Images

Both Darcy and Hillary are talking about the drive among patriarchs to make women... wives, daughters... weak and helpless. (see links below). I am worried about this in church and outside church.
My daughters were into the Twilight series and the emotionally needy Bella was concerning me. So I was delighted to see this montage of Buffy the Vampire Slayer verses Edward. I showed it to my daughters and now my youngest and I are watching the Buffy series on Netflix and last night we watched season 3 episode 20 where Buffy was voted "Class Protector" and given a cute, little, pink umbrella.
I feel it is important to show my daughters images of strong, capable, heroic women to counter balance both culture and the bad things going on in CBMW and Patrio land.

Anyway, females are not weak. Have you ever seen a mama bear robbed of her cubs? Me neither, but I've heard about it more than once and from the sound of it, it can get pretty bad.
Anyway, here is Buffy vs Edward, first. And below that Hillary's and Darcy's posts on the topic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZwM3GvaTRM

http://www.quiveringdaughters.com/2011/07/gentle-reality-check-for-daughters-of.html

http://darcysheartstirrings.blogspot.com/2011/07/on-women-and-protection.html

Traumatized By Ephesians Five?

For my readers still suffering from PTSD from having Ephesians five shoved down their throats, let me tell you the reading assignment I'd give you if you asked me for one.

I'd say, read Ephesians chapters 1-4, skip 5, and if you are okay with chapter 6, read it. If chapter 6 also causes a degree of PTSD then skip 6 as well.

Now some would scream that I'm not respecting the family or the Bible or whatever by giving such advice. All I'll respond with is this. If I read all of Ephesians minus chapter 5 half a dozen times, it still wouldn't make up for the hundreds of times I've hear messages from chapter 5 while the teacher ignored the rest of the book. So in suggesting such a reading assignment, I'm not negating any part of the Bible. I'm simply bringing balance to an area so far out of balance in so many circle it is sick.

I knew a woman so traumatized by the word "submit" that if she saw it in completely innocent places like, "please submit paperwork to..." she'd have a panic attack. This is how bad it has gotten. And I'd really like people who have been traumatized to gain some benefit from the incredible book of Ephesians.

However, if just the word "Ephesians" traumatizes you, then you are better off reading Galatians, over and over, until God reveals to you the liberty that Paul is trying to get across.

One other little note on Ephesians 5 & 6:
As I've noted, neo-patriarchy and CBMW are hard at work creating an image and 'single story' of womanhood that strips women of being Deborahs (leaders), Huldahs (prophets/preacher/teachers), or Junias (apostle/elder). Their version of womanhood makes women small, weak, and helpless. This is wrong and not in keeping with how Christ handles his bride. First He gives his Bride all authority (check out Retha's link below). And according to Ephesians 6, he arms her to the teeth. This is a far cry from what Patriarchs and CBMWers do. They are too busy disarming and discouraging their women to see what they should be doing, what Christ does, arming and empowering.

http://biblicalpersonhood.wordpress.com/2011/07/21/authority-is-for-sharing/

MLK, Jr. on the Importance of Images

Getting back to my thoughts on MLK, Jr., Nichelle Nichols, and Star Trek, I want to look at King's words to Nichols from the link in the 7/21/11 post. In fact, in this post, I simply want to lay out the basics of the conversation and make a few comments on it.

MLK, Jr.: "You have one of the most wonderful roles. Images are so important. The manner in which you have created this character. We have great pride."
NN: "I'm going to miss my costars"
MLK, Jr.: "What are you talking about?"
NN: "I'm leaving the show."
MLK, Jr.: "You cannot do that."
NN: (I was dumbfounded.)
MLK, Jr.: "You have the first non-stereotypical role on television. For the first time the world sees us as we are supposed to be seen, as qualified, beautiful, intelligent people. And you are not a menial. You have to stay there."

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. understood the importance of images, the things people see. He understood how American television in the Sixties portrayed the typical African-American and how important breaking from that visual was.
I read somewhere else that when Whoopi Goldberg first saw the character Uhura on television, she got excited and ran to tell her mother that there was a black woman on TV who wasn't a maid.
This was big stuff. And M.L. King Jr. understood it even if the magnitude of it was lost on Nichols in that day.
But we see from the interview in the link that Nichols gets it today.

