This is a continuation of the post started on July 25, one day after the one year anniversary of demanding an apology from the CBMW for their teaching that denigrates women.
He has asked certain questions and I state his question and my answer. He is being called R.H. in these conversations.
R.H. QUESTION NUMBER 1
This seems like an overly harsh assessment to me; I have a hard time understanding how you can justify it. Are you saying that any time there is an authority/submission relationship between two people, the person with the authority is destroying the personhood of the one in submission?
Shirley: NUMBER 1 ANSWER
Yes. Look at slavery. That was an authority/submission relationship which destroyed the personhood of blacks.
Now look at what Paul was trying to tell us about the submission/authority relationship of Christ to us:
He said that Christ gave himself for the church – which changes the whole authority issue and makes it one of love and servanthood.
Then Paul amazes us. He confesses that what he has just said doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but we have to remember that he is doing the best that he can to explain the love relationship of Christ and the church (Christ’s body which will be made up of both men and women). (Eph. 5:32)
(by the way, R.H. , I have explained in my blog that Paul is not writing a Marriage Manual, but is trying his best to explain to these people how Christ can be the head of the church. Their marriage simply serves as an illustration to a deeper meaning, but we have made the marriage the meaning itself).
If you haven’t noticed, Jesus is not big on human authority over others.
R.H. QUESTION NUMBER 2 You wrote: (Dorothy Patterson: “I just have to do what he says and he will account before God.”) Is this a direct quote? If so, could you please supply the reference. I, too, have problems with it.
Shirley: NUMBER 2 ANSWER
Oh boy! To inerrantists verse 26 in Ephesians 5 certainly indicates that husbands makes a wife holy, cleanses her and makes her blameless. What a ridiculous notion! I refer you to my blog “Should women be looking for the Christ-child, or for a husband?”
In my speech where I demanded the apology, I said this:
“Dr. Dorothy Patterson, one of the founders of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Biblical Womanhood, says “As a woman standing under the authority of Scripture, even when it comes to submitting to my husband when I know he’s wrong, I just have to do it and then HE stands accountable at the judgment.” (Christianity Today 1998 –used by permission from Christianity Today)”
From my understanding, this is what is being taught in seminaries. Cindy Kunsman wrote of her experience at an apologetics conference in April 2008 “Several young men asked how it was that I believed that they would not stand before God…to give an account and to intercede for their wives.” These were Baptist Seminary students.
Surely these students are going forth and spewing this garbage to their congregations.
Beth Moore says that if a man hears her speak – preach – then she is doing it under the authority of her husband and her pastor. This gives a male human being powers that belong to God because it allows a mere man to supescede the Scriptures.
R.H. QUESTION NUMBER 3
I don’t see the logical connection between human authority and permission to supersede Scripture. Assuming—just for the sake of argument here—that God has granted Person A authority over Person B: could He not do it in such a way as to require Person A to exercise that authority within the bounds of Scripture? Why would it be automatically assumed that any authority God might (even hypothetically) grant a human being would be greater than the authority of His word? (this one was so complicated that I just had to use the exact phrasing of R.H.)
SHIRLEY: NUMBER 3 ANSWER
For the sake of argument: Why would God make a hard and fast rule that women cannot have authority over men, and then give men the authority to let women have authority over them?
So, no He can’t let man exercise that authority within the bounds of Scripture, because Scripture says No Way, Hosea. (to complementarians, not to me).
R.H. QUESTION NUMBER 4
You said earlier that “Your friend (whom I have never met, by the way) quotes Scripture when he says women cannot have authority over a man – he needed to add BUT, HER HUSBAND CAN GIVE HER AUTHORITY.” You seem to be saying here that when he states that husbands can give wives authority, it either makes him inconsistent or poses some other theological problem. Is that accurate, or did you mean something else—and could you explain why you draw your conclusion?
SHIRLEY: NUMBER 4 ANSWER
(R.H., before I answer your question – don’t you find it very strange that these men spend so much time and seem to get so much pleasure in telling women that they have to submit? The joy of the gospel should be in proclaiming for Jesus instead of declaiming against women. Surely your friend and others like him have a burning desire for saving a dying world, instead of a burning desire to castigate women.)
This was part of the above about Beth Moore (and yes, I have actually met Beth Moore) and her claims that she can speak where men might have ears because her pastor or husband somehow gives her this authority.
You may remember that Dr. Criswell of FBC Dallas, “gave” his wife authority to teach a Sunday School class of men and women which extended years after his death.
R.H. QUESTION NUMBER 5
Shirley, you said So in this case, we have a man acting as God to his wife. That will destroy her personhood as surely as murder.
How would that be tantamount to murder?
SHIRLEY: NUMBER 5 ANSWER
God created women and men equally. Even complementarians admit that. When one of those equal persons loses their equality (equal-but), then that person has lost her personhood. And that, my friend, is murder.
