Posted on 08/24/2006 10:02:06 AM PDT by presidio9
A U.S. Baptist preacher has publicly defended himself for firing a female Sunday School teacher after more than 50 years on the job because he believes the Bible bans women from teaching men.
Watertown First Baptist Church Pastor Tim LaBouf, also a city council member in Watertown, N.Y., said women could fulfill any role or responsibility they wanted to -- outside the church.
"My belief is that the qualifications for both men and women teaching spiritual matters in a church setting end at the church door, period," LaBouf said in a statement on the church Web site (http://www.nnyinfo.com/firstbaptist).
LaBouf and the church board fired Mary Lambert, 81, earlier this month in a letter that cited the scriptural qualifications for Sunday School teachers, Lambert said.
"They quote First Timothy Two, 11-14: A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man, she must be silent," Lambert said, reading from the letter.
"I was astonished," she said. "I would not go back and teach as long as this is their thinking."
Watertown is 250 miles northwest of New York City.
William Carlsen, executive minister for American Baptist Churches of New York State, said U.S. Baptist Churches are autonomous and that there would not be many other Baptist Churches that share LaBouf's view.
"A considerable number if not a majority of American Baptist Churches have been quite aggressive in affirming the place of women's leadership roles within the church," Carlsen said.
The board of the Watertown First Baptist Church said in a statement on its Web site that the scripture rules concerning women teaching men in a church setting had only played a small part in Lambert's sacking.
"Christian courtesy motivates us to refrain from making any public accusations against her," the board said.
Paul (Saul) was one of Gods greatest examples of conversions. When you read Apostle Paul, you did not read Saul. You read works thru Paul by Gods hand. If you read it in it's context of then and now, you will see what God was trying to save us from, both individually, in marriage and as a society. As I said earlier...just turn on the TV. The world failed to listen.
"I'm fighting for hard won sanity and fragile self worth. That's all. "
God loves you and made you perfect.
"And if it means being honest about what I've seen since I was a child, then so be it. But as long as I can remember, God was always that angry man out there who hated me"
I think we've all made God angry but he doesn't hate us. He loves each and everyone.
"I don't consider myself a feminist.....just a human that wants to be treated with kindness and respect."
And that is what Jesus commanded us all to do with each other.
Quite right. A good Bible student easily discovers that (starting in Chapter 7) the writer of Corinthians responds to a letter they wrote to him. Much of their letter is repeated and commented on.
7:1 is one such instance. It is not good for a man to touch a woman.... This is in direct contradiction to the command by Jesus for a man to cleave to his wife.
14:34-35 is another instance. There is no Jewish law demanding a woman remain silent and forbidding a woman to speak. The writer is merely repeating from the letter they wrote to him.
And I love his retort.... "What? Came the Word of God out from you?"
>>>You and I must be twin sisters of different mothers.>>>
Yes, just call me Lillith. haha
>>>"Good for you and your pitiful wife."
That was rather mean.>>>
Wasn't meant to be mean, was meant in true pity. To be married to a man who feels superior to her as evident by your postings. And the comment earlier about wishing my "partner" luck was truly pity on having such a nagging ball crusher for a wife, eh?
Which is why it's so strange that Protestant Christianity has evolved into such a "girly" religion, with nothing in it for men.
I think it's past time for all of us to close the ancient tomes and move forward. ;)
Yeah, well, there's a reason I didn't continue that particular line of rant.
(And all this time I've been calling myself unteachable. Go figure.)
Do you think I believe that the blood shed from the cross was any less for me than for you because you are a woman?
Can you be any more precious to G-d than that He would rather die than live without you?
I know you have been hurt. I do not expect the hurt to just fall away with one "Hellelujah" and you suddenly see the Father as a good guy and everything will be right with the world. I do not mind a bit that your hurt is causing you to see Him other than as He really is. Men can be beasts and their abuse of their masculinity makes it hard to approach the ultimate masculine that is G-d.
I suspect He understands even better than I do.
That said, it's not about what makes either of us feel good nor is it about what some book says. It's about what IS.
May the LORD bless you and keep you.
May the LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you
May the LORD lift up his countenance to you and grant you His
Shalom.
You keep talking about TV.
