By Allan Bevere

By Lucy Peppiatt

@lucepeppiatt
@wtctheology

Principal of Westminster Theological Centre and here too!

I recently attended a really enjoyable theology conference in LA. I listened to thought-provoking papers and presentations, met some interesting new people, gave a paper myself on a topic I love, and had some good conversations. I also attended a lunch hosted by Logia, a new initiative launched by the Logos Institute, ‘which seeks to support current female students and staff and encourage women to pursue divinity disciplines at the postgraduate level.’ http://logos.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk/logia/ Forty-five women attended. I gather this number astonished and pleased the organizers.

As a result of attending the conference and the few things that happened afterwards, I felt prompted to write this post.

After I left LA I found I had some time to finish reading the thesis of my good friend, Rev Dr Kate Coleman, on the experiences of black Christian women in the UK.[1] In it I read this, which I made a note of,

Mercy Amba Oduyoye concurs, “My experience is that it has always taken women to ensure the representation and voice of women, at least in the Church and other related bodies.”[2] Audre Lorde stresses the importance of such a development: For it is not difference which immobilises us, but silence. And there are so many silences to be broken.[3]

Just as I finished Kate’s thesis, another female friend of mine (a NT scholar) posted an article of an interview with John Piper where he states very clearly his conviction that women should not teach men in seminary in preparation for ministry as, in his view, the Bible prohibits this. I read (skim-read to be honest) the article. As familiar as I am with the stance, it never ceases to appall me.

My first thought was I’m so glad that I have a contract with IVP Academic to write a book called Freedom to Lead. In this, I’ll explain why I (and so many others) think that the Bible does the opposite. I’m due to write this in the next few months.

Secondly, I felt beyond sad and frustrated. I’m always rendered momentarily speechless when I see opinions like that in print. I’m a theological educator and the principal of a non-denominational seminary style theological college (which specializes in spiritual formation for life, leadership, and ministry). I have had a teaching and preaching ministry in the church for over twenty years, and I’m a mother of four sons whom I, and my husband, have nurtured in the Christian faith.

So thirdly, everything coming in the space of a few days made me want to put my own something in print—something that I hope will strengthen the mettle of other women to pursue theological education at a higher level, to hang in there, and to become the women teachers, preachers, and leaders that the world and the church needs.

Women ensure the representation and voice of women

What women often do for one another is just to share their stories, and as we do, we give one another a sense of relief that ‘it’s not just me,’ which somehow helps us all out. Frances Young spoke about this in her paper in LA. Here is a bit of my story for those women who are thinking about going into academic theology.

I came in late to systematic theology at a post-grad level having studied for a bachelor’s degree in theology on my own in my 30s. I was in my 40s and have always only ever been a part-time theologian. I only studied theology to begin with because I wanted to be a better preacher and pastor. I studied, led a church with my husband, and managed a houseful of boys. Now I’m the principal of a college, I still lead a small church, and I do research and writing in any time I can get. I absolutely love theology.

When I started my MA in systematic theology, I noticed straight away that systematic theology is dominated by male voices. This baffled me slightly. It wasn’t until I began to realize the waythat systematic theology is done at a higher level that it made more sense to me. That is not to say that the men I met were not respectful and encouraging to women—quite the opposite in my experience—just that the academic world is quite hard-hitting for anyone who ventures into the field. If you start under-confident, it’s going to be a greater challenge to stay in there.

In recent years, I have certainly found some women that I admire in the field and I’ve enjoyed reading and meeting some great female theologians. But a further realization dawned on me as I went on to do a PhD. There were so few evangelical (and even fewer evangelical charismatic) women in systematic theology. I discovered a similar pattern in NT. I cited John Piper above and I have my own thoughts as to why this is the case, but that is not for this post. Here, I’d like to address those women who have just launched out into academic theology or are maybe thinking about it, identify some of the hurdles that you might encounter, and encourage you to keep going or take some first steps if this is for you.

At MA level I made friends with a young woman ahead of me who encouraged me at an early stage at King’s to keep going with academic theology. She had finished her PhD and had just started teaching at King’s. I’m grateful for her encouragement and friendship. Apart from that I had no other women academics in my life, and certainly no female professors, and that went on for years. The rest of my encouragers and mentors were men. By and large, it was the men who ensured that I found a voice and I am greatly indebted to them.

Despite help and encouragement, it was never ‘easy.’ It was always very hard work, intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually. I don’t think it’s ever easy for anyone—male or female—but women have more to overcome.

