Tribute to Martin Luther King, Jr

Posted on January 17, 2022 by bwebaptistwomenforequality

I am working this holiday, but my heart celebrates with those who honor Martin Luther King today.

In 1961, I went to work for the Houston Lighting & Power Company. It was my first job, and immediately I encountered female discrimination. It surprised me because I had never even thought that the restrictions placed on women were discriminatory. They were, but I did not know it, similar to the way I was not fully aware of how blacks were discriminated against. To me, it was normal; it was just the way it was.

Of course I had heard of the marches and civil unrest that was taking place in the South, but it did not affect me. I remember the first time I saw a black person eating at a large department store food counter in downtown Houston. I also remember riding a Greyhound bus as a kid, and the blacks had to sit in the back. I remember “coloreds” water fountains. I remember picking cotton and the blacks picked in one field, while we whites picked in the other.

It was in the 1970s that I learned that women, white or black, could not get credit in their names. I still use the credit card that I was able to get in my own name, instead of my husband’s name. Women had a hard time getting jobs in the professional fields. For blacks and for women, it did not miraculously change overnight. It still is a hard fought battle.

So I honor Martin Luther King this day. He had a great effect on my life as a white female. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 gave blacks, and white women, the same rights that white men already had.

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10 questions Christians should answer

Posted on January 14, 2022 by bwebaptistwomenforequality
  1. Why are Christians afraid of equality between men and women?
  2. What damage is it doing to young girls and women in the church today who feel the calling of God on their lives?
  3. What will it do to young men if they believe they will have authority over women when they grow up?
  4. Where did the evil phrase feminization of the church come from that causes unjustified fear that men will quit going to church if women become pastors?
  5. How do Christians justify allowing women to have authority over children and youth, who are more susceptible to false teaching, when women cannot have authority over men who are supposedly wiser and less likely to be wrongly influenced?
  6. Are Christians afraid of losing particular denominational beliefs—what will it do to denominational identities if churches do change, and does it matter in the long run?
  7. How are those Christian churches viewed that have taken the step of having women as pastors?
  8. How does it make women feel when they are told from the pulpit that they are to submit to their husbands in all things? How does it make men feel?
  9. What will be accomplished by continuing this rejection of women as pastors and deacons?
  10. How will Christians answer God when He asks the church why they did not use the people He called?

What are you afraid of?

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Missing: the spiritual leader

Posted on January 13, 2022 by bwebaptistwomenforequality

A Baptist deacon wrote “The man of the house is the spiritual leader and is responsible for seeing his family loves the Lord and accepts Jesus as their Lord and Savior.”

I tried to find the scriptures that tell women that their husbands are their spiritual leaders, but there aren’t any.

Look around in church on Sunday morning. You’ll see that the “spiritual leaders” are still home in bed, while the wife and the kids got up and went to church. Guess he will tell her about Jesus when she gets home.

Making the husband a spiritual leader responsible for his wife’s and family’s salvation denigrates the gospel – the good news of Christ. Jesus did not say that men were heads of their wives, and he did not indicate that men would be elevated to headship after his resurrection.

Jesus did not bind women before his resurrection to their husbands, and there is no reason to believe that Jesus would bind women to their husbands after his resurrection. Jesus said an Advocate would come and we know that Advocate to be the Holy Spirit, not Husband.

In fact, male headship is contrary to everything Jesus said. The apostle Paul recognized this in his letter to the Galatians (3:26-28) where he wrote, “You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ.”

Therefore, we are presented with three scriptural challenges to the doctrine of men being the heads of women:

1) It is contrary to Jesus’ teaching and actions;

2) it makes men the vicars of Christ on earth if men are the head of women (the Advocate);

3) it removes Christ from headship over women; otherwise you have to believe that it takes two—one divine God and one earthly god—to be the head of one woman.

Oh, don’t forget, for him to be the spiritual leader, we have to get him up out of bed.

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Qualifications of a deacon

Posted on January 7, 2022 by bwebaptistwomenforequality

You will find that I speak more often about Baptist churches because it is what I know. My background is 53 years of active service as an adult in my Baptist churches. In the little Baptist church where I grew up, my father was the pianist, and a deacon, and a licensed Baptist minister. I worked for Baptist General Convention of Texas for almost 15 years and my blogs, Twitter and website reflect my Baptist background. My blog and my books are written because of this Baptist heritage. So it is with both confidence and anguish that I write.

