You, along with several others have been key in challenging several complementarian teachings I have grown up with, as I am now navigating what I genuinely believe to be true in the Scriptures. Your response to this article is helpful, as always, and I'm thankful you're here on the Stack! Welcome and please keep writing!
Thanks Nijay! You are a consistently helpful and clarifying voice in my life. I so appreciate your thoughtfulness and approach, and feel validated by your grounding question (which I have too often gotten into trouble for asking myself): why?
Thank you for this. I understand the appeal to humanity ala abolition, it got the job done for Wilberforce and his cohorts and could certainly do the same for women. I wonder though, about the efficacy of building ornate theologies around our distinctions in the flesh; a woman or a man's place in the home or church, when we are explicitly told in the Word to stop regarding one another according to the flesh. It seems to me that all other passages thereafter which regard one another according to the flesh are given ala the divorce laws of Moses "because of the hardness of our hearts".
Saying this, there may be a perfectly good reason why we don't use this passage, but I have yet to understand how it doesn't render all of our writing on Biblical Manhood/Womanhood meaningless in light of how mature believers ought to regard one another as explicitly stated in the Word. I suppose I argue from the other side of the point, why are we even arguing about this when the very man who wrote the so-called household-codes (which our sister siblings have so thoroughly dispatched) told the same people he was writing to that male, female, nationality or social status (as wildly divergent as we will experience) mean nothing in the Kingdom of God. What am I missing?
Hi Daniel, I’d like to gently caution you about the part of your argument where you cited the phrase “hardness of heart” to reinforce a point you were making. I urge you to read my article about how that phrase has been misunderstood.
Very informative, thank you. I generally use the term in "you have to live the real world," terms of harm reduction or the difference between law and case law. Thanks again for your thorough explanation.
Yes, there is a push to the extremes, as you say. My aunt taught a class for both men and women in a small church for well over forty years. A couple of years ago, she was told she could no longer teach. We must "be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness (1 Peter 3:15)." Jesus came to set us free. How often we forget that.
Agreed that Hugenberger's "Let's all get along" stance sidesteps the critical central issue of authority/submission. Its all very well to aim for unity, but he seems to relegate this issue into something secondary and relatively unimportant. By doing so, he denigrates and minimises women's real distress in their experience of being treated as inferior, and the injustice of it. It is as though that does not come into the equation for him. He has pushed the issue of women themselves, and their experience, under the carpet in an effort to make everything look pleasant on the surface.
It is as though the "unity" he wants is just among the men in the church. He seems to have sidelined women, indeed seems to be ignoring their feelings and opinions. Women should be silent - yet again.
This is a great point — helps me name part of what made me uncomfortable with the CT article. He definitely seems to be writing as a man to men — without taking women’s experiences into consideration.
I can't thank you enough for using your work and your voice to stand with your sisters in Christ as we claim the liberty Christ has already given us through His Spirit and His anointing upon us! Yes and amen.
Very helpful, and I found the test case of Phoebe particularly helpful. Thank you Dr. Gupta.
Just one point, there’s a misquote of
Hugenberger who wrote ‘what seems to be intended is a receptive disposition, a willingness to listen and be persuaded as needed, not mindless obedience’. Not disobedience, as suggested.
We needed this! wow Thanks for this Nijay. This breakdown was so helpful and I'm looking forward to part 2!
Thankful for your voice, Nijay!
You, along with several others have been key in challenging several complementarian teachings I have grown up with, as I am now navigating what I genuinely believe to be true in the Scriptures. Your response to this article is helpful, as always, and I'm thankful you're here on the Stack! Welcome and please keep writing!
Thanks Nijay! You are a consistently helpful and clarifying voice in my life. I so appreciate your thoughtfulness and approach, and feel validated by your grounding question (which I have too often gotten into trouble for asking myself): why?
Looking forward to part 2!
Sooo good...
Thank you for this. I understand the appeal to humanity ala abolition, it got the job done for Wilberforce and his cohorts and could certainly do the same for women. I wonder though, about the efficacy of building ornate theologies around our distinctions in the flesh; a woman or a man's place in the home or church, when we are explicitly told in the Word to stop regarding one another according to the flesh. It seems to me that all other passages thereafter which regard one another according to the flesh are given ala the divorce laws of Moses "because of the hardness of our hearts".
Saying this, there may be a perfectly good reason why we don't use this passage, but I have yet to understand how it doesn't render all of our writing on Biblical Manhood/Womanhood meaningless in light of how mature believers ought to regard one another as explicitly stated in the Word. I suppose I argue from the other side of the point, why are we even arguing about this when the very man who wrote the so-called household-codes (which our sister siblings have so thoroughly dispatched) told the same people he was writing to that male, female, nationality or social status (as wildly divergent as we will experience) mean nothing in the Kingdom of God. What am I missing?
Hi Daniel, I’d like to gently caution you about the part of your argument where you cited the phrase “hardness of heart” to reinforce a point you were making. I urge you to read my article about how that phrase has been misunderstood.
https://cryingoutforjustice.blog/2019/05/06/jesus-did-not-say-hardness-of-heart-is-grounds-for-divorce-deuteronomy-24-has-been-greatly-misunderstood/
Very informative, thank you. I generally use the term in "you have to live the real world," terms of harm reduction or the difference between law and case law. Thanks again for your thorough explanation.
Yes, there is a push to the extremes, as you say. My aunt taught a class for both men and women in a small church for well over forty years. A couple of years ago, she was told she could no longer teach. We must "be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness (1 Peter 3:15)." Jesus came to set us free. How often we forget that.
Thank you for writing this!
Agreed that Hugenberger's "Let's all get along" stance sidesteps the critical central issue of authority/submission. Its all very well to aim for unity, but he seems to relegate this issue into something secondary and relatively unimportant. By doing so, he denigrates and minimises women's real distress in their experience of being treated as inferior, and the injustice of it. It is as though that does not come into the equation for him. He has pushed the issue of women themselves, and their experience, under the carpet in an effort to make everything look pleasant on the surface.
It is as though the "unity" he wants is just among the men in the church. He seems to have sidelined women, indeed seems to be ignoring their feelings and opinions. Women should be silent - yet again.
This is a great point — helps me name part of what made me uncomfortable with the CT article. He definitely seems to be writing as a man to men — without taking women’s experiences into consideration.
I can't thank you enough for using your work and your voice to stand with your sisters in Christ as we claim the liberty Christ has already given us through His Spirit and His anointing upon us! Yes and amen.
Very helpful, and I found the test case of Phoebe particularly helpful. Thank you Dr. Gupta.
Just one point, there’s a misquote of
Hugenberger who wrote ‘what seems to be intended is a receptive disposition, a willingness to listen and be persuaded as needed, not mindless obedience’. Not disobedience, as suggested.
Thank you for this post!