Three stories in the news this week raise the question of what it means to be a real man or woman. First came the story of 8-year-old Sunnie Kahl who would have been described in the past as a “tomboy”, for she enjoys things that are typical of boys her age and not so typical of girls. Her grandparents (and legal guardians) withdrew her from the Timberlake Christian School in...
The internet has changed our lives. It’s given us access to a world of information and allows us to communicate with people all over the planet. Thanks to the internet I no longer need to invest in a bookcase full of encyclopedias, carry a couple of hundred novels on my kindle, keep up with hundreds of friends via Facebook, blog my musings for the world to see, catch up on TV shows I...
The idea that women are to be submissive to male leadership seems to be having something of a renaissance in Australian Evangelicalism, or at least in Sydney/NSW and among those claiming to be “Reformed”. The year began with new Sydney Anglican marriage rites in which a bride promises to submit to her husband. This was followed by the disinviting of John Dickson to the Katoomba...
In 2010 the US based Pew Forum surveyed over 2000 Evangelical leaders present at the Lausanne Conference, seeking their views on issues of faith, church and ethics. When asked whether “a wife should always obey her husband” fifty-two percent said “yes”, either fully agreeing or mostly agreeing. Think carefully about that. Not only do half the world’s evangelical...
The New Testament calls wives to submit to their husbands. What precisely did they mean by this and does this remain God's call for us today?
What do you do when you’re translating a bible passage into English and the text says the opposite of what you’re expecting it to say? It turns out there are a very small number of occasions where some translators give us what they think the text should say, even when the grammar says the opposite. 1 Corinthians 11:10 is a prime example. It’s a key verse in a widely discussed...
The creation narratives of Genesis 1 and 2 are the subject of intense discussion regarding gender. Where Genesis 1 demonstrates the commonality between men and women – both are created in God’s image – Genesis 2 is commonly thought to emphasise the differences, or complementarity, between men and women: the man is created from the dust of the earth where the woman is created...
The issue of gender roles is squarely on the agenda of many Christians today. To help people get their heads around the debate here is an overview of the major approaches. For my own view see this post [learn_more caption=”Complementarian View”] Complementarianism is the view that men and women have different but complementary roles to play in the church and marriage. God has...
The Bible contains statements about gender relations that sound harsh to modern ears – wives are called to submit to their husbands and women are told to keep quiet in church. How do we account for this? Are the Sydney Anglicans right that God has given men responsibility for leadership in home and church? And if not, how do we account for the biblical material? Were the biblical authors...
This weekend the Sydney Morning Herald reported that Sydney Anglican churches have a new marriage liturgy in which the bride promises to ‘submit’ to her husband. This reflects a conviction that the Bible sees leadership in church and home as gendered, and that while bible writers may have applied this in culturally particular ways, the underlying pattern is ordained by God for all...