Marginal Christianity

Let us stipulate that John Howard is correct to read the creation stories in a way matriarchal way. Women, he claimed, were the leaders of creation fresh from the Creator’s hands. Mike Skinner summarizes his argument: What if the world was originally created as a matriarchy? (*cue dramatic gasp*) John Howard Yoder often explored this possibility by laying out the following pieces of evidence [discussed in Nugent’s The Politics of Jesus , 26-28]: [1] The Word “Helper” Yoder claims that the connotation of subordination which “helper” has in English is not present with the Hebrew word. The other 5 times the word appears in the Pentateuch it always refers to God. It appears that Eve is the crown of creation, who fills in a gap in the original creation. The point seems to be that the man is dependent on the woman (not vice versa). The man was called to leave his family and build his life around his wife (Gen. 2:24). The Edenic culture depended on what Ancient I...

Sleep eludes me this night forcing me to keep an Easter Vigil I did not choose. I find myself musing on St. Mark’s passion and resurrection story, odd as it is (though terribly characteristic of this gospel writer). One of its oddities is that it is pagan Roman centurion who announces Jesus’ death boldly declaring the last thing I’m sure he ever expected to be saying at that moment, “Truly, this man was God’s Son!” (Mk.15:39). The emperor was believed to be son of deity; yet here it is one pinned to a cross in a humiliating death that is so acclaimed. What did that centurion see in the dying/dead Jesus that evoked such a profession? We’ll never know, of course. And perhaps that’s the point. Against all expectation and probability this death, in all it gruesome horror, spoke to the centurion the last thing he expected to hear: a word of divine love and even victory. I can’t get the words of Paul in 2 Cor.4 out of my mind (especially vv.10-12):  “ But we have this treasure...

53. Mark 14:1-9: The Anointing The chief priests and scribes are plotting a quiet way to put Jesus to death. That’s the backstory here and for the rest of the gospel (vv.1-2). The Anointing at Bethany Jesus, meanwhile, King Jesus, Messiah Jesus, is dining among his people, Simon the leper and his friends in Bethany. Maybe he was a former leper who had been healed by Jesus. If his leprosy was active he could not have hosted this party in his home. The woman, likely a prostitute though not Mary Magdalene, enters the party. She goes directly to Jesus, bearing a vial of “costly ointment.” In an act of devotion she breaks the jar and pours it over his head. An impulsive act, perhaps, wasteful according to her critics, Jesus nonetheless accepts it, commends it, and recasts it as anointing of “my body beforehand for its burial” (v.8). Other members of this gathering are p.o.’d by her action and angrily upbraid her for not selling the ointment and giving the money to the poor. Whe...

I have defended the ministry of women in the church in public for a while now, including on this blog. I don’t think I can do it any longer. Not because of any lack of calling or gifting in their ministry, but because of a lack in mine. Take Phoebe Palmer. She began to be involved in leading a Bible study in New York around 1830. She soon received invitations to preach across the USA and in the UK. Something like 25 000 people were converted by her ministry. 25 000 people. Converted. Does that need defence? Really? She visited prisons regularly, ran a society helping poor people in need of medical attention, and was involved in an ambitious project to challenge the new problem of urban poverty through the provision of low-cost housing, free schooling, and employment. She had a particular concern for orphans throughout her life. Challenging injustice on a grand scale. Do you want me to defend that? In The Promise of the Father , and 20-odd other books,...

 Craig Keener, who certainly knows a thing or two, has written a piece on Jesus Creed reaffirming the common egalitarian argument that Paul prefaces the instructions to husbands and wives in Ephesians 5:22-33 with an exhortation to mutual submission. I count myself as a dyed-in-the-wool egalitarian, but I am still not convinced that this interpretation is exegetically correct. We get off to a rather disconcerting start with Keener’s argument that Paul expected masters to obey their servants. How does that work? Well, Paul tells slaves to obey their masters in Ephesians 6:5 and then in verse 9 says that masters should “do the same to them”. In Keener’s view Paul has “expressed one of the most radically antislavery sentiments of his day”. I really don’t think that’s very likely. Paul is not telling the masters to obey their slaves “with fear and trembling”. That is simply a social impossibility—and Keener has to admit that no one in the first century would have taken P...

August 4, 2012 By scotmcknight http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2012/08/04/male-problem-is-a-church-problem/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+PatheosJesusCreed+%28Blog+-+Jesus+Creed%29&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher Tim Krueger is on staff at CBE. He came to love Scripture and culture while growing up in the Philippines, where his parents served as missionaries. He graduated from Bethel University, and enjoys tropical weather, sports, learning new things, and spending time with his wife, Naomi. * * * * * New York Times columnist David Brooks spoke last year at the Aspen Ideas Festival about the narcissism of American culture in a talk called “The Modesty Manifesto.” Lamenting the loss of humility in American culture, he points out a number of social trends. For instance, our math scores have been steadily declining in relation to the rest of the world. Yet, we are persistent in believing we are the best. In another s...