Each denomination determines what its pastoral and lay leaders are called, whether they are called pastors, teaching ministers, or elders and deacons.

Almost all Baptists structure their churches with the Pastor being the head of the church (even though they might choose different words to frame it), with deacons being the governing/ministry body of the church. Some few have elders. Deacons are almost always men, because 1 Timothy 3:12 says they must be the husband of one wife, and everybody knows that wives cannot be husbands. This is the same qualification used for choosing a pastor. The big difference is that a pastor is paid and actually determines the direction of the church; while deacons are unpaid volunteers and generally follow the pastor’s lead (if they like him).

Deacons are men who are chosen by the church body, and are ordained into the ministry of deacon for life. The Bible does not say that deacons have to be ordained. Women are denied ordination to any service in a Baptist church, including that of being a deacon. Ordination is how the church has chosen to set aside the office of deacon. If the deacon leaves the church that ordained him, he qualifies to be a deacon in his new church. He may or may not choose to do so, however, and it is not guaranteed that the new church will have a place for him.

Deacons were instituted in the Early Church so they could serve those who were in need, as we read in Acts 5:2, “So the Twelve gathered all the disciples together and said, ‘It would not be right for us to neglect the ministry of the word of God in order to wait on tables.’”

So, in Baptist churches, deacons serve the Lord’s Supper, even though that is not the table that was being referred to in Acts 5:2.  The table in Acts 5:2 means distributing food to the widows.

The strange thing about the qualifications for a deacon as given in 1 Timothy 3, is that nothing is said about a deacon’s duties to the church or its members. However, the word deacon means servant, so they are to serve. That is noble, honorable, and spiritual. It is also something that women can do.

Deacons do not preach, they often do not teach a Sunday school class, and mainly they attend meetings. They are often charged with the financial side of ministry (building programs, maintenance, etc.). Deacons do not administer the Food Pantry in churches, and helping the hungry is seldom their responsibility.

In my 53 years of being a Baptist, I have never had a deacon call me or express any interest in my family’s well-being, perhaps because I was in church every Sunday. At a church my husband and I attended for 12 years, a deacon was assigned to each church member. One year they began promoting a deacon/flock dinner and the deacons were to send invitations to their flock, inviting them to the dinner. Don and I were not invited. This was before my church had any inkling that I was about to become radical and promote women’s equality. Finally, the day before the dinner, I called to find out who our deacon was and invited myself and Don to the dinner.

The reason the above information is important to know is that this church, like most Baptist churches, adheres strictly to the men-only qualification for deacons. It does not seem to matter what a deacon does, as long as he is male. A deacon can be as good or as indifferent as he chooses to be. Being a deacon is a position of servanthood that women are denied, simply because they are not men. It gives the church a false sense of following the Bible’s teaching.

Being a deacon is a ministry of service. It was instituted in the Early Church as a way of helping people. Why are women making such a big deal about not being allowed to serve as a deacon? Let me turn that question around and ask this of you. Why is the church making such a big deal of being a deacon that women are denied this opportunity of service?

Give that some thought.

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They didn’t need another law on marriage

Posted on January 3, 2022 by bwebaptistwomenforequality

Did Paul teach on marriage? I was reading a paper about Paul written by a pastor, and I could see that the author was putting his own thoughts into his discussion about Paul. I guess we all do that. In fact, I suspect that we have put many words into Paul’s mouth that he did not mean. For instance, the pastor explains Paul’s teaching on marriage. He uses Romans 7:1-3 as an example and says this teaches that marriage is a commitment for life.

“Do you not know, brothers – for I am speaking to men who know the law – that the law has authority over a man only as long as he lives? For example, by law a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law of marriage.”

Sounds like Paul is teaching on marriage, doesn’t it? But he is not, and to use it that way is a distortion of what Paul means. He is telling them they can find a new law in Jesus Christ, and so he uses the illustration of a marriage to make it clear.

These were people who knew the law, as Paul tells us in his opening words. They also knew about marriage. Paul is simply using the marriage laws that they all understood, to explain how they can find a new love (Christ, their Savior).

Paul is trying to help people understand that they can accept Jesus, who Paul tells them has come to replace the law, which Paul says is now dead. This was hard for them. He made the case, using their marriage laws, to show how they could live with the law, until that law is dead, and then you can choose another law, which Paul says is Jesus Christ.

