Although I don’t mention it often, I have mentioned publicly a number of times through the years that I don’t vote. I recently received a letter from a good friend who has a hard time with me over my position and urged me to rethink it. I promised him and others on a broader basis that I was going to write an article on the topic, and here it is.
As a young person growing up in Louisiana (then a very strongly Democratic leaning state), everyone in my family voted, as did most everyone else I knew. I remember hitting the voting age myself and how much I was looking forward to voting. I was a senior in college when I cast my first presidential vote – for Barry Goldwater in 1964. He carried six states, of which mine was one, the beginning of the turn toward being a Republican state when it came to electing presidents. I remember how immersed I was in that election. I literally had dreams about America going down the tubes unless Barry was elected. I should mention that I was about as far from God at the time as a young person could get.
I remember that many of my relatives and friends of my parents were divided in which political party they favored. But the big difference between then and now is that they could differ and even make jokes and laugh about those differences. For one to say that they were Republican and the other to say that they were Democrat was about like one saying that they were Baptist and the other saying that they were Methodist. Differences, yes. A call to arms, no.
Run the clock forward to our move to Dallas at the end of 2014. In the process of getting new driver’s licenses and other necessary documentation changes, my wife said she wanted to register to vote. I had stopped voting by then, but cheerfully drove her to the place of registration and played games on my phone while she registered. I have never tried to persuade anyone, including my wife, not to vote. I am not writing this article for the purpose of trying to persuade anyone who reads it not to vote. I am just trying to explain carefully, using biblical principles, why I choose to exercise my rights as an American citizen NOT to vote.
Loss of Influence
When we moved to Dallas this time (4th time for me), I was a part-time ministry staff member and still teaching quite a bit. (Now I have been put out to pasture as far as speaking!) Politics had become an increasingly heated topic, and I knew that both the nation and the church were pretty evenly split on party preference. If I publicly identified with either party, I would lose some influence with those on the other side of the political aisle. My spiritual influence is far too important to me to do that. That is one reason why I don’t vote and make that fact known. Influence. Spiritual influence.
The responses to this have been very interesting. Some get emotionally worked up and tell me that I should be voting and fulfilling my “God-given duty!” Wow, just where is that duty described in the Bible? Others would confine it to my duty as an American citizen, but some of those also get worked up about it. I often tell them that they are likely assuming that I am a reasonably intelligent person, and as such, I would vote as they do. But I go on to tell them that if they knew I was going to vote opposite them, in effect cancelling out their vote, they would be glad that I didn’t vote!
Effects on Fellow Disciples
Seeing what getting strongly emotionally involved in politics does to my fellow Christians deserves its own subheading. In the 2016 election, we started reaching the boiling point when Donald and Hillary squared off. I did make the statement in a sermon that one side was saying that the other candidate should be in prison, while the other side was saying that the other candidate should be in a rubber room somewhere. It was quite the atmosphere. Social media comments, from professed Christians, were shocking to me. I finally “defriended” one of my Facebook friends, a very dear personal friend, because he simply refused to contain himself in print. I spoke to one of our mutual friends, who was actually on the same side politically as the defriended, who had done the same. You know what I am talking about, right? Social media can be a very encouraging tool, and it can be a tool of the devil. In the political realm, it is most often the latter.
In my next subpoint, I will attempt to explain why these effects are taking place and hopefully say something helpful. I understand that I am treading on a controversial path, but I am not hesitant to do so if it seems like help is needed. My last book would make that point for me, “The Bible and Women: How Did I Miss So Much?” I believe that topic and the political topic often involve righteousness or a lack thereof.
I understand that present politics is more complicated than I’ve ever seen in my nearly 82 years of life. On the Democratic side, until very recently, you had a candidate who obviously had an age-related issue mentally. Yet, if you believed in the platform issues of the party, what to do? That issue has been settled at least to some degree and yet many of the Democratic persuasion are not too happy with the new candidate. So, in that case, as one of my relatives sometimes said after voting for his party when not liking the candidate, “I held my nose and voted for…!”
We have a similar situation with the Republican party, in that some strongly hold to the platform issues of the party, but don’t like the candidate. Others love the candidate, although I don’t understand that myself, for a number of reasons. But calm down and remember that I ain’t voting or supporting either side. Yet the dilemma is there for those who like the platform and not the candidate. In both parties, millions will vote for their party while “holding their nose” regarding the specific candidate.
