Why Do We Believe What We Believe?

Who were the Apostles?

Why do we believe what we believe? That was the original subtitle for Prostitutes, Virgins and Mothers.  I was inspired to use that title while listening to a radio preacher. I don't do that very often but sometimes I torture myself. He asked, "Why do we believe that?"  And answered, "I don't know why we believe that, we just do. You don't have to know why we believe that,  just believe." I don't know what they were believing, I was busy screaming at the radio, "You don't know why you believe what you believe?" YIKES!!!

 The April 23, 2017 bulletin of St. Joseph Catholic Church brings to mind that radio preacher.  It states, "Today we listen to the teachings of three apostles - Luke, Peter, and John - who remind us that even though we have not seen Christ, we nonetheless are filled with joy as we place our belief in his saving death and resurrection." I believe the implication is that these three men were friends and contemporaries of Jesus.  If a parishioner took the bulletin at face value, they would be deceived.  

Luke is not recorded in any list of Apostles found in the Gospels. Some traditions say he was a doctor who traveled with Paul, others that he was a late second century Christian from Antioch. We know he was not an eyewitness to the life of Jesus because he tells his reader he is attempting to compile a narrative, "Just as those who were eyewitnesses." The approximative date for Luke's Gospel is between 80 - 130 C.E. That would mean the Gospel was written 50 -100 years after the crucifixion of Jesus.

Scholars believe that 1 Peter was written by a follower of Peter based on "language, content, style and theological development." An example of  this is the polished Greek in which the letter was composed and allusions to persecutions which date between 81- 96 C.E. Peter was an unlettered and probably illiterate Galilean fisherman martyred in Rome between 64 - 67 C.E. That would mean Peter was dead thirteen years before the persecutions started.  The date for 1 Peter is the same as the Gospel of Luke.

In the introduction to the Gospel of John, The New American Bible: St. Joseph Edition, a Catholic publication, states, "Other difficulties for any theory of eyewitness authorship of the Gospel in its present form are presented by its highly developed theology and by certain elements of its literary style." Scholars believe that this Gospel was written by a disciple of John between 90 - 120 C. E.

Scholars of the Roman Catholic Church know this.  The New American Bible for Catholics says of  
1 Peter, "Some Modern scholars however, on the basis of a number of features that they consider incompatible with Petrine authenticity, regard the letter as the work of a later Christian writer." The introduction to the Gospel of John says, "Critical analysis makes it difficult to accept the idea that the Gospel as it now stands was written by one person." And of Luke, "The prologue to the Gospel makes it clear that Luke is not part of the first generation of Christians disciples but is himself dependent upon the traditions he received from those who were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word." 

We did not see Christ and we are filled with joy.

Perhaps that is why the church bulletin reminds us of the joy of  believing without seeing. Whoever these ancient authors were, they did not know Jesus and are relying on the words of others for their writing. Does that disqualify them as Apostles? In the Greek Apostle means, "One who is sent." According to that definition these authors could be considered Apostles. Why does this matter? Because, we are being misled into believing that the authors of Luke, I Peter and John were eyewitnesses to the life and teaching of Jesus. Taught to believe something that is not true. Why do we believe what we believe? Because we read it on the front of the bulletin or hear a radio preacher tell us that is what we believe. 

In Matthew, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary are "sent" by an angel of the Lord to go quickly and tell the disciples. In Mark, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome are "sent" by a young man to go and tell the disciples and Peter. Luke says it is Mary Magdalene, Johanna and Mary the mother of James who are "sent" by two men in dazzling garments to the eleven and all the others.  Finally, in John's Gospel it is Jesus who "sent" Mary Magdalene to tell his brothers.  

What makes an Apostle an Apostle?

Is it gender? Is it being an eyewitness to the life and teaching of Jesus? Does being sent to proclaim the life and teaching of Jesus or the resurrection make one an apostle? Romans 16:7 refers to Junia as, "prominent among the apostles" and in I Cor. 15:8-9 Paul calls himself an apostle. 

