Let Freedom Ring Part 1

Posted on July 8, 2025 by bwebaptistwomenforequality

I like the story of freedom through Christ. Paul told the people of Galatia “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” (Gal 5:1).

One Sunday at my previous church, our praise song was “Open Our Eyes (we want to see Jesus).” The song says ‘we want to reach out and touch you, and say that we love you.’ Surely we hear the wistfulness in women’s voices when they sing this song. Much like Mary at the tomb the morning of the resurrection when she saw Jesus.

My pastor began to preach. I was glued to his every word. He told the story of Esau and Jacob. You remember the story. Jacob steals Esau’s birthright. The name “Jacob” means “supplanter, deceiver.” Jacob took what was not his to take. Through opportunity and deception, he received the inheritance of goods and position.

Jacob sought to make amends with his brother. God met Jacob on the way, and Jacob was engaged in a spiritual battle to account for what he had done. Jacob would not give up the struggle until he knew that he had received a blessing. This changed Jacob forever. He limped, but more than that, he had received forgiveness.

That was the Old Testament. In the New Testament, there is a ‘newbirth’ right, given by Jesus, where both men and women were set free. A new birth: a new right as sons and daughters of God. That was our birthright. We were free! Christ set us free from ‘institutional slavery and every kind of slavery,’ as one pastor said.

We were all firstborn, and set to inherit goods and positions. But something happened along the way.

The supplanters and deceivers came and women’s birthright through Jesus Christ was stolen from them. Women were made slaves again. Like Esau, we have been tricked and we have lost the precious birthright that came with Jesus. Yes, like Esau, we have sold our birthright for a bowl of pottage. We have received a bowl of beautiful words of flattery served with ‘equal-but.’

A birthright has been stolen. The birthright was a way of living, a position in society and family, something to be passed on to the next generation.

So it is today. And it has been stolen.

True freedom would mean a full birthright. To preach. To be a deacon. To serve the Lord’s Supper. To take up the offering. To pass out an attendance pad and worship bulletin. That is not a freedom that many churches are willing to give the women in their church.

This Fourth of July, as you ate your hotdogs and apple pie, women are still being oppressed by the very church that claims to set them free. What would happen if next July 4th, the women in your church can serve as God calls? What would happen if women reclaimed their full birthright given them by Jesus?

We will pick up the story of Essau and Jacob in Let Freedom Ring Conclusion.

See Shirley Taylor in Baptizing Feminism Documentary Trailer.

Books by Shirley Taylor available in Print and Kindle on Amazon

The Biblical Marriage Myth: The Devil Comes Calling
The Power of a Book: The Street Evangelist
From Wife to Widow: What I know Now
Beyond the Grave: A Christian Dilemma
Raising the Hood: A Christian Look at Manhood and Womanhood
Women Equal – No Buts: Powered by the same Source
Dethroning Male Headship: 2nd Edition

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Freedom for Who?

Posted on July 4, 2025 by bwebaptistwomenforequality

Today is the 4th of July, and we celebrate this Declaration of Independence. Within the Declaration is this statement “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Eleven years later, on September 17, 1787 the Constitution of the United States was signed. We get goosebumps with the words of the Preamble “We the People.”  It makes us feel as if we are family with the whole United States, and all those who came before us. It is a powerful statement.

Today that sentence includes you and me, and all citizens of the United States, but that was not the original intent.

 “We the People” meant white males and it was understood that while they brought with them wives, children and servants, those wives, children and servants were not part of “We the People.” Only white males could vote; only white males could make laws; only white males could enforce those laws; and only white males could run for offices in the governing body.

It wasn’t until February 3, 1870 that black males got the right to vote by the 15th Amendment to the Constitution. Women were seeking their right to vote, but it was felt that the fight should be for black men to be able to vote rather than for women to vote. It would be another 50 years, 133 years after the statement “We the People,” before women got the right to be part of “We the People” with the 19th Amendment on August 26, 1920.

