"The Bible teaches that both men and women are created in the image of God (Genesis 1:27), that is, both men and women are equal bearers of the divine image. This means that both men and women are equally human beings. Consequently, women are not inferior members of the human race and are not to be counted as second-class citizens". But women are not allowed to become priests?
Is religious discourse really so equal?
ReplyDeleteA woman should obey her husband, woman was created out of man, etc etc.
Isn't the institution itself somewhat male dominated...
What is Gods gender?
By the way Jasmine... i like the way you constructed the argument... you have a set of premises ie Both equal bearers of the divine image, both human, therefore cannot be counted as second class.
ReplyDeleteSo how does the church reconcile this argument?
Well, I wouldn't know what God's gender is because I don't believe in him/her. But I found this interesting answer to the question:
ReplyDeleteGod is a spirit. Spirits has no gender. The only use gender has it to procreate, and since spirit isn't going around having babies, there is no gender. Use whatever pronoun you want. Even the bible says God created us in his image -my image is female, therefore God's image to me is female. And the bible was written by a bunch of female-hating men, so of course God is spoken of as male.
I also read this:
From the original Restoration Movement churches have come four major church groups: the Church of Christ, the Independent Christian Church, the Christian Church/Disciples of Christ, and the International Churches of Christ plus a number of sub groups within those major groups. Of those four, only the Christian Church/Disciples of Christ has really opened its doors to women in ministry and that has just been in the last few years. Sadly, the Churches of Christ and the Independent Christian Churches have lagged behind and have created many artificial barriers to prevent women from moving into ministry of any form, with the majority of the barriers having roots in just two sets of verses in the entire Bible. The only form of ministry that has, so far, really opened to women in the Churches of Christ has been children's ministry. Children's ministry has opened for women because of the perception that this particular avenue of ministry does not violate the belief that a woman cannot be in a position of authority over a baptized male of any age! The woman serving as a children's minister is only ministering to children under a certain age so she does not violate any of the supposed restrictions.
So not all churches are that open to women yet. I think it's pretty hypocritical!
Indeed... i wonder if the early church was like this?
ReplyDeletedo you really think that the bible was written by women hating men?