I’m sick of it

“I’m sick of it.  I’m sick of writing about equality for Christian women in our churches and homes,” I emailed a woman equality blogger.

But as long as pastors and bloggers and “Bible scholars” tell the world that women just don’t measure up, I will keep on.

Last week I came across a blog written by a pastor who explained why women could not be pastors.  He said women weren’t aggressive enough to handle the things that the congregation might hand out, and that it takes a man to deal with a congregation because men come equipped with aggressiveness.

He gave two examples that he found within his own household to support his supposition.

One night he and his wife were in bed upstairs sound asleep.  She woke him up and told him that she had heard a noise downstairs.  She told him to get up and go downstairs and find out if someone had broken into the house.

He gets ups, finds a bat, and gingerly walks down the stairs, prepared to confront the intruder.  Because after all, men are used to confronting other men.

Now, my friends,  that is one of his examples of why a woman can’t be a preacher/pastor.

Let’s tear his little story apart.

• Who was sleeping and snoring and not keeping watch over the family?
• Who was alert to anything that was happening in the household and even in sleep sensed that something was wrong in her household?
• Who took action and woke her manly man?
• Whose idea was it to go into possible danger armed with nothing more than a bat?

Now for his second example of why a woman can’t be a preacher/pastor.

A billing company charged them for something that was not done, and the wife had called and called and could not get any answer, and could not get the problem straightened out.  The next time she called, she got frustrated and handed him the phone and viola! He talked manly talk to them and got the problem all taken care of.

Let’s tear this little story apart.

• Well, actually, it is hard to take this little story apart, because that is always what happens.

The same with the first story, that is always what happens.  But, as one Mormon commenter pointed out, what does that have to do with being a pastor?

Sure, there are disagreements that come up in churches.  I see that all the time.  That is no reason to think that because a woman recognizes her physical strength is not equal to a man’s, that she can’t preach or pastor a church. 

Which scripture tells us that brawn or bullying is the requirement to be a pastor?

Whenever one woman is denied the privilege of being a pastor simply because she was born a female, then all women are denied.

If you are sick of it, too, won’t you join me in speaking out for women’s equality?