So what is the answer? If the authors of Luke, John and I Peter, are apostles, if Paul is an apostle, if Junia is an apostle then Mary Magdalene, the other Mary, Mary the mother of James, Salome, and Johanna are all apostles. They were eyewitnesses to the life, teaching and resurrection of Jesus and they were sent! 

Why is this important? Because gender is so often used to deny women full participation in their faith communities and deny their importance in the development of the Christian Church.  Believing the authors of Luke, John, and 1Peter were contemporaries of Jesus is Biblical  illiteracy and a contributing factor to limits on the full participation of women. 

Faith of Our Mothers Revisited

Conversations with my cousin.

Last week I posted a memory about Mother's Day in the church I grew up attending.  My cousin, June Davis Fish, regularly messages me about my posts.  Last week she did not, so I got worried. I messaged her to make sure she is okay and our conversation went something like this.  

June:  "Yes, I  am OK. Thanks for checking. I did see the blog about your mother.  I remember now why I didn't comment.  Lately,  I have been having an inner struggle with any post or comment about the Father God even though they are talking about 'his' love and grace as opposed to the 'fundamental God' of law and punishment."

Me:    "I better go back and read my blog.  I rarely refer to God as Father unless it is in the context of somebody else's speech."

June:  "I don't think you did say Father God.  Some have said Papa and Daddy as if that makes 'him' less patriarchal and more loving. I just want to scream at them, Papa, Daddy, Father, ... where the hell is Mother God?  Anyway, that is the foundation for why I didn't comment on your Mother's Day Blog.  I guess I was pissed that only on one day of the year the women/Mothers get any recognition and are allowed to preform certain duties and even then they had to clean up.  Understand me, it was not your blog but how 'gracious' for the men of the church to condescend to 'honor' the women on their one day of the year, Mother's Day.  Without women how would men become fathers?  Without a Sacred Feminine Mother could Father God be a father? I didn't want to comment because it would only have sounded like I was ranting against you and your blog, which certainly wasn't what I felt."

Me:  "I think you got the point.  One day of the year the women serve communion.  An honor the men of the church usually reserved for themselves and the women still prepared and cleaned up.  As a child I was indignant.  P!@#$% off did't happen until I was older and saw how systemic this marginalization is.  Before my book was published a man was asked to write an endorsement.  He said he could not because he detected, 'An echo of frustration.' I thought, 'Wow, I am a pretty good writer if all he detected was and echo of frustration because I am, 'F@#$%^& P!@#$% Off.'" 

June:  "I am getting new perspectives on a lot of old fundamental teachings. It has been difficult to throw off old religious programming, but once I get going on it, it has been freeing and peaceful."

Me:    "One of the things I am hoping the book will accomplish is to get people to question all of these old fundamental teachings.  That is why the subtitle is, Questioning Teachings About Biblical Women.   

Gratitude to my cousin!

When I first started writing last weeks blog I purposefully took my anger out of my writing.  I edited myself as so many women do.  I wanted the post to be more about my wonderful mother than about my anger.  Thanks to June, what I feel about that experience came to the surface. My nephew once asked me, "If women cook every day, why are the best chefs men?" This was when Julia Child was the only woman chef on television.  My answer, "What men do is considered more valuable than what women do. 

On those Mother's Days, it was an honor for the deaconesses to do the deacons job of serving communion.  The deacons would not condescend to doing the job of the deaconesses.  

Women's Work

I think about the value ascribed to "women's work" by patriarchy and I am disheartened. The healing of Peter's mother-in-law is recorded in the canonical Gospels.  She is said to get up and serve after being healed.  The word, diakonei translated as serve, in reference to Peter's nameless mother-in-law is translated as minister in reference to the angels serving Jesus in the wilderness.  Same word, different value and the subject of another blog. 