But as I dip my toe into the waters of even mentioning the two parties by name, I know that some of you reading this already have elevated blood pressures. That is a second reason why I don’t vote. If it makes those who claim allegiance to Christ react like that, I don’t want to have anything to do with voting. But now, let’s get to the Bible, the Word of Almighty God.
What I Can Know About Satan
The final two subpoints need some careful explaining. A part of my reason for choosing not to vote concerns what I can know about Satan and what I cannot know about God. I know that Satan is a liar and a deceiver, and an absolute master at both. His intent is to divide, destroy and kill. You already know that if you know much about the Bible at all. I don’t need to quote the verses. These facts about him are undisputed by Bible believing people. Paul did say in 2 Corinthians 2:11 that “we are not unaware of his schemes,” referring to Satan. And what was the context? One of trying to make sure brothers and sisters in Christ were not divided. The battle plan of “divide and conquer” was not initially devised by some general on the battlefield. It belongs to Satan. He is constantly devising ways to divide marriages, families, groups of all types, nations and the entire world. He has done a hell of a job, I must say.
He also divides church families and does that astoundingly well – throughout history. He has done it over doctrines, spiritual and non-spiritual practices, leaders, spiritual terminology and this list could go on. In recent years, he added another weapon to his arsenal like never before – politics. I am trying hard to obey this passage and its principles: “Join with me in suffering, like a good soldier of Christ Jesus. 4 No one serving as a soldier gets entangled in civilian affairs, but rather tries to please his commanding officer” (2 Timothy 2:3-4). For that reason, I don’t profess to totally understand what I am about to illustrate here, so bear with me. I simply am not going to get pulled into civilian affairs far enough to understand the nuances of politicized issues.
But here is what I observed during our last election. There were people for and against wearing masks during the Covid pandemic, and there were people for and against being vaccinated for protection against contracting Covid. I don’t know how such a situation developed and what one’s political leaning had to do with it, and I don’t care. I was just shocked that such things could even be connected to politics in the first place.
I have gone “under the knife” for several surgeries in recent years. In every case, all of the medical personnel wore masks for my protection. I know enough about medical history to know that this wasn’t always the case, and it wasn’t that long ago historically when the transmission of germs causing disease wasn’t understood much at all. Doctors would go from one patient to another without ever washing their hands. Thankfully, someone figured out that germs are transmissible and have learned the various ways that certain types of diseases are transmitted.
But somehow the wearing of masks became a political matter, which affected me and others like me. You see, my wife of nearly 60 years has COPD (Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease). She has fought off pneumonia seven times, once in the hospital for over a week. We both have managed to avoid getting Covid. But at age 80, if she gets some sort of serious lung disease, she very likely won’t make it. When we first started back trying to attend church assemblies after the pandemic subsided a bit, most were wearing masks, but those with politically related “Non-mask” convictions (I suppose?) were present also in their designated seating to one side. So here’s what I was thinking. The non-mask people valued their political stance more than the health of people like my wife. Whatever you may think about my observations here, I know what Satan thinks. He is a divider with a capital D.
Then we have the vaccine divide. I remember polio vaccine first being made available. We gladly stood in long lines to eat that little sugar cube with that pink or purple liquid on it. I knew people who died from polio. I was often in high school classes with a girl in an iron lung because of polio. Even back in the late 1950’s, they figured out a way to patch her into the class via a phone line. Her dad was an elder in a local Church of Christ, and her uncle was one of the most famous biblical scholars in that group and in the religious world in general. Oh yes, we were anxious to eat that little sugar cube.
My granddad died at age 30 with a disease that is no longer a threat in the US because of vaccinations against it which became widely available after his death. The 100th anniversary of his death is this coming December 9th. My mother was three years old when he died. One of my uncles was a few months old. My grandmother raised four children through the depression, leaving her and her children emotionally scarred for life. One of those scarred children raised me and left me with some of my own scars. You want to talk vaccinations with me? I have plenty of thoughts about it.
I have often traveled to parts of the world to preach and teach which required various types of vaccinations to enter the country. I used to keep a yellow folded document to show the types and dates of all the shots I took to be able to preach the gospel in those countries. What should I have done? Say, “If you insist on me getting those shots, then you can just stay lost!”
You see, in the past, this stuff wasn’t an issue, certainly not politically. It is possible that some must avoid shots purely for possible health reasons (potential reactions). Although I might not see it as you do in those cases, that is not my issue. My issue is how politics has somehow divided us over things that no one could have possibly imagined a few short years ago. So, does Satan know his stuff? You bet he does. Division, division and more division. This point really is just an illustration of my second subheading – what politics does to people, even those who profess Christ.