Images are so important. And narrow or 'single story' images must be counteracted.
For example, the image of Sarah calling Abraham 'lord' must be counter balanced with the Old Testament story of God changing Sarah's name from Sarai to Sarah, which means female ruler and the image of God telling Abraham to obey Sarah at one point.
And the images of Deborah, Huldah, the Proverbs 31 woman, Junia, the Chosen Lady that John writes about, and many others must be held up in contrast to the images that are pushed by CBMW and Neo-patriarchy.

Images are important. And as a mother of both sons and daughters, I understand the need to provide better images than what CBMW influenced churches want children to see.

Off-topic, But Not Really

Busy, busy so haven't had time to construct my last "You have heard it said" post or follow up on why in the world I would bring up Star Trek, Lt. Uhura, and M.L.King,Jr. When time is more on my side I hope to get to both of these. Until then, let me direct you attention to a former Mix Martial Arts (MMA) fighter's take on Driscoll's obsession with MMA and his foolish attempt to connect it to 'biblical manhood'.
It is called "Confessions of a Cage Fighter: Masculinity, Misogyny, and the Fear of Losing Control"

http://theotherjournal.com/2011/06/28/the-confessions-of-a-cage-fighter-masculinity-misogyny-and-the-fear-of-losing-control/

Star Trek and Dr. M.L. King Jr.

Now for something completely different.

Back in the Sixties there was a new television show that featured a multicultural cast, something never done before.

African-American Nichelle Nichols was cast as the communications officer, Nyota Uhura. This sort of thing is no big deal now. But back in the day, this was unheard of.

But Nichols was a stage actress and grew tired of the work that went into a television series and considered quiting.
Only an encounter with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. made her understand the magnitude of her role and the revolutionary boundary pushing that Star Trek was in its day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNTSV4Eh0R4

(I am going somewhere with this. But I wanted to lay some ground work.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uhura (Info on the character Uhura for the initiated.)

A Year Ago This Coming Sunday...

On July 24th, 2010 a group of men and women, led by Shirley Taylor, demanded an apology from the Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW) for their teachings that diminish women and exalt and encourage men to think more highly of themselves than they should.

CBMW teaches complementarianism which states that God created men to be the leaders and women to be the followers and bars women from positions held by women of the Bible like Deborah, Huldah, and Junia.

Complementarianism is not as rigid as outright patriarchy, but, their teachings support and add power and credibility to patriarchal teachings. Their teachings are also false, based on the traditions, doctrines, and commandments of men and cherry picking proof texts rather than on anything half way resembling good Bible exegesis and hermeneutics (see link for definitions below link to Shirley's blog.)

As Shirley notes today on her blog, we are no closer to getting an apology from CBMW. Nor am I holding my breath for that apology. Those people are locked in their mindset. Some of them know the little lies that are being told about the Bible that are needed to uphold their doctrine, but still they tell the lies. Only God really knows why they hold onto the lies. Perhaps it's a, "The old wine is better" thought pattern. Who can say.

Link to Shirley's blog:
http://bwebaptistwomenforequality.wordpress.com/2011/07/18/no-closer-today-in-getting-an-apology/

Links to definitions of exegesis and hermeneutics:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exegesis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermeneutics

How About That Junia?

Men who won't let women be all that they are called to be, work long and hard to take away any and all biblical examples of women outside the worshiped patriarchy boxes.

If that sentence didn't make sense to you, let me try again.

Neo-patriarchs and CBMW do all that they can to hide or explain away all examples of female leadership in the Bible.

In case you have never heard of Junia, which is possible because it really is better to ignore her all together than to get involve in the quagmire of all the explaining away it takes to make her go away, then let me direct you to this link which talks about Junia who is well known among the apostles.
(I love it when I'm busy and someone else makes my job so much easier. Also, I link this because it links all of Suzanne's [of Suzanne's Bookshelf] posts on Junia all in one place.)

http://speakeristic.blogspot.com/2011/07/junia-psst-that-apostle-has-mustache.html

Have You Ever Heard of Huldah?

Deborah is hard to cover up. Two entire chapters in Judges are dedicated to her. One of those chapters is written, at least in part, by her. The other part was written by Barak, who looks to me to be honored anyway by having his words recorded in the Bible. Anyway, she's hard to ignore so instead men have tried to explain her away.

