Neighbor Love and the Doctrine of God

It's confusing yet strangely gratifying all at the same time. We live in a culture that is moving further and further from the exclusive claims of Christianity yet almost equally—and inconsistently—holds select passages in the Bible in high regard. They hold forth as though they cling tighter to the red letter words of Jesus than those who claim to be Christians. Of course, it’s true that many who call themselves believers fail to live in a way that reflects how we are suppose to live, but these failures are not indicative of a bankrupt theology but rather our need for a perfect Savior. Perhaps this is why Scripture, in various ways, implores us to guard our testimony as unbelievers struggle to separate the message from the messenger. In contrast, while the work of many social justice advocates may encompass a zealous neighbor-love approach, it often neglects a gospel-centered focus lacks any risk.

                                                                                                

In the book of Matthew, we read the account of Jesus being asked by a lawyer which of the commandments was the greatest. Jesus’ response included not one, but two. The first, he said, was to love God with all of our heart, soul, and mind and the second was like the first, that we ought to love our neighbors as ourselves (Matt 22:37-40).

The Problem of Moral Revival

As a Christian and a conservative, I believe we have reached a crossroads where we need to seriously reconsider our approach to cultural engagement. The swift undercurrent of moral decay continues to take most Christians by surprise while our pragmatic approach to morality rooted in tradition and dependent on consensus forces us down the slippery slope of relativism. As much as we want to protect our freedom of speech, have we really had all that much to say? As much as we want to protect the right to life, have we been focused more on the right than the life created in the image of God? And in all of our efforts to defend traditional marriage, have we capitulated to non-biblical perspectives in our appeal to the safety of tradition instead of a risky appeal to Scripture? An explicitly Christian worldview has not been welcome in the marketplace of ideas for some time. As a result, believers have caved to society’s demands for a secularized message under the guise of “public language,” an attempt to give the appearance that morality can be dislodged from its worldview foundations. This enterprise has been anything but successful. Yet Christian conservatives continue to clamor for moral revival in pluralistic setting that might, for only a short time, reflect certain values consistent with Scripture. The problem with this conception of moral revival is that it is about as effective as yo-yo dieting.

The High Calling of the Christian Woman

Surrogacy, In Vitro Fertilization (IVF), pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD), egg “donation”, and even certain forms of contraception are considered by many women–including Christian women–valid options for addressing their reproductive dilemmas despite the embryo-destructive nature often associated with these advancements in technology.

Over the years, I have known many women in churches who have traveled down these paths only to suffer the pain of knowing their very prolife intentions have led to some not-so-prolife results. For some, they have come to understand that the embryos they placed in frozen storage for future “use” are their children whether or not they are eventually born or do not survive the process of implantation. Others are still learning that pre-implantation genetic diagnosis is not actually a therapeutic treatment of their very tiny children, but a means of discarding imperfect offspring, a technological “achievement” grounded in a philosophy that says only certain lives are worth living. PGD has come to be a routine practice as IVF has come to be more about quality control.

We continue to love and minister to the women and families who have found themselves in these unfortunate circumstances without being fully informed; ridicule and rebuke have no place as there is so much misinformation about these issues. But as a matter of proactive, educational ministry, women in the church must learn more about these decisions they are contemplating.

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Will Socialism Save Evangelicalism?

As everyone becomes increasingly uncomfortable with global economic woes, many of which have been brought on by big-government economic policies, I have to wonder if this could actually be good for the church. America's history of prosperity can be understood to be the result of divine blessing, solid economic policy, or a providential combination. Yet maybe since this is all Americans today are familiar with--the comfort of prosperity--we are being forced to draw closer to God and consider the deeper meaning of trusting God in every single area of life. I am no friend of socialist policies that bring higher taxes and income redistribution, but I am all about seeing God at work, and maybe...just maybe we are edging closer to another great awakening.

Living in the Shadow of Truth

You can’t say that Christianity is true for everyone because that’s just how you were raised.
How prepared are you to respond to this statement without pitting faith against reason? What I mean is, do you respond by saying that Christianity does not meet the demands of logic and reason, you just have to believe, and that’s the end of the discussion? Or do you unpack the assertion by challenging its fundamental assumptions? The assertion that Christian belief is merely cultural, a set of values passed down from parents to children and therefore not something that can be considered true or false, can be destructive and discouraging to the mind of the believer because of a misapplied truth...

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Christian Ed. and the Risks of On-the-Job Training

Just about every evangelical church has lay people positioned as elders and teachers, rarely with formal theological training. Obviously, formal training doesn’t necessarily make one a good teacher, but it gives warrant to the belief that the person has a certain degree of knowledge of what they are trying to teach. But as a teacher, how much more does he or she need to know beyond that of the students? Is it appropriate, as the adult in the room, to be learning along side the students? (This may be an overstatement.) That’s something of a rhetorical question, because my current position on this is that, while teachers don’t need to know everything to the degree of having seminary education, they must have basic familiarity with the concepts whereby they can refresh themselves in further study and can actually lead the students without hampering their learning with on-the-job training. I’m curious what kind of training your churches offer in order to equip each teacher for their particular context.