Whenever I go from my normal day job and normal life into a full-on academic environment I experience the same pattern of thoughts and emotions which are something like this: It’s so great to be here…I absolutely love this stuff…Why on earth am I here?… What am I doing here? I’d so rather be at home…I’m so glad I came…I have no idea what the speaker is going on about…Everyone else is cleverer/more knowledgeable/more confident than I am…Wow, that was so interesting. I love that idea…How on earth do we make this real for people on the ground?…I’d love to ask x or x… No, that’ll sound stupid… I’m glad I didn’t…I wish I had…

I could go on, but you get the picture. I often used to feel sick, panicky, and tongue-tied in academic settings—not a state I ever got into anywhere else and very unusual for me. Thankfully, I no longer feel that, but it did last for a very long time. The most familiar feeling of all is my little friend, the imposter syndrome, who just creeps in and snuggles up. I’m so used to it now that it’s boring and my best bet is just to try and keep it quiet.

Now, in the fourteen years since I started my MA, I’ve had enough conversations with women to know that this is all normal. It’s not just me. There are things you get used to and need to accept, and things you need to fight against.

Here’s my advice to women considering going into academic theology, even if it’s only ever part-time.

Listen to those around you.

If you have an ability for learning, writing, and teaching theology, and other people identify that in you, then consider pursuing a higher degree. Thankfully, you don’t decide on your own whether you are able to become an academic theologian. It’s in the hands of your teachers and mentors. If they are good and they are for you, and they encourage you to do it, then first of all, trust them! They are not setting you up to fail. They see potential in you and they know what they’re doing. In other words, don’t drown in your own under-confidence.

Learn to persevere

Even though it makes all the difference in the world, their confidence won’t actually become yours. You have to find your own. This may take years and years. You may have to fight through chronic feelings of inadequacy and stupidity, crippling fears, and all the anxiety that accompanies that, to get to the point where you really believe that you might have something to contribute after all. I know for sure that this can happen to men as well. It’s just worse for women.

(I really hope one day that this changes. I absolutely love seeing confident younger women just getting up and having a go. It’s delightful.)

Decide not to be intimidated

Find your level so that you’re happy with what you are able to do and say rather than trying to emulate someone who is just nothing like you. You have to find your own voice and learn not to be intimidated by those who are ‘better’ at this than you. If someone is playing a power game, you should probably just keep away from him or her. In general, however, most people don’t actually want to intimidate you. My advice is just get used to feeling ignorant and stupid. You will never know enough. Ask lots of questions and enjoy the fact that there is always more to learn. Apparently, Colin Gunton used to say that it takes twenty years to be formed as a systematic theologian. As a part-time one, that means I’ll arrive when I’m 80 years old!

Get used to picking yourself up

I know I’m going to sound like a charismatic here (no apologies), but don’t underestimate that there is a spiritual battle (however you understand that—I know what I mean by it) over women in theology and leadership. So pray, pray, pray, and get others to pray for you as you study. If you decide you want to do this, get used to feeling knocked—it will happen. If other people have put faith in you, pick yourself up, and carry on. This was one of the best pieces of advice I ever received.

Focus on God

Finally, focus on why you want to do it. I was inspired to do theology just through my own reading and then meeting other theologians who had a passion for their subject (learning and speaking about God) and a deep sense of privilege that we are able to serve the church. If I’m flagging, thinking why bother with academic theology (which I frequently think), I look at the Gospels again, get back in touch with Jesus, worship, re-read a great theologian, and thank God that I get to play a part.

There are powerful voices ranged against women who feel drawn to academic theology. They come from without and within. They don’t have to be the loudest ones. I hope, if you’re thinking of studying and it’s the right thing for you, that you have a champion, or a few, who will cheer you on, open doors for you, pray for you, and delight in your successes, however big or small.

Don’t for one second imagine it will be easy. It won’t. But it could quite well be the best and most rewarding thing you ever get to do. It certainly has been for me.

[1] Coleman, Kate Owusua, “Exploring Métissage: A Theological Anthropology of Black Women’s Subjectivities in Postcolonial Britain.” PhD Thesis, 2005.

[2] Oduyoye, Mercy Amba, “Reflections from a Third World Woman‟s Perspective: Women‟s Experience and Liberation Theologies,” in King, Ursula (ed.), Feminist Theology from the Third World: A Reader (London and Maryknoll, NY: SPCK/Orbis books, 1994), p.24.

[3] Lorde, Audre, Sister outsider: Essays and Speeches (New York: The Crossing Press, 1984), p.44.

Good morning!

Good for Janice Dean: a viewer, well, criticized her legs. Her response?

“Hi JoAnn,

Fox doesn’t dress me. I dress myself. I’m sorry if you don’t like my legs. I’m grateful I have them to walk with. You’re right. I don’t look like the typical person on TV, and I’m proud to be a size 10. Imagine that! You can always turn the channel if you’re offended by my huge legs. Hope you don’t mind. I may share your post with everyone on my FB page. All the best, Janice” …

My big legs have always been a sore spot for me – but now more than ever I am proud of them. Because with MS, I could lose my ability to walk literally any day. So I’ve learned to be proud of my legs, and am grateful for them every day of my life.

