{"id":529,"date":"2008-09-28T17:07:03","date_gmt":"2008-09-29T00:07:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/strivetoenter.com\/wim\/?p=529"},"modified":"2015-04-20T21:23:52","modified_gmt":"2015-04-21T04:23:52","slug":"semi-egalitarians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mmoutreach.org\/wim\/2008\/09\/28\/semi-egalitarians\/","title":{"rendered":"Questions of faith for semi-egalitarians"},"content":{"rendered":"

USA Today<\/strong><\/a> has an editorial written by David P Gushee in which Mr. Gushee challenges complementarians that they are actually semi-egalitarians and they should be willing to openly acknowledge this.\u00a0 Gushee says that he writes about this issue as a moderate evangelical Christian.<\/p>\n

Gushee writes that there are many theologically conservative Christians who accept Sarah Palin as the Republical vice presidential nominee.\u00a0 Yet at the same time:<\/p>\n

…at the local church level many congregations would not accept Palin or any other woman even as associate pastor, or deacon, or youth minister or Sunday school teacher in a gender-mixed classroom.\u00a0 The most conservative would not consider it appropriate for her to stand behind a pulpit and preach a sermon, or teach from the Bible, or lead a praise chorus, or offer a prayer, unless her audience consisted entirely of women or children.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He notes that even CBMW (Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood) who Gushee calls “an influential advocacy group” and who are against women teaching men in the church, have no problem in allowing for a woman to serve as vice president of the country.\u00a0 CBMW has replied to the article<\/strong><\/a> welcoming Gushee’s questions:<\/p>\n

Dr. Gushee is the Distinguished University Professor of Christian Ethics at Mercer University and challenges complementarians with many questions in the September 15, 2008 issue of USA Today.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

CBMW writes:<\/p>\n

While we are honored that Dr. Gushee considers CBMW “an influential advocacy group” on gender issues, we don’t claim to represent the “evangelical voting base,” or even all complementarians.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It certainly is a fact that CBMW does not represent all complementarians.\u00a0 There is a group called Vision Forum<\/strong><\/a> who were formerly associated with CBMW from its beginning, but who have since separated themselves from CBMW now calling CBMW in actuality semi-egalitarians.\u00a0 Vision Forum has written that Dr. Gushee is “spot on”.\u00a0 In an article regarding USA Today’s editorial, Doug Phillips writes this about CBMW<\/strong><\/a>:<\/p>\n

It is our view, however, that they have erred by overtly embracing an egalitarian perspective of the roles of men and women in the public arena.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

Vision Forum’s position is that allowing women to lead in society even outside the church is a violation of the scriptures.\u00a0 Their belief in male representation goes so far as to state that it is against God’s law to allow women to vote.\u00a0 I was involved in 2007 in helping Midwest Christian Outreach<\/strong><\/a> document Vision Forum’s strict position on women.\u00a0 Don Veinot, president of MCO wrote an article on the research for his Journal article titled “Who will be First in the Kingdom”<\/strong><\/a>.\u00a0 One of the key articles that was examined on Vision Forum’s web site was written by Pastor Brian Abshire.\u00a0 It was titled \u201cBiblical Patriarchy and the Doctrine of Federal Representation\u201d.\u00a0 Here Pastor Abshire states that American Christians destroy their own credibility when they allow women to vote:<\/p>\n

Until the twentieth century, Americans almost universally held to this doctrine of representation in some form or the other. The reason why women were not allowed to vote had nothing to do with women being considered \u201cinferior\u201d or \u201ctoo emotional\u201d (these values arose during the Victorian era and were themselves theologically and socially deviant) but rather because the husband and father was ASSUMED to represent the family to the broader community. By definition, there could only be ONE representative of the family just as there could only be ONE representative of the Human Race to God!<\/p>\n

However, by the end of the 19th century, American Christians had largely stopped thinking in theological terms. Instead, an emotive, subjective religious \u201cexperience\u201d (called Pietism\u201d) emphasizing individual conversion replaced the comprehensive Christian worldview of the Reformation. As Christians failed to think biblically about all of life, they were unable to withstand either the new philosophies gaining ground in the universities or deal effectively with the changing social conditions of the Industrial Revolution. By the 20th century, American Christians saw the \u201cheight\u201d of Christian activism as banning alcohol while at the same time affirming a woman\u2019s right to vote. Both ideas were unmitigated disasters; God has not allowed the civil magistrate to outlaw wine and God does not allow women to vote<\/strong> (cf. 1 Tim 2:11ff). But by ignoring God\u2019s law, American Christians both destroyed their own credibility (the Prohibition era is STILL a matter of public ridicule and repealing prohibition set the legal precedence for pornography, sodomy and the acceptance of other moral failures) and the integrity of own families.<\/p>\n

In regards to a woman\u2019s right to vote; if husband and wife are truly \u201cone flesh\u201d and the husband is doing his duty to represent the family to the wider community, then what PRACTICAL benefit does allowing women to vote provide? If husband and wife agree on an issue, then one has simply doubled the number of votes; but the result is the same. Women\u2019s voting only makes a difference when the husband and wife disagree; a wife, who does not trust the judgment of her husband, can nullify his vote. Thus, the immediate consequence is to enshrine the will of the individual OVER the good of the family thus creating divisions WITHIN the family.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The original Vision Forum article has since been moved or taken off of VF’s web site, but discussion on this theology and a subsequent letter from the author of \u201cBiblical Patriarchy and the Doctrine of Federal Representation\u201d is documented on Don Veinot’s blog at “Examining the Premises of the Patriarchal Promises<\/strong><\/a>“.<\/p>\n

In his USA Today column<\/strong><\/a> David Gushee lists 5 questions of faith for complementarians who support Sarah Palin as a political leader.<\/p>\n

Questions of faith<\/strong><\/p>\n

Never have conservative evangelicals positioned themselves as staunch advocates for women’s leadership in political life \u2014 until Sarah Palin.<\/p>\n

It seems only fair to ask these evangelical leaders to think a bit about the implications of their support for Palin. And so I ask them these questions:<\/p>\n