What  began with the Declaration of Independence, led to “We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union.” When you read those words, remember that it took 133 years before that union accepted all its people as equal, and that did not come easily as Americans fought against each other in the Civil War, and in the courts, for the rights that should have come with “We the People.”

Well, did they just not know better, were they just responding to the culture of white males, and this caused the United States to leave out out women until 1920? You don’t think they knew better until 1920? This is a country that thought outside the box and decided that this new country would not be led by kings who had power over them, but by a man that would be the President elected by an electoral college.  Certainly not what other countries were doing.

Did the founding fathers not have women anywhere to give a voice? You need to read this book by Cokie Roberts Founding Mothers, and that will change your idea that it was the men only who founded this new country. 

“Founding Mothers, an intimate and illuminating look at the fervently patriotic and passionate women whose tireless pursuits on behalf of their families — and their country — proved just as crucial to the forging of a new nation as the rebellion that established it. While much has been written about the men who signed the Declaration of Independence, battled the British, and framed the Constitution, the wives, mothers, sisters, and daughters they left behind have been little noticed by history. Roberts brings us the women who fought the Revolution as valiantly as the men, often defending their very doorsteps. While the men went off to war or to Congress, the women managed their businesses, raised their children, provided them with political advice, and made it possible for the men to do what they did. The behind-the-scenes influence of these women — and their sometimes very public activities — was intelligent and pervasive.” Quote about the book.

Today, remember that our equality begins in the Declaration “And God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” Like everything else that women get, we will have to fight for true equality for women.  Nobody is just going to hand it to us.

We will continue this new series “Let Freedom Ring” during the month of July. 

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Waiting for my Juneteenth

Posted on June 19, 2025 by bwebaptistwomenforequality

Banks are closed, no mail today, and I wonder how many churches observe this day. Today is Juneteenth, designated a Federal Holiday in 2021. The following is my blog post about Juneteenth in 2011 and we are still waiting.

Note: It is now 2025 and the Southern Baptist Convention met last week and voted for the second time whether or not to kick out any and all affiliated Baptist churches if any woman (volunteer or staff) had the title of Pastor after her name. Thankfully, it failed for a second time, but it will show up again another time at the SBC Convention.

Specifically, the vote was 3,421 in favor of kicking a church out of the SBC if they had a children’s pastor, etc, and 2,191 against kicking them out. The majority want churches kicked out and it will come up at the Convention again.

June 1995, the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) issued a public apology for the role they played in harming African-Americans by promoting slavery. They harmed African Americans in several ways. The SBC was formed because the National Baptist Convention did not want slaveholders in the convention. So the south formed their own group which they called the Southern Baptist Convention. After the Civil War, they made segregation laws and Jim Crow laws, and continued in their harmful discrimination of the Black man.

 Juneteenth is a day we traditionally recognize as being the day that slaves in Texas learned of their emancipation which happened two years earlier. It wasn’t to the slaveowners’ interest to tell the slaves they were made free by the government, so they didn’t.

Finally, the government caught up with them and on June 19, 1865, more than 2,000 federal troops arrived in Galveston, Texas, to take possession of the state and enforce the emancipation of its slaves. Ever since then, June 19 has been celebrated and called Juneteenth, by Black Americans.

I am waiting for my Juneteenth by the Southern Baptist Convention. A day that they will come to us and tell us what we have always known, but what churches have kept from us, that we are free from bondage and that they welcome us as equal citizens of Christ.

It is a long time coming. It took two years for the slaves to learn they were freemen. We have waited longer than two years. More like 2,000 years.

At the Southern Baptist Convention last week (as I wrote this in 2011), they acknowledged that SBC churches are losing attendance and new converts (as indicated by a reduced number of baptisms). They don’t know why a once thriving and gospel center denomination is on the decline.

Ed Stetzer, (at the time, he was president of LifeWay Research) an SBC entity, said, “I also think that Southern Baptist churches have struggled because they’re not engaging their communities well, and so I think there are some methodological shifts that need to take place so that the gospel can be understood in a new generation among people who live where we are — not where we were.” 