Beth Allison Barr:

It really struck me. As a young woman growing up in a conservative Southern Baptist church, I always had mixed feelings about Paul. I loved his bold statements; I loved how he explained who Jesus was and why we need Christ; I loved how he explained the transformation of Christians–the new life we have in Christ. My favorite scripture has always been Philippians 4:6-8. I learned about the peace of God from Paul, a peace that passes all understanding and persists even during difficult times. That peace has carried me through so much of my life. I am grateful to Paul.

But I always stumbled over Paul in Ephesians, Corinthians, etc. It was hard to recognize the calling I felt in my own life with the limitations he seemed to place on women. Was I wrong? Was God not calling me to teach, because women couldn’t be called in that way? Whenever I tried to reconcile what I thought were Paul’s teachings about women with the rest of his writings, I became frustrated and confused. Was Paul schizophrenic? The way Paul had been taught to me did not jive with the man I read. …

Today, at the age of 42, Paul no longer frustrates me. I have realized, as one of my very astute students once said, that when we are confused about God, it is never God who is wrong. The fault always lies in our own understanding. …

We can believe that the Bible is fully trustworthy without accepting complementarianism.  Complementarianism is a theory constructed during a particular historical moment. It–unlike the letters of Paul–is not the word of God. [HT: JS]

Fascinating story by Anika Burgess:

On Ireland’s southwest coast, in County Kerry, there is a small village called Caherdaniel. Nearby, there is a national park, a fort that offers glimpses of the Skellig Islands, and the sloping shores of Derrynane Bay. And, etched into this countryside, is the Caherdaniel Mass Path. Like other such paths around Ireland, this narrow track was used by Catholics to attend mass 300 years ago, during a time of religious persecution.

The locations of these passages were closely held secrets, which is why it took Irish photographer Caitriona Dunnett years to research her project Mass Paths. It was the one at Caherdaniel that first sparked her interest. “I photographed it and remembered learning about the penal times at school,” she says. “It inspired me to research and find other penal paths to photograph.”

Beginning in the 1690s, the Protestant-controlled Irish Parliament, in conjunction with the English Parliament, passed a series of increasingly stringent, brutally wide-ranging penal laws that imposed serious restrictions on the already oppressed Catholic majority. No Catholic person could vote, or become a lawyer or a judge. They could not own a firearm or serve in the army or navy. They could not set up a school, or teach or be educated abroad. They could not own a horse worth more than £5. They could not speak or read their native Gaelic.

In an attempt to decrease Catholic land holdings, in the early 1700s, a new law prohibited primogeniture, and instead, when an Irish Catholic died, his land was divided among his sons and daughters. But any son who became Protestant could inherit everything. According to one report, Catholics made up 90 percent of the country’s population. A the end of 1703, they owned less than 10 percent of the land.

Alice G. Walton, two habits of long life and health:

In the ongoing search for health and longevity, researchers have looked to parts of the world where people live the longest—the “blue zones,” which include Sardinia, Italy; Okinawa, Japan; Icaria, Greece; Loma Linda, California; and Nicoya Peninsula, Costa Rica. In these places people tend to live into their 90s or 100s pretty regularly. So researchers have studied their habits, and have taken away what seem to be the most effective lifestyle factors. And, as they should, they match up extremely well with what other types of scientific study have found about cellular health and longevity. … [Nine habits]

You can probably see the punchline coming. These nine habits can actually be boiled down to just two: Keep a healthy body and keep a healthy mental life—in other words, a good lifestyle and “good practices,” as Puyol says. He writes that the lifestyle portion includes the first few points above, and “implies regular intensity exercise, including routines to ‘break’ from daily stress, and including mainly plant-based products in our diets, eating without filling up and not drinking excessively.”

The other, more cerebral tenet is all about devoting time to your mental, social, spiritual, and communal health. “[F]amily, religious communities, social groups, and so on – all of which must have their own ‘ikigai,’ that is, their own ‘reason to live.’ There is a personal ‘ikigai,’ but there is also a collective ‘ikigai’ that sets the goals for each community as well as the challenges to overcome in order to achieve them.”

Grant Osborne, my teacher and former colleague, on teaching as pastoring:

I just realized my ministry lasted exactly fifty years, from my first church in Newark, Ohio, in 1966 to retiring from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in 2016. Forty of those years were at Trinity. I didn’t just like my job, I loved it and couldn’t get enough of it. I retired only because my body made me do so.

As a New Testament scholar, I felt my task in the classroom was twofold: to enable my students not just to understand God’s word but to crave it (1 Pet 2:2), and to motivate them to want to share its treasures with others. In future issues, I will write about “the teacher as teacher” and “the teacher as scholar.” For now I want to talk about “the teacher as pastor.”