I recently brought this up to a friend who suggested  leadership development whereby teachers can learn to relate with their students and learn about the role of character in their leadership, becoming better teachers as a result. But that escapes the nature of my concern because even if a teacher is equipped at the most basic level, I’m not sure we are doing enough to take them to them further. Has the church made so much out of leadership development that we have neglected the equipping our teachers with the content they need to be truly effective? Not every teacher is a leader, yet the church is inundated with leadership conferences, books, and other materials. Everyone wants to lead and learn how to lead. But who wants to study? With anti-intellectualism rampant in the church, I say few really care to study.

Currently, I have one of the best teaching pastors I have ever known, I am blessed.  But I’m unconvinced that Sunday morning is sufficient for equipping teachers for their own work. Whether Sunday school or youth ministry or adult studies, the gambit of information runs from basic Bible knowledge to apologetics and theological understanding. Pastors can’t do it all, and they definitely can’t do it all on Sunday morning, but maybe they could do more in the church if more direct training is required for all engaged in teaching ministry. Unfortunately, so much of teaching has been reduced to nonteaching. What I mean is that women are often not teaching Bible studies, they are facilitating, plopping in a video and asking “how does that verse make you feel?” The same may be said of Sunday school teachers who use prepackaged curriculum and are simply guiding 3^rd graders in self-study. Can’t we do better?

The picture I have drawn here may be overly pessimistic. I know many good lay teachers are out there. But I also know a lot of theological incompetence exists, but the training available for non-pastors is limited, especially when the teacher doesn’t quite know what he needs. This is a local church issue and we need to do more than hope lay teachers find iTunesU or read a few interesting blogposts.

What Would Jesus Do? Compassion in Conflict

From a Christian point of view, the virtue of compassion is rooted in the character of God and exemplified by the saving work of Christ. His was an example (though not merely an example) of ultimate compassion, giving completely of himself not out of compulsion but out of pure sacrificial love and devoid of political motivations. It is a model of compassion that we can only live out analogously because we fail to meet the standard of pure selflessness. For Jesus, he willingly chose to lose when he had already won. He is God! We strive, and with God’s power we achieve, but due to the fallen state of things, someone inevitably encounters our weaknesses. But we still seek to be compassionate.

Caring for society’s most vulnerable is part of our mission as the church and one that Christians take very seriously and act upon on a daily basis. The poor, the widows, the children—these are a few segments of society to which scripture explicitly challenges us to give of ourselves. And God’s church understands that the gospel without a cup of cold water isn’t very good news. Could we do better? Obviously.

As it pertains to the recent passage of health care reform, some left-leaning Americans suggest that conservative, especially Christian conservatives, lack compassion because some—ok most—have been opposed to the health care reform bill in question. They abide by the bold assumption that the health care reform bill sits above other acts of compassion. It is better than creating jobs, it is better than smaller piecemeal options like opening of the state borders to more health insurance competition. It is better than simply working at the elimination of fraud and wasteful spending.

What would Jesus do? What would he think?

Some liberals think he would do what they did on Sunday night, the Lord’s Day as one representative reminded us. That was disorienting. He said it was time for the representatives to “walk by faith” and pass the bill. Would Jesus do health care reform as they have penned this legislation? Probably not. Jesus would turn over the tables in congress and tell them to stop making deals that squander funds that could help those in need…..if Jesus were invited to comment on the dealings, that is. The bottom line is left-leaning Americans seem to be saying that godly compassion necessarily includes health care insurance. Furthermore, they seem to think that health care is a need that overrides other acts of compassion and ought to be raised to the level of rights. Maybe Jesus would ask us to be better stewards of our financial resources or maybe he would ask us to view the economy as a fishes and loaves opportunity. None of us can know for sure what Jesus would say, he’d probably call us all out as fools. But what we can know is that we are often faced with moral conflicts and the methods of compassion can also conflict.

I know of no Christian conservative who takes joy in anyone lacking health care resources. But economic utopia is not possible on this side of eternity. Safety nets are in place like Medicaid to help families in need, and I know because I benefited from prenatal care through Medicaid in 1992-93. And by the way, it was top-notch. Yes, we can probably do more.

