Okay, in the next chapter of Witt’s book, he looks at Genesis 1-3. While many complementarians treat men and women as ontologically equally (i.e., in the image of God), they believe that women are created to be functionally subordinate to men. In response, Witt points out several things:
Making leadership decisions should be by spiritual discernment - including competency and effectiveness for the task. This process seems apparent in the judge Deborah - being the only woman named who was competent for the task. Forcing or favoring gender equality in every endeavor ignores the obvious and is not spiritual discernment. Believers need not comment about modern feminism for it is an issue for this world and not of the Kingdom of God. However, the Church ought to be the example for the world rather than the other way around.
And no, I'm not a feminist. That word is so plastic it can be made to mean almost anything. I'm a Christian who believes God when he says he is holy and just.
Forcing or favoring gender equality is not the question. Excluding it from consideration is. Spiritual discernment addresses the things of this world and ways in which the scriptures might be misapplied to maintain an ungodly situation. How many Christians failed to speak against slavery in the USA in earlier centuries?
It's also interesting how complementarians use the woman's sin in Genesis 3 to prove that women are inherently weaker while the man's sin was that he allowed the woman to undermine his authority. Who is the weaker one in that scenario?
Making leadership decisions should be by spiritual discernment - including competency and effectiveness for the task. This process seems apparent in the judge Deborah - being the only woman named who was competent for the task. Forcing or favoring gender equality in every endeavor ignores the obvious and is not spiritual discernment. Believers need not comment about modern feminism for it is an issue for this world and not of the Kingdom of God. However, the Church ought to be the example for the world rather than the other way around.
And no, I'm not a feminist. That word is so plastic it can be made to mean almost anything. I'm a Christian who believes God when he says he is holy and just.
Forcing or favoring gender equality is not the question. Excluding it from consideration is. Spiritual discernment addresses the things of this world and ways in which the scriptures might be misapplied to maintain an ungodly situation. How many Christians failed to speak against slavery in the USA in earlier centuries?
It's also interesting how complementarians use the woman's sin in Genesis 3 to prove that women are inherently weaker while the man's sin was that he allowed the woman to undermine his authority. Who is the weaker one in that scenario?