Threads from Henry's Web

Author: henry

  • Role of Women

    I thought I was just about done with this topic after commenting on <a href="textual issues, but there have been some additional comments that called attention to some additional information. Molly commented and through her comment I found her very thoughtful entry Jesus/Women: Equal Worth, Unequal Role (?), and her link to another thoughtful article, On being “Equal in Being, Unequal in Role”. The second article looks particularly at doctrinal issues related to the trinity. There seems to be at lest some case that complementarians are abandoning an orthodox view of the trinity in order to support their theology on male and female roles. That’s way out of my stomping ground, so I just suggest you read the articles if you’re interested.

    What came to my mind as I looked at this was a practical question. We have numerous posts dealing with theological and doctrinal issues and many more discussing exegetical issues in numerous passages, but what about simply observing the church and women’s ministry today? By asking this I’m not suggesting that we abandon the scriptures and all doctrinal statements and just take a practical look. Rather, I accept the particular interpretation of the Wesleyan Quadrilateral that calls for examination of doctrine in the light of scripture, tradition, experience, and reason. (There are similar views in a number of traditions.) I do this under the conviction that there is certainly an opening for women in ministry in scripture, and that the tradition of the church has often placed women in positions of authority, though less often than men.

    Let me start from a very secular point. Placing people in roles for which they are not suited, or for which they are not gifted can produce dangerous results in any organization. Managers who are not capable of delegating, disorganized administrators, teachers who know their subject but cannot communicate, and so forth. Being put in a position which one cannot properly fill results in fear, feelings of incapacity, and in responses such as over-control, or complete lack of control. Basically putting people in roles for which they are not gifted produces bad results.

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  • Updating the Grudem Interview and Discussion

    Since I previously posted on the interview that Adrian Warnock is conducting with Wayne Grudem, I thought it would be a good idea to update. There are two more entries of interest:

    • Part Four – Ethical Trajectories, Feminism, and Homosexuality
      I’m afraid the argument here that stands out is that feminism, and the arguments used by evangelical feminists to support it will lead to an acceptance of homosexuality. I guess that settles it!
    • Wayne Grudem replies to Suzanne McCarthy
      This deals with some trivia in the issue of Junia in Romans 16:7. The reason I refer to these issues as trivia is that the broad evidence on Romans 16:7 is so strongly in favor of taking the name as feminine that a search of this type can only, in my view, be the result of an absolute determination to read the name as masculine. [Update: Hmm. That was not well said, but I’ll leave it as is and correct it since it was posted here for a couple of hours. Two points — 1) my comment implies that the arguments in question had to do with reading the name Junia as masculine, which is incorrect. These specific points have to do with whether Junia should be known as one of the apostles or whether the apostles (not including her) knew her. 2) Dan Wallace, as always summarizes his evidence well. I believe in this case he is grasping at straws, and is not following his own usual preference for more probable readings. His justification for taking an improbable reading is, in my view, inadequte.] Of course, you can tell that I accept Suzanne’s view on the passage in general.
    • [Update 12/10/06-I don’t want to add another post on this topic right now.] On the Better Bibles Blog Suzanne has summarized her response, and I think her response and summary of her position is excellent. It also ties in well with my response to Grudem’s criticism of Gordon Fee. There seems to be an odd tendency here to make snide remarks about others, and then to be horrified at snide or snarky comments about one’s own work. Personally I prefer a fairly forceful style. In the view of the presence of certain comments on qualifications in this discussion, I’d note that my earlier comments on Fee’s expertise in textual issues are extremely relevant. I don’t expect one to accept Fee’s argument based on his expertise. In fact, I decry such behavior. But if one is going to have a battle of expertise, Fee has the edge here on textual matters.

    I may link to further entries in this interview, but I must confess I find it hard to give much credit to the “slippery slope” form of argument.

  • Medical Personnel Used as Scapegoats in Lybia

    I really have nothing to add to this, but I do want to make sure it gets maximum publicity:

    Libya vs. Evolutionary Science: Will the Tripoli Six be sentenced to death by firing squad?