Like jobs and education, healthy families and hunger-relief, access to health care is something we would love for everyone to have. Which one takes priority?  To suggest that health care is a natural right is to reduce rights to consumer goods. Rights cannot be sold or traded or granted, they can only be recognized in that they are inherent to being human. But a non-evolutionary view of humanity is required to agree with that statement. Or maybe it is true that Darwinian theory impacts absolutely everything, including health care policy. Public funds can only go so far and private industry will pass on additional expenses and tax hikes on to consumers because business doesn’t exist primarily for benevolence, and it shouldn’t because then it ceases to be a for-profit entity.

Compassion comes in a variety of forms, some better implemented than others. We might also ask who has the most to gain when compassion is implemented. The dignity of an individual is infringed upon when, in the name of compassion, someone profits from exploiting what others lack. But at this point, compassion is no more.

Is Jesus a Democrat or a Republican?

It’s stupid to even entertain the question. But every time I see it posed, it isn’t for getting people to focus on issues instead of remaining blind devotees to political parties. Intentional or not, it often serves as a way to distract people from important issues that do deserve our attention. “How can we come together as a nation instead of remaining so divided?” The unspoken fallacy occurs when it is stated that Jesus was neither a democrat or a republican. Are we really suppose to believe he wouldn’t have had a view on abortion, embryonic stem cell research, or gay marriage? When the highest moral value of a culture is unity at the expense of principle, there is no real unity and we can wonder if principles ever existed in the first place.

So when people in the pews hear their church leaders espouse this same ideal, that we should be cautious about political partisanship (generously stated), I’m not convinced the people are sophisticated enough to know that they aren’t being (or shouldn’t be) told to abandon positions on issues that are thought out and held up against the light of scripture. I know that many in the church are ill-equipped to think theologically about their personal lives, let alone matters that face our entire culture. So I have to wonder if this lack of distinction between public issues and politics in general even matters if the church is unable to think theologically, if its members are just starting to develop a Christian worldview.

Could the above reflections have any relationship to the fact that of the millions of evangelicals in the U.S., less than of us 200,000 have signed on to the Manhattan Declaration? And many of the signers are likely Roman Catholic.

Worship in Silence

This is a topic I've been reflecting on for awhile now, so while I know it doesn't fit ideally with the current Thanksgiving motif, I didn't want to squander these thoughts.

I don't often navigate in the world of worship ministry, so I have no idea if or to what extent this has been a topic of discussion. However, I am not so sheltered that I am unaware of the debates over contemporary vs. traditional music/worship services. Ok, so by now you're wondering where I am going...here it is.

Visiting a church last weekend in Wisconsin, I discovered that I was unable to participate in very much of the singing portion of the service. No, I didn't have laryngitis, and though I'm typically quite bashful with my fellow congregants on Sunday morning, I am not prevented from my time with the Lord in song...unless I don't know the song. This isn't something inherent to visiting a church, sometimes I experience this in my own church. There are times when I can't participate even a little in some of the songs because I'm given only words by projector, I have no access to any of the musical notation--unless it happens to be in a hymnal, which is rare in my experience.

Petty concern? Perhaps you're right, maybe it is. But I persist. I recollect as a child that before I knew how to read music, I closely examined the musical notation in the hymnals. Worship was something I was always able to participate in because at the very least, I could follow the directionality of the notes. I knew when to sing higher or lower....and after more experience with the notation, I was able to determine which notes moved faster than others. Once I did learn how to read music, participation became even easier and, in my opinion, more fruitful.

Prior to my interest in theological studies, I was playing the trumpet actively and passionately, to the extent that I was involved in leading instrumentalists on a worship team. When I began my theological studies, I began to ponder the relationship between music and God. For instance, inherent to music is logic. It makes mathematical sense and is as coherent as a grammatically correct sentence. It also manages to speak to our affections, even without lyrics. That doesn't mean that we will always like or enjoy every manifestation of music, but it does always seem to make sense, even when it doesn't. Music often enjoys the paradox of being logical and beautiful, and in my case there was the byproduct of helping me learn fractions. I will spare you that particular detail.

My understanding of music history is very weak. I don't know anything about the history of notation or when it became common to use notation within congregational worship settings. The Psalms, obviously, are full of references to music and worship and the New Testament references the importance of corporate worship and individual participation (Colossians 3:16). But corporate worship requires the involvement of each of us as individuals. I am left to wonder if, not only has the seeker movement or other similar phenomenons proved damaging to the church by adding the hi-tech aspects to worship in order to make it entertaining or friendly, does the inability of the individual to participate reinforce the idea of the worship-performance team?

Are we also raising up generations of young people who may never enjoy the language of music because they are seldom exposed to it in its written form? Will they ever experience God the way generations before them have discovered truth in musical scales, chords, and rhythms often learned through the visual?

These are just some of my thoughts. I've been around church for a lot of years, so when I discover that I don't know some of the more contemporary songs and choruses, I wonder how much more a new believer is in the dark. Not only is there the risk of alienating visitors to a congregation, but the church may even come across as clique-y because of the manner in which worship is portrayed.