I have long felt that if all I was in the classroom was a disseminator of information, I would fail. The problem today is that the seminary (or college, or graduate school) classroom is often too academic, and too few students fall in love with the process of exegesis and feeding their flock—even looking upon the act of “feeding” in terms of delivering simple topical messages. We must show students the relevance of the biblical text for their lives, stimulating them spiritually as well as intellectually. The truth is that they can find everything we are going to say in commentaries and other sources. What we need to do is show them how practical and refreshing deep exegesis can be.

This means my lectures might take on the qualities of a sermon as I go through, say, John 12 or Romans 6. Certainly I am dealing with academic debates, but I want to demonstrate that the result of this scholarship is a gourmet meal in God’s word and not just a dry-bones debate over trivia. Moreover, I have a pastoral duty to help students grow in the Lord. Even in that, though, I am primarily their teacher. Many of them will be preaching or teaching when they graduate, so I want to model a good pastor for them. Paul considered his ministry to believers to be that of discipleship, and his primary principle was “imitate me as I imitate Christ” (1 Cor 11:1; Phil 3:17; 1 Thess 1:6). I want my students to emulate my model, and so I must have stimulating application in my classroom as well as deep intellectual wrestling with the text and the issues of it.

Peter Leithart, Heimberger, and immigration:

Robert Heimburger’s God and the Illegal Alien is a careful, theologically-informed treatment of American immigration law. He provides detailed overviews of the development of immigration law, including the origins of the concept of a legal “alien,” sketches a theology of politics with the help of “Barth’s biblical theology of the peoples,” examines the biblical evidence regarding borders and immigrants with help from Oliver O’Donovan, Luther, and others, and examines specific cases in discriminating detail.

He concludes that American immigration law developed in a despotic direction, in which “practically no norms of justice constrained the executive powers to deny entry, detain, and deport aliens. Particularly against the claimed power to expel aliens lawfully residing in the country [e.g., Chinese laborers], judges protested that the federal government was turning despotic and lawless, but those who advocated such extensive authority over immigration prevailed (210).

He claims that US restrictions on Mexican immigration is part of a “game,” in which visas were required but illegal entry was permitted, so that contract laborers and undocumented workers could take median jobs: “In effect, Congress and business collaborated to enable continued migration while classing it as illegal, using and exploiting Mexican workers” (210).

From his various theological resources, he concludes that Christian tradition views peoples and nations as “fluid.” Nations both “bless human beings as they fill the earth and judge human beings for their self-worship.” Rather than sealed-off entities, “these far-flung conglomerations of language, land, and history are best understood as opportunities to draw near to one another, a process that is complete in the people of God, in Israel and the church.” The people of God “are sent out across national distinctions so that those of every tribe can share in the fulness of life that comes through Christ’s death and resurrection.” Most fundamentally, then, nations are not “alien” to one another: “A Christian narrative of the healing of nations stands at odds with treating those from other nations like aliens” (210-1). [HT: JS]

Mail carrier alert! Watch for turkeys:

ROCKY RIVER, Ohio (AP) — Postal carriers say a rafter of aggressive wild turkeys have prevented them from delivering mail to more than two dozen homes in a Cleveland suburb.

Cleveland.com reports residents on a number of streets in Rocky River have had to pick up their mail at the post office because the turkeys have created unsafe conditions for carriers to deliver to their homes.

Rocky River Mayor Pam Bobst said the problem has persisted for the last three weeks. She said city ordinances don’t allow for the turkeys to be eradicated.

The city has instead sent letters to people asking them to stop putting out bird feed in the hope the turkeys will go elsewhere.

A U.S. Postal Service spokesman says some carriers have been pecked but none have been injured.

 

The Jules Woodson story: #churchtoo is increasing consequences for men like Andy Savage

By Becky Castle Miller is the Discipleship Director at an international church in the Netherlands and writes about emotionally healthy discipleship at medium.com/wholehearted. She conveys her five kids around town on bikes and studies New Testament in the middle of the night via Northern Live.

Andy Savage was the Youth Pastor at Woodlands Parkway Baptist Church in Texas when he sexually assaulted a girl in his youth group. He offered to drive Jules Woodson home one night after an event. When he passed the turn for her home, she thought maybe he was taking her to get ice cream. Instead, the man who was much larger than her and in authority over her took her out into the dark woods, groped her breasts, and told her to suck on his penis.

That’s the kind of language you won’t often read on Scot’s blog. I include it not to titillate or to offend but to inform. Now you know what Savage’s current church, HighPoint, wasn’t told this past Sunday when they applauded him, giving him a standing ovation that went on for twenty seconds.