Because now, when I go to God, I approach as a wife in subjection to my husband. The person I was had died, and now I am a new creature who is lower than my husband, (who happens to be a wonderful Christian man, but who became a Christian after our marriage almost 50 years ago.)
It also makes me lower than every male. What nonsense! A male atheist has now become closer to God than I am. Why? Because the male atheist can profess Christ and instantly be in favor, but complementarians say that I can never be.
R.H. QUESTION: NUMBER
How do you explain your statements that “God does not deputize” and “Only God can have authority over his human creatures” in light of such passages as Romans 13:1-5?
SHIRLEY: NUMBER 6 ANSWER
Remember that the Israelites wanted a king and pestered God about a king like everybody else had.
Paul is telling them that they already have a government authority in place and to honor that authority and not to be asking God for a new government. It will save them a whole lot of problems if they recognize their earthly government is the way God wants it to be.
The disciples wanted to set up some kind of government with Jesus as head, but he chastised them about it. The new Christians were no different, and needed to be reminded. A reminder that complementarians might heed, for instance, in their own family and lives.
Monday we will continue this conversation. As you recall, R.H. said that I explained the eqalitarian viewpoint entirely different from anything he had heard. We will continue with secular authority as the subject in the remaining two segments.
Will you engage in dialogue with those who are seek to hold women to a First Century standard while the men merrily skip through the centuries with no restrictions?
(WordPress just notified me that this is my 200 post! I didn’t know I had so many words. Thank you all so much for reading and commenting. Thank you for taking this journey with me.)
bWe Baptist Women for Equality's Blog 
You know what bothers me the most about these types of conversations?
They approach things like my children do at times when they know they lost the argument on something, but want to keep fighting – hope upon hope – I will change my mind. They know the points that have been brought up, and they do realize why, etc. Yet they bring up these rabbit trails in other directions.
For Example, ‘Are you saying that any time there is an authority/submission relationship between two people, the person with the authority is destroying the personhood of the one in submission?’
Normally, the rabbit trail is so the police, government, etc are murdering you huh? I mean you did say ‘any time’ right? We all have to submit to them at times, so now they are murdering us by asking this?
I have seen that so many times, and its so childish. Is that they way you WIN your position or point of view? They will respond – but is TRUE – you said it! For those that are in ‘authority’ over you – it seems they could come up with a more mature response. If they are to ‘lead’ by example? This one example shows how much trouble we are in. What happened to, ‘When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.”?
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Absolutely! In fact, he questioned everything I said, and I told him that I was not going to answer my answers.
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That is someone that wants to be right, and can’t debate like an adult.
Do we see Jesus playing their word games in the bible? No. He didn’t have to. It should be clue one for some.
They are the first to remind people they are responsible for their realm, and some how convince themselves that is justification for their position. Yet they are the first ones to whine when that concept is used against them – when people take the other radical direction to remind them ‘everything is their fault’ then.
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“Normally, the rabbit trail is so the police, government, etc are murdering you huh? I mean you did say ‘any time’ right? We all have to submit to them at times, so now they are murdering us by asking this?”
The difference, of course, is that with the police, government, employers, etc., the authority is limited and for a season, and is based upon qualifications, not one’s inherent nature. My employer has no authority over me after hours. The police have no authority over me as long as I’m law-abiding. I have a voice in the making of those laws and in the government.
In fact, if a policeman, my employer or my President came to my house and I asked them to leave, they’d have to do it! In my home, I have authority over them!
But the complementarian position makes the wife’s subordination equal to that of a slave. Her husband-master’s authority over her is unlimited, without scope, and for her entire life from the moment she marries him until death. This is why we equate husband-authority with slavery and not with these other forms of limited authority.
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“In fact, if a policeman, my employer or my President came to my house and I asked them to leave, they’d have to do it! In my home, I have authority over them! But the complementarian position makes the wife’s subordination equal to that of a slave. Her husband-master’s authority over her is unlimited, without scope, and for her entire life from the moment she marries him until death. This is why we equate husband-authority with slavery and not with these other forms of limited authority.”
I wish I had said that! Excellent
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note about Beth Moore
“and her claims that she can speak where men might have ears because her pastor or husband somehow gives her this authority.”
IMO she is being clever to work around the male domination issues so that she CAN exercise her God given gift. For those who recognize her calling and respect her as an equal, she doesn’t need to do this. But for those who do not value women’s contributions as from an equal, this appeases their need to feel in control and superior. She has honored them so that they can choose to honor her.
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Lots of people love her Bible Studies. Most of the women have no idea that she is being controlled by LifeWay and cannot teach men. When I met her it was a two day conference with just a handful of people, no more than 20. We laughed and cried with her as she shared her story. Of course this was in 1988 or so, a long time before she became famous and out of the reach of a small country church group. Incidentally, I have written her and told her this very same thing I said in my post yesterday. I didn’t hear back from her.
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