Moral Reform & Ministry to Women: an excerpt

Also posted at First Things

With a sense of urgency, the body of Christ needs to be equipped to give an answer to obstacles and objections to faith as a matter of discipleship within the church as well as for the gospel ministry each member of the body has outside of the church. And how we live from the point of conversion onward will reflect to the world a certain degree of faithfulness to the truths we claim. Transgressions by well-known “family values” politicians who might otherwise be regarded as moral reformers in the years that follow their civil service are often regarded as a failure of the Christian worldview, leaving the church ashamed and silent. The old adage “talking the talk without walking the walk” is taking on a greater sense of relevance in this new century. And due to advancements in technology, sometimes the specific decisions that we face in life need a bit more ethical reflection than a congregation is generally equipped to face. The 21^st century believer is confronted by a plethora of ideas and decisions, and the church must stand firm and prepare her people to think theologically in such a way to impact all areas of life. We must prepare a place for deliberate theology, apologetics, and ethics education in the church, especially in the sphere of women’s ministry. Why particularly women’s ministry?

The experience of womanhood provides opportunity to address certain issues women in particular can relate to, and to disciple in a way that addresses deeply engrained ideas rooted in false belief, replacing them with truth. The choices that many women make about how to live—choices made prior to conversion and perhaps even early in their Christian walk—have consequences that come with them to the pew—when they eventually find the pew. Some of these consequences can never be eliminated, preventing them from finding functional reconciliation with biblical womanhood and related teachings. For instance, a single mother who has no choice but to work in order to care for her family can never fulfill the vision of womanhood that has her at home supporting a husband as head. Of course, this may be taught as the biblical ideal, but never being able to achieve it may have a significant effect on her relationship with God and those in her church. This is not to recommend the abandonment of biblical teachings on the family, church leadership, or parenting because they might seem irrelevant to the particular circumstances of many women. The issue I am raising is much larger.

The manner in which the teachings of biblical womanhood are often communicated is a “circle the wagons” approach for which a real potential exists to further marginalize women already on the fringes. Extra caution needs to be taken when communicating a pattern for living, especially to those whose day to day lives will probably never reflect a the model for marriage and family taught in scripture. Discipleship methods need to take into account that women are in a variety of places on their spiritual journey. Women whose lives will likely never arrive at what they have been taught about what God has ordained for marriage and the family are often left floundering, in a never-ending battle to please God. This biblical ideal is so highly regarded that often, little emphasis is spent on equipping all women to glorify God within their current reality.

Indeed, the church must continue to defend a family structure that glorifies God as reflected in scripture so that families might not be influenced or tainted by the whims of culture. But the church must also be intentional about educating and equipping the individuals and broken families who, by the leading of the Spirit, have found their way to the community of believers, but whose day to day life more closely resembles the ways of the world. This is, I believe, more a matter of Christian education than of therapy, the direction women’s ministry often tends to lean.

Conversion changes our position before God, but it does not immediately change the way we think or how we live in our particular circumstances. Women from all backgrounds certainly do need to understand what scripture teaches about the family, because they are being called to effectively impart those teachings to their children, unbelieving husbands, and perhaps other members of their family. In this sense, we must continue to affirm and actively embrace what scripture teaches regarding biblical womanhhood. But these women also desperately need to develop a fuller, more complete theology so that they can make sense out of their circumstances and critically consider how to live to the glory of God in all areas of life for the rest of their life. Trying “to discern what is pleasing to the Lord” in various circumstances is one of the greatest challenges for women today. This is virtually impossible if we continue to circle the wagons and communicate a message that essentially excludes women on the fringes.

Evangelicalism, Ethics, & Eggshells

Teaching ethics in a local junior college is a great opportunity to impact minds in my community. A somewhat ancillary discussion we have had in class is the usage of moral and ethical–terms with no meaningful distinction, though sometimes associated with different quadrants of society (e.g. business & ethics, religion & morality). Within evangelicalism, we similarly have our own usage for these terms, adding to the list Christian living and growing in Christ, among others.

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Women in Ministry: Between the Pulpit & the Kitchen

Almost every day the debate simmers over the role of women in the church, a topic that appears to me to be escalating, potentially causing further fragmentation in the Christian community. Each blog post, article, and conversation rightly involves discussion of relevant scriptural texts including passages out of Genesis, Ephesians and 1 Timothy. And in every instance, people who represent each side of the argument find themselves unable to be persuaded otherwise. Some choose to disagree agreeably, remaining amiable to their theological adversary while others persist in exactly the opposite, lacking respect for one another and silencing healthy dialogue altogether.