I ask the same question as June. "Where is Mother God?" Imagine a faith in which female is valued in the same way as male.  

Don't Call Me a Guy

This is a speech I gave last week at Toast Masters (Mavens) 

 Equality of the Genders

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all women are created equal, that we are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  

I want to be clear about who is included in the group of women created equal.  We are the white, educated women of property and means.  Men, the working class and poor women are not created equal to us.  They must labor to support themselves, their families and to provide goods and services for us in our pursuit of life, liberty  and happiness.  

Now, I know there are some men who believe that, as we form this more perfect union, women should not rule over men.  John Adams, bless his heart, in a letter to Abigail, while we were writing the Deceleration of Independence asked, "In the new code of laws I know it will be necessary for you to write, I ask that you remember the men, and be more generous and favorable to us than you ancestors. Do not put unlimited power into the hands of  the wives.  Give up the harsh title of mistress for the more tender and endearing one of friend.  Do not give power to vicious, lawless women to use us cruelly with impunity.  Women of sense in all ages abhor those customs which treat men only as vassals of the female sex."  Abigail was swift to let John know that the revolutionary war was not fought to prove that all men were created equal.  Abigail replied, "As to your extraordinary code of laws, I cannot but laugh."

Argument From Creation

Man clearly was not created equal to woman as demonstrated by the second story of creation, found in the book of Genesis.  He was created from the dust of the earth,  He was put in the garden of God to tend it, but was incapable of the task, so woman was created.  She was created superior to man, not from the dust of the earth but from living flesh.  She is the final and crowning achievement in God's act of creation!

Woman was endowed with the almost God-like ability to produce life, with the assistances of the tinniest male seed.  And where would we be if one women had not been courageous enough to eat the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  She wanted to be more like God.  She wanted to be wise and so she took and ate while the man sat passively by and ate the fruit she gave him.  The fruit he had been told not to eat.  Woman had not been created when that command was given.  The truth is, life as we know it, could not have existed within the confines of the garden.

Using Our Brains

Does this argument sound absurd?  The Declaration of Independence written only for white, women of property.  Men created as lesser human beings than women.  Women divinely ordained to rule over men.  But the reverse of these arguments are some of the arguments used by patriarchy to marginalize and control women.

Women and people of color read the gender specific language of the Declaration of Independence and think, "Oh, that means me."  But it doesn't.  John Adams thought it was laughable that his wife Abigail requested that laws be written to protect women from the cruelty of vicious, lawless men and to this day the Equal Rights Amendment has not been passed.

The second story of creation, in the book of Genesis, has been interpreted to prove that men should rule over women.  That women are responsible for the sin in the world.  That it is God's will that women should suffer in childbirth.  This interpretation also implies a literal, historical understand of an ancient story told and reload by an ancient people to explain the world they experienced around them.  It also ignore the simultaneous creation  of female and male, in the divine image, in the first story of creation.  

Language creates reality and "those who control how language is used control the most powerful instrument for shaping human consciousness."  (Kevin Giels. Priscilla Papers vol. 29, no. 1)  If we call human beings mankind, we make invisible everyone who is not male or does not conform to societal norms of what a kind of man is.  If we were to use woman kind to refer to all humanity, men would know they were not included.  It is considered acceptable to insult men by calling them girls or ladies.  Women want to believe that unmanned, manmade, chairman and mankind somehow includes us.  It does not.  Addressing a group of women or a mixed gender group as, "You guys" is culturally acceptable.  Addressing a mixed gender group as, "You gals" is not and you guys is used to refer to groups of women.

Many of us worked in the seventies to change male generic language.  Fireman became fire fighter.  Policeman became law enforcement officer.  Mailman became mail carrier and with the change of language came new career opportunities for women.