As a segue to the next point about not being able to figure out what God is doing, let’s look at another aspect of Satan’s work. He deceives us about ourselves, about our own sins. In a little book of mine (“God, Are We Good?”) written during the pandemic, I examined all of the ways we can sin (words, thoughts, motives, actions, not doing and being what we could do and be). I quoted one theologian who guessed at the number of sins a mature adult might commit in a lifetime, even if they were trying not to. It was predictably a very large number. If Satan can deceive each of us time and time again in order to get us to sin in many different ways, how can you be sure he hasn’t deceived you about your political views? After all, the other half of the population differs from you and both sides have highly intelligent people in them. If Satan is trying to destroy the world, how can you be sure you have all the right views and are not being used by Satan to accomplish purposes you cannot fathom? That leads to the next point quite naturally.
What I Cannot Know About God
Although Satan is far more intelligent than any of us humans, he doesn’t hold a candle to God. Therefore, I can learn more and understand more of Satan’s purposes than I can of God’s. “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD. 9 “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:8-9).
One thing I do know about God is that he is in control of all the nations. Read the following.
Psalm 22:27-28
27 All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the LORD, and all the families of the nations will bow down before him, 28 for dominion belongs to the LORD and he rules over the nations.
Psalm 33:10-11
10 The LORD foils the plans of the nations; he thwarts the purposes of the peoples. 11 But the plans of the LORD stand firm forever, the purposes of his heart through all generations.
Isaiah 40:22-23
22 He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a canopy, and spreads them out like a tent to live in. 23 He brings princes to naught and reduces the rulers of this world to nothing.
Isaiah 40:15
15 Surely the nations are like a drop in a bucket; they are regarded as dust on the scales; he weighs the islands as though they were fine dust.
When you look through the Old Testament, especially the prophets, you find many nations mentioned by name and what God said he was going to do to them and with them. They had no idea. Like our nation and all of the nations of the world right now, their finest and brightest intellectuals were planning and plotting the directions they believed their nations should follow. God was sitting up there (wherever “there” is) and saying, “O yeah? Watch this!” Then he did exactly what he wanted, when he wanted, any way that he wanted, to anyone he wanted, and all of the rulers of the nations and their citizens could do nothing about hindering his plans. Nothing about that has changed from that day until this one. To think otherwise is illustrative of the foolishness of mankind, which the Bible affirms over and over and over. Humans think they are so smart and well informed, but compared to God and his purposes, they are abysmally stupid. We cannot know what God’s plans are for any nation, including our own. Period.
That said, I do know that he will ultimately bring nations down because of their sins. He is astonishingly patient, but nations reach a point in their sinfulness that he takes them out. He always has and always will. The verses quoted above say it plainly. A very interesting verse to me is Genesis 15:16: “In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.” Here God is talking to Abraham about the promise to build a great nation of his descendants and give them a land to inhabit. But he informs Abraham that it will be about four hundred years from then because the Amorite nation hadn’t reached the point of the necessity of being destroyed. So yes, God is patient, but he knows exactly when he is going to destroy any given nation. He knows exactly when he is going to take America down, and he is going to. How could he not, given our constant descent into worse and worse sinfulness at an almost inconceivable rate?
When I was a young preacher, an older preacher named Richard Rogers often made a rather shocking statement. He said, “If God doesn’t punish America for their sins, he is going to owe an apology to Sodom and Gomorrah!” I have repeated that statement many times. However, although it is a clever sounding statement, God can do whatever he wants and knows is best and will never owe anyone an apology. But when I first repeated it fifty plus years ago, I was even then shocked at how fast our nation was departing from biblical principles into the dark night of sin’s degradation. At that point, I could not have envisioned where we are now in sin’s degradation. The sins of a nation are like a snowball going down a hill, getting bigger and going faster as it goes.
When I was yet a young minister, I also heard another quotation, this one about what would most likely bring on the fall of our nation. It involved an immense study of civilizations historically and what their progression of sin in one particular area was like. This study was done by an Oxford social anthropologist named J.D. Unwin, who published his findings in a book entitled, “Sex and Culture.” Although it was more than 600 pages long, Unwin said it was only a summary of his research and that it would have taken seven volumes to fully report all of his findings.