This essay is a product of my engagement in the debate at various levels, with every desire to honor God in both my understanding of the issue and in my character as I interact with other believers—no matter their position. This essay is not intended to serve as defense for either side of the debate, though I make no effort to hide my views. This also is not a proposal for “balance” between the two dominant positions. Unlike some prominent voices in women’s ministry, I am not suggesting that the correct position is to be located somewhere in between as is often asserted about the debate between Calvinism and Arminianism. That approach to locating theological truth is, at best, misleading in that it suggests it is generally found somewhere in the middle, never to be found with one of the “extremes.” This is a politically-motivated approach to doing theology, seeking to eliminate both mystery and conflict and puts at risk all knowledge claims.

What this essay is is an acknowledgement of what has been missed—to the best of my knowledge—among those on both sides of the debate. In a very real sense, we are being distracted by the debate of women’s roles in the church, failing to ask ourselves how we can appropriately integrate the gifts of these women into the body. Few wonder how we can think outside of the box about the areas women traditionally serve in the church even while many of these areas do not cohere with the gifts of these same women. I believe the time has come for us to move the discussion of women in ministry—at least temporarily—to a new geographical area. This is the area between the pulpit and the kitchen, a very large ministry-space where God has placed many to serve in a variety of capacities. The emphasis of this essay is that many women have a variety of gifts they know do not belong in the kitchen but may perceive them to belong in the pulpit because, for many of these women, there is no other ministry space that coheres with who God has made them.

To any competent student of the Word—male or female—pulpit ministry and the pastorate can be very attractive. So putting aside for a moment what scripture says about the qualifications for pastor and elder and the conversation-ender “no you can’t,” I believe it could actually benefit the church to learn more about the attraction both men and women have to this ministry. What do we know specifically about these women—their gifts and talents—who believe they are called to pastoral leadership in the church? What do we know about the tasks associated with the pastorate in relation to the women who desire the role? Can the church, for just a moment investigate this attraction and conclude by saying “we understand.”? This does not necessitate that the church change her position on this matter, compromise of theological truth is never appropriate. But an acknowledgement of the valid reasons why women might desire and pursue such roles has the potential to guide everyone in the conversation to implementation instead of alienation of these women and their gifts in the church. The attraction to pastoral leadership need not necessarily be reduced to woman’s “desire for her husband,” to fulfill her need to usurp authority at every turn. The knee-jerk “you’re a woman, you can’t” response must be replaced with an analysis of the kind of woman who seeks such a leadership role and consideration for how the church can better steward these gifts.

It is my assertion that these women with intellectual gifts of varying degrees can conceive of no other venue in the church for implementation. And I completely understand (though not agree) why it is they then claim the call to these roles. You have probably heard this same defense, “God gifted me this way, so I need to heed the call.” Or “Who am I to question God’s will?” With few other options for plugging in as members of the body with these particular gifts, their response makes sense.

But this should not be a surprise, either. In many churches, spiritual gift inventories and other personality instruments are utilized to learn more about the landscape of their particular corner of God’s church. Yet, I have seen few churches actually do anything constructive with the results.

As a complementarian, I am continually bothered by the lack of women in the church implementing their intellectual gifts as theologians, philosophers, apologists, ethicists, economists and so forth because I believe we have put women and their gifts, needs and interests in a box and tied it up—tightly—with a pretty lace bow. Because of the important role she plays in the family, there is often the perception that women’s gifts and needs are limited to the realm of the home. I am not suggesting that those women who abide in this realm are excluded from the community of intellectually-gifted women, many, in fact, are one and the same. But when “keeping the home” (Tit 2) is reduced to teaching women how to make pot-holders out of old socks to the exclusion of developing the life of the mind, then we run the risk of not only losing more women to the theological wimpiness, but their children as well. All of this causes me to wonder if the complementarian community is losing intelligent women to egalitarian-leaning churches because little effort is put forth to see their gifts truly bless the church.

Apart from pulpit ministry, how can women serve the church with their intellectual gifts? The idea of the church’s feminization has done more harm than good in its “glass half empty” perspective. Yes, of course it would be wonderful to see more men—husbands, fathers, brothers, etc.—involved in a local church, but the fact remains that women are at church and are an important area of ministry not to be ignored. Meeting the next generation with the gospel and helping them develop a Christian worldview cannot happen without the equipping of women who are in positions of responsibility for this future generation. Yet we often act as if women are a not a factor in the equation. With women as a majority of those who attend church, perhaps it is time (some would say we are long over due) to discover new ways for women’s voices to be a strong, compelling means for discipleship and outreach for the church without compromising views on church leadership and government. As we allow diverse voices to be present because diverse listeners want to hear from people like themselves, it is not a stretch to accept and embrace the fact that women do want to hear from women, somewhere between the pulpit and the kitchen.