The erasure continues.  The original Star Trek used inclusive language but second generation Star Trek does not.  I was in Victoria's Secret and heard a woman's voice say, "Dude, look at this bra."  I looked up expecting to see a girl and boy shopping together.  I saw two girls.  Their culturally encouraged language had erased their gender.  Male generic language, dude, guy brotherhood, mankind simply express male as normative and female as other, non-normative.

To quote Albus Dumbledore, "Words are, in my not-so-humble opinion, are our most inexhaustible source of magic.  Capable of both inflecting injury and remedying it." It is sad that John Lennon was killed at such a young age.  He might have learned that we are not a "brotherhood of man." IMAGINE

The Puppy on the Leash

God Leads By Your Heart's Desire

But sometimes the heart is like a puppy on a leash.  The puppy is really happy to be out with her person and really wants to go on the walk but she sits down or she tries to go the other way or she whines.  Somehow she doesn't trust that the hand holding the leash will take care of her or knows which way to go.  My heart was the puppy on the leash.  Religion, especially feminist theology, has always been my passion, my heart's desire.

Not Following God's Lead

When it was time to go to college I knew I had to go to Chapman and study religion. I got my BA in religion.  I was called to go to graduate school or seminary, but like the puppy who tries to go the other way I did not trust that the hand on the leash knew which way to go.  Instead I moved back to the desert to substitute teach.  The stated goal was to pay off my student loans before going to graduate school.  A couple at the church I attended went to seminary.  I could hardly stand to be in the same room with them because I wanted to go to seminary so badly.  A pastor at a church in Big Bear left her congregation to "follow her call" to a church in the mid-west.  I couldn't read the article in the newspaper.  I knew I wasn't following my call.  

Eventually I got my multiple subject teaching credential and began a career in elementary education.  When it came time to get an MA, so I could move over on the pay scale, I said to my husband, "Well, I better find an MA in religion program.  It is the only thing I have ever wanted to study." I got that MA from Liberty University.

I continued to feel called to the study of religion.  I thought it was a Ph. D. I was called to until one day I saw an advertisement in a publication titled, Christian Century. The add seemed to have my name on it.  It said, "Paula. do you long to study international feminist theology with women from around the world?"  Oh, yes please! So I got my Dr. of Ministry in International Feminist Theology and went back to kindergarten.

I have a favorite quote from the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas.  It says, "If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you.  If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you."

Sometimes God Has To Tug On The Leash

My last two years of teaching were very difficult.  I won't go into details about my next to last year except to say I had a very difficult group of children.  My last year I had the most wonderful group of children and the most difficult group of parents I had ever experienced.  One afternoon, after a particularly difficult encounter with a parent I walked from my classroom to the office and said, "God, why am I having such a hard time with these parents?  With children like these I could do this forever." That still, small voice that I am getting better at listening to said, "Paula, you are not supposed to be here."  "Oooooooh!"

So I retired.  I think of it as I finally graduated from kindergarten.  I wrote the book that had been banging on the inside of my chest to get out.  I brought forth what was within me and it saved me.  My book recently received a gold medal from Illumination Book Awards.  I am realizing my heart's desire.  

The puppy on the leash is no longer sitting down or whining or trying to go the other direction.  The puppy on the leash is trotting happily along, trusting that the hand on the leash knows the way to go and will take care of her. 

Judith, The Warrior

Where To Find Judith's Story

The book of Judith is found in the Catholic and Greek Orthodox Scriptures but not in the Protestant Bible. The book of Judith is also in the Septuagint, a translation of the Jewish Scriptures into Greek done between 300-200 BCE. Her story is one of only four biblical books named for a woman.

Judith Tells Her Story

I was disgusted by the people and by Uzziah's capitulation.  Surrender, that is all they can think of to save us, surrender   So they are thirsty.  I have fasted every day for the three years since my husband died,  What kind of faith does Uzziah show?  "Hold out for five days and if God doesn't show us mercy we will surrender."  

