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Ephesians 5 infected with the mindset of the world

Ephesians 5 infected with the mindset of the world

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Worldly infection on Women in Ministry blog by Cheryl Schatz

In my last post, I presented one of the best sermons that I have ever heard on Ephesians 5, regarding the evidence of Spirit-filled lives for both men and women.  This post is on the opposite of the Spirit-filled life which is an influx of worldly infection through male-centered pride. The outgrowth of this infection is the teaching that encourages men to focus their efforts on taking the “lead” over women, putting them under their authority and control. They are taught that women were made to be led and when men don’t take leadership over women’s lives, women will not be able to fulfill their “role” in Christ.  Recently I heard a teaching where young Christian men were rebuked for taking the authority over their girlfriend’s by deciding for them what university courses they would register for. The speaker chastised the young men and told them that they were “not yet” responsible for making their girlfriend’s decisions. They needed to wait until they actually became their husbands and then they had this authority. It is no wonder that many women are surprised with an entirely different man on their wedding day than who they thought they were marrying. The teaching that men are responsible for the entire home including their wife and her spirituality has caused many young men to subjugate their women in order to fulfill their calling and for the wife’s “own good”. The spiritual harm that has resulted from the teaching that the man has the mandate to rule his wife for God, has caused untold pain and suffering and a stifling of the woman’s ability to seek after God for her own life. She is no longer in control of the exercise of her own gifts and calling – he is.  …

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Julie Pennington-Russell talks about the Georgia State Convention

Julie Pennington-Russell talks about the Georgia State Convention

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Julie Pennington-Russell

Thanks to one of the followers of my blog, I received a link to some excellent clips about Julie Pennington-Russell’s talks about the Georgian State Convention and issue of the church being kicked out of the GBC.  The clips were recorded before the official word came announcing the removal of her church from the association.julie_pennington-russell
The Pastor of First Baptist Church, Decatur, Georgia, talks about the moment she found out that her church was kicked out of the Georgia State Convention, and her face-to-face talk with the executive of the convention.  There are several more clips available on the right side bar.

http://vimeo.com/6768503

Church led by woman pastor forced out of Georgia Baptist Convention

Church led by woman pastor forced out of Georgia Baptist Convention

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Julie Pennington-Russell on Women in Ministry by Cheryl Schatz

On November 11, 2009, the Georgia Baptist Convention adopted a policy that ended its 148-year relationship with First Baptist Church of Decatur, Georgia.  According to the Associated Baptist News,

Pastor Julie Pennington-Russell read a letter at the end of both worship services Nov. 15 from Robert White, executive director of the 1.3 million-member state convention. It informed her that messengers to the group’s recent annual meeting took action to declare them “not a cooperating church,” because “a woman is serving as senior pastor.”

Wade Burleson

The policy that declared the First Baptist Church in Decatur as officially disfellowshipped, resulted from a strict enforcement of the 2000 Baptist Faith & Message (BFM 2000) which made the issues of women pastors as a cause for dividing the church.  No longer is there room for personal conscience as far as women leaders in the church.  Wade Burleson writes that it is dangerous thinking to make the Baptist Faith & Message tier 1 primary doctrine so that “if a Southern Baptist expresses any disagreement with any portion of the BFM 2000, he is not a true Southern Baptist and is not worthy of leadership in the SBC. “

Burleson goes on to explain why this thinking is so dangerous. …

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Southwestern Seminary asserts policy of male headship

Southwestern Seminary asserts policy of male headship

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paige-patterson on Women in Ministry blog by Cheryl Schatz

Southwestern Seminary and their policy of male headship

The Associated Baptist Press reports that Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary adopted a policy statement October 21, 2009, that asserts that men and women are equal before God but created for specific roles of either headship (authority) or submission in both the home and in the church.

Paige Patterson, the president of Southwestern, was among those who drafted the Danvers Statement in 1987.
He will use the new policy to serve as a guide in both the hiring and evaluation processes according to the ABP report.  His wife Dorothy is a professor of theology in women’s studies at Southwestern which offers a bachelor’s degree with the focus on homemaking.  Southwestern has made a complete dive into the female submission program by showing the difference between male and female Biblical studies.  The B.A. in humanities revolves around 20% of the instruction hours in homemaking with a fully equipped teaching kitchen, clothing, and textiles lab, formal dining room, and parlor along with Bible teaching in the classrooms.  Will there be a male version of the B.A. in humanities?  There has not been any announcement yet of hunting classes for the men, but since Patterson is an avid hunter, we expect that announcement will come sooner than later to help teach young males true “male headship.”

…

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Mike Seaver and Cheryl Schatz discuss/debate women in ministry 10

Mike Seaver and Cheryl Schatz discuss/debate women in ministry 10

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Whose commands are women to obey? Mike Seaver and Cheryl Schatz debate women in ministry

Responses to question #5

In the last blog post, Cheryl Schatz posed her fifth set of questions to Mike Seaver regarding their discussion/debate on women in ministry. Links to all the previous questions and responses is at the end of this post.  This discussion will be Cheryl’s response to Mike’s answers on question #5 and Mike’s rejoinder.  Mike’s matching blog post is here.  …

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Jimmy Carter leaves the Southern Baptist Convention after 60 years

Jimmy Carter leaves the Southern Baptist Convention after 60 years

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Jimmy Carter leaves SBC church

What made Jimmy Carter leave the SBC?