Paul says this:

• in marriage a woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive

• if the husband dies she is no longer bound to him

• if she chooses a new husband before the old husband dies, she is in sin

• if she chooses a new husband after the old husband dies, she is not sinning

To mean this:

•you obeyed the old law until it died (was completed) with the coming of Jesus Christ

• if you had found a new law that replaced the old law, before Christ, you would be in sin

• since the old law is now dead, you can find (marry) a new law which is Christ (verse 4).

In Romans, Paul clarifies how they can serve Christ, and it is not about marriages at all.

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A New Year, an Old Problem

Posted on December 31, 2021 by bwebaptistwomenforequality

“Wives, you must submit to your husbands.”

I wonder if Susie (name changed) heard those words as she sat in her Baptist church. By his own admission, her husband had slapped her a few times, no more than four or five. At least that is how many times he admitted to in the deposition just before his trial. “I love my wife,” he said, and “slapped her only seldom” during their 15 year marriage.

He even went to church with her on occasion. Before he killed her, that is. Even before their house burned down, giving him a big insurance payment with which he bought a tractor and some land with a pond.

It took six years before justice finally came for Susie. For years her death was classified as undetermined.

It was a Saturday and Susie had been washing windows on her day off. In the afternoon, her mother called her and they went shopping together. She got home about 6:30 p.m. Susie’s husband arrived shortly afterwards and he ordered pizza delivered. Suddenly he told her he had to leave to check on something. According to him, when he returned he found Susie floating in a pond in their pasture. “Startled by a snake and fell in, choking on the pizza” was his explanation. Problem is, bodies do not float to the surface in 30 minutes. He would have had to search the bottom of the pond to find her, and would not have found her floating on the surface in that short time. He is now in prison.

“Husbands, you must allow your wife to submit to you, because by doing so, she is submitting to Christ.” I actually heard a Baptist pastor say that in his sermon.

A woman with a job like Susie’s leaves quite a sum of insurance upon her death. Her husband tried to claim the insurance, but the family knew someone who worked for a lawyer, and they brought in a patent attorney. Great story how a young patent attorney won the civil suit. Afterwards, there was a reclassification, and it was decided that Susie was murdered, and her husband was the prime suspect.

On their website, her church provides a link to the Baptist Faith and Message 2000, which reads: “The husband and wife are of equal worth before God, since both are created in God’s image. The marriage relationship models the way God relates to His people. A husband is to love his wife as Christ loved the church. He has the God-given responsibility to provide for, to protect, and to lead his family. A wife is to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband even as the church willingly submits to the headship of Christ. She, being in the image of God as is her husband and thus equal to him, has the God-given responsibility to respect her husband and to serve as his helper in managing the household and nurturing the next generation.”

What if there is no servant leadership of her husband? What if he is planning to kill her and hopes to receive a big payout in insurance money? How do you know when the God-given responsibility to respect the husband is null and void? Just before you are murdered?

Her church named their food pantry after Susie. That made her parents happy. Her father was a deacon in a nearby Baptist church. I went to school with her mother who was my best friend.

A greater tribute to Susie would have been to amend the BF&M 2000 to say: “Husbands and wives have a God-given responsibility to respect, nurture, and care for each other.”

“You wouldn’t give yourself a black eye, so don’t give her one,” (Ephesians 5:28a Shirley’s translation).

Pastors, there is a consequence to what you are teaching from the pulpit. Your wives must submit attitude that is taught in churches, affects every woman, even if the man they must submit to never attends church.

Pastors, you are teaching that every woman has to graciously submit to her husband. Who determines if the husband is providing servant leadership? Who came up with the sentence “submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband?” Don’t you know that excludes a whole bunch of husbands? Don’t you know that those words are not in the Bible?

Join us to help more Susies before they lose their lives to husbands they are told to be submissive to.

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The Christmas Gift

Posted on December 24, 2021 by bwebaptistwomenforequality

Thirty years is a long time to wait to see what your Christmas Gift will actually do.  It came with no instructions but with lots of promise.  Kings journeyed far in order to see for themselves this Gift, and to bring gifts of their own in honor of this birth.

The people wanted a mortal savior, but their hero arrived as a baby and in danger of his own life. What could he do to help them against their enemy?  They expected their savior to be a man among men and they would rally behind him. They wanted another David with a bag of stones.

Jesus did not have a bag of stones.