I had a plan.  I sent my slave woman to bring Uzziah and the elders to me.  I said to them, "This is not right. Who are you to put God to the test.  You cannot penetrate the depths of the human heart or understand the workings of the human mind how do you expect to know the mind of God? If we fall all Judea will fall and our temple will be desecrated and plundered.  We will be slaves and bring dishonor on our God.  We are being put to the test just as Abraham, Sarah, Jacob and Leah were tested. We must set an example."

Uzziah spoke condescendingly, "No one can deny your word or your wisdom but the people are thirsty so pray for rain."

"Listen and do not ask me what I am about to do.  Be at the town gate tonight to let me and my slave out.  With  the help of our God, the Assyrians will be delivered into the hands of a woman before the day you have sworn to the people you will surrender."

I prayed, but not for rain.  I prayed for a sword vengeance.  I called for the Lord's help. "Here are the Assyrians," I said.  "They pride themselves in their horses and foot soldiers.  They trust in their spears and shields.  They do not know you.  They plan to defile and pollute the sanctuary   Give me, a widow, the strength to crush their arrogance.  You are the God of the lowly, oppressed, weak forsaken and hopeless.  Use my deceitful words to remind the nation of your power and might." 

I am a very beautiful woman but I have hidden my beauty since the death of my husband, under sack cloth and ashes.  Not today, today I bathed and dressed in my finest clothes.  I put sweet smelling ointment on my body and wore my most precious jewels.  I packed food for myself and gave it to my slave to carry.  Then we went to the gate of the city.  Uzziah and the elders were there.  They were astounded by my transformation.  They made some speech about the God of our ancestors granting me favor to fulfill my plans so the Jerusalem would be exalted.

"Open the gate." I said. "So I can accomplish what you merely talk about."  As I hoped we were captured by the Assyrian guard.  I told them I had come to see their commander, to tell him of a way to capture the towns of the hill country.  They did not question me.  "Oh, we will take you to him.  Have no fear.  When he sees you he will, well..."  They were ridiculous, first they had to choose a hundred men to escort me.  Then there was excitement in the camp as notice of my arrival passed from tent to tent.  Eventually they were all standing outside the commanders tent looking at me.  Finally I was taken to the commander.

Do not be afraid, he told me.  If you chose to serve Nebuchadnezzar  the king of all the earth no one will harm you."

I laid it on thick. "I am your servant.  I tell you the truth, God will do great things through you.  I have heard you are the wisest and the most skilled in the whole kingdom.  I know Anchior told you that we could not be defeated because out God will defend us as long as we keep the commandments.  Well, the people are about to sin.  They are going to eat the first fruits and the tithes of wine and oil which are consecrated to God.  God has sent me to you to tell you when the people have sinned.  Then I can lead you through Judea to Jerusalem where you will set up your thrown." My words pleased him so I asked that I be allowed to go outside the camp every night to pray.  I told him God would tell me when the people had sinned and it was time to attack.

"You are beautiful and wise," he said.  "In fact no other woman in all the world looks so beautiful and speaks so wisely.  God has done well to send you to me."

I stayed in camp for three days.  Every night at midnight my slave and I went outside the camp to bathe and pray.  Finally on the fourth night he sent to me.  He was having a banquet and he told the eunuchs he sent to fetch me, "It would be a disgrace of we let such a woman go without having intercourse with her.  If we do  not seduce her, she will laugh at us." (NRSV) "Let the pretty girl come to me and drink wine with me and become like one of the Assyrian women who serve in the palace." 

I went but I did not drink his wine or eat his food.  He got so drunk he passed out.  All the servants and banquets guests left and closed up the tent.  I told my slave to wait outside.  We would go to pray a usual.  When everyone was gone. I grabbed him by the hair, said a prayer for strength and cut off his head.  It took me two blows but I did it.  I took the head out to my slave who put it in the food bag and we walked out of camp as if we were going to pray.  We kept walking until we got to the city gates.  At the gates we roused the sentry to open the gate.  All the towns people came out to see me because they had given me up for dead.  I pulled the head of the Assyrian commander out of my bag and said, "Praise God who has delivered Israel by the hand of a woman."  

