catapult magazine

Again council shot down one of my nominees for deacon because she doesn’t have a penis. How frustrating. That was the sole reason. While my church is very traditional and conservative and I’ve known that for as long as I’ve known of this church, I’m frustrated that despite having language in our bylaws that allows for female deacons, we have yet to even keep one nominated to reach the congregation (which would then go to a lottery pick). If God truly doesn’t want women to be deacons in our church, couldn’t he make the choice himself (according to lottery—which is a totally different beef) and providentially prevent her name from being drawn?

I hope they are also being obedient to other isolated new testament rules like the one for women to wear headcoverings and to be silent in church.

thanks, dan—I believe you’re right to point out that a piece of advice Paul gave in a letter to a specific church that was having a problem with a particular group of women in a particular cultural context can be distorted when applied universally.

Augustine says all interpreters of Scripture are always caught in the dilemma of when to take something literally and when allegorically. We could expand this and say that we are always faced with the challenge of figuring out when we should read something as particular to that culture and when we should consider it universally applicable? Am I to come away from Kanye West’s 2005 hit single thinking that all women are "gold-diggers"? Alas, no. And should I consider a group of people in Norbert’s church who are struggling with the way the Bible relates to them and the world examples of why the whole church is run by a bunch of "barbarians"? (I mean, what’s their problem? Why can’t they get with the times? I mean, really, who uses an outdated contradiction-laden Book to figure out what to do with themselves these days! How archaic! Such people don’t belong among the civilized.)

No. It would be narrow-minded and judgmental to think this way.

I don’t know why Alsop’s admission would seem so ridiculous or unrelated to this conversation. We all have biases based on our experiences, based on what we see and hear. Alot of those biases come from our lack of particular experiences. Does that make us free of blame for those biases? No. It shows that we are certainly guilty, that we aren’t enjoying the benefit of the love which God commands of us. Love allows us to see ourselves in the other, so if we can’t see ourselves in the other, that’s a bias that can only be removed by love. This love reveals the truest kind of equality—not the American "equality of opportunities" but the equality of one’s self with the other. I don’t think the example of people visiting Boys Town for a day is a fair analogy to what Alsop is saying partly because being a tourist somewhere is not the kind of unity that comes with love (aka…sitting at the table with eachother). She’s talking about the way we are truly persuaded. Arguments and scornful finger-pointing are not the way change is made. The other is revealed to us through these experiences of unity.

As someone who lived in Boys Town for several years, I can say that, more than any book or argument, living there did change the way I thought of the gay community. The same thing is happening now that I’m living in Humbolt Park, a Puerto Rican community. And the same thing happened when I lived in Sioux Center with a bunch of Dutch folk. Because I am a product of a family that was part of the white flight of the 60’s in Chicago, I received a mindset of fear of others and the "secular" world. It is a mindset you see in the suburbs as well as the city. People who think it’s possible to live without having to face "the other" form their identity in contrast to "the enemy"—the one who is different from them. Love your enemies is a command of unity. Love-as-action unifies the self with the other. It is revelation. It makes you see yourself in the other. Of course this is applicable to theological differences about women’s roles in the church. Of course it is! Where we live and who we live with changes how we see things and changes how we see eachother…which is why it’s great that Norbert is still a participating member of that church. He is an agent of change, he is participating in the unifying love in that community, in a church that wouldn’t be worth its salt if everyone there found their identity in the fact that they all thought the same way about the women’s issue.[/i]

Just to clarify, Grant, I was playing a bit of devil’s advocate with myself, not trying to be adversarial and dismiss Alsop’s experience as irrelevant. I appreciate you fleshing out the connection of her story with the role of women in church. You’re right that an afternoon in Boys Town isn’t a fair comparison, but experiencing the hospitality of a lesbian couple by staying in their home is, I think, a fair comparison that was quite transformative for me.

Idolatry of Scripture can be a huge obstacle to the transformative power of such experiences, so I still think that’s an important distinction to make related to Alsop’s example. In Norbert’s case, if I’m a white male (or anyone for that matter) who believes the Bible is clear on the submissive role of women in the church, I will resist being vulnerable to Norb’s example of equality in his marriage and in other relationships. For such a person, there’s a fundamental difference between seeing a woman conducting an orchestra and thinking, "Huh. I’ve never thought about that possibility before. Seems like a good idea. Why not?" and seeing a woman in the pulpit, which elicits a visceral fear response and an abhorrence…so where does the love come from if we’re ignorant to our own biases and need for transformation? Are patience, persistence and prayer the only recourse Norb has? If so, those are no small tasks, even though it might be tempting to feel like they represent doing nothing. To me, it’s liberating in this kind of situation to realize that it’s not likely to be any argument you put forward that will change people’s hearts, but the stirring of the Holy Spirit. Which means: keep putting up women for nomination because when that Spirit does stir, it will have something to grasp onto.

Rob and I just saw the film [i:5df73ea362]Monster’s Ball[/i:5df73ea362] which I think offers a powerful example of how love, as opposed to intellectual argument, can transform a person’s prejudices. We see the heart of a racist prison guard melting as he enters into a relationship with a black woman, while his father maintains his grotesque commitment to white supremacy only to end up alone in a nursing home. For the prison guard, it was realizing the absence of love in his life (contrasted with the woman’s deep, deep love of her son) that transformed him. There’s no sermon. No anti-racist training. No persuasive magazine article. It’s a great example of what Grant is saying. He sees himself in the ‘other’ (the black woman) and likes her so much better than he likes himself, motivating him to care for her and aspire to her giving spirit.

I’m sure the people in question are very nice on some levels, and very intelligent even. But on this issue, I simply think their views are out of step, out-dated, counterproductive, women-demeaning, hypocritical etc. What’s the point of making excuses for them grant? What’s so broad-minded and tolerant about accepting their misogyny as normal?

I guess I understood the issue a bit differently. I was responding to why people don’t see things a particular way—why, for example, there are such divergences in the way people read the same scripture passages, why some people would hold such allegiance to certain words of the Bible that they don’t relate properly (lovingly) to the people around them. My point is that people will read the Bible better when their reading goes along with the experience of living the Bible. If you’re living in an urban ghetto with families that are broken apart and your church is filled with women and children because the men stay at home, you’re not going to argue about women having leadership roles in the church. You’re going to try to figure out how to heal the brokenness, stop the violence, bring freedom to the alcoholics and drug-addicted. Do you see what I’m getting at?

I didn’t mean to let anyone off any kind of hook. Of course dan’s right to be critical of someone or something that he disagrees with. But I don’t think anything can change if we all dig our trenches and sit in them and refuse to go out to have Christmas tea in the other person’s trench. People are a bit more reluctant to fight after they’ve gotten to know the ones hiding across the way.

All that being said, I realize my example of a female conductor has its limitations. Maybe I could have gotten to the point better if I had used a different example. But sometimes it takes me awhile on *cino discussion boards to figure out exactly what I’m trying to get at. I really really appreciate having a forum like this to hash such things out. In fact, it would be great to have even more contrasting voices here, if they felt comfortable to join such a discussion.