I would like to tell Dr. Stetzer that it is not only a new generation, but the female half of the population that needs to see the SBC methodological shift.

Stetzer goes on to say he is hopeful leaders will recognize the changes that need to be made. “We need to engage ethnic leaders and [the] next generation, and we need to be more focused on what we’re for and less on what we’re against.”

“I pray that all of us will see the urgency of the moment,” said Thom S. Rainer (at the time he was president and CEO of LifeWay Resources). “We must make the Great Commission the heart of all we do and say. These latest numbers should be received with a broken spirit and a God-given determination to reach people for Christ.”

What about the women, I would like to ask Dr. Stetzer and Dr Rainer. Are you just concerned with the ethnic leaders and the next generation of young men? Or could you possibly be concerned about the next generation of young women who feel the call into ministry, and who are more than willing to lend a new voice to the Great Commission.

This is important to non-Southern Baptists because at the convention Russell Moore made this statement “We are the anchor of the evangelical world.”

Whether he is right or wrong about that, Southern Baptists have tremendous influence over other evangelical denominations in how they practice their faith, and what they teach.

Until the SBC gets serious about the decline and looks at all the reasons people are leaving, which includes abuse of women in the homes due to patriarchy, and lack of respect for women as whole persons before God, they cannot begin to grow and prosper and win the world for Christ.

Southern Baptists’ membership decline continues amid other areas of growth

Women are waiting for our Juneteenth.

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Tribute to Martin Luther King

Posted on January 20, 2025 by bwebaptistwomenforequality

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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The Christmas Gift

Posted on December 23, 2024 by bwebaptistwomenforequality

 

Thirty years is a long time to wait to see what your Christmas Gift will actually do. Two thousand years ago, the Christmas Gift 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 with his own life in danger. 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, you get up to stop the racket of the knocking, not because it is your friend at the door, but because you want 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 have traveled 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. We are hungry for the bread and for a place at your table. Hear our knock, our Father.

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

See Shirley Taylor in Baptizing Feminism Documentary Trailer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tg5CmgjF2wM

Books by Shirley Taylor available in Print and Kindle on Amazon

The Biblical Marriage Myth: The Devil Comes Calling
The Power of a Book: The Street Evangelist
From Wife to Widow: What I know Now
Beyond the Grave: A Christian Dilemma
Raising the Hood: A Christian Look at Manhood and Womanhood
Women Equal – No Buts: Powered by the same Source
Dethroning Male Headship: 2nd Edition

 

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Advent Love – Birth of the human rights activist

Posted on December 19, 2024 by bwebaptistwomenforequality

Love is plastered all over many church’s websites. But for most, it is like looking for love in all the wrong places.  Jesus came into the world that was having a problem with love, and we still have not fully understood what love means.

In particular, Christian women are still held to a rigid law of submission to all males.

Jesus did not speak of – nor did Jesus indicate – male supremacy. There is no love in patriarchy (male headship). Many have closed their minds to the pro-feminist actions of Christ. Feminists do not want to harm or deny men any position, but male headship leaders choose to hammer women.

The Baptist Faith and Message 2000 has led many pastors astray with this theology of male headship, and in doing so, they have forgotten the Jesus who was born into a world of rules and laws. They have forgotten that Jesus came to call humans to a better way of life – to love God and to love others. Not only in word, but in how we treat each other.

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.  By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (John 13:34-34)

Bob Edwards, author of Let My People Go, reminds us that Jesus is concerned with human rights, which includes the human rights of women, and we must be, too.

“I don’t discuss prejudice against women in the church as “one of those theological issues we just have to agree to disagree on.” I would not have “agreed to disagree on slavery.” I do not agree to disagree on racism. I will not politely agree to disagree on the devaluation and subjugation of all women by men in the name of God. It’s an injustice that grieves the Holy Spirit and must be addressed as such. The Bible is full of excellent examples of men and women who love people AND tell them to repent of unjust practices. Jesus, for example, confronted the religious leaders of his day for confusing the will of God with the traditions of men. I think we should do likewise.” – Bob Edwards

Jesus came to free us from the rigmarole that man had bound God with. Jesus told us to love God with all our heart, and to love our fellow-man. When love is the motivator, our worship of God, and helping our fellow-man, 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.

