Tag Archives: Universalism

Commentary

C. Michael Patton explains why women cannot teach in the church

23 Comments

He explains why he thinks that the Bible teaches that women cannot teach in the church.

His point:

Now, let me give my short and sweet answer as to why Paul did not allow women to teach:

Paul did not let women teach due to the often aggressive and combative nature that teaching must entail concerning the confrontation of false doctrine. Men must be the teachers when combating false teaching. However, because the role of a teacher in the church is so often to combat false doctrine, and because false doctrine is always a problem, generally speaking, the principles are always applicable. The “exercising of authority” is inherently tied to teaching and its necessary condemnation of false doctrine.

The combative nature of teaching is particularly relevant to a broader understanding of the characteristics of men and women.

I agree with Patton on this one. I think in practice most women are more interested in relationships and community than they are in truth and polemics. Christianity is a propositional faith, though. It’s not meant to be a set of arbitrary preferences that give our lives hope and meaning without any evidential foundation. And it needs to be defended using rational arguments and evidence against lies.

I would make an exception for women who want to teach on an area of knowledge not related to the Bible but related to apologetics or Christian living, like astrophysics, economics, ancient history, bio-ethics, etc. In that case I would allow a woman to teach. I would also be willing to make exceptions for women who are truth-focused and who do not mind making exclusive claims if it makes them unpopular, e.g. – Jennifer Roback Morse.

Apologetics advocacy

Related posts

 

Commentary

Are Christian churches and parents producing solid young Christians?

1 Comment

Let’s look at the facts from a recent Pew Research survey.

Excerpt:

A recent report by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion and Public Life seems to validate concerns among Christian leaders that younger generations of Americans are losing the spiritual moorings that have helped keep their nation strong from its founding.

Analyzing the extent to which the religious views of America’s “millennials” — adults between the ages of 18 and 29 — differ from those of adults over 30, the Pew Forum’s “Religion Among the Millennials” report found that they are in general less affiliated with a particular religious faith than their over-30 counterparts, attend religious services less often, and say that religion is less important to them.

Here are some of the findings of the report:

  • Twenty five percent of 18-to-29-year-old adults say they are religiously unaffiliated, describing themselves variously as “atheist,” “agnostic,” or “nothing in particular.” By contrast, about 19 percent of adults in their 30s, 15 percent of those in their 40s, 14 percent of those in their 50s, and less than ten percent of those 60 and older identify themselves as unaffiliated.
  • Only 45 percent of adults under age 30 say that religion is important to them, compared with almost 60 percent of adults 30 and older.
  • Sixty-five percent of 18 to 29-year-olds say they are “absolutely” certain of the existence of God, compared with 73 percent of their 30-and-older counterparts.

What about surveys conducted by Christians?

The findings of the Pew report appear to reflect the results of similar surveys conducted by both Catholic and evangelical researchers. For example, a recent survey by the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion found that over 80 percent of Catholic adults aged 18 to 30 think that “morals are relative” and that “there is no definite right or wrong for everybody.”

Similarly, a 2008 study by evangelical pollster George Barna found that half of all adults in America say that Christianity is just one of many faith options… Barna found that unlike previous generations, over 70 percent of American adults today have jettisoned an organized approach to their faith and are more likely to come up with their own set of religious beliefs, with over 80 percent of young Americans under the age of 25 inclined to customize their faith.

And from Christian Newswire:

“In today’s world Christian children and teens are in serious crisis,” says Larry Fowler, Executive Director of Global Training for Awana and author of the new book Raising a Modern-Day Joseph: A Timeless Strategy for Growing Great Kids, (David C. Cook, January, 2009.) “What we see happening in the world is merely a reflection of what is happening in the church. Most Christian teens succumb to the world and fall away from the Lord by the time they leave home.” According to Josh McDowell Ministries, denominations are seeing anywhere from 69 to 94 percent of teens leave the church after high school.

[…]Statistics show that even children who grow up in Christian homes, go to church on a regular basis, and participate in youth group activities are abandoning their faith at an alarming rate.