Woodson made her story public last Friday, January 5, and on Sunday, January 7, Savage got up in front of his church and confessed to a “sexual incident” with a “high school senior” when he was a “college student.” (Direct quotes from his statement.) The church celebrated what they thought was his honesty. Would they have responded as generously if he had told the full truth? What he should have said was, “As a Youth Pastor, I lied to a student in my ministry to get her into a car with me alone. I drove her out to a deserted place and told her to perform oral sex on me. Then I demanded that she keep it secret.”

Several pastors in multiple churches over the intervening years failed in their mandatory reporting duty by never making a police report. Sexual assault is a crime, and clergy sexual abuse is also a crime in Texas.

A lot has happened in a week. As of Friday, January 12, a week after the story broke:

-Savage admitted to a sexual encounter with a student under his shepherding care. Though he didn’t share the details nor describe it as assault, he at least did not deny it happened.

-Woodson filed a police report in Texas. A detective opened a case. Tragically, because of the statute of limitations, they are not able to press charges, even though Savage’s actions violated several Texas laws. If Savage and other church leaders had not covered up the matter for so long and forced silence on Woodson, criminal justice could have been served.

-Even though Savage has escaped criminal justice by telling Woodson to keep quiet, marketplace justice has been swift.

-KLOVE removed Savage from an upcoming cruise lineup.

-Bethany House cancelled publication of Savage’s forthcoming book on marriage.

-Baker Books cancelled publication of a book by Chris Conlee, the current Lead Pastor at HighPoint, the church where Savage is Teaching Pastor. Conlee said in a church statement that he knew about Savage’s choice to have sexual contact with a student in his ministry and still partnered with Savage in their church.

-Austin Stone Church has placed on leave Larry Cotton. He was the Associate Pastor at Woodlands whom Woodson told about her assault when it happened. According to Woodson’s account, Cotton covered up and lied about the abuse instead of reporting it. Austin Stone is hiring a third party investigative firm to look into Cotton’s decisions in that case.

-Savage went on the radio show of his sympathetic friend Ben Ferguson and further shared details of his treatment of Woodson. He only sees it as problematic because he failed to keep his own standard of sexual purity, speaking only about the immorality of his actions and completely missing the unethical and illegal aspects of his choices. He announced that he will be taking a leave of absence from HighPoint while a third party investigates.

Contrast all this response with a sexual abuse case I covered in September. A Christian university was accused of mishandling and covering up rape, also failing to report the incident and an alleged confession by the rapist to the police. The school put intense pressure on those reporting it to stop talking about it. The major Christian leaders named in the coverup have faced no public consequences for their actions and inactions to this date, though investigations are ongoing.

What has changed in the past four months?

It’s being called “The Reckoning.” The #metoo movement of women (and men) sharing their stories of men sexually assaulting them has given more and more victims the courage to speak up. It’s been followed by #churchtoo, focusing on sexual abuse and coverups in the church. As more survivors of spiritual and sexual abuse have spoken about their experiences in churches, it’s given others not just courage but also hope. Hope that people will listen, hope that people will believe, hope that abusers will actually face justice.

The Reckoning has hit the hills of Hollywood and the halls of Congress, and now it’s coming to a church near you. On Twitter, Ryan Ashton wrote, “@andysavage is the Church’s Harvey Weinstein moment.” I hope that this is the moment when churches and Christian leaders will learn how to respond correctly to abuse reports and bring healing and justice to victims rather than further damaging them.

Read the post that broke the story, which includes the text of Woodson’s police report:

http://thewartburgwatch.com/2018/01/05/i-thought-he-was-taking-me-for-ice-cream-one-womans-metoo-story-of-molestation-by-her-former-youth-pastor-andy-savage/

Follow @wartwatch and @watchkeep on Twitter for frequent updates.

PART THREE title: In the Light of Christ

By Mitchell East, an intern for the university ministry of St. Aldates Church in Oxford, England.

When a 21^st century Christian reads the Old Testament, she might raise an eyebrow or two. What’s the deal with God commanding violence? Why aren’t women treated as if they were worthy of the same dignity and respect as men? Why do the laws of God make God seem so full of retribution? More importantly, she might wonder which authors she could read and which authors she could trust to take her questions seriously.

Some Christian scholars have taken up these questions and answer them specifically for laypeople (some examples here, here, and here). I commend them for what they’re doing and appreciate the difficulty of the task these authors take on. But there is a common ground in these projects, despite the fact that each author addresses different subjects (e.g. violence, science, gender). The question is: how should Christians read the Old Testament in light of Christ?

Here’s one example of an answer to that question, as well as the criticism he received. Brian Zahnd recently published Sinners in the Hands of a Loving God. Playing off the famous sermon by Jonathan Edwards, Zahnd writes about the nature of God’s wrath and how to properly understand it in light of Christ. He concludes that God is love, not wrath. Derek Rishmawy, a Ph.D. student at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, wrote a long and critical review of it here. Rishmawy argues – with not a few words – why he thinks Zahnd is wrong.

