like to shift their footings when it comes to Junia. They want to find some argument on which they can stand to diminish the significance of the woman [Junia].

First, they argued she wasn’t a woman (Junia) but a man (Junias). The evidence disproved them so thoroughly even they gave in (or most of them gave in) and so they shifted to another footing to stand their argument on…

Second, they argued she wasn’t an apostle. Don’t forget this: The only reason males in the history of the church, and the motive seems to be to diminish women leaders in the church, changed the woman Junia to the man Junias was because whoever it was was an apostle. So the complementarians decided to show she wasn’t an apostle: she’s a woman alright, but only esteemed among the (male-only college of) apostles and not an apostle herself. Then that got disproven, and Eldon Epp’s long section in his book shows that this argument that Junia was only esteemed by the apostles but wasn’t an apostle herself can’t be relied on with rigor. So they shifted to another footing… (more…)

What a letter …

January 2, 2012 By Scot McKnight

Recently I received this letter from a reader and thought I’d edit it a bit and post it … and it grieves me and it makes me think we’ve got a long way to go, and sometimes I’m just shocked by stuff like this… and I hope you are too … and before you write something angry, take a deep breath… but why do people like this get to make the decision?

Dear Dr. McKnight,

I just finished reading Junia Is Not Alone and am nearly on the verge of tears.

I was raised in a family that taught equality of women, even in ministry. I can think of no issue that grieves me more than this, even though I had never realized that women being silenced in Churches was anything more than some far right-wing notion until about two and half years ago.

I was at a local mega-church that runs many justice initiatives in our community, and during one sermon the pastor expounded the church’s theology of women in ministry and how they were against it. I immediately felt sick to my stomach.

As I discussed this with a few of my friends, I found this to be a much more widespread belief than I had ever imagined. One friend candidly told me that the reason he thought women shouldn’t preach is that, when he sees them on stage, he can’t help but picture them naked. “What a horrible reason to silence women,” I thought, “because of some fault of yours.”

I talked to my Dad about it, and he recommended The Blue Parakeet to me…

So…thank you!

Fretting Over Phoebe (Mike Bird)

December 9, 2011 By Scot McKnight

From Mike Bird, who does for Phoebe a bit of what I do for Junia in Junia is Not Alone. Dr. Michael Bird (PhD, University of Queensland) is Lecturer in Theology at Crossway College in Queensland, Australia. His research interests include the Gospel of Mark, Pauline theology, New Testament theology, and evangelical ecclesiology.

“I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a deacon of the church in Cenchreae. I ask you to receive her in the Lord in a way worthy of his people and to give her any help she may need from you, for she has been the benefactor of many people, including me” (Rom 16:1-2 TNIV).

I love messing with my students. Yes, I know it catches them off guard, but exposing their assumptions and ignorance is both enjoyable and actually educational too. When I get to my Romans class, I ask the students four questions:

So who actually wrote Romans?

“Paul,” they immediately reply in chorus.

“No,” I retort, “Who physically sat down and penned the letter to Paul’s dictation?”

Blank faces, deep thoughts, then some bright spark will blurt out, “Oh, oh, that guy, what’s his name, um, Tertius.”

“Correct-a-mundo” comes the teacher’s approving reply who points students to Romans 16:22 which says, “I, Tertius, who wrote down this letter, greet you in the Lord” (Rom 16:22 TNIV).

Moving on… (more…)

Found on the Internet

November 6, 2011 By Scot McKnight

The Burner Blog.

Fuller Lecture

October 30, 2011 By Scot McKnight

The kind folks at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena invited me to give a lecture on women in ministry, but they also filled up my schedule with a few additional items: including spending a little time with Rich Mouw, the President, and then speaking in chapel on the “Parable from Hell,” and then a conversation with Kara Powell, and then lunch with Kurt Fredrikson, and then I got to speak a bit in Richard Peace’s class, then coffee with my friend Joel Green … then a brief respite … dinner with David Moore and, finally, an evening lecture called “Junia is Not Alone” (here’s a summary).

Yes, that’s a busy day but it was a wonderful day at Fuller, the first time I’ve been at Fuller. I thought I had been there once but nothing looked familiar… so maybe I wasn’t there. What a beautiful place Fuller has become.

David Scholler was once a professor at North Park Theological Seminary, and then finished his career at Fuller before his untimely death, and it was an honor to step into his role at Fuller for a few minutes to give this lecture. It is customary for such lectures to be posted as MP3s but this lecture will be published as an inexpensive e-book (announcement coming soon) so we asked for the lecture not to be distributed.

I want to thank Kurt and David for looking after me, and to the Fuller Guest House (wow, I was a in a cool, modernized room), and to the students and faculty for this wonderful experience.

NIV 2011: A Review

February 21, 2011 By Scot McKnight

I was impressed by the recent review of the NIV 2011 by Bridget Jack Jeffries, a student at TEDS, a Covenant Church member, and a blogger. Bridget’s review is in The Priscilla Papers, and it is a good time to express our admiration and regret at the death of Catherine Clark Kroeger, who began The Priscilla Papers.

A brief sketch: the NIV came out in the 70s, it continually was revised, the TNIV came out in 2002, it was blasted uncharitably and became a translation whose reputation had been maligned and had a hard time making a go of it. It’s sad and it’s a shame what its critics said. For me it’s nothing more than a bitter chapter among evangelicals who had more fear than intellect at work. But that’s behind us. Zondervan and the Committee on Bible Translation have worked together to “update” the NIV into the NIV 2011. (A Roman couple to the left.)

This is where Bridget Jack Jeffries’ review in The Priscilla Papers comes in. As a teen Bridget became aware of Phoebe — a servant (or deaconess) and not a deacon — and Junia — who had become the male Junias. She liked the TNIV when it came out and was hurt both by the campaign against it and by the decision to retire the TNIV. So, Bridget examined the passages that pertain to women’s issues and gender-inclusiveness.

What do you think of the NIV 2011? What are you hearing about it? (more…)

Journey

February 16, 2011 By Scot McKnight

Last weekend Kris and I were at Journey Community Church. Because Journey is committed to the Jesus Creed, the event felt like a homecoming rather than a speaking event. For the past four weeks they have been teaching the Jesus Creed, reading 40 Days Living the Jesus Creed together, and more importantly actively practicing the Jesus Creed.

Before I spoke on this platform, a video was played on the screens, a video that contained four stories — ordinary and all the more important because ordinary — of how folks there are learning to live out the simple discipline of loving God and loving others. I told Kris several times that once those stories had been told, with the backdrop of the Jesus Creed being recited, there was little for me to add.

Journey is the only church I’ve spoken to that has a Friday evening service, so the three talks were Friday night and two Sunday morning. But a special event was planned for Saturday morning — two teaching sessions on the implications of The Blue Parakeet: Rethinking How You Read the Bible. The first session was on “that was then, but this is now” and I chose to examine how we live out what the Bible says about divorce and remarriage. (Tough enough topic.) The second session was on women in ministry, and I worked out a few themes in the Blue Parakeet book about women. The major question is not “Should women be ordained?” or “Should women be called ‘pastor’?” but “What gifts is God giving to women?” and “Do we permit women to do in our churches what they did in the Bible?” Here we looked at Miriam, Deborah, Huldah, Mary, Priscilla, Phoebe, and Junia.

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