Naturally, my approach to fixing this failure of churches and parents is to leverage philosophical theology to define Christian claims and then leverage apologetics to sustain those claims in the public square. I would emphasize mainstream science apologetics in order to do that. As for the problem of young people being uncomfortable with moral judgments, we need to do a better job of explaining to them WHY some things are wrong.

Here are some -isms that the church and parents may want to try to address:

  • postmodernism – the view that truth, especially religious and moral truth, cannot be known
  • relativism – the view that each person defines their own reality by personal preferences
  • pluralism – the view that all religions are basically the same – they make us act good
  • universalism – the view that all religions are valid ways of knowing ultimate reality
  • syncretism – the view that the truth claims of all religions do not conflict

Perhaps we should be focusing more time talking about truth and morality, using reason and evidence. I think that the critical mass of people in the church are against my plan – they have decided that the purpose of Christianity is to make people have happy feelings and to be part of an inclusive community. It’s not clear to me how happy feelings and an inclusive community are related to the goals of the Christian faith, but that’s what people seem to have decided on, anyway. They didn’t ask me, and they don’t ask me.

Apologetics advocacy

Commentary

Interesting exchange with Modern Christian Spinster

25 Comments

I think everyone’s noticed Modern Christian Spinster’s frequent comments disagreeing with me on many things, especially politics, economics and feminism. I am conservative across the board (social, fiscal and foreign policy). I also believe in chastity and traditional marriage.

In another thread, we were discussing traditional morality (e.g. – chastity, sobriety, individual charity), as compared with the new morality (e.g. – recycling, yoga, vegetarianism, same-sex marriage, socialism). She seemed to be very hesitant about making moral judgments, which I take to be central to Christianity because of the whole concept of sin. Suddenly, I began worry that Modern Christian Spinster was not a Christian at all. So I asked her some questions to get her views.

So I wrote this:

Do you think that people who do not believe in Jesus are resurrected to eternal life?

Do you believe in a place called Hell, which is a place of eternal separation from God where people who do not know God in Christ go on the day of Judgment?

Do you think that a conscious, sincere profession of faith in Christ’s atoning sacrifice for sin is a necessary and sufficient condition to be resurrected to eternal life?

And she wrote this in reply:

I believe that life is eternal, the way I believe in mathematics. If you add 2+2 and for you it equals 5 then the principles of mathematics are still in effect, even if you get the wrong answer. So I believe that life is eternal on principle. If you were a miserable SOB in life, dying won’t resolve that for you. You will continue to work out in the afterlife what you didn’t work out on earth. As for people who don’t believe in Jesus, I am constantly surprised by the number of people who DO believe in him. They might be Buddhists, they might be Muslims, but Jesus is actually very well respected among people I talk to, even those of other faiths. So I wouldn’t venture to say whether or not they’re resurrected. I mean, the fact is, after someone is gone, we just don’t know what their journey is. I will say, however, that most people I talk to very much identify with what Jesus stood for, even if they don’t necessarily identify it that way.

I do not believe in a place called hell: I do believe it is a state of consciousness, just as “the kingdom of heaven is within you.” But it’s not a physical place apart from where we already are. I see heaven in places where many other people see purgatory. God to me is everpresent; therefore, I try not to let what my eyes tell me blind me to the fact that he is with me, even in desolate places. I also believe that we cannot ever be separated from God. We may think we are separate, but what we need to handle isn’t real separation but the erroneous belief that we are separate. LIke the story of the Prodigal Son.

I do not share your belief in Christ’s atoning for sin. I don’t see Christ dying for my “sin,” I see his death and resurrection as proof that sin and death can be overcome through complete obedience to God. I’m not sure if that is the same thing as you are saying. But I do not believe man is inherently sinful. However, humanly speaking, there does appear to be a lot of sin in the world. However, it is something not natural to us. Part of the human condition, sure, but I believe that our spiritual identity is our true identity. Not sure if that answers your question. It’s certainly a different point of view.

I thought this was very interesting. She disagrees with me on these three questions. I am not saying this to judge her, she knows where to find me if she wants to talk about it. My advice to her is to take a second look at the Bible and pick a good book on theology, like this one by Wayne Grudem.