His book was published in 1934 and can be downloaded as a PDF file from the internet. In his book, Unwin examined the data from 86 societies and civilizations to see if there was a relationship between sexual freedom and the flourishing of cultures. It is important to note that Unwin was not a believer. He was not writing from a religious perspective at all, but purely as a social anthropologist researcher. A good summary article can be found at: https://www.kirkdurston.com/blog/unwin
The quotation I heard from Unwin’s findings was that all of these nations fell when their sexual morality (lack thereof) reached the stage that many sexual acts condemned by the Bible were accepted as normal. Although I have not read the long book, other articles I have read about it supported the concept that all sexual activity apart from that between a man and woman married to each other was a part of what led to the downfall of nations, and the more flagrant such activity became, the more certain it was that the nation was nearing its end. The fact that a highly acclaimed non-believer through massive research came to the same conclusions that a Bible believer would imagine to be the case is absolutely astounding! The Bible was not wrong in Proverbs 14:34, “Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin condemns any people.”
Sin at a certain point destroys a nation and sexual sins will play a big role in that destruction, based on Unwin’s research and the history of the 86 nations he researched. The level of sexual sins America has now reached, including many different types of sexual sins, suggests strongly that we are nearing our end as a nation. Sex was created by God and is a beautiful thing – in one setting and one setting only – between a man and a woman married to one another. All other sexual activity is degrading God’s design. I have no question that America is nearing its end, and sexual sins are not the only reason I say that. Satan is a liar and the father of lies, and our nation has reached a point that a popular dictionary (Oxford) labeled the word, “post-truth” as the word of the year in 2016. America is filled with every sin mentioned in the Bible, and the majority of our populace doesn’t even consider most of these as sins, as they have become so widely accepted.
So yes, I believe our nation is nearing its end, and though it is a personal opinion, if true, no human being can know when and how it will occur. God is God and unpredictable. His ways are not our ways and not discernible to us. For example, and this is a most pertinent example in my argument, God has used pagan leaders of nations as his servants – to inflict horrible punishment on his own people. Plus, he has also used pagan leaders of nations as his servants – to bless his own people. You and I cannot know how God is going to use any leader to accomplish his purposes, nor can you know what his purposes are. Let’s look at two of God’s OT “servants.”
Jeremiah 25:9
“I will summon all the peoples of the north and my servant Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon,” declares the LORD, “and I will bring them against this land and its inhabitants and against all the surrounding nations. I will completely destroy them and make them an object of horror and scorn, and an everlasting ruin.”
Nebuchadnezzar was going to be used as God’s servant to punish his own people, and when you read the details of what that destruction was going to include, it was indeed punishment of the most horrific kind. God will not hide his just nature in a corner for you or for our nation, although his incredible patience sometimes makes you think he has. Judgment always comes when repentance doesn’t. And sin can reach the point where repentance is simply too late to avoid the consequences of sin. On a corporate level, you can look at the people of Noah’s day. No doubt people were banging on the side of the ark as the water rose, begging for entrance. No doubt parents were holding up their babies, begging Noah to at least take them. The answer was no —they had sinned away the day of grace.
On an individual level, the same result can occur. Take a look at Esau’s case.
Hebrews 12:16-17
See that no one is sexually immoral, or is godless like Esau, who for a single meal sold his inheritance rights as the oldest son. 17 Afterward, as you know, when he wanted to inherit this blessing, he was rejected. Even though he sought the blessing with tears, he could not change what he had done.
On the other side of the coin, pagan rulers also served as God’s servants, blessing the people of God in quite unexpected and amazing ways.
Ezra 1:1-3
In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, in order to fulfill the word of the LORD spoken by Jeremiah, the LORD moved the heart of Cyrus king of Persia to make a proclamation throughout his realm and also to put it in writing: 2 “This is what Cyrus king of Persia says: “ ‘The LORD, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and he has appointed me to build a temple for him at Jerusalem in Judah. 3 Any of his people among you may go up to Jerusalem in Judah and build the temple of the LORD, the God of Israel, the God who is in Jerusalem, and may their God be with them.
As you continue to read this passage, Cyrus was beyond kind to the people of God, offering them gifts and protection as they traveled back to their homeland to rebuild in preparation for the ultimate coming of the Messiah. The Jews of that day must have been shocked at what happened. The Jews who were destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar’s armies would not have believed in advance that they, the very people of God, would be so harshly treated at the hands of their God.