Suppose one of you has a friend who comes at night when the house has been closed and the doors have been locked, and everybody is sound asleep.  He knocks on the door.  He tells you that someone has just arrived at his house from a long journey and he needs some bread to feed them. Will you tell him that it is late at night and that the kids are in bed sound asleep, and to quit knocking at your door because he will wake up the whole household?

No, he gets up to stop the racket of the knocking, not because it is his friend at the door, but because he wants the knocking to stop.

The Christmas Gift says “I am not that way. Just ask and it will be given, seek, and you will find it, knock and it will be opened. What man is there among you, when his son shall ask him for a loaf, will give him a stone?”

“Therefore, however you want people to treat you, so treat them; for this is the Law and the Prophets.” (paraphrased Luke 11:5-10 & Matt 7:5-12)

Father, we women and others who are oppressed, have travelled far and we are knocking at your door. We have been at the church house, but the doors are closed, and the people are inside sound asleep. We are your children and we are asking for a loaf.  We have had the stones. We’ve been turned away by men for centuries, and now we are standing at Your door. Hungry for the bread and for a place at Your table.

Hear our knock, our Father.

Will you join in prayer to the Christmas Gift for the whole loaf?

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Birth of the Activist Jesus – Part 4

Posted on December 17, 2021 by bwebaptistwomenforequality

Years ago I was watching television and wrapping Christmas gifts. There was a television show about the ‘true meaning of Christmas.’ I knew they were wrong, but truthfully, I did not know the true meaning of Christmas.

I learned what the true meaning of Christmas was a few years ago on a bus.  The Missions Division that I worked for while with the Baptist General Convention of Texas took us on a trip to a mosque in Richardson, Texas, near Dallas.  The imam met us. He showed us where to put our shoes, and showed us the wash room where Muslim men washed their hands, elbows, feet, face and nostrils before going into the main worship room.

We women had the option of wearing a headscarf and I did like the rest. We sat on the floor while the imam told us about their worship.  He pointed to the upper room where he said the women ‘chose’ to worship.  He said they could worship with the men, but they chose to climb the stairs and privately worship there.

The room we were in was a long rectangular room and the imam pointed out to us that it was long so that more men could be on the front row. He said they all wanted to be on the front row, and he showed us how they would nudge the other men out of the way with their elbow, and make their way to the front.

On the wall was the 99 attributes of God. My supervisor, who was a Christian Arab, said that none of the attributes said that God is love.

After it was over, we thanked the imam and put our shoes back on and took off our scarves, and climbed on the bus to go back to our offices. One supervisor who was also a preacher (as they all were) threw his hand up high and said:

“Thank God for Jesus!”

That is when I learned the true meaning of Christmas.

The Jewish people looked for a Messiah like King David.  A powerful leader who would take down their enemies, make Jerusalem Jewish again, and who would die a mortal death, as all humans do.  The scriptures promised them a savior and they anticipated his arrival.

What they got was not what they expected.  Instead of a physical warrior who would defeat the Romans, they got a spiritual warrior who, instead of turning his eyes upon their enemies, turned his eyes upon their relationship to God.  Particularly the laws they had expanded to make life miserable, and then the artful and deceitful ways they had of getting around those laws. Read Matthew 23 to see what Jesus had to say about their spiritual condition.

Jesus came to free us from the rigmarole that man had bound God with. All those laws didn’t mean anything (Matthew 24, Amos 5:21-24) because men had found ways to get around them. Jesus told them to love God with all their heart, and to love their fellow man. When love is the motivator, our worship of God, and helping our fellowman, will take on a different meaning. We will feed the hungry, help the poor, heal the sick, treat others as we want to be treated, and give the Good News to everyone. 

Instead of being like Jesus, we still desire to make laws for Christians, especially laws about what women can and cannot do, and I wonder if Jesus would have turned his eyes upon us.

The true meaning of Christmas is the freedom that Jesus gave us.  No more rigamarole such as the way to wash your hands before eating, and not working on the Sabbath – things that had absolutely no spiritual significance to them.  In doing away with these things, Jesus said: “My yoke is easy and my load is light.” Matthew 11:30.

“Love your neighbor as yourself” Mark 12:31. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him shall have everlasting life.” John 3:16

Thank God for Jesus!

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Birth of the Activist Jesus – Part 3

Posted on December 10, 2021 by bwebaptistwomenforequality

What cherished religious beliefs will fall out of your pocket? We have read the words of the Magnificat but we have missed the meaning.