    There are five nurses and a doctor on trial in Lybia for spreading AIDS, and it’s clear that they have done nothing, that the problem existed before they were there. Hopefully we can get a good response to this. Links for action and for more sources of information are contained in the Panda’s Thumb post.

  • Does Gordon Fee Discard Part of the Bible?

    In the third part of his interview series, Adrian Warnock makes the following comment in asking a question of Dr. Wayne Grudem:

    I was impressed by your compassion and fairness in the introduction of your new book expressed towards your egalitarian colleagues who you mention by name.

    At a later point, talking about Dr. Gordon Fee, Wayne Grudem says:

    I doubt that people understand the full implications of a move like Gordon Fee’s in his commentary on 1 Corinthians when he basically says that 1 Corinthians 14:33

  • Christian Carnival #CLI Posted

    I almost forgot my link to the Christian Carnival #CLI, so that’s it. Thanks to Nerd Family for hosting an excellent carnival.

  • The Most Annoying Theologian I’ve Never Read

    . . . is Wayne Grudem. Well, not quite true. The most annoying theologian is Peter Ruckman of the Pensacola Bible Institute, and I have read some of his stuff. I’ve also read articles by Grudem, and I wouldn’t come close to excluding him from Christianity, so I guess I have read him and he’s not the most annoying. So how about I wanted a provocative title?

    When there’s someone I really don’t want to take the time to study seriously, it’s nice to have someone else, whose reading ability I’ve come to trust in the blogosphere, take a look. And that is what Dave Warnock has been doing. The first item was Responding to provocation, and the second Starting to understand connections. I am substantially in agreement with Dave on these things. It might also be a good idea, of course, to read the original interview, starting here.

    Like Dave, I believe the connections can be broken at any point. I discuss inerrancy here and I have some thoughts on gender language and translation here.

    Later today I will be posting on salvation and particularly on the question of who will be saved and whether we can know. I’m also going to respond to one point in the third part of Adrian’s interview with Wayne Grudem, [update] which I have now posted here. Three recent posts of mine are also relevant, The Danger of Unchanging Truth, And I’m not . . . , and Truth, Pluralism, and Absolutism. None of these respond directly to Adrian Warnock (not to be confused with Dave) and Wayne Grudem, but they do relate.

  • Textual Critism on 1 Corinthians 14:34-35

    I’ve posted something on this over on my Threads blog, titled Does Gordon Fee Discard Part of the Bible?. That post is a response to part of a interview with Wayne Grudem by Adrian Warnock.

    I think it will be of interest to readers of this blog for the textual criticism aspects, though less so for the controversial theological aspects.

  • Truth, Pluralism, and Absolutism

    There has been a rather interesting, if somewhat confused, discussion over on Locusts and Honey about pluralism and truth. The reason I’m not commenting there is that most points have already been made in that thread and I want to go off on a tangent.

    I believe there’s a substantial problem with many discussions of Christian apologetics, and also of many subjects within religion. It is that the word “proof” is much overused. Questions such as whether one can prove the existence of God or not, whether one can prove one’s religion is true, whether one can prove a particular event took place, or even whether some specific doctrine is true.

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  • And I’m not . . .

    . . . an evangelical, that is.

    Jason Woolever posted an interesting entry several days ago about what it means to be an evangelical and I’m finally getting around to commenting. It’s not that I have a problem with Jason’s post. It’s more that I have had some problem finding a good, current definition of what it means to be evangelical. I think Jason’s points would generally be accepted by most people who call themselves evangelicals in my experience. (I know, not a scientific sample, but since I’m only concerned with how I use the label, that works.)

    I’ve been having trouble with the evangelical label for some time, most recently when I read some evangelical commentaries on Daniel and found that their critical views were more liberal than mine. I’ve even been called an evangelical by a few people myself. So I think Jason’s list is a rather convenient opportunity to examine some key points.

    So let me look at these points one by one:

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  • Australia Moving on Stem Cells

    Australia is reversing a previous stand and allowing therapeutic stem cell cloning. Read the full story on Yahoo! News.