Trust me: I don’t think I can settle their debate. However, their debate plays into what I’ve been blogging about for two weeks: figural reading of the Bible. One of the rules for figural reading of the Bible is that an event in the New Testament does not reject the event in the Old Testament that prefigures it. Moses prefigures Christ because he gives the law of God to His people from Mount Sinai just like Christ gives the Sermon on the Mount to the crowds. But Christ himself begins his sermon with the words: I did not come to abolish the law.

This point matters because we need to be clear on what reading the Old Testament “in light of Christ” actually means. I think it is fair to say that Zahnd thinks the “light of Christ” assumes the Old Testament has darkness, haziness, or fogginess that Christ clears up. Sure, there may be plenty of stories of God showing grace to Israel in the Old Testament. These stories have true light, affirmed by Christ’s own light. But when a biblical passage here or there implicates God in something dark, Christ’s light shows otherwise.

I also think it is fair to say that Rishmawy thinks that the “light of Christ” does not imply any darkness in the Old Testament. If anything is dark, it is our minds – not the Old Testament. In fact, the light of the Old Testament shines all the more brightly because of Christ’s light. We may have thought we knew the extent of God’s love in the Old Testament, but God’s love goes further in Christ. This means that every jot and tittle is light from God, but the most intense and most brilliant light is found in Christ.

Why should we care about this kerfuffle between Zahnd and Rishmawy? I have come to care deeply about this issue because Christians my age have these questions all the time. The Old Testament is like a field of reading landmines to Christians in their twenties. You can hardly read through a story without a litany of frustrations. Why does God want Joshua to be strong and courageous so that Joshua can use that courage to kill people? If a woman is made in the image of God, why will her husband “rule over her”? Why would God’s punishment of Israel result in the deportation of people from their homes? These questions aren’t new, but they plague the reading of the Old Testament.

To all these questions, Zahnd and Rishmawy have very different answers. I’m not saying they would come up with the same answers if only they bought into the rules of figural reading of scripture. I am saying that this debate about the light of Christ is a fork in the road between them. And despite their differences, I think Zahnd and Rishmawy would agree on one thing. The road you choose is not trivial.

It’s worth turning your attention to (Northern Seminary’s) Tara Beth Leach’s new book, Emboldened. Why? Some women in your church are called and need to be emboldened; those who are called and recognized will need to be emboldened. Tara Beth brings her story and her pastoral calling at Pasadena Nazarene into each of these chapters.

I urge you to purchase and read this book, and I urge you especially to have a copy ready to give away to women who are wondering if they are called into ministry.

In my first term as a professor at Northern Seminary there was a young woman, Tara Beth Leach, in my class. She was clearly engaged in every topic and wrote papers that captured my interest because they not only examined the Bible carefully but saw the implications of her papers for the church. I had Tara Beth in a few more classes and her work was such that I then asked her to be my graduate assistant. Kris (my wife) and I have walked with and prayed for Tara Beth over every one of her moves in the last five years but her recent move to pastor First Church of the Nazarene in Pasadena (PazNaz) revealed the giftedness Tara Beth has. When she preaches and when she leads she is doing what God has called her to do.

Over four years at Northern Seminary we had many conversations about women in ministry and how best to embolden gifted women in their ministries, and one of our discussions led to this: avoid justice, emphasize giftedness. So many have an instinct to turn the discussion about what the Bible teaches about women and ministry into a fight and the first card laid on the table is “justice.” For many it expresses something profoundly deep but for church folks it sounds like politics and culture wars. I myself do believe silencing the voice of women is an injustice but not just to women: it is an injustice to what the Bible actually says and so therefore it is an injustice to the women whom God has gifted. But instead of pulling that argument out of the bag, it is far wiser, far less inflammatory and far more compelling for a woman to teach or preach or exercise her gift. Justice will become obvious when the woman’s gifting is obvious.

Another of our discussions prompted this observation: males on the platform need to slide over and give women a place. It’s a fact today that males are in power – and define that term in positive or even negative ways but power is at work – and for gifted women to exercise their gifts requires the permission of males. Yes, that’s exactly what I mean: males are on the platform and the only way for a woman to gain access is for males to move over. Cruciform – a word that tumbles off Tara Beth’s tongue often – leadership requires males to surrender their power to anyone gifted, including women. Perhaps this foreword can encourage males in power to consider how they might make room for women on the platform. Power in the hands of a cruciform leader becomes transformative power. Instead of authority over someone or creating hierarchical structures, cruciform power emboldens others.