Women's Ministry: Time to Get Back to Basics?

With every opportunity to speak at women’s ministry events, invariably the women of these churches never fail to surprise me with the many gifts and talents they have contributed to the preparations. Women’s ministry teams seem to know almost innately how to pull everything together: food, décor, worship, organization and all of the other fine details that go into making a brunch, lunch or similar gathering quite memorable.

But the reality is, most church women’s ministries only have the energy and “manpower” to offer these gatherings a few of times a year, In a calendar year, one can expect to plan for some sort of spring event, a Mother’s day gathering--often mother/daughter affair—and a Christmas tea. This would be in addition to the small groups and Bible studies. Of course, some ministries may do more because the size of their church allows for more women to be involved. But because the average church size in the U.S. is around 200 with many far fewer, the ability to plan for these three events can become quite burdensome. I do not believe any of these events should be eliminated from the master plan of any women’s ministry simply because they are laborious, because I also understand they have utility--glorifying God and ministry to women. This is worthy work toward the advancement of the Kingdom.

However, the flip side of the coin is the belief that every significant gathering must include ornate centerpieces, petit fours and elegant programs.

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Equipping All Women to Be Exceptional Women

The scriptures tell many stories of unlikely women God has used to accomplish his will. I refer to them as “unlikely” not because it is unlikely God would ever use such women to accomplish his will. God will use anyone at any time. I refer to these women as unlikely because of our sinful expectations. To put it bluntly, they are not church ladies.

Two of these unlikely women are almost entirely unknown to us, except for what Paul has to say about their influence on a younger man very dear to him. We are introduced to them in Paul’s second letter written to Timothy who was a leader in the first century church and discipled by Paul. A younger man, Paul regarded him as his own spiritual "child". Timothy's grandmother Lois, and Eunice, his mother, are credited by Paul for instilling in Timothy a "sincere faith" like that of their own. (2 Timothy) In Acts 16:1, the only other biblical text where Timothy’s family background and heritage of faith are discussed, we learn that Timothy’s father is Greek and his mother, who we know to be Eunice, is a Jewish convert to Christianity. Neither Luke, the writer of Acts, nor Paul in his letter to Timothy offers any indication that Timothy’s father was also a believer, leaving the reader to assume he probably was not.

Perhaps it would not have been so important for scripture to mention anything about Timothy’s upbringing and the religious background of his parents if it were not for the significant role his mother played in the development of his faith and as the believer in an unequally yoked marriage. That Timothy’s grandmother Lois and mother Eunice are acknowledged for their key role in his spiritual development should give us pause as to how we are equipping all women to grow in their knowledge of God and how their children’s spiritual heritage might be traced back to the strength of their own faith. Sunday comes too infrequently to depend upon the church as the only source for Christian education; every parent needs to be a fount of biblical truth to their children and every woman has opportunities to share the gospel and make disciples. What are we doing as a church, especially in our women’s ministries, to encourage the spiritual maturity of every woman?

Is Industriousness Compatible with Biblical Womanhood?

Apparently there is something inherently gender-oriented about household chores, but I’m not quite sure where to draw the line. Is it the basement door? The entrance into the garage from the back of my kitchen? Perhaps it is the lawn and the shrubbery. Maybe someone can help me to understand this…

I’ve always thought of myself as a complementarian, but typically don’t advocate strongly for biblical womanhood because of its inability to speak boldly to women on the fringes. I continue to firmly hold a view that women are not to be elders in a local church, and I believe every passage of scripture that indicates that the husband is the head and the wife is his helpmeet, but how the latter plays out is not absolutely defined in scripture. I am also very weary of needing to state these things each time I discuss the logical and practical failures of the biblical womanhood movement, but I will continue to do so as necessary.

So here I am, going out on a limb I fear will break, but I am going anyway knowing I may be fully rejected by the complementarian camp I embrace. In a blogpost by Carolyn Mahaney, she writes about the disapproval she has--and scripture has--for a world where husbands and wives share the tasks of running a household. She begins the post by talking about how she wasn’t feeling well one day and turned on the Today Show as some sort of distraction. That was her first mistake, as the Today Show is co hosted by a professional career-driven female. I would think that watching that would in some way be supportive of Ann Curry’s pursuit of a career outside of the home. But I digress.

Carolyn describes in her post what the Today Show was featuring at that moment. I will let Carolyn speak for herself:

Ann Curry was interviewing two moms who recently wrote a book entitled Getting to 50/50. The point of the book is this: A woman can have a great career, a great marriage, and be a great mother—all by getting her husband to share equally in the responsibilities in the home. Thus the title, Getting to 50/50.”

These two authors were very pleasant and gracious. They were not the militant, angry type who can easily offend many. And they weren’t men bashers; in fact, they seemed to want to pursue a loving relationship with their husbands.