All of this should illustrate the opening point of this section about God’s utter unpredictability. I can know a lot more about Satan’s purposes and schemes than I can about God’s. How God might choose to use an American president is only a guess. Could he use one of either party for his purposes to bless us? Yes. Could he use one of either party to severely discipline US inhabitants? Yes. Can you or I know who and how any of these answers might play out any more than those of history could know in their nations? No.
Bottom line, God knows exactly what he is going to do in and with America, and he ain’t telling. But some of you have it all figured out, do you? HaHaHaHaHaHaHa! Thanks for the laugh. I needed one about now. This is heavy stuff to me. The only thing I can think to do about the whole arena of politics is what God clearly said to do, and here that is.
Titus 3:1-2
Remind the people to be subject to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready to do whatever is good, 2 to slander no one, to be peaceable and considerate, and always to be gentle toward everyone.
1 Timothy 2:1-3
I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people – 2 for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. 3 This is good, and pleases God our Savior,
You have the choice to vote or not vote. You don’t need anyone’s permission to vote and I don’t need anyone’s permission nor forgiveness for not voting. And I am not. My only hope in these troubled times is God and I am confident that earnest, urgent prayers will weigh far more heavily than my vote might. End of story. Cheers!
As I have written elsewhere, I believe scripture is best viewed as a guide that leads us Christ, rather than as a rulebook to be uncritically applied to any and every context. I also am convinced that even the best of Christian traditions is full of failures and missteps. I believe that one of the core strengths of Christianity is the ability to change and adapt to ever-changing situations. If I am correct in these assumptions, then what do we do with this passage from Paul?
Now I exhort you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all say the same thing and there not be divisions among you, and that you be made complete in the same mind and with the same purpose. (1 Corinthians 1:10, LEB)
How can Paul say that we ought to all say “the same thing” and have no divisions if Christianity is able to tolerate and even thrive with differences? How can both be true? Does this passage prohibit variations of doctrine and practice in Christianity? As always, we should start with an exposition of the scripture in its context.
First, let’s take a look at the context of 1 Corinthians 1:10. First Corinthians is a letter, a letter to a specific church, addressing specific problems in that church. Paul does mention things that perhaps ought to be taken in an objective or universal way, but when this happens it is incidental to the purpose of the book. The purpose is to address particular subjective problems in the Corinthian church, and this is how we ought to read it. Another aspect of reading First Corinthians as a letter is the acknowledgement that we are reading one side of the conversation, not both sides. In the NAB study Bible, it offers this description of 1 Corinthians and the problems Paul is addressing therein:
While Paul was in Ephesus on his third journey (1 Cor. 16:8; Acts 19:1-20), he received disquieting news about Corinth. The community there was displaying open factionalism, as certain members were identifying themselves exclusively with individual Christian leaders and interpreting Christian teaching as a superior wisdom for the initiated few (1:10, 4-21)… In the celebration of the Eucharist certain members discriminated against others, drank too freely at the agape, or fellowship, meal, and denied Christian social courtesies to the poor among the membership. (Notes on 1 Cor 11:17-22, NAB)
So, the reason for Paul’s statement that the Corinthian church “agree with another” is about division through following various personalities instead of uniting around discipleship to Christ. Ironically, taking this statement in a woodenly literal fashion leads us to do exactly the opposite of what Paul is insisting upon. When we must literally “agree on everything” we inevitably end up gathering around one leader’s interpretation of Jesus’ words rather than moving towards Jesus as a community with our different strengths and weaknesses.
Paul speaks to this same issue later in 1 Corinthians when he talks about food sacrificed to idols in chapter eight. When it comes to eating the food in the meat market, Paul does not say that everyone must “agree” on whether eating meat sacrificed to idols is good or bad. Rather, he brings it back to the question of whether one is putting themselves first or last, if the optics of eating food sacrificed to idols will lead someone else to sin (1 Cor 8:4-13).
Later, he speaks to the importance of prioritizing love above being right. (1 Cor. 10:23-33). Paul lays out his own position that everything in the meat market can be eaten without raising questions of conscience (10:25), but he then says that if someone brings up that the meat was offered in sacrifice don’t eat it for the sake of the other person’s conscience (10:28-29).
In 1 Corinthians 9:19-23, Paul states that he considers the differences of those he interacts with and tailors his way of behaving to each situation. The statement “Agree on everything” then cannot be made to fit everyone into certain personalities, leanings, or uniformity. Unity is not the same thing as uniformity to Paul! And in 9:24-27, Paul uses sports images to talk about self-renunciation, and disciplining himself to consider the needs of others before himself. Paul’s self-discipline is always others-centered, always for the sake of others and putting himself last.
