{"id":58618,"date":"2015-08-26T00:02:52","date_gmt":"2015-08-26T05:02:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/?p=58618"},"modified":"2015-08-24T08:53:56","modified_gmt":"2015-08-24T13:53:56","slug":"the-rise-of-women","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2015\/08\/26\/the-rise-of-women\/","title":{"rendered":"The Rise of Women"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"Screen<\/a>From Carolyn Custis James,\u00a0Malestrom<\/a><\/strong>,\u00a0<\/em>something to be read slowly and treasured:<\/p>\n

Blame [the rise of women into leadership, the breaking of the patriarchal boundaries] on feminism, contraception, affirmative action, access to higher education, postmodernism, economic changes, exploding technology, the Internet, or global warming, but make no mistake about it\u2014the world has changed. Even in cultures where advances for women are lagging and the disparity between the sexes leaves women at an appalling disadvantage, women continue to defy the odds by creating \u201cunforeseen situations\u201d of the most improbable sort.<\/em><\/p>\n

The church is not immune to this tidal wave of change. Today\u2019s churches are filled with successful Christian women who are climbing the corporate ladder and occupying leadership positions in a wide range of professions. More and more women are in the workplace by choice and calling\u2014not out of necessity. Evangelical seminaries are producing gifted female graduates, and many are moving into all sorts of ministry and pastoral leadership positions. In this age of the Internet, some evangelical female bloggers have followings that surpass megachurch attendance. Young girls have ambitions and dreams that are different than those of their parents. Those dreams may include marriage and children, but they have other dreams as well.<\/em><\/p>\n

Plenty of Christian men welcome these changes and in fact have advocated for them. But others view the rise of women with concern, even alarm, and strive to stem the tide. The belief in a zero-sum game between the genders, where gains for women represent losses for men, makes the rise of women difficult to swallow. Women once lauded as \u201cthe backbone of the church\u2019 are now perceived as a threat.<\/em><\/p>\n

This is not a new situation. The Bible contains plenty of unforeseen situations\u201d where women appear to outshine the men. These stories create enormous problems for interpreters because they violate the patriarchal principle that men lead and women follow. The power of these biblical narratives is intensified by the fact that these stories aren\u2019t situated in an egalitarian western culture, but are embedded in a full-blown patriarchal context where men are primary and hold the reins of power.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

She points us to Deborah, whom recent advocates of one extreme kind of complementarianism either ignore totally or diminish. Over to Carolyn, who points to their language but it illustrates what I call \u201cbeing in a corner and spinning in circles.\u201d<\/p>\n

Complementarians respond to the Deborah story by scaling down her significance and caricaturing her leadership as nothing more than a punishment for men\u2014\u201da living indictment of the weakness of Barak and other men in Israel who should have been more courageous leaders.\u201d They warn against drawing conclusions about female leadership from her story and argue that modern Christians ought not to make theological deductions from the \u201cprecarious\u201d period of the judges. [She\u2019s quoting Piper and Grudem.] The inference is that Deborah would never have risen to power if men had been leading as God intends. Deborah, they insist, is an exception to the rule and \u201ca special case.\u201d Some complementarians even go so far as to reduce her prophetic role \u201cto private and individual instruction\u201d\u2014despite the fact that she publicly calls the nation to war and publicly accompanies the general and his army into battle. [Now quoting Tom Schreiner.]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Carolyn\u2019s right: this is all made up. The Bible doesn\u2019t criticize Barak or Deborah in the text, nor is there critique of Jael \u2014 and her story of the \u201ctent peg termination.\u201d<\/p>\n

Deborah was one awesome woman, leaderly, courageous, godly, fierce and 100% female.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From Carolyn Custis James,\u00a0Malestrom,\u00a0something to be read slowly and treasured: Blame [the rise of women into leadership, the breaking of the patriarchal boundaries] on feminism, contraception, affirmative action, access to higher education, postmodernism, economic changes, exploding technology, the Internet, or global warming, but make no mistake about it\u2014the world has changed. Even in cultures where […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":197,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Rise of Women<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"From Carolyn Custis James,\u00a0Malestrom,\u00a0something to be read slowly and treasured: Blame on feminism, contraception, affirmative action, access to higher\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2015\/08\/26\/the-rise-of-women\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Rise of Women\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"From Carolyn Custis James,\u00a0Malestrom,\u00a0something to be read slowly and treasured: Blame on feminism, contraception, affirmative action, access to higher\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2015\/08\/26\/the-rise-of-women\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-08-26T05:02:52+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-08-24T13:53:56+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/wp.production.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/files\/2015\/07\/Screen-Shot-2015-07-25-at-1.39.37-PM.png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Scot McKnight\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Scot McKnight\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2015\/08\/26\/the-rise-of-women\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2015\/08\/26\/the-rise-of-women\/\",\"name\":\"The Rise of Women\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2015-08-26T05:02:52+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2015-08-24T13:53:56+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/5919e847c58ffe6efb5899fb61797252\"},\"description\":\"From Carolyn Custis James,\u00a0Malestrom,\u00a0something to be read slowly and treasured: Blame on feminism, contraception, affirmative action, access to higher\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2015\/08\/26\/the-rise-of-women\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2015\/08\/26\/the-rise-of-women\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2015\/08\/26\/the-rise-of-women\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"The Rise of Women\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/\",\"name\":\"Jesus Creed\",\"description\":\"Scot McKnight on Jesus and orthodox faith in the 21st century\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/5919e847c58ffe6efb5899fb61797252\",\"name\":\"Scot McKnight\",\"description\":\"Scot McKnight is a recognized authority on the New Testament, early Christianity, and the historical Jesus. 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