Jimmy Carter writes “Losing my religion for equality“

I HAVE been a practising Christian all my life and a deacon and Bible teacher for many years. My faith is a source of strength and comfort to me, as religious beliefs are to hundreds of millions of people around the world. So my decision to sever my ties with the Southern Baptist Convention, after six decades, was painful and difficult. It was, however, an unavoidable decision when the convention’s leaders, quoting a few carefully selected Bible verses and claiming that Eve was created second to Adam and was responsible for original sin, ordained that women must be “subservient” to their husbands and prohibited from serving as deacons, pastors or chaplains in the military service.

With these words, Jimmy Carter sent shockwaves through the SBC.  While one may wonder what took him so long (60 years is a very long time), it appears that his steadfast trust that the leadership would finally do what is right towards their sisters in Christ came to an end.  Carter continues: …

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Women in ministry issue causes distrust

Women in ministry issue causes distrust

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Distrust?

This post is from an inspiration I got from Katie Cole’s blog and a two part segment on Youtube on the issue of women in ministry from the series “Designing Women”.  Katie writes:

One Bible verse, quoted to me out of context on its own, is no longer sufficient for me.

I think you will find the two youtube clips inspiring.  They show that women can speak up and women can make a difference.

Clip 1:  Charlene loses faith in her minister

Clip 2:  Charlene speaks to minister and Julia sings

The unorthodox view of the Trinity related to women in ministry

The unorthodox view of the Trinity related to women in ministry

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Wade Burleson has blogged on the Trinity and the unorthodox trend that has come into the church that teaches an eternally subordinated Son of God in the Trinity.

Wade writes:

The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood is composed of many Southern Baptists who are introducing to evangelicalism a novel, if not peculiar, view of Christ which has more in common with Arianism than the historic, orthodox view of Christ’s person. The theologians and teachers who write for the CBMW are teaching what they call “the eternal subordination of the Son to the Father” as a basis for their hierarchal view that the female is to be subordinate to the male. Women’s subordination to man, according to the teachings of CBMW, is not a consequence of sin or a reflection of cultural values, but is built upon the heirachical order God established before the fall as a reflection of the Trinity.

This view of the Trinity has been used by some complementarians who have a lot of sway in Southern Baptist circles to support the functional subordination of women.  I would recommend that you read what Wade has written and then have a read through the comments on his blog as well.  It is a frightening thing to me to see the spread of this unorthodox doctrine and how many have accepted it as gospel truth.

It also comes at a very timely place for us as we are just getting ready to release our new 2 DVD set called “The Trinity: Eternity Past to Eternity Future, Explaining Truth & Exposing Error”

The DVD will be availabe by mid October at http://mmoutreach.org/ or from Amazon.com.

(October 2008 update:  The DVD is now available and a preview is available on Youtube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLe-qF2nptA.)

Gospel Today magazine pulled from Christian bookstores’ shelves

Gospel Today magazine pulled from Christian bookstores’ shelves

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Gospel Today magazine pulled on Women in Ministry blog by Cheryl Schatz

A Christian magazine is treated as pornography merely for reporting on the trend of women pastors.

 

The Atlanta Journal reports:

Smiling women on the cover of a slick magazine. Sold from under the counter. Must request it from store clerk.  That’s not something a buyer would typically find in a Christian bookstore. Not unless it’s one of the more than 100 Lifeway Christian Bookstores across the United States, including about six in metro Atlanta.

Gospel Today, the Fayetteville-published magazine, was pulled off the racks by the bookstores’ owner, the Southern Baptist Convention. The problem? The five smiling women on the cover are women of the cloth — church pastors.

So what is the big deal?  The deal is that when a denomination says that a secondary issue of faith is so important it warrants barring people from reading about the other side, Lifeway Christian Bookstores has stepped into the realm of milieu control.  Milieu control is the control of information and communication.  Wikipedia adds that milieu control is about limiting contact in order to restrict the ability to make judgments about information that would present itself against the accepted position: …

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Freeing sisters in the Southern Baptist Convention

Freeing sisters in the Southern Baptist Convention

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Wade Burleson has a great new post on women called “Are The Sisters Free to Function?” It is an article written by Jon Zens. It is long….22 pages printed out, but Jon brings up some good points and the hot discussion following his article might be interesting for you to follow. I appreciate Wade a lot with his courage to take on a tough subject amongst Southern Baptists. You will notice that many of the men and even at least one woman posting responses are very much against women teaching the bible to men.

I am up to my ears in paint as we are getting our home ready for sale and our final move to our new ministry location. If I don’t have a new post that I have time to work on, I will point you to other blogs and information that will help you. Please pray for us that our home will be sold quickly and that our preparations for its sale will go fast. Our hearts are really in full time ministry, not Mr. and Mrs. fix-it, paint-it, and clean-it of 34 years of memorabilia.

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