Well, Huldah was a prophet back during the time of Jeremiah. I suppose we shouldn't get too upset that we haven't heard much of her. Jeremiah wrote two whole books found in the Old Testament. Huldah is only mentioned in nine verses. II Kings 22:13-20 and II Chronicles 32:22-28.

And I might not think much of it, except that, have you ever heard of Jabez? He's mentioned in two verses I Chronicles 4:9 & 10. Yet there is book and an entire movement based on his prayer in verse 10.

Anyway, when a book of the law was found, hidden in the temple, the king had no problem calling Huldah rather than Jeremiah or any other male prophet of that day. And her prophecy was true.

So, according to the Old Testament, women can be leaders and can prophesy to men, including kings. So what's going on today that some men cannot accept women in leadership or the fact that a woman can hear from the Lord just as well as any man?

It is in the best interest of all people to become more familiar with the entire Bible, to read it for themselves, rather than to let certain teachers decide for us all which are the important verses and which verses should be ignored.

Links concerning Huldah and the Jabez movement:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huldah
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prayer_of_Jabez

Have You Heard the One About Deborah?

You know the one.

God could not find a single decent man in all the land to become the next judge of Israel. And since all those men were so worthless God had to resort to raising up a woman to judge. Her name was Deborah. At least that is how I've heard it taught before.

The problem is, if you read the account without the idea that women can't lead, you realize there is nothing written to imply that God chose Deborah because there were no qualified men. This is never said or even implied. It is something imposed on the text by men who would rather insult and emasculate ALL the Hebrew men living in Deborah's day rather than to admit that God simply picked Deborah because He wanted to use a woman this time.

The account of Deborah is in found in Judges 4 and words that supposedly imply that Barak was weak and afraid and that God wanted to punish him for it are found in vss 8 & 9.

8 Then Barak said to her, “If you will go with me, then I will go; but if you will not go with me, I will not go.” 9 She said, “I will surely go with you; nevertheless, the honor shall not be yours on the journey that you are about to take, for the LORD will sell Sisera into the hands of a woman.” Then Deborah arose and went with Barak to Kedesh.

It is assumed from this that Barak was being punished for his lack of faith. But if you read it carefully, there is no real rebuke in verse 9. In fact, the verse could just as easily be interpreted as Barak trying to honor Deborah by asking that she go along. But even with this honor, Deborah reasserts that God wants this to be a woman's story, an example to those to come that God can and wants to work through women. God wants there to be a witness in His word to His daughters that women can be strong and mighty too, that this sort of faith is not reserved for men. Leadership is not reserved exclusively for men.

"Keep Sweet" After Thought

Life gets busy and it gets hard to blog at times.

But even so, sometimes little things just strike me funny about the topics we cover and I just have to share.

You remember that song, "Put Another Log on the Fire" by Tompall Glaser?
If not I'll link if for you at the bottom of this post.

One of the classic lines from his song reminds me of John Piper and the "Keep Sweet" conspiracy that is infiltrating portions of the church.
The line goes like this:
"So sit here at my feet cause I like you when you're sweet. And you know it ain't feminine to fight."

An honorable mention also found in this song makes me think of Mark Driscoll and his comment about pastor's wives letting themselves go:
"Don't I warn you when you're getting fat."

And of course the last line is:
"Come and tell me why you're leaving me."
Which is exactly what women need to do with ministries like Piper's, Driscoll's, and every form and expression of patriarchy and CBMW.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wO_6wMRS7A

Blog Highlight

I've been aware of Suzanne for some time, for longer than I've been blogging. I first became aware of her on the CBE forum and then saw her other places that I went to. When I learned how to make a blog on my blog roll, Suzanne's was one of the first to go on it.

The fight to keep every expression of Christianity from becoming another Taliban religion has many fronts. The numerous blogs on my blog roll come at it from completely different angles. Suzanne's comes from a, keeping true to the original languages, position.

There is a Jihad force among certain Christians to push a certain, gender off-balanced version of the Bible into the hand of every Christian. This same force is hell-bent to malign another translation that is more gender inclusive. I could say more, but then I would reveal my ignorance in this area. So let me close by saying, I am so glad that Suzanne is around, has her blog, and is being faithful to the original languages in spite of the raging war to malign her and Bible translations that are more in keeping with the original languages.

http://powerscourt.blogspot.com/2011/07/my-prophecy-on-peter-kirks-blog-came.html