I was just catching up with some of my favorite blogs, and thought, rather than overloading our Facebook page (please Like us!) with links, I’d post them all here and let you scroll through for your own reading pleasure.
Kathy Escobar on 10 Tangible Ways We Can Work Toward Equality in the Church. She gives some great advice for making changes to balance the power between men and women in our churches.
I really liked this post from Tyler Standley : 6 People Who Should be Banned from Evangelicalism (or a lesson in consistency). He points out that the prominent leaders, or “gatekeepers,” of today’s evangelicalism, who call out numerous Christians as heretics and false teachers for disagreeing on issues like evolution, hell, inerrancy of Scripture, etc., would also denounce C.S. Lewis, Martin Luther, St. Augustine, William Barclay, John Stott, and Billy Graham. He also wrote this post, The Evangelical Castle, naming some of the current “heretics” under fire.
Mimi Haddad, president of Christians for Biblical Equality, wrote The Bait and Switch of Complementarians. Here’s a quote:
Please do not tell girls or women that they share equally in God’s image; that they are equal at the foot of the cross; that they are equal in the kingdom of God, that they should cultivate their minds equally, unless you are prepared to give them equal authority to use the gifts God has given them. To do otherwise is to bait girls and women with the truth of Scripture as it points to their inheritance in Christ, and then to switch—to deny them the opportunities to walk in newness of life—in using their God-given gifts with equality authority. To advocate for the education of females based on the aims of Christian discipleship is inseparable from God’s aims for men and women created in God’s image—where both shared authority in Eden (Genesis 1:26- 28); and as recreated in the image of Christ who extends equal authority to his disciples, both male and female (John 20:18-23).
I did post this video on our FB page a few days ago, but it is a MUST SEE, so I’m making sure you see it again! Sarah Bessey message that You are Not Forgotten. And here’s an interview she did with The Junia Project about her book, “Jesus Feminist.” Here’s one of her answers:
“Feminism is not simply about the hot button issues in American evangelical churches – should women preach or not. It is more about the global story of women – maternal health, education for girls, the status of women in the world today. All these major social issues of our time, clean water, human trafficking or even eating disorders track back to our theology of women. The tag line on the book -the radical notion that women are people, too- is definitely more hyperbolic, but it establishes a baseline.”
Love this picture and quote:
from Silvia Ferreira Photography, 1/2/14, http://www.raspberryessence.blogspot.com
I’ve enjoyed all of Bob Edward’s posts on The Junia Project. Here is a fascinating and informative video Bob made, where he addresses the question of “Where did we go wrong? An in-depth exploration of the emergence of male authority in the church.” He is coming from the perspective of a social worker and psychotherapist and college professor. He explains how role modeling, instruction and reinforcement socialize people to make the norms of their environment their own internal norms – how they are supposed to function – and how this takes place in regards to gender.
Here is a painting of the Last Supper that includes 12 women disciples, who are not named as being present at the celebration, but are named in the Gospel accounts as disciples of Jesus who travelled with him. The artist is John Coburn from Australia.
Sandra Glahn explains that Betty Frieden did not start the “woman’s movement” – Christians did, in The Feminists We Forgot for Christianity Today’s Hermeneutics.
This is an older post, but I just read it recently and loved it! Paul’s Masculine and Feminine Leadership, from Margaret Mowczko.
I won a book from Elizabeth Esther! It’s not hers…it’s “Spiritual Misfit: A Tale of Uneasy Faith” by Michelle DeRusha. I can’t remember the last time I won something, so I am pretty excited. I will definitely review the book here after I read it. But I did want to share this awesome post from Elizabeth, entitled, “A Tale of Mrs. Judge-y Pants and how she learned that being honest is better than trying to be good.” She talks about the difference between trying to look good vs. be good.
Ann Voskamp shares beautiful pictures and stories and videos from around the web to give you something to wonder at over the weekend: Multi-vitamins for Your Weekend.
“How to say yes to God with safe faith is no longer enough” is SUCH A POWERFUL POST from Kristen Welch, author of Rhinestone Jesus, on how her Christianity was transformed by a trip to Kenya with Compassion International in 2010.
And finally, here is Rachel Held Evan’s Sunday Superlatives – a list of her favorite blog posts from around the web.
Happy reading!
EDIT: I meant to add this powerful video we watched in church today: Dr. Brenda Scott McNeil on Do What You See the Father Doing.
The Beautiful Kingdom Builders 