Once a denominational leader told me he couldn’t relate to a chapter I had written because every story in the chapter was about a woman. I gulped, took a deep breath, and tried to avoid blurting out the obvious, but this was the question: How do you think women feel almost every Sunday in most evangelical churches? The stories male pastors tell are far more often about males, and if that denominational leader would be hold up the mirror he might see that stories about women are necessary too. How can young gifted women know there is a place for them on the platform if they don’t hear stories about women ministering? Tara Beth tells stories of women and the stories of women will provide for readers of Emboldened examples of women exercising their gifts.

Tara Beth and I agree 100% on the most important topic of conversation: What did women do? That is, instead of narrowing our debates to some restricting texts in the New Testament – like 1 Timothy 2:8–15 – and fighting over the meaning of words and the confinement of women, why not turn our attention to texts in the whole Bible to see what women did in the Bible? Surely Paul’s words in 1 Timothy will not undercut what women had done, what women were doing in his own mission in his own day, and what women would be gifted to do! What we find is women ruling and judging and leading and prophesying and discerning and announcing and teaching and being apostles and deacons.

Those women did what they did because they were emboldened by the Spirit of God and the church’s reception of the Spirit’s gifting. Tara Beth has chosen the right word to describe not only women who have gone before us, what God is doing among women today, but also what especially church leaders need to be doing today: embolden the woman as a way of letting the gifts of God be given to the people of God.

As Tara Beth’s former teacher and as a representative of Northern Seminary, we are all proud of her. Not because she’s gone where few have gone but because she has received the gifts of God and is using them for God’s glory.

From CBE by Andrea Ackermann, Andrea serves as a pastoral associate and administrator at Christ City Church in Washington DC and is currently pursuing a Master of Divinity at Fuller Seminary. She has a passion to see the church truly live into its calling, including empowering women to reach their potential. She lives in the H Street neighborhood with her husband and two daughters.

I was thirty years old when I first met a female pastor. At the time, I was wrestling over a decision to quit my freelance job and attend seminary in order to pursue a long-denied call to pastoral ministry. A decade earlier, I was a college student and leader of a campus ministry, considering seminary as the next step in my calling.

I nixed the idea after considering what I thought were my options after getting a degree and going into debt: finding a male pastor to marry or resigning myself to a church job that women were “allowed” to hold. I had never been exposed to the idea of female pastors, and the leadership at my church was all male. I thought I had misconstrued my life trajectory, so I buried my convictions and became an entrepreneur.

Ten years, two kids, a husband, and a thriving photography business later, I sat down for lunch with Dana, a seasoned, female pastor. I listened and asked questions about her experiences in discovering her own calling.

We laughed about the stereotypes her husband sometimes weathered of being a pastor’s spouse, typically a position for a woman. Then, she told me to go for it—to lean into my calling despite the fear, to get a Master of Divinity and be ordained, and to put both on my business card because the church isn’t known for giving women leaders the benefit of the doubt. I would be doubly challenged as both a woman and Asian-American.

I credit Dana, among many other women and men, for the fact that I’m currently enrolled in seminary pursuing an MDiv. I am grateful to also be on staff at a church whose male pastors are committed to my development as a leader. That being said, I recognize too well the privilege both of those things are; many women are not encouraged to cultivate their gifts and are not empowered to pursue their callings, even within their own church community.

So, what does it look like for a church to move from theory around the empowerment of women to practical action?

Here are 5 practices of a church that empowers and invests in women, based on what I’m learning through current experience and being graciously taught about the church’s largely unheeded role in the development of women.

1. Church leadership actively proclaims the equality of women and men from the pulpit, in programming and in practice.

Practical change begins with ideological change. Many times, churches say they support women leaders in theory, but fail to back it up with any concrete change. True gender equality within the church certainly includes equal visual representation, but it shouldn’t stop there.

In a church that wants to empower women, issues that concern women are treated as universal issues. While having time for men and women to be separate is appropriate in certain circumstances, this should not be the only time the genders discuss issues that affect them. Even when we are not directly affected by gender issues, we are still responsible to bear one another’s burdens and, as Paul writes in Philippians, look to the interests of others, considering them more important than ourselves.

This also includes the tendency to glorify marriage and family life as the ultimate destiny for all. In a church that is invested in women, women are encouraged to pursue callings of all kinds, including motherhood, singlehood, marriage, workforce, and clergy, just like men are. While family life is important, it is not the only way to lead a God-glorifying life. Practically, this trickles down to young people, too; encourage and give opportunity to boys as well as girls to volunteer in the nursery, and give girls the opportunity to speak and lead publicly.

2. The church emphasizes the biblical siblinghood of women and men, instead of focusing on the opposite sex as merely “temptation.”

Without men who are willing to disciple and mentor women, women will continue to be at a disadvantage in the pursuit of ministerial calling. While there needs to be healthy boundaries and communication for any mentor/mentee relationship, women are disproportionately affected by the “Billy Graham rule”, in which people of opposite genders cannot spend time alone together.

