Junia’s Friends

Last updated on: August 2, 2012 at 7:22 pm By Scot McKnight

The women who are mentioned in the New Testament, not to mention the many, many names of women in the Old Testament whose names are mostly unknown to Christians today, are often scratches on the surface of a deeper story. Patient reading of such texts often yields considerable information, and I have made the case that there’s much to see in Paul’s mentioning of Junia in Romans 16:7 (see Junia is Not Alone).

Two more women, whom I am calling Junia’s friends since they join her in being ignored in Christian churches, are Philippi’s Euodia and Syntyche (Philippians 4:2-3). Here are Paul’s words, and I’ll offer a few brief observations.

²I entreat Euodia and I entreat Syntyche to agree in the Lord. ³Yes, I ask you also, true companion, help these women, who have labored side by side with me in the gospel together with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers,whose names are in the book of life.

1. To mention the names of these two women, whose names mean “Success” and “Lucky,” probably suggests they are close friends of Paul’s; they are at odds with one another “in the Lord” (seemingly ministry concerns); this is not confrontation of problematic women (which is a chauvinistic stereotype) but a plea by Paul to some of his friends. (more…)

Megachurch Pastors: A Petersonian Perspective

Last updated on: July 4, 2012 at 12:29 pm By Scot McKnight

Mark Stevens, our friend down in Adelaide Australia, posted something that led to my posting about whether or not one can call a megachurch pastor a “pastor” — and Mark suggested … well, he’s come back to respond to some of us and here’s his response, a response rooted in some insights from Eugene Peterson:

Hello all, thank you for taking the time to consider what I have written. I am not sure how many people have taken the time to read my response to both the events that lead to my post and those comments I made in response to Jim West. I trust my response was gracious and yet expressive of what I believe to be true of the pastoral vocation.

Firstly, I disagree somewhat with Scot’s assumption that I am working on the one church one pastor model. Although I understand the point he is making. I have no problem with multiple pastors on a staff. In our own church I work with a team of elders, of who I am one. I just happen to be the pastor and I am paid. We have also had, at different times, a youth pastor or student ministers. The point I make in my post is that although I believe mega-churches are not “suitable places for faithful pastoral practice or deep spiritual formation of people in the way of Jesus” I cannot deny their place as the body of Christ (or in the body of Christ). My concern relates to the often pragmatic nature of mega-church ministry and the way they are often run as businesses. This is where I shared a point of agreement with Jim West; although I disagreed strongly with the attitude of his post. (more…)

Paul’s Leadership: Masculine, Feminine

Last updated on: June 19, 2012 at 6:39 am By Scot McKnight

Margaret Mowczko is on the executive committee of a newly-formed CBE chapter in Sydney (Australia). She writes on the subject of biblical equality for her website Newlife.

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Some Christians believe that being a leader is a man’s role, and that it is unfeminine for women to be in leadership. These Christians dismiss female leaders mentioned in the Bible as rare exceptions and anomalies. They maintain that God does not generally allow women to be leaders in society, in the church or even in their own homes. Does the Bible teach that leadership is masculine? Or that leadership is unfeminine?

The Apostle Paul was an impressive and influential church leader. Interestingly, in 1 Thessalonians 2:7, Paul describes his apostolic ministry (and that of his colleagues’) using the metaphor of a woman breast-feeding her infant children. Paul writes,

“As apostles of Christ we could have been a burden to you, but we were gentle among you, as a nurse [i.e. a breast-feeding woman] cherishes her own children” (1 Thess. 2:7, NIV 2011).

Few images could be more womanly than a mother breast-feeding her baby; yet Paul states here that he ministered in ways that he himself identified with womanhood. (more…)

Gender Blind?

Last updated on: May 12, 2012 at 6:41 pm By Scot McKnight

This post is by Mimi Haddad, President of CBE.