However, instead of being like Jesus, we still desire to enforce 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. Yet Christian leaders today want to withhold that freedom for women. They have forgotten that Christianity is about human rights.

“My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.”(John 15:12)

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)

This Christmas, will you remember the birth of the greatest human rights activist? Will you open your heart to loving women as equals, and not as someone who was created to submit to all males?

I dare you!

See Shirley Taylor in Baptizing Feminism Documentary Trailer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tg5CmgjF2wM

Books by Shirley Taylor available in Print and Kindle on Amazon

The Biblical Marriage Myth: The Devil Comes Calling
The Power of a Book: The Street Evangelist
From Wife to Widow: What I know Now
Beyond the Grave: A Christian Dilemma
Raising the Hood: A Christian Look at Manhood and Womanhood
Women Equal – No Buts: Powered by the same Source
Dethroning Male Headship: 2nd Edition

 

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Advent – The Magnificat

Posted on December 16, 2024 by bwebaptistwomenforequality

We are in the third week of Advent, which is Joy. Sunday a pink candle was lit for preparation of the birth of the little boy who would become the Christ. It is fitting that we read the Magnificat. 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.

So exactly what did Mary say?

Mary 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.”

Romans 13:1. Paul says not to set yourself up as a governing authority. Such as the Jews were a governing authority over themselves. Obey the authorities you already have. In other words, don’t become a “Christian Nationalist.” Well, read it for yourselves. Here it is. “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities.”

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.

See Shirley Taylor in Baptizing Feminism Documentary Trailer.

The Biblical Marriage Myth: The Devil Comes Calling
The Power of a Book: The Street Evangelist
From Wife to Widow: What I know Now
Beyond the Grave: A Christian Dilemma
Raising the Hood: A Christian Look at Manhood and Womanhood
Women Equal – No Buts: Powered by the same Source
Dethroning Male Headship: 2nd Edition

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Advent Joy – Return to the cradle

Posted on December 13, 2024 by bwebaptistwomenforequality

 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.

“You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

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 can’t do that anymore. We have changed in our thinking and our understanding of human rights.

So, while we can’t 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.

It is time we returned to the cradle and saw a new baby.

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 revisit the manger and allow your heart to accept women as your neighbor?

See Shirley Taylor in Baptizing Feminism Documentary Trailer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tg5CmgjF2wM

Books by Shirley Taylor available in Print and Kindle on Amazon

The Biblical Marriage Myth: The Devil Comes Calling
The Power of a Book: The Street Evangelist
From Wife to Widow: What I know Now
Beyond the Grave: A Christian Dilemma
Raising the Hood: A Christian Look at Manhood and Womanhood
Women Equal – No Buts: Powered by the same Source
Dethroning Male Headship: 2nd Edition

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Advent – Should women look for the Christ Child – or a husband?

Posted on December 12, 2024 by bwebaptistwomenforequality

 

Each year at the beginning of Advent, churches light the Advent candle, and the church begins its countdown until the Christ child is born on Christmas Day.

Many faith denominations do not light Advent candles, but almost all churches spend the month of December with Cantatas, children’s Christmas plays, and so forth. The song, “A Baby Changes Everything,” was popular one year and Don and I heard it sung at two different churches.

But do women really need Jesus?

Listen to what a man commented on my blog, “The man answers to God for the actions of his wife and children.”

Whoa! Did you catch that? How can a man answer to God for the actions of his wife and children? For that to happen, we must find scriptures to support the following beliefs:

• The unbiblical belief that a husband can stand as a mediator between his wife and kids and God. The husband would have to be divine because it is a divine Jesus who stands as the mediator for the husband. Surely women would not need a human standing before God for her, would she?

(Job 9:32-35: “He (God) is not a man like me that I might answer him, that we might confront each other in court. If only there were someone to arbitrate between us, to lay his hand upon us both, someone to remove God’s rod from me, so that his terror would frighten me no more. Then I would speak up without fear but as it now stands with me, I cannot.” Jesus became that mediator between God and man.

