SBC-Controlled Bookstores Remove Magazine With Women Pastors on Cover

Of course, how do you think he got the first name 'Saint'?

... and that's Catholic, with a capital C!

Actually, the SBC has ordained women in the past -- this is the result of the theological war between the "fundamentalists" and the "moderates," which the former has basically won, in the denomination. I've been convinced from day one that the "fundies" wanted only power, not the opportunity to serve; were that not the case it would never have come to this. Jimmy Carter wrote a book on that some years back.

if the author speaks of "beliefs" and defending them...then he is either no scientist, or you are misstating his position.

Donald Johanson is not a scientist ? Too funny . Lets see cherry picking , meaning we accept facts as science has accepted tillscientifically till proven false ?
LOL Appears to me sceince has a history of human error involved trying to understand all the data . The facts are the same , the way the data is read and understood changes .

When measuring say the Piltmans skull capacity , and using the information as accepted fact and say if you believe that the Piltman lived at a Certain time in our history it carries a trail of possible errors . Thus you accept a fact , that was not a fact .which causes your future facts to be well, false .

But of course , it just seems strange to ridicule science for trying to do their best . But according to you that is cherry picking and dogma . Fair enough .

language is and can have the same consequence . Not to mention our ability or inability to understand the issue . As it appears you and I are .

Jonanson I used as an example because he is the foremost in his field , and some one ALL respect in that field . Disagreement in the science field is common on what the data means . Just as In the monetary markets , etc . Undertand language translated by a different culture in a different time is just logicl to have some problems .

.Johanson has corrected many false claims , and contradicted pts used to mislead others based on FACTS .my comparison still stands ,

With the Hebrew Text of the Torah , much is needed even in the way the words were sounded out for the meaning of them . The Old Testament was never meant to be read without the oral narrative that accompanies it . You know that right ? You hwould have to know that even being able to criticize the hebrew text . So what information do you have on the Oral narrative ?

Language is a form of communication , verbal and text are quite different in many ways . Ever read a good book and say the movie did not do it justice . Sometimes it is the other way around , but our own imaginations are hard to beat . Greek at that time the New Teastamnet was written is different then reading language now from that region . Word had different meanings , some words meant different things . Example perhaps that most learn when they study Bibical texts , is the comment it is easier to go through the eye of a needle then for a rich man to enter the kingdom of Heaven . Well that sounds quite impossible , but actually say the needle was actually a doorway in ancient times . Bill Gates may still have concern , but has a much better chance . Other reading the text thinking it is a sewing needle wll have a future bias in all references after found in the Bible regarding money .

Nice try , but no cigar . or as they say , thats greek to me .

Excuse my language , learning diability , but I have actually learned to use it to my benefit . But apologize for not musing the written word so you can understand it .

Actually poetic justice considering our conversation .

Where in Acts is that passage? Thanks for your contribution!

nad2:
amen, and peace be with you as well.

canuckle:
heheh..nope, wasn't raised in a Christian family, and nope never even heard of Gothard.

Hump

Little,
I dont know who Johanson is. I made a very clear statement: If he refers to scientific opinion / theory / hypothesis as a "belief", then he is using non scientific terminology and is either no scientist, or is writing it for people who can't distinguish between a held theory / hypothesis and a "belief" or assumption based on "faith". In scientific parleyance, "belief" is a nonsequiter.
BUT IF, he didnt use that word, and YOU are using it as an interpretation of what he proffers, then you are using it inappropriately.

That should be pretty clear.

As for the rest of your post: I'm afraid its becoming a little disjointed and erratic. I don't know what the hebraic oral tradition which preceded the Torah and Tanakh, and ancient vs modern greek word meanings have to do with anything thats been discussed here. I'm sure you probably have some idea.

While I'm glad you understand the real problems associated with textual errors, translation and perhaps even scribal faux pas and prejudicial interpolation, perhaps best we either get back on course as to the thread topic(s), or let this go for a more appropriate thread subject. I am aware of no translational issues with 1 Timothy.

But I am honored with the intense focus and attention you are giving me as a guest here.

Thanks,
Hump

point us to what you are reading or tell us about it rather than suggesting a collective sleuthing. thanks,

Spare me your self righteous indignation. Your ability to interpret scripture isn't greater than mine regardless of what your ego tells you. I guess I should have asked a question do you believe earth is the only planet that has life in all the universe?

I am a mystic, I don't read many parts of the bible literally and I don't believe they are infallible or innerant but I also believe the universe doesn't fit into any one form of understanding. Science can't explain everything but it can cover a lot. I believe in science and faith and you can do both.

p

Well thanks Hump for writing me also .
I am a guest also . I diagree with religion and politics being together .
And obviously if you are talking about
1 Timothy , you too are not a scholar and opinion is not to be taken as one . Actually the lady used scripture from Acts , you leaped to another text to attempt to change the subject , common practice among people wanting to WIN a debate bit only with their information being presented .