For years, everyone wondered why my father had difficulty getting dressed, reading maps, and fixing appliances. We later learned the root of his trouble. During his pilot’s training course it was discovered that my father is color blind. He confuses primary colors and has trouble discerning colors that are similar to one another. Despite his best efforts, my father was denied a pilot’s license because he could not find the red switch on the dash or locate wires colored orange and pink. Fortunately, once his disability was diagnosed, he was able to compensate for it.

How many of us are left wondering whether some Christians today suffer from a similar condition we might call “gender-blindness”? Christian faith may have a masculine feel because those with gender-blindness do not see the many female leaders in the Bible. Nor do they perceive related concepts such as God is “spirit,” and that the work of Christ is inseparable from the work of the Church. Our rebirth in Christ opens doors to service in the church regardless of gender because it was Christ’s humanity, not his gender that made him a sacrifice for all people. Gender-blindness, if not recognized, can lead some to believe that the man they see in the mirror each day corresponds to the leaders they observe in Scripture. Like my father, we all need a little help, so we can overcome our blind spots and perceive the fullness of God’s Kingdom. (more…)

Half the Sky and the Power of Story (RJS)

Last updated on: May 8, 2012 at 8:12 am By RJS

I expect this post to be one of my least well-read posts of the year.

That alone is an indictment of our church today – and of its leadership, as most of the people who read Jesus Creed are leaders in some form in the church. It isn’t an indictment because women’s issues should be of prime importance – but because compassion and care should be. We debate heady issues – doctrine and theology and sexuality and evolution and Adam … but I know from experience that issues of compassion and care receive less than 10% the views and reads of such posts.

I post this anyway, knowing it will send my numbers plunging … because some things are that important.

Half the Sky by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn is a powerful book that explores the oppression of women worldwide, from rape, sex-trafficking, and maternal mortality to domestic violence, “cutting” and infanticide. They describe the problems in often graphic and heart-wrenching detail. They introduce real people in harsh situations and use their stories to give a face to the problems that exist and an example of hope that can be found. They examine the kinds of efforts for relief and reform that work, don’t work, and sometimes work or partially work to overcome the underlying economic and cultural factors that give rise to the oppression of women. They are honest about the messiness inherent in human societies and motivations. There is no magic bullet to be found in this book. But their book is an unabashed a call for action (as is their organization).

So was it cultural imperialism for Westerners to criticize foot-binding and female infanticide? Perhaps. But it was also the right thing to do. If we believe firmly in certain values, such as the equality of all human beings regardless of color or gender, then we should not be afraid to stand up to them; it would be feckless to defer to slavery, torture, foot-binding, honor killings, or genital cutting just because we believe in respecting other faiths and cultures. (p. 207)

Because the book is intended as a call for action – and designed for persuasion it consists primarily of stories. Stories inspire action in a way that facts, figures, and propositions simply do not. Facts, even accurate and overwhelming statistics, inhibit compassion. According to Kristof and WuDunn:

Social psychologists argue that all this reflects the way our consciences and ethical systems are based on individual stories and are distinct from the part of our brains concerned with logic and rationality. Indeed, when subjects in experiments are first asked to solve math problems, thus putting in play the parts of the brain that govern logic, afterwards they are less generous to the needy. (p. 100)

A point that is rather interesting in light of the article Scot linked last Thursday, Analytical Thinking and Faith (and here are links to the Science write-up and article).

How many who read this blog have heard of Half the Sky? How many have read it?

How many of the men have read it (or intend to)?

Does the power of story motivate?

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Mainline Spirituality

Last updated on: May 3, 2012 at 9:55 pm By Scot McKnight

The facts show that “mainline” is no longer the mainline. It’s in the minority now, and Joseph Driskill in his study of “Mainline Protestant Spirituality” in Four Views on Christian Spirituality says mainline only represents 9% of the religious marketplace. For Driskill, spirituality is about “the lived experience of faith, the communities that shape the experience, the practices that sustain it, and the moral life that embodies it” (115). If Orthodox spirituality is shaped by liturgy and sacrament, and Catholic spirituality more ecclesially (familial, etc), mainline spirituality reshapes the whole — and it is important to understand this reframing in order to understand what each of us sees as central to spirituality.