Observations on Judith's Story

Finding a woman at the heart of the Christmas story is easy.  It is harder to find a woman in the Hanukkah story.  The book of Judith is dated during the Hasmonean dynasty which was established by the Maccabees.  First and Second Maccabees record the stories of the cleansing of the temple.  

If biblical women are described in the Bible  they are usually said to be beautiful.  Judith is no exception.  Judith 8:7 says. "She was beautifully formed and lovely to behold." 

In the endorsement Reza Aslan wrote for my book he says, "The women warriors, prophets and disciples of the Bible have been miscast for centuries as demons, harlots and jezebels - and intentionally so.  For if the truth about who these women were and what they represented were more widely known, it would challenge most of the assumptions we have about Judaism and Christianity." Judith was one of those women. 

Book Trailer

June 1 is the official publication for my book.  Please take a look at my book trailer.

Christian Right is Wrong

Fundamentalist Christians

March 17th is my birthday.  As is my habit I decided to go to the cemetery to visit the graves of my parents.  I try not to go during the week after the time I was sitting at their graves and the sprinklers came on.  To get to the cemetery I had to drive past the church I went to all my growing up years.  I was feeling very nostalgic so I decided to stop for services.  

The male generic language was not a surprise just disappointing.  Especially, "Greet each other with a brotherly kiss."  My first shock was how few people were at church. I remember it as a large congregation.  My second shock was when the minister announced, "Bring a friend to church Sunday" and then asked the congregation to raise their hand if they had friends who were going to hell.  I tried to keep the shook from showing on my face as everyone raised their hands.  "Well," he said, "bring them to church and get them saved."  

My final shock came during the sermon.  The minister said, "God instituted capital punishment because murder is an assault against God's image."  I wrote his statement on the back of the bulletin  because I couldn't believe what I had just heard.  I wanted to ask about the sixth commandment, "you shall not kill."  Or, Jesus admonition to love your neighbor as yourself.  Or, what about the image of God in the person being executed?  

Unfundamentalist Christians

There are many unfundamentalist  Christian groups.  One on Facebook calls themselves Unfundamentalist Christians.  There is also, the Christian Left, Christians For Biblical Equality and The Evangelical, Ecumenical Women's Caucus-Christian Feminist Today to name a few.  They proclaim respect, inclusion, non-judgement, forgiveness and so much more that reflects and represents my faith.  I wrote the book, Prostitutes, Virgins and Mothers: Questioning Teachings About Biblical Women because I felt like my religion had been hijacked by fundamentalist.  

I will not go back to that church. I choose to believe in a God who would be just as disappointed with the male generic language, just as shocked by the judgement on the lives of other people and just as shocked to hear that the loving creator had instituted capital punishment.   
         

Don't call me "guy."

I am not a guy.

Yesterday I watched Sunday Morning, a CBS television magazine.  As they flashed pictures of events from 2013 on the screen a picture of Margaret Thatcher appeared.  The word used to describe her career was, "Statesman."   I was very disappointed.  I thought they knew better.  

I am not a kind of a man!

I also watched part of a program on The History Channel called Mankind: The History of All of Us.  If they mean all men than the title was appropriate.  During the time I watched the program I saw many women feeding children or killed by invading armies but there was no mention of the contributions of women to history.  Maleness is not the normative gender for the human race.  

Language creates reality.  Male generic language erases femaleness from our vocabulary and our consciousness.  