But once again , your lack of knowledge about science and its changing stated facts even in text books is quite surprising . It was my point , a means to show you this is common for strong opinions based on fact , change because how we understand those facts change . We find out more about the language , the folks who stated it , who it was stated to , why , and it becomes easier to understand .

That should be pretty simple to understand .

.

Pashe:
I can't find this posting in the thread, so I can't tell exactly to what you are responding. But, I'l reply via this email format and see if it really works to post it to the thread.

1. It's impossible to distinguish between "amazing stuff" as you put it, that the alleged "actual" Thekla did , and the myth and miracles attributed to her. You seem to place an awful lot of emphasis in her personage.

2. this need to equate females in the NT as preachers / "leaders" of the church , when the scripture references them as other than pastors/leaders is a problem you seem to have with language. It explains why you think I reject the concept of life outside our solar system because I reject "earthling abducting space aliens" as a fiction. Evidently you have problems understanding the written word or insist on imbuing those words with more meaning than exists.

3. since I can not read ancient Aramaic, Hebrew, or ancient Greek...all I have to work with is the english translations, and the documentations that identify translational problems/exposures, and interpolative text. That you can read those ancient languages from their original source documents and thus draw a more succinct meaning is very admirable... and quite incredible. My guess is that if you could do that you'd have already rejected the concept of NT prophecy fulfillment.

4. there are many good things about religious tenets. The issue is that the good parts can all be internalized and used for good without the supernaturalism, mysticism, intolerance, exclusionism, rejection of modernity and science, and the oft felt need to force all to accept it's tenets. I.e. the "golden rule" or "rule of reciprocity is pre-Christian, and needs no reanimated man-god to make it valid.

5. I strongly urge you to include all criminal and civil laws applicable to your area residence, in the laws and codes you abide by. Jesus would approve of you rendering unto Caesar.

6. since I "worship" nothing, other than perhaps Nicole Simpson and Natali Portman from afar, I can't respond to your reference to "humanity's worship of itself". It means nothing to me.

The ordination of women has everything to do with it in an SBC context. They use the word Pastor for ordained people.

As for "Your sons and daughters shall prophesy" it isn't necessarily about women holding the office of pastor. That's speaking or teaching in church or out of it. Paul's epistile to Titus talks about older women teaching younger women how to be godly women, yet Paul doesn't make them pastors and tends to leave women out of his instructions to pastors -- that's why many denominations limit a woman's role in terms of her holding the office of Pastor or Sr. Pastor.

If I may ask, why is it assumed that such views are to hold women down? Many believe these things because they believe that is what the Holy Spirit says to them. Just like some women believe the Holy Spirit called them to serve, godly men and women have believed God answered their question on this issue with no, women should not be pastors.

I am not a pacisfist, but I can respect that someone's convictions take them there. I believe it would be wrong for someone who is so convicted to fight in a war. Similarly, I am not a Southern Baptist, but I can respect their view as their understanding of obedience to God.

I guess my father raised me to accept a belief as long as they can back it up with scripture, even if the interpretation isn't the same as yours.

Heheh...well, they say New Hampshire is "God's country"...and I do like it here.
----- Original Message -----
From: Disqus<mailto:>
To: rtofcentre@msn.com<mailto:rtofcentre@msn.com>
Sent: Monday, September 29, 2008 6:50 PM
Subject: [godspolitics] Re: SBC-Controlled Bookstores Remove Magazine WithWomen Pastors on Cover

I don't know how the SBC is doing in terms of gaining/losing members, but I can't see young adults sticking around in a denomination with this kind of behavior. Younger evangelicals, especially those who have benefited from a liberal education, are generally impatient with this stuff.

It's ironic that you post this; this topic just came up in the discussion following your last article.

Wow, seriously Paul's instruction's to Timothy were only for Timothy's own church. Those instructions were not designed to be implemented everywhere. They were not a universal declaration against women leaders or preachers. Women have been doing evangelism, healing the sick, being martyrs and leading the church since the beginning. Mary Magdalene revealed the living Christ to the 11. She was the first to see him and brought back the good news that he was risen. Priscilla, Dorcas and other women led in the early church.

The cult of Thekla was nearly as persuasive as the cult of Mary (the mother of Jesus) in the early church and Theckla according to Christian myth and tradition followed Paul around sometime even eclipsing him.