What I'm saying is that the whole Saul to Paul, Stuttering Prince to Moses, Adulterous David to Great King etc are stories of great men.... but bad men too, with greatness pulled out of them. Paul was the Great Lion of God, yes, but he still was who he was.
There is nothing there for me to follow....there is no one I can empathize with.... I wish Esther had been a hooker first, or The Virgin Mary had been a kleptomaniac or Salome had started a dancing school or Eve had built a tree house with the Snake and told Adam to take a hike.
There is nothing there in the bible that I can say "Hey! That's about me! I get it! That's where I fit in!"
It's alien. While folks talk about the Bible being a roadmap, for some of us, it's a roadmap on Mars.
Instead, its the voices of angry men fussing about how bad we all are-- women are pulled out for special ridicule it seems. It's a mans book written by me about there male God and colored with their male biases.
With male heros who are 3D and females who are black and white.
Again, whatever Paul was trying to say, it came across as something cruel and uncaring.....quiet the opposite of what you're saying.
Ok,
What if you're a single woman
and you're sitting on 'your side' of the congregation,
and your male preacher says something that you think is
totally idiotic, ungodly BS about something that you (the lowly single female) happen to know something about.
So, you sit there quietly, and later, after church,
pull him asside and try to tell him what you know.
He is polite and thanks you for your input.
And gets up the next Sunday with the same bunch of ignorant BS.
All respect is lost and the lowly single female decides she can better spend her time planting daylilies on Sunday.
End of Story.
Hi,
I'm Ishtar Vashti ;)
Ditto...
Sounds like the woman had a total idiot for a pastor.
Yes, He is the New Covenant.
What writings did He quote when He taught?
People do improperly merge the old and new. They are often people who are trying to find the image of the G-d they want rather than the G-d who is. But you can't divorce the new from the old. All the first Christians, as well as Christ Himself, were Torah observant Jews. Christianity could not have been born in any other setting. G-d called Abraham out of everything he had known so G-d could begin to create the people who would birth the Messiah.
It boils down to where your heart is. Is it proud of what you believe, or is it humble before the majesty of G-d? Scripture tells us G-d loves the latter, and has never had much patience for the former. I have found that the humble tend to interpret the Bible in a very similar manner to each other, which is what first knocked me off my religious high horse.
I'm still learning the humility bit and G-d is being more than patient with me. But as I submit my will to His I am finding that I am becoming more and more a fundamentalist.
Shalom.
You keep talking about TV.
What I'm saying is that the whole Saul to Paul, Stuttering Prince to Moses, Adulterous David to Great King etc are stories of great men.... but bad men too, with greatness pulled out of them. Paul was the Great Lion of God, yes, but he still was who he was.
There is nothing there for me to follow....there is no one I can empathize with.... I wish Esther had been a hooker first, or The Virgin Mary had been a kleptomaniac or Salome had started a dancing school or Eve had built a tree house with the Snake and told Adam to take a hike.
There is nothing there in the bible that I can say "Hey! That's about me! I get it! That's where I fit in!"
It's alien. While folks talk about the Bible being a roadmap, for some of us, it's a roadmap on Mars.
Instead, its the voices of angry men fussing about how bad we all are-- women are pulled out for special ridicule it seems. It's a mans book written by me about there male God and colored with their male biases.
With male heros who are 3D and females who are black and white.
Again, whatever Paul was trying to say, it came across as something cruel and uncaring.....quiet the opposite of what you're saying.
"Wasn't meant to be mean, was meant in true pity. To be married to a man who feels superior to her as evident by your postings. And the comment earlier about wishing my "partner" luck was truly pity on having such a nagging ball crusher for a wife, eh?"
No superiority complex here, nor an inferiority complex. I think you have me mixed up with someone else as I didn't make a comment about luck.
Thanks for the Deborah story (I'll read it again, because it's been a long time).
And, while she is unnamed, take the woman to whom Solomon wrote the Song of Songs.
Double wow.
Shalom.
Peter was a close friend of Jesus. Peter was a contemporary of Paul, although Peter and Paul did not always see eye to eye.
Peter called Paul's letters Scriptures.
Peter said they were hard to understand.
If they were hard to understand for Peter, imagine how hard they are to understand for us.
Shalom.
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