Women and men are, first and foremost, brothers and sisters in Christ, and our interactions with one another should reflect that. We are called in Hebrews to “keep on loving one another as brothers and sisters”. Fearing one another and relegating the opposite sex to the role of temptation only does injustice to the imago Dei in each of us and continues to disadvantage women.

3. The church intentionally asks women to be in positions of leadership—and keeps asking.

Women are in dire need of representation in church leadership. The pool of candidates for any position is undoubtedly majority male, for many reasons; it is harder to find women who are willing to step into leadership. But a church that is invested in women’s gifts should work to increase the number of women in leadership positions.

The internal struggle of self-empowerment for women, especially those who grew up in a complementarian culture, is also acknowledged. Many women will not ask for or create opportunities for themselves; and even if they are asked, several follow up asks might be needed. This intentionality also necessitates men stewarding their privilege by laying some of it down.

4. The church celebrates the female perspective in all of its diversity.

Femininity in leadership can be a double-edged sword for women; they are either “too soft” or “too strong” by cultural standards. In a church that celebrates women’s diverse gifts, women who lead are encouraged to do so from their own perspective, as femininity is wide and also reflects the character of God. Just as one race does not corner the market on understanding God, neither does one gender. A church that embraces both men’s and women’s perspectives is a church that is truly seeking a deeper experience of who God is.

5. The church recognizes and seeks to address the barriers women are more prone to face.

Because the current culture of leadership development advantages men, women tend to face more barriers when pursuing leadership in ministry. In some cases, women are expected to have higher degrees of education in order to be considered for the same position as a man. Equal opportunity for women in a church includes comprehensive options to address childcare and maternal health. The church should strive to give single mothers the same opportunity as a single man.

A church that wants to honor women invites women to decision-making tables to, at the very least, provide insight into identifying gender-specific barriers and influence the development of leadership pipelines.

Churches that want to see more women in leadership will proactively seek them out, empower them, and invest in their development. Let’s pray that we can rise to meet the challenge, for women’s sakes and for the cause of the gospel.

From CBE’s Arise

A big shout-out to Kris for finding so many of these links today.

Are you sleeping enough?

The National Sleep Foundation recommends an average of eight hours of sleep per night for adults, but sleep scientist Matthew Walker says that too many people are falling short of the mark.

“Human beings are the only species that deliberately deprive themselves of sleep for no apparent gain,” Walker says. “Many people walk through their lives in an underslept state, not realizing it.”

Walker is the director of the Center for Human Sleep Science at the University of California, Berkeley. He points out that lack of sleep — defined as six hours or fewer — can have serious consequences. Sleep deficiency is associated with problems in concentration, memory and the immune system, and may even shorten life span.

“Every disease that is killing us in developed nations has causal and significant links to a lack of sleep,” he says. “So that classic maxim that you may [have] heard that you can sleep when you’re dead, it’s actually mortally unwise advice from a very serious standpoint.”

Walker discusses the importance of sleep — and offers strategies for getting the recommended eight hours — in his new book, Why We Sleep.

Is Lonzo Ball the next Todd Marinovich? The answer is No.

Yes, totally, this needs to be said.

Cheryl V. Jackson:

Paying too much attention to detail can cause you to underperform in clutch situations, cognitive scientist Sian Beilock says.

“When we are under stress, that frontal cortex goes awry,” said Beilock, known for her research on the way people perform under high stress — the science of choking under pressure. “We actually pay too much attention to what we’re doing. … We start questioning what should just be on autopilot. And we mess up.”

She made the comments during the Booth Women Connect Conference, which drew about 1,200 professionals from a broad spectrum of disciplines to the Hyatt Regency Friday.

Beilock took the helm of women’s school Barnard College in July, after spending 12 years at the University of Chicago, where she most recently was executive vice provost.

At U. of C., she was a professor of psychology, specializing in how children and adults learn and perform at their best, with a focus on performance under stress. Many examples can be found in sports, she said. But it also impacts the ability to solve problems, she said.

“We actually put blinders on. We can’t think outside the box,” she said. “Our tendency is to sit there and bang our head against the wall and push through. That’s the wrong tendency.”

Among solutions, Beilock said, is taking a break from the problem or task. If you walk away, even for a couple of minutes, your mind may clear.

“This is the reason why we always come up with the resolution to an issue at work when we’re walking home,” she said. “It’s also the reason why we always come up with that amazing response to the spouse we were in a fight with 20 minutes late. It’s the walking away.”

Those anxious about tasks can change their mindsets by looking at past underperformance and keying in on one thing to change going forward. Practice scenarios under the conditions in which they are to be performed — whether it’s pitching to an investor or taking a exam — and journal about angst 10 minutes ahead of a stressful situation, Beilock said.

“When you get your thoughts down on paper, it’s like downloading it from the mind so that you can focus on what you need to in the moment.”