Not Counting Woman and Children

Each of the four gospels record an event where large numbers of people were fed. The story of the loaves and the fishes is found in Mark 6:32-44, Matthew 14:14-21, Luke 9:10-17 and John 6:8-20.     John says it was people who were fed.  Luke and Mark say it was five thousand men.  Matthew also says five thousand men were fed.  But Matthew adds the phrase, "Not counting women and children."  If Matthew had not added that phrase we might be left to believe only men followed Jesus.  Male generic language erases the presence of women and their children.  We look for ourselves in Paul's writing to the brothers and we add sisters believing that we must have been included.  Every time we call women "guy" or "dude" or assume that women are included under the umbrella of mankind we diminish and erase ourselves, our mothers, our daughters, our sisters and our friends.  I think women are too wonderful to be erased.    

Biblical Inerrancy

Biblical Inerrancy

I have not blogged for several weeks.  With the help of Cathy Winch and Vanessa Finney of Personhood Press I have been editing my manuscript for Prostitutes,Virgins and Mothers: Questioning Teachings About Biblical Women.  As I come to the end of this process I am compelled to draw a parallel between our editing process and the centuries of copying and recopying the biblical manuscripts. I am staggered by the amount of errors in the manuscript. Errors which either I made or were made by one of the four brilliant women who read and made editorial comments in the manuscript.  I'll tell you one thing I am never using a comma again!

Biblical Infallibility 

Halloween of 2009 a Baptist congregation in Canton, North Carolina used their belief in biblical inerrancy and infallibility to burn Bibles.  

Inerrancy

As Lee Martin McDonald states in The Formation of the Christian Cannon, "Those who would argue for the infallibility or the inerrancy of scripture logically should also claim the same infallibility for the churches in the fourth and fifth centuries, whose decisions and historical circumstances have left us with our present Bible." 

On the website Mainstream Baptist Dr. Bruce Prescott offers a test for "Inerrantist Truthfulness."  He says, "Here's a simple way to tell if you are getting a straight answer about claims for the Bible's inerrancy.  Ask inerrantists the questions listed below.

1. Is the Bible you read and hold in you hands inerrant?  If he says, "No," he is being honest.  If he says, "Yes," ask question 2. 

2. Do all the ancient manuscripts of the Bible say exactly the same thing?  If he says, "Yes," he or she is being honest.  He or she is simply uninformed about the history of the transmission of the Bible and needs to do some study. (2 Timothy 2:15)  If he says, "No," ask question 3.

3. How can you honestly say the Bible is inerrant when you know that all the manuscripts of the Bible have errors in them?  If he says, "The Original Manuscripts were inerrant."  Ask question 4.

4. Where are the "original manuscripts?" If he admits, "They have all been lost," or "They no longer exist on earth." Ask question 5.

5. Since God didn't bother to see that the Bible was preserved inerrantly, why is it necessary to believe it is inerrant?  If he says something like, "So men could be sure of their salvation." Ask Question 6.

6. Do you have to believe the Bible is inerrant to be saved?  If he says, "Yes," ask question 7.  If he says, "No," ask question 8. 

7. Do you have to place you faith in an inerrant book (unseen) before you can have faith in Jesus?  Doesn't that make the Bible an object of faith and another mediator between us and God? (1 Timothy 2:5)  Doesn't that make the Bible an idol?  Or, does belief in inerrancy prove that you are saved and is failure to believe proof that you aren't?  Is that why some inerrantists call Mainstream Baptist infidels? 

8. Why have inerrantist worked of 20 years to exclude Mainstream Baptist, divided the SBC and BGCO, and revise the Baptist Faith and Message to make it say the Bible is inerrant?  Was all the pain this has caused in the lives of God's people and churches really necessary?"   

I know this test doesn't work on several levels and it certainly doesn't work if one believes that it is the first King James translation which is inerrant.  I share it because of my passion for biblical literacy, my new found sensitivity to the errors that can creep into the written word and because of my experience at Liberty University where the doctrine of biblical inerrancy was used like a weapon.    

I also want to say that I found errors in the  questions above.  Some I chose to leave in like Original Manuscripts and original manuscripts.  Others I chose to change like mainsteam to mainstream.  Biblical inerrancy?  I don't think so!  How many errors can you find?