The third week of Advent is Joy. In churches that follow the liturgical calendar, a pink candle is lit for preparation of the birth of the little boy who would become the Christ. It is fitting that we read the Magnificat at this time. Elizabeth had just told Mary that the baby she carried in her own womb leaped for joy when Mary came into her home, “As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.”

And Mary said: “My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant. From now on all generations will call me blessed, for the Mighty One has done great things for me— holy is his name. His mercy extends to those who fear him, from generation to generation. He has performed mighty deeds with his arm; he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts. He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble.

He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty.

He has helped his servant Israel, remembering to be merciful to Abraham and his descendants forever, just as he promised our ancestors.” (Luke 1:46-55 NIV)

The Jews yearned for a Savior, and I imagine each had his or her own expectations of what that Savior would look like. I have heard that at each wedding, they expressed wishes that the new couple would bring forth that baby boy. We should not be surprised then, when we learn that a couple who had not yet consummated their marriage would be the bearer of that baby.

But let’s go back to Mary’s words. “He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty.” Before Jesus is even showing in the womb, Mary told us what he would do.

This is not about money at all. It is about their spiritual condition. Exactly what did Mary say?

She said that those who hunger for God will be filled, but those who think they are already rich in the knowledge of God will be turned upside down and the money they hold in their pockets (what they think they know about God) will fall out on the floor.

Or, as Jesus said in Matthew 23: 23, “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices – mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law – justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former.”

God, I pray that those who are filled with their own sense of righteous riches and who claim to know that you favor males for your kingdom work, will have their eyes opened to Justice, mercy, and faithfulness to you.

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Birth of the Activist Jesus – Part 2

Posted on December 2, 2021 by bwebaptistwomenforequality

At this time of year, we think of babies, particularly the baby Jesus. My sons were born in the 60s which was during a time of great civil unrest because of racial discrimination. I remember clearly the news stories each night of Americans fighting in the streets. As a young mother, I feared for my babies and wondered what kind of world I was bringing them into. I looked for hope for my children.

We remember Mary, the young woman about to give birth. In a short time she would give birth and then she and Joseph would be forced to flee into Egypt for safety from an evil ruler who sought to kill the baby. This young mother hoped her son could be spared to fulfill the promise made to her by the angel Gabriel.

Babies have always been born into a world with its human evils, with discriminations, and with rejections.

Christmas Hope

It will always be so. But it is up to each of us to live in hope, to give hope to others, and to be blessed by the birth of the baby who we celebrate this Advent season, the Hope of Christ.

Will you do your part? There are some things we cannot change, and we are not responsible for. But there are things we can do and things we can change. We can change how Christians deny women full equality. We can do that. We can make it a better world for girls, mothers and daughters.

With Christianity on the decline, and false teachings flourishing, we must return to the cradle and look again into the face of the newborn babe.

Sometimes you just have to start all over. We see that in the birth of Jesus. A new start. God was still there, He still loved His people, but they had taken a path that was far from the core message. Read Matthew 23 and see the condemnation Jesus gave the religious leaders.

What would Jesus say to us today? We have messed up his message! We have taken the love that God has for all his people and have distorted that love into a message of rules and laws – just as they had. We have forgotten the greatest commandments.

And He said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” (Luke 22:37-39)

“You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

Now, I want you to imagine this. A black Christian family moves next door to you and you invite them to church. They arrive after you get there. You greet them and tell them how glad you are to see them, take their money in the offering plate, and introduce them around. Then you hand them a list of restrictions and things they cannot volunteer for because certain volunteer jobs are held for White and Asian and Hispanic people only – everybody but blacks.

How do you think the black family feels? We all know that is wrong. Christians used to do that in churches (actually they would not even let the black family inside the door). But we cannot do that anymore. We have changed in our thinking and our understanding of human rights.

So, while we cannot do that – and it was government laws that required the change, not Christians – we can still bar women from doing any volunteer or professional job in the church. Just because we want to – claiming a biblical reason for doing so. Just as we used a biblical reason for barring blacks.

The cradle is empty – time to unswaddle the babe

But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord…” (Luke 2:10-11)

It is time that we remember that the angel said, “Do not be afraid.” This baby was going to upset everything and turn the world upside down. And he did. But we continually swaddle the babe because we have ignored his greatest commandment “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

Will you give hope to women who daily face the discrimination that is birthed in churches, denying them full honor and responsibility of serving Christ as pastors and deacons, and from full equality in their own homes?

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