Read more about her
http://www.antiochian.org/1440

It is my lifelong observation that men need strong leaders that can teach them things whether they be men or women. Some of the most important lessons I have learned in my life have come from having great women teachers. The idea that men can't learn or will be opposed to learning from women is silly.

p

Called,
actually..i live in NH. So likely we share the same hemisphere :)

I'll bypass your 2nd paragraph above, since it's largely testamonial and does not lend itself to discussion or debate..

I entirely comprehend your "worldview". There is nothing in what you said that is mystifying to me. Its as transparent as can be.

In a nut shell it's that this "voice" presumably Jesus', this "calling" , has told you to preach . To you It thus supercedes any Biblical, God given transcript, for how the founding fathers wanted to see the word of Christianity spread. The problem is solved as far as you are concerned: Listen to voices, ignore scripture. OK, fine.

The issue of the Southern Baptists is, they dont give a flying fig about your voices. They care about preserving a doctrine that has lasted almost 2 millenia, and which has been presumably endorsed by God. If every doctrine is to be challenged by every person hearing a voice, then the continuity of Christianity in it's classic sense is threatened. It doesn't matter that you don't care about the Southern Baptsist's. It doesn't even matter that you don't care about maintaining that continuity, purity, of the original scripture and its edicts.

By putting your voices ahead of scriptural doctrine it infers that anyones voices, (some may call it it" concience", others may call it "ego", or urge, or need) is MORE valid a "way" than is the holy scripture. In your case its benighn... no one is hurt, perhaps many are helped by your preaching. But, In other cases those people who hear voices and alter doctrine to suit it are, well, shall we say malignant.

Again, it is of no matter to me...simply an area of scholarly interest and curiosity.

Hump

Who's "suppressing" (note the lack of an "r" before the "p") the SBC here? It's critique, sure, but that's fair game. SBC is actively removing a magazine they'd normally have no problem with from circulation because they disagree with the cover. That goes beyond critique.

Lifeway is "A division of LifeWay Christian Resources of the Southern Baptist Convention," according to the LIfewaystores.com Web site. According to the Lifeway Christian Resources Web site (http://www.lifeway.com), they are "An entity of the Southern Baptist Convention."

It's appropriate, I think, to question how much autonomy the stores really have, given the kind of control SBC leadership has been trying to exercise over congregations of late.

Although I acknowledge the right of privately owned stores to choose what items they sell, I have to question the wisdom of it, especially in cases like this. My guess is that by refusing to sell this issue, they are calling additional attention to it and thus arousing curiosity. So their banning the issue might result in more people reading it--and perhaps having their thinking on this topic challenged--than would have been the case if they said nothing and just allowed their stores to put the issue on the magazine racks. This kind of censorship usually backfires.

This is a Christian magazine, isn't it? They're not promoting New Age occultism, after all.

pashe said: "Wow, seriously Paul's instruction's to Timothy were only for Timothy's own church. Those instructions were not designed to be implemented everywhere. They were not a universal declaration against women leaders or preachers."

And this information comes from where, exactly?
Unless you are in possession of documentation heretofore unseen and unheard of...;like a prior letter FROM Timothy TO Paul ... what you are offering is the statement of an apologist, unsubstantiated, in support of your / his preferred personal preference in an effort to change the context. If you have that source document for your statement please let ius see it.

Paul even references Adam being first informed, followed by Eve...thus establishing a logic for his anti-feminine ministerial admonishment. How much more clear and unambiguous does text need to be before people stop inventing justifications and fake source rebuttal to scripture?

ONLY Timothy's church? Please.

Pity all those malformed females who've only had the benefit of male leadership.
The church in Acts saw the issue as one of neither authority nor "voices" (although there certainly seemed no shortage of out of the extraordinary going on then), but on fruit-bearing. They came to the conclusion that; if the evidences of the gift of the Holy Spirit were at work in the Gentiles (read: women or other others) then they could not deny them baptism (full membership) in the Jesus community. In that sense(re the silliness of literalism) you are right, Hump, but please don't reject Jesus because of the inconsistencies and insecurities of His fallible followers.

Pastor Jeff

I agree. So then, let it be resolved, that women can continue to bake cookies for church board meetings.

The SBC has every right, and responsibility, to uphold their interpretation of scripture, no matter how un-PC it is. They are only being consistent. In addition, the more I read over the top reactions, such as this author's comparing a bookstores decision not to promote an interpretation they disagree with to the persecution of the early church, the more I tend to think they have a point.

Having spent many years in a denomination that denies the call and gifts of women to ministry, I had mixed feelings about this information. While the SB has the right to make their own rules and enforce them in their bookstores, I'm disturbed by their stand on women in ministry.

