{"id":4669,"date":"2008-12-02T00:20:33","date_gmt":"2008-12-02T00:20:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/2008\/12\/expanding-women-in-ministry-in.html"},"modified":"2008-12-02T00:20:33","modified_gmt":"2008-12-02T00:20:33","slug":"expanding-women-in-ministry-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2008\/12\/expanding-women-in-ministry-in.html","title":{"rendered":"Expanding Women in Ministry (in other cultures)"},"content":{"rendered":"
Another letter about women in ministry … and this letter illustrates a very important point we all need to be aware of in “applying” the Bible: each culture summons us to live in ways appropriate to that culture. But, and this is important too, the Christian will work for kingdom conditions to work like yeast in each culture so that God’s ways of justice and peace and love will become living realities. But, it means beginning in different places in different locations. Here’s a letter from one of our former students, now in Burkina Faso. How would you advise Ben?<\/i><\/p>\n

Dr. McKnight,<\/font><\/div>\n

 <\/div>\n

I hope the school year is
\ngoing well for you and I’ve been keeping up with your blog as much as I
\ncan here.  I’m still in Burkina Faso Africa probably until May or June
\nand I’m still wrestling with a ton of issues.  One of them is the issue
\nof women in ministry and a woman’s place in the church. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I know I have
\nwritten you a while ago on this same issue, but now my plight doesn’t
\ncome so much from a disagreement as much as my own thoughts.  I know
\nthat God is calling us to an ultimate ethic of equality between
\nsexes\/races\/classes and the like.  I also know that that is more of a
\nreality in some churches in America and not nearly as close here. <\/p>\n

My struggle or my question is along this line: If
\nMoses\/Jesus\/Paul and many others in the Bible advanced woman’s status
\nin their own culture, yet not necessarily going for the ultimate ethic of equality,
\nhow do I in a culture that is closer to theirs than ours treat this
\nsituation?  <\/p>\n

Back home it seems reasonable enough in most if not all
\ncircumstances to call for and work for the ultimate ethic back home,
\nbut here is clearly not the case.  Woman do ALL the house work, cook
\nALL the food, wear headdresses in church, not
\njust<\/em> the Bible says so, but because women generally just wear
\nheadscarves anyways.  <\/p>\n

So since I have to assume that while the Biblical
\ncharacters did not usually treat women the way they will be treated in
\nthe Kingdom of God after the resurrection, can I still assume they
\nweren’t sinning?  <\/p>\n

Likewise, I know I should be encouraging movement
\ntowards equality here, but if I had those same expectations just 6,000
\nmiles West of me, that might be an unacceptable way of treating a woman
\nand a sin.  I’m not so caught up with me personally sinning over the
\nwhole ordeal, just more I guess would\/could you presume that this type
\nof issue is something that Burkinabe or Africans as a whole will be
\njudged for just as Americans may be judged for not taking up the plight
\nof unborn babies or a continuing destruction of the planet?<\/font><\/p>\n


It is weird that although
\nwe can’t travel through time, sometimes a long flight from America to
\nWestern Africa feels like jumping in a time machine.<\/font><\/div>\n
 <\/div>\n
Ben<\/font><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Another letter about women in ministry … and this letter illustrates a very important point we all need to be aware of in “applying” the Bible: each culture summons us to live in ways appropriate to that culture. But, and this is important too, the Christian will work for kingdom conditions to work like yeast…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":297,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-women-and-ministry"],"yoast_head":"\nExpanding Women in Ministry (in other cultures) - Jesus Creed<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2008\/12\/expanding-women-in-ministry-in.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Expanding Women in Ministry (in other cultures) - Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Another letter about women in ministry … and this letter illustrates a very important point we all need to be aware of in “applying” the Bible: each culture summons us to live in ways appropriate to that culture. But, and this is important too, the Christian will work for kingdom conditions to work like yeast…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2008\/12\/expanding-women-in-ministry-in.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-12-02T00:20:33+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jesus Creed Admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Expanding Women in Ministry (in other cultures) - Jesus Creed","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2008\/12\/expanding-women-in-ministry-in.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Expanding Women in Ministry (in other cultures) - Jesus Creed","og_description":"Another letter about women in ministry … and this letter illustrates a very important point we all need to be aware of in “applying” the Bible: each culture summons us to live in ways appropriate to that culture. 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