And yet, the premise of their book is in direct contradiction to Scripture, which assigns men and women equally important, yet different roles (Gen. 1:26-27, 2:18, 21-24; 1 Cor. 11:7-9, 1 Tim. 2:12-14).

These women believe that there is no difference or distinction in the roles men and women are assigned. They want men to take on fifty percent of the woman’s role and women to assume fifty percent of a man’s role. Their assertions fly in the face of God’s creation design and mandate—and they do it all with a smile.”

Without watching the interview that Carolyn watched, I’m forced to admit that there may have been some things stated about women and feminism that did not make it into Carolyn’s account in her blogpost. There is no fault in this. But if what Carolyn quoted is the full essence of what was communicated, I would suggest that her post demonstrates a lack of understanding of the fuller picture.

Very simply, scripture speaks of women “keeping the home” in Titus 2 and husbands as the heads in Ephesians 5, but neither passage suggests that a husband is walking outside of his role by participating in the management of the home or that she is stepping outside of her role by asking for help with household management. In fact, according to Susan Hunt, Titus 2 is not arguing necessarily that a woman never work outside of the home, but that she be “industrious” in all she does, including the home (Spiritual Mothering, Crossway Books, 1992. p. 64). A good example: The evangelical community was quick to embrace the VP nomination of Gov. Sarah Palin with the full knowledge her husband was helping at home.

One could easily come to the conclusion that 50/50 was an industrious way for these women to come alongside their husbands financially and to be a helpmeet to them in a sense other than handling the daily household chores. We live in a society where it is difficult for many families to live on a single income, and the language of “career” does not necessarily take from the priority of the family. Dependent on her personal circumstances, a woman may be wise by pursuing career-oriented employment that offers a salary structure compatible with her gifts and talents rather than a job that wears her down and makes her useless to the rest of her family because of frustration and fatigue.

If the women on the Today Show stated and believe that there is no difference or distinction in the roles men and women are assigned, I would agree that they are in error. But I disagree strongly that somehow a man and woman are abandoning those roles by sharing in the responsibilities of work and household management. To frame roles in this way places a number of families in irresolvable situations. I could cite various family scenarios that would more firmly root the husband in the home and the wife in the workplace, situations based on matters of health, job loss, and similar situations. If these were to be regarded as acceptable qualifications for how we are suppose to understand gender roles, then I would suggest that the doctrines of biblical manhood and womanhood are not as tightly wrapped up as claimed to be.

I get that the worldview of secular feminism is an assault on the Christian worldview and that it perpetrates great evils in our society. The days are, indeed, evil in this respect. But to frame the sharing of responsibilities of the home, which certainly do include financial responsibilities, within the context of secular feminism’s assault of God and the family is somewhat short-sighted.

Does Christianity have the Corner on Truth?

This question recently came to my attention reading the Spring 2009 edition of the Trinity magazine. In it, Dr. Baxter points to Christian thinker Arthur Holmes usage of the phrase "all truth is God's truth." Baxter and I agree with this statement, while we also agree that God's truths can be found in other spheres of creation including art, music, literature, and film. But does that notion that Christianity doesn't have the "corner on truth" overstate the case?

What's missing from this is the ability to account for truth. While people of any worldview can communicate truths through art, literature, film and music, the issue is, how do they account for these truths? If, as the artist or writer, he can see these truths he is communicating, how can he explain how he knows them. How can he explain the truths on display? While agreeing with unbelievers that truth is everywhere, we find ourselves more attractive to the way they see things. But do we do them any favors as ministers of the gospel, enabling them to hang on their their deeper belief, that it ultimately doesn't matter what worldview you embrace? I believe that is certainly where we leave them.

How do you answer this issue? How does your faith inform your understanding of truth and how you know anything to be true? I would love to hear your comments!

Motherhood on Mother's Day

As Mother’s Day is celebrated in families and churches this year, women are honored for the roles they play as nurturers, teachers, and protectors. In fact in most circles, one need not have offspring to be celebrated this one day in May. It is rightfully recognized that women across the spectrum reach into the lives of others as positive forces of love and care giving. For that, I also celebrate the exceptional women of our world, especially those in my own life.

But. Yes, with me there is almost always a but. While we celebrate all women on Mothers Day, as a culture we fail to honor the actual institution of motherhood itself, drifting further down that path of individualism and convenience, wanting to preserve the life of freedom and financial prosperity until they near the end of their reproductive years. In this society, motherhood is perceived as an unnecessary burden. And then we have the opposite problem of young girls--my own knowledge places them around the age of 12--planning pregnancies with their equally young boy friends. Their motivation is not entirely clear to me, as I believe it is multi-faceted. But it certainly is not about honoring the institution of motherhood as they are still children.

