Higher-ups at the world's largest Christian publisher and retailer, LifeWay Christian Resources, decided to pull a magazine from the shelves of over 100 stores and all hell broke loose. It all started when GospelToday Magazine decided to profile 5 women pastors in this months cover story. LifeWay, whose parent entity, The Southern Baptist Convention, has a standing, non-binding resolution against women pastors, reacted by pulling all the magazines off their shelves. Then, a fierce backlash ensued typified in Roland Martin's CNN.com article entitled "Christian Bookstore's Shameful Actions." In response, I posted "Behind the Counters" on Neue Quarterly's website, which highlighted both sides of this issue.
Check it out and answer the following questions:
Should women be in ministry in your opinion?
What do you think of LifeWay's decision?
5 comments:
1 Timothy 2:11-12 is clearly the written expression of a man's (in this case Timothy) opinion. "I do not permit..."
Since it obviously is just an extension of the cultural bent of the first century, it's difficult to imagine someone actually using this as a "proof text" in order to argue against women serving in any capacity within the Church today.
Jesus certainly never taught that anyone should be discouraged from service to God.
Great piece, by the way. Completely objective in presenting both sides of the debate.
Absolutely women should be in ministry. And thank God they are.
The move to dump the magazines was crazy, but then again I'm not a Southern Baptist. And that state of affairs is not likely to change any time soon.
Whether or not pulling the magazine was a good move, I believe is irrelevant. The magazine is more culturally "sensitive" and "politically correct" than I would prefer to read in my Christian walk anyway. As Brian McLaren hints at in his book ‘The Secret Teachings of Jesus’, Jesus was a radical revolutionary who quietly went about reigning in the influence and power of the Kingdom. He was very politically incorrect, and ‘culturally insensitive’ while being sensitive to the reality of the culture. Unlike much of modern western Christendom.
However, regarding women in ministry, I say a resounding YES!
There are quite a number of highly influential women mentioned in the Bible. For example: Deborah, Rebecca, Rachel, Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Esther, Miriam, Mary Magdalene, Mary The mother of Jesus, Elizabeth, Anna, and plenty of others. All of these women are rigorously profiled and influential within scripture and equally important today.
The influence of women in the Kingdom of God amidst the time of the writing of the Word does not suggest that women today would be of less value or influence in The Kingdom.
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Thanks for posting on this topic as well.
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