How do you see mainline/progressive spirituality? How does it differ from Orthodoxy, Catholicsm, etc?

So, Driskill takes us on an adventure:

1. Mainline spirituality is about a commitment to a shared witness and mission through ecumenical cooperation. Thus, the ecumenical movement toward unity, even if it has not happened theologically, inspires mainline spirituality.

2. Mainline spirituality follows the path of the American intellectual life of university education because of its value of scholarship. Driskill points to science and faith, psychology and faith, as well as to historical studies and science, including a critical approach to the Bible. If it has been shaped by a variety of critical approaches, mainliners believe God still speaks through Scripture. (more…)

Weekly Meanderings

Last updated on: March 3, 2012 at 7:14 am By Scot McKnight

Dear Mr CS Lewis, tell me a story about a castle!

We are praying for those suffering from the tornados in the Midwest,

and for the students in Ohio after the senseless shooting.

Wendy McCaig: “It was at Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond that Junia finally found a place in my world thanks to the brilliant and passionate teaching of Dr. Scott Spencer. Even though Dr. Spencer laid a strong biblical foundation for the role of women in ministry based on the New Testament, I still lived with the fear of once again being silenced by the church. Upon graduation from seminary, I choose not to enter into the institutional church nor to pursue ordination within the Baptist tradition. It was far easier for this Junia to find her voice and exercise her call outside the church. In the nearly ten years since I began my ministry, my voice has grown stronger and my fear of being shoved back into a box of silence has diminished. God has brought affirming male pastors like Pastor Sammy Williams into my life – men who recognized me as a pastor and affirmed my call to ministry even ministry within the Baptist tradition. So here I am at age 45 hearing God’s call to re-engage in the institutional expression of the church. Not as a staff member but as one who has discovered the church beyond the walls and the pews.”

If you’ve got time for a sermon, listen to this.

David Fitch has taken a 6 month sabbatical from blogging. I’ve always argued that hockey players are not as tough as golfers.

Brad Wright and “attribution theory” — worth a good read.

Shane Scott: “As a child growing up in Kentucky, I knew very few Christians at church who were Republican. Most of the people in my grandfather’s generation were Democrats because they thought the Republicans looked out for the special interests, while the Democrats cared for the common man. Those days the key “moral issues” were economic. Now, the tide has turned the other way, and most evangelicals identify themselves as Republican because of a different set of moral issues. I don’t think it is good for Christians to fall under the sway of any party. My plea to Christians is simple: please do not allow worldly political parties to artificially divide the teachings of the Bible into sets of issues we will care about and won’t care about. We need to care about everything the Bible says.”

Patrick on some thoughts on hope.

Derek Leman on a scuffle about christology/deity of Christ among messianists.

J.R. Daniel Kirk: “In practicing a narrative theology, the overarching conviction is that the revelation of God is a story: the story of the creator God, at work in Israel, to redeem and reconcile the world through the story of Jesus. Part of what this means for me is the possibility of transformation, reconfiguration, and even leaving behind of earlier moments in the story as later scenes show us the way forward and, ultimately, the climactic saving sequence. This is one point at which I differ from N. T. Wright. Regularly in Wright’s writing we will find statements such as, “This is what God was up to all along.” I don’t disagree here. But what often goes unspoken, and where I think we need to be more clear, is that one only knows “this is what God was up to all along” once one is already convinced that “this new thing is actually what God is up to.”

Out of Ur’s post on Mark Dever probing John Stott’s perception of gospel and justice. (Dever stands with Martin Lloyd-Jones, if you know what that means. I’m not sure Dever does justice to Stott.)

LaVonne Neff on apostrophes. (Note to self: If you like writing, and you don’t like this piece by Ms. Neff, then you don’t like writing.)