Mother’s Day celebrations should be as much about the institution of motherhood as the mothers themselves, because what better time is there to teach about the influence of motherhood on every sphere of society? With the pervasive influence of secular feminist ideals, the attacks on marriage, and the buffet of reproductive choices available now and into the future, our culture treats motherhood as a the second to last rung on the ladder of success, the last rung being retirement. Motherhood is also regarded as a disease…dare I suggest a sexually transmitted one.

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Humanist Ethics & Arrogance

In her post, Is Humanism Arrogant?, Terri Murray offers an undergraduate level textbook recitation of divine command theory, attributing the position to Christian "theocrats", theologians and otherwise, who engage in a worldview analysis that draws the conclusion that humanist ethical theory represents arrogance because it ultimately lacks any epistemic foundation. Oh yeah, she never explained the reasoning of these "theocrats."

Terri fails in this post, not because she created a strawman--yes, there is much more to Christian ethics than divine command theory--not because she doesn't answer the "theocrat" according to the strawman she set up in the first place, but because she never actually offers an explanation for how humanists "understand" ethics. Frankly, I'm not even sure what "understand" means, unless she is referring to how they ground ethics. If this is the case, she might have better expressed it as an accounting of ethics. So how do humanists account for ethics?

Every worldview has a self-sufficient. In biblical Christianity, the self-sufficient is the God of Scripture. In humanism, the self-sufficient is man who, through the use of reason, locates right and wrong, the ethical and unethical. But in the history of humanity, man has proven that the use of reason never yields the same conclusions among all men. Reason fails. Science is not ethics, science is a descriptive discipline, ethics is a prescriptive discipline. Science can never speak for ethics, it can only offer choices to ethics. Humanism fails the test for objective ethics, and with relativism as that which remains, humanist ethics can never speak for everyone, nor would it ever try to. The fact remains, humanism simply cannot account for right and wrong, because humanism cannot escape relativism. And that's why the charge of arrogance hovers over humanist ethics.

Abortion: The Debate's Transition to the Private Realm

During last night's 100 day press conference, President Obama declared--almost word for word to previous statements--his position on abortion. Even though he isn't a great speaker, he likely is a wordsmith on paper and has framed this language in such a way that it sounds logical, caring, respectful of religion, and dare I say, even centrist.

You know, my view on abortion I think has been very consistent. I think abortion is a moral issue and an ethical issue. I think that those who are pro-choice make a mistake when they — if they suggest — and I don’t want to create straw men here, but I think there are some who suggest that this is simply an issue about women’s freedom and that there’s no other considerations. I think, look, this is an issue that people have to wrestle with, and families and individual women have to wrestle with.

There is some serious strategy going on here. I believe what Obama is trying to do is de-politicize abortion for the sake of the pro-abortion position. By referring to it as a moral issue that "families and women have to wrestle with" he is eliminating the notion of objective morality and linking abortion instead the realm of private values. But if the debate remains tied most dominately to the extreme feminist, reproductive rights movement, abortion remains open to public debate amongst ideological foes, each with the assumption that there is an objectively correct answer. And if that debate continues to rage, Obama can't appear as if he is taking no side. But there is more.

The reason I’m pro-choice is because I don’t think women take that position casually. I think that they struggle with these decisions each and every day, and I think they are in a better position to make these decision ultimately than members of Congress or a President of the United States — in consultation with their families, with their doctors, with their clergy. So that’s been my consistent position.

There is a ton to address in this portion of his statement, but what I want to focus your attention to the "private" relationships he mentions, between a woman and her family, doctor, clergy. His administration's work to mute the public abortion debates leaves it in the realm of these private relationships...and take note that religion is removed from the public realm (no surprise) into the private life of the woman. This is the only place where religion has a voice in the matter.

This statement he makes is clearly driven toward a removal of religious voices from the public square, and the fact that he consistently makes his position known suggests his words need to be closely examined. If the Obama administration succeeds in muting the debate, even if only on the side of the pro-aborts, religious voices will be even further marginalized and secularism will be the default worldview, even among those who identify themselves as Christian. And we see a lot of that occuring already.

Does 'Complementarian' Equal Anemic Women's Ministry?

In 2007, Amy Simpson wrote “Why I Don’t Do Women’s Ministry,” citing the reasons for her struggle to fit in an essentially shallow church culture. She may have surprised a few readers, but clearly she spoke the heart of a silent, yet critical mass of women in the church.

These are women who want to fulfill the Titus 2 mandate, to mentor and minister to other women, who want to play a significant role in Christian education, but also want to escape the culture of women’s ministry that they inherited from their grandmothers. They want a more substantive interaction with the women they lead, because they know that time is a priceless commodity and they want to make the most out of every opportunity.

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