(1Timothy 2:5-6 tells us that no husband can stand between a woman and God, “For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all men—the testimony given in its proper time.)

• The unbiblical belief that the wife cannot speak for herself because she is an incomplete human being, incapable of coming before God for herself, and who has no hope outside her husband.

(Romans 3:22-23: “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”)

• The unbiblical belief that children are not complete human beings capable of having personal relationships with God.

(Acts 2:17: “In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people, your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams.”)

There are no scriptures to support a man answering to God for the actions of his wife. Adam and Eve each accounted for themselves. In fact, each scripture reference that I have given says completely the opposite of what the person who wrote the comment said. Oh, but he is just one person. Nobody really believes like that, do they?

Cindy Kunsman can tell you that some seminarians believe it. Several years ago she was invited to a conference at a Southern Baptist affiliated seminary. Cindy wrote that “Several young men asked how it was that I believed that they would not stand before God…to give an account and to intercede for their wives…These (young men) were seminary students.”

Advent—should women be looking for the Christ child, or for a husband?

See Shirley Taylor in Baptizing Feminism Documentary Trailer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tg5CmgjF2wM

Books by Shirley Taylor available in Print and Kindle on Amazon

The Biblical Marriage Myth: The Devil Comes Calling
The Power of a Book: The Street Evangelist
From Wife to Widow: What I know Now
Beyond the Grave: A Christian Dilemma
Raising the Hood: A Christian Look at Manhood and Womanhood
Women Equal – No Buts: Powered by the same Source
Dethroning Male Headship: 2nd Edition

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I learned the true meaning of Christmas at a mosque

Posted on December 2, 2024 by bwebaptistwomenforequality

Years ago I was watching television while wrapping Christmas gifts. It was about the true meaning of Christmas. They promoted the popular idea of giving gifts because the wise men brought gifts to the baby Jesus. I knew they were wrong, but truthfully, I did not know the true meaning of Christmas.

It would be many years before I learned the true meaning of Christmas, and it would happen at the last place you would expect to learn about Christ. I learned the true meaning of Christmas after visiting a mosque.

The Missions Division of the Baptist General Convention of Texas took us on a trip to a mosque in Richardson, Texas, near Dallas. The imam met us, asked us to remove our shoes, and then he showed us the shelf where we were to place our shoes. We were led past the wash room where Muslim men wash 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 women also had to perform ritual washing of their body parts, separately from the men, of course.

The main worship area was a long rectangular room. The imam pointed out that the room was long so that it made the front row longer and, therefore, more men could be on the front row. He said they all wanted to be on the front row because it showed their devotion to Allah. He made his arms into wings, and he laughed as he showed us how they would nudge the other men out of the way with their elbow, and make their way to the front.

Inscribed on the wall were the 99 attributes of Allah.  My supervisor who is a Christian Arab, said that none of the attributes said that Allah is love.

After it was over, we thanked the imam and put our shoes back on, we women took off our scarves, and we all climbed onto the bus to go back to our offices. One supervisor who was also a preacher (as they all were) threw his hand up high in the air 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. In particular, 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 did not mean anything (Matthew 23, Amos 5:21-24) because men had found ways to get around them. Jesus told them to love God with all their hearts, 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 rigmarole such as the way to wash your hands before eating, and not working on the Sabbath – things that had absolutely no spiritual significance in them. In doing away with these things, Jesus said: “My yoke is easy and my load is light.” Matthew 11:30.

Thank God for Jesus!

See Shirley Taylor in Baptizing Feminism Documentary Trailer.

The Biblical Marriage Myth: The Devil Comes Calling
The Power of a Book: The Street Evangelist
From Wife to Widow: What I know Now
Beyond the Grave: A Christian Dilemma
Raising the Hood: A Christian Look at Manhood and Womanhood
Women Equal – No Buts: Powered by the same Source
Dethroning Male Headship: 2nd Edition

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