i almost forgot

there was one last post that I had thought up amidst all my reflections on Cornerstone (last one, promise!). There were quite a few interesting tents in the Midway area, all full of different speakers and such. One in particular was tempting to me, but I must say that I steered clear, mostly because I didn't know exactly where I stand on the particular issue they were championing. The tent was Christians for Gender Equality or some other such group. Their little blurb in the program referenced the verse where Paul says there aren't any jews or gentiles, slaves or free, men or women in God's sight, we're all his people, in a nutshell. They maintain that the ideas held to by much of Christianity today regarding women and their role in the church are ridiculous, not allowing women to be leaders or pastors is archaic and they've got proof (that is my generalized paraphrase).

Now, I grew up in churches where the pastor's wives were pastors themselves, I've seen and heard lots of women preaching and accepted it as normal. Honestly, it wasn't until I came to the Rock that I figured out that not everyone felt that way. All the verses about women covering their heads and not speaking in church were pretty much explained away or just ignored, so I guess I figured there wasn't much to them. Then I got to the Rock and no Evergreen church has women pastors, women can lead groups and ministries, can be on staff, and are still very encouraged to be involved though, so I guess I accepted that as being just fine and went on my happy way. It was just how they felt, and that's that. I still didn't like what the Bible said about covering heads and not speaking, but didn't understand it, really. It still wasn't an issue, because I didn't, and don't, want to be a pastor.

I'm reading this book that I would recommend to any married woman who wants to get her head put on straight about being a wife, it's called Created to Be His Help Meet by Debi Pearl and in it she shatters every argument a woman could give to treat her husband the way that she probably was taught to treat him, or at least the way society encourages women to treat their men. She specifically mentions womens' roles in the church, and she wholeheartedly believes that they should not be pastors, and they should not be teaching men, and she actually has a good argument. It's based in the Bible, obviously, from those same scriptures that I never really cared for. Her argument is that women are created to support their husbands, not to lead them, and to have a woman lead either her husband or a church is to step outside of what God wants for a marriage. Not that they wouldn't be good at it or gifted, intelligent speakers, because I'm sure we all know very well spoken, gifted women, but that it's like shaming our husband to take that role, and it's acting outside of how God made us to be, that's why it's wrong.
I can't really argue against that logic - no matter how you try to justify it, if it's acting against what God's spoken will is, then it's wrong. Women can still be serving in the church, the older women are instructed and expected to teach the younger ones, they can still speak, but in a specific context, not instructing the church as a whole. It would be putting her as a spiritual head instead of her husband, which is a role reversal that shouldn't be.

So I had read that chapter while I was actually at Cornerstone, and it was a little too new for me to go up against people with well made arguments and such, but I did get to watch the commercials they would show at the main stage. They were basically martyring all these poor talented, wise women who would LOVE to be in leadership but are unjustly held back by misunderstandings and old interpretations of scripture. To me, it's just another example of people trying to bend the Bible to say what they want it to, instead of bending themselves to God's will. Not cool. It's not like there aren't lots of other ways that people can minister or be used in a church without having to speak in front of large crowds and trying to influence the masses. Why not try to be creative, or actually listen to God speak and tell you where he wants you rather than listening to someone else tell you where you "deserve" to be. It's all about Who, again?