Silenced Women

 

The depressing state of things!  

Yesterday I found this on my Facebook page.  I couldn't believe it was true although the UN Women icon at the bottom of each photo did lend some credibility.  I Googled, "women should" and before I even got to the final "d" the drop down menu read; not be in combat, not preach, not speak in church, be seen and not heard, not work (I am guessing they mean outside the home) not run and stay at home.  Check out http://www.unwomen.org/en/news/stories/2013/10/women-should-ads

So I Googled, "men should" and got always pray, not get married, wear makeup, not wear shorts and pay for dates.

Speak up!

Blatant discrimination and sexism is always shocking to me.  I want to believe it is only the far religious right of any religion and the lunatic fringe who  cling to these attitudes about women.  I showed the post to my husband and he was not surprised.  "What's new?"is all he asked.  In my last blog I wrote of my experience with attempted silencing. Speak up, speak out, be heard, use your voice. 

Silenced no more.

I looked blatant up in the dictionary. Among other definitions I found, "Offensively obtrusive; coarse. Shrill, ranting, angry, combative, strident and more are terms hurled at women who speak up against discrimination and sexism. Women must not be silent.  In the relative safety of the United States  from which I blog I am able to use my voice.  I am compelled to use that voice for women and their children who are silenced.  

Women's Voices

Using or Losing our Voices:

I drove home thinking, "but it is my voice."

Two interesting, intersecting incidences happened this week.  First, I went to an ear, nose and throat Dr.  who told me I needed voice therapy.  Really?  I've been talking most of my life and I'm pretty good at it.  Second, the publicist who works for Personhood Press requested an endorsement from a Pentecostal professor for Prostitutes, Virgins and Mothers: Questioning Teachings About Biblical Women.

The Pentecostal professor could not endorse my work because he noted an, "echo of frustration" in my writing.  If an echo of frustration is all he detected I wrote really well.  He suggested that an editor rework the manuscript to remove that frustration.  In other words take my  voice out of my manuscript.   

I went to the voice therapist.  "Your voice is to breathy," she told me.  "Yes, I've been told that my whole life."  "Your voice is to low," she said.  "I know it has always been low."  "Here are some exercises to change you voice," she added as she handed me a yellow folder.

I drove home thinking, "but it is my voice.  I want my voice.  I like my voice." 

Women's Voices:

Both these encounters aimed at changing my voice.  One physically the other religiously and I suppose politically as well.  Both wanted to make my voice more acceptable, less abrasive to them.  I have written the book I have written because I am more than frustrated and I speak with the voice I do because it is my voice.  It my not be acceptable to all but I intend to use it physically, religiously, politically and any other way I can.  What about you?

Why Do We Need Christian Feminists?

Why We Need Christian Feminists

What male church leaders have had to say about women is truly disturbing.  What some of them say about Feminist is equally disturbing.  In his sermon, New Age Gnostic Feminist and Their Influence on the Church John McArthur informs women that they are confused about their God given roll in the church.  He couples this with a picture of four smiling women from the cover of  Gospel Today

titled, Women Pastors.  He also describes The Center for Research on Women, at Wellesley College as a"deadly think tank" and displays a picture of Hillary Rodham Clinton in a Nazi uniform with a Hitler mustache.  Displaying a picture of Sarah Palin he says, "Even Christian are falling under the spell of the feminist."  I have a feeling Sara doesn't think so, but I don't know for sure.

I am a Christian Feminist 

I am a Christian Feminist because I came to my Feminism through my faith.  I do not believe in a God who discriminates based on gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation or anything else. In her book, In Memory of  Her Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza describes Jesus and His Discipleship of Equals.  I believe in a baptism which erases any form of inequality between male and female.  I believe in beautiful, brilliant women, created in the image and likeness of their creator and not confused about their "God given roll."

Women in Ministry

This is an interesting, reasoned argument for women in ordained ministry.  The scholar is N. T. Wright.