I quoted Ron Sider, who quoted Pastor Toms, who quoted Upton Sinclair, who was misunderstood by Toms, and then also by Sider and then so too McKnight.

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And Daniel Kirk Said This Too!

Last updated on: February 16, 2012 at 6:56 pm By Scot McKnight

From Arise, CBE’s newsletter:

On Jesus’ Choosing Twelve Men

J. R. Daniel Kirk (PhD), New Testament professor at Fuller Seminary Northern California, is an author, and he blogs daily at Storied Theology (http://jrdkirk.com). He will be speaking in April at the CBE Houston Conference, “A New Creation. A New Tradition: Reclaiming the Biblical Tradition of Man and Woman, One in Christ.”

In last week’s Arise, I responded to John Piper’s description of Christianity as a “masculine” religion.

Today’s issue has to do with the significance of Jesus’ choosing of twelve men to be his disciples. This is one of several issues I take up in Jesus Have I Loved, but Paul?. The story within which this selection of the twelve is embedded leads us to draw a very different point from Piper’s.

Jesus chooses twelve men. These twelve Jesus specially commissions. Jesus came preaching, casting out demons, and healing. The disciples are sent to preach, heal, and cast out demons. (more…)

A Letter: A Pastor and His Daughter

Last updated on: February 15, 2012 at 3:11 pm By Scot McKnight

I open this letter for you. Read it and pray.

Several weeks ago I downloaded Junia is Not Alone. As the only person on staff at a small church, I am also taking two courses so I have not had time to read it.

Until today.

Thank you.

Thank you for being willing to say what so many of us feel and just can’t say. Maybe Paul really meant what he said in Galatians 3:28. Maybe it doesn’t have to be explained away. Maybe God really is a God of justice and grace who is seeking to redeem ALL his creation to himself.

As a minister [in a group that does not ordain women], and a father of a beautiful daughter with enormous personality, I am afraid. I am afraid that she will grow up to believe herself to be a second class Christian. I am afraid that she will be relegated to using her gifts to prepare communion or cook and set up for pot-lucks.

I know that I may one day leave ministry (or at least my heritage) so that my family can worship where my wife and daughter are full members of Christianity. I don’t always agree with my heritage … but I love it. …

However, I love my wife and daughter more and I refuse to let my beautiful daughter grow up being silenced.

Thank you. Junia is not alone. Whatever life my daughter chooses, I pray that she will stand next to Junia and be a voice for God in a world that so desperately needs to know the love of our savior.

Not Many Say This

Last updated on: February 18, 2012 at 8:24 am By Scot McKnight

Not many say what Daniel Kirk has said: “I am going to argue that Paul’s letters, to a greater extent even than the ministry of Jesus itself, establish a narrative trajectory of unity through equality” (Jesus Have I Loved, But Paul?, 118). So there you go: the bold claim that in Paul’s own ministry and writings we see a trajectory that goes beyond even Jesus in making women equal to men.

Agree?

How does he establish his case? Well, to begin with, he observes that Galatians 3:28 is the Magna Carta of Humanity, and few can doubt the potentiality of Paul’s words for establish radical equality. No one in a right mind would say the church lived up to this statement. But there’s far more in this chp, and this verse actually gets little ink.

He begins with Jesus and Mark, and makes an observation I’ve not seen before. At least that I can remember. Mark inverts greatness into servanthood and the disciples, and Kirk observes that Jesus calls only males, come under the scope of Mark’s narratival discretion as examples — often enough — of being flip-flops. Though called they do stupid things and act like the world’s power hungry. But the women, the unnamed women — count them, four unnamed women in Mark — are always doing the right thing and, outside of Jesus, the unnamed woman of Mark 14 who anoints Jesus comes in for more praise in Mark than any other human. There’s something radically countercultural, then, in Mark’s narrative theology as it applies to women. Being unnamed, then, is a sign of being in the approved role of Jesus and the Evangelist. (more…)

Which Christian group is known for its emphasis on health and diet?