I wasn't in a SB church, but in the church and the Bible College I attended, it would have been okay for a woman to write and sing the words to a song that for some might be a sermon, but she wouldn't be allowed to speak the same thing. I find this very inconsistent and it shows that culture is certainly a part of this for those who refuse to accept women and for those who do. Lifeway and the SB accept the cultural norm for conservative congregations that it's okay for a woman to speak in song, but not in words.

My call to ministry came in high school. I attended a Bible College, majoring in Biblical studies and Christian education, which was about the only thing open to women at that time. After graduation, I tried to work in Christian education, but found most churches weren't open to women in this field either. There have been a few who have made it in the denomination, but they are very few. My dad warned me that I would graduate and and now have anything that I wouldn't be employable. He reminded me that they wanted to train the women to be preachers wives, but not to function on their own. I found his warning absolutely true. So I spend many years using my talents at a secular university where women have had some limitations, but not to the extent that they have in the church. I really find it interesting that some think it's okay for a woman to use her talents in secular employment, but not in the church.

I can remember when the congregation in which I grew up ask my mom to give a "talk" on Sunday night. That was okay because they were calling it a "talk", but even though her message was the equivelent of a sermon, it couldn't be called such because she was a woman.

How do those who believe women should be silent at all times in the congregation think that the women who prophesied in the New Testament were able to get their message to people? Did they write it and have a man speak it or did they speak it? I believe Phillip's daughters and others spoke it. Some sermons are very close to part of the definition of prophecy. While there were prophets who spoke about what would happen in the future, there was much more about God's message for the people of the time in which they were speaking.

So, I think it boils down to what parts of the scripture one accepts as an adaptation to the culture of the day in which the scripture was written and what part they choose to take literally. Every group takes some of it literally and every group takes some as culturally or figurative. I don't see SB all having long hair as their covering, but at one time we saw other groups doing this. Now that is disappearing the the scripture is still there. Today it is being interpreted differently by those groups. Although people are reluctant to admit it, I think that often they have a point of view and gravitate to a church with that view, rather than the other way around. I believe many who do not believe women should be in leadership in the church are from a generation or cultural point that makes them uncomfortable with women who work in equality men. Nothing I say will change their minds. An example that is totally unrelated to the male-female role is the difference that Catholics and some protestants in comparison to other protestants believe about communion. Some take the passage literally when it says "this is my body" "this is my blood" and believe it somehow becomes such, others take it figuratively. I'm not trying to get into a discussion of communion, but do believe this is an important example. Often those who take it figuartively are the same groups who take some scriptures about women literally while choosing to take others as cultural.

While I am now in a denomination that allows me to answer the call to ministry that God gave me in high school, I see my role as a pastor and minister as one of a servant. In our denomination, the pastor works with the elders and others. Taking our lead from Ephesians 4:11-16, we don't believe there should ever be a solo pastorate.

I've forgiving those who made it difficult for me to answer the call of God for me and have moved on. I now work with a group of colleagues in which I see great authenticity and integrity in searching the scripture and living out what it means to be a follower of Christ. I can see that God has turned the situation of my youth to that which is good. Romans 8:28.

"For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then we will see face to face." I cor 13:12. I think this passage and all of I cor 13 is very important in this discussion. None of us have all the wisdom and all the right answers. Often these discussions make insinuations about the faith and correctness of the person with whom we disagree. In a survey conducted by a leading Christian research group, young people (Christians and nonChristians) said we are very judgemental and have an attitude that indicates we have arrived. They said they don't expect us to be perfect, but to be authentic. If we don't have compassion and care for each other when we disagree, our witness to the world is diminished. Are we more concerned about proving someone wrong than about reaching people who don't know Christ? How will our actions and attitude affect this?

I'm sorry this is so long, but I felt I wanted to comment and explain my comment.

Blessings in the name of Christ to all.

Unfortunately, young evangelical's have been brought up to value pleasing people and getting along more than they value Truth and standing firm to unpopular Biblical teachings.

BrentH, you are right--I'm not a Southern Baptist--or any kind of Baptist--and I'm sure I'm rather ignorant of SBC polity. But I wasn't referring to administrative control. I was referring to the attempt by the SBC leadership to assert ideological control over doctrinal matters in SBC churches and seminaries. After all, isn't that what Jimmy Carter's break with the SBC was largely about?

Given that, it makes perfect sense, to me anyway, to think that somewhere down the line, the ideology promoted by the SBC leadership might have been behind the LifeWay stores' decision to pull this publication from their stores. If the parent organization that runs the LifeWay stores is "an entity of the Southern Baptist Convention" (their words), is it really all that wrong to think that the stores are not completely autonomous?