In all this, it is the Corinthians’ self-centeredness that, in Paul’s view, makes them overconfident about their own salvation (I Cor 10:1-13). Paul then brings his point back to how wide the “permissiveness” of the law is for Christians (10:23), but reminds them that everyone should seek his brother’s good.
In other words, the law of love is a better guide to Christian conduct than universal laws that are binding on all Christians for all time. Thus, the goal of unity from 1 Corinthians 1:10 is unity-in-diversity rather than uniformity as we all aim towards the image of Christ.
Introduction to this Essay Series
C.S. Lewis, who was no stranger to tragedies in his life once wrote “Grief is like a long valley, a winding valley where any bend may reveal a totally new landscape.”
My life experienced a tragedy on March 30, 2009, when our middle child, Scott, was involved in a near fatal motorcycle accident. The accident was marked as a fatality, but God had other plans for Scott. God had other plans for me as well. Scott was in a coma for 5 months, and will be in rehabilitation for the rest of his life with a traumatic brain injury.
I have been journaling my experiences, feelings, and thoughts for over 15 years. While not everyone thankfully will be affected with a similar tragedy, God has taught me numerous lessons that I pray will help you during difficult times. Jesus said in John 16:33, “I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.” The road of life takes many interesting turns. We can either learn from them or ignore the lessons. I am trying to learn the lessons and hope these lessons encourage you.
I Just Want to Hear Your Voice – Episode 1
The call came that no parent ever wants to answer. I was in my office on March 30, 2009, and at 4:30 p.m., someone called me out of the meeting I was in, saying that I had a call from the main switchboard about my son. I glanced down at my cellphone and saw that I had received a number of calls on it, but I had silenced it because I was in a meeting. As I looked more closely at my phone, I saw that two very good friends had called me. I wondered what the problem was and then I received a call from my wife Peggy. She said, “Dave, Scott was in a very serious motorcycle accident, and they’ve marked it as a fatality. He’s been airlifted to a hospital, but we don’t know which one.”
Emotional Shock Wave
Immediately panic, concern, fear, and every other emotion that you can imagine came through my mind. But then my fatherly instincts kicked in, and I immediately started calling police stations to find out where he had been taken. After about 30 minutes, I found out that he was at the Atlanta Medical Center in downtown Atlanta. His accident happened in Marietta and so I assumed that he had been taken to one of the local hospitals. I believe it was the Cobb County police who told me that for extremely bad accidents he would need to go to a level one trauma center, and the only ones were Atlanta Medical Center and Grady Memorial Hospital. I called Grady first and then Atlanta Medical Center, and he was there.
I remember driving down to the hospital during rush hour, praying and begging God that he was OK. I was praying for a miracle and voiced prayers that only a mother or father prays during a time like this. This came so out of the blue. I had just seen him before I left for work. He was going to study the Bible with a friend and then going to work out with another friend. How can this be? “Dear God, this makes no sense. He was just trying to live for you.”
I was not able to see him immediately because of the seriousness of his situation, but later in the evening, the doctors came out to see Peggy and me. We had driven there separately, and the doctor did not have very good news. He said our son had a broken clavicle, a broken nose and was internally bleeding profusely. He said they were trying to stop the bleeding, but whether he would live was very much in question. The feeling a parent has at such a moment was the worst gut punch I have ever received in my life, and I have had many.
After two days of not knowing whether he was going to live or die, another surgeon came out and said they had found the bleeding. “It was in the rear part of his spleen,” he said, “and we took out his spleen, and we believe we stopped the bleeding.” He had multiple tubes in his body and had been put in a medically induced coma. I can’t tell you the despair and pain that I felt. The worst feeling was the hopelessness of being totally out of control. His life was purely in the hands of God. We prayed, and we prayed, and we prayed. Those nights were agonizing.
An Emotional Roller Coaster
During the first evening and night, many. many of our Christian friends and some of my friends from work started coming to the hospital. They offered so much comfort and so much emotional relief and yet there’s nothing anyone can say or do to remove that gut wrenching pain and fear of a parent. We are so grateful to the North River Church, my friends there and those from my workplace at the time, Habitat for Humanity International, who came to offer comfort. We spent three nights in the surgical waiting room near the intensive care area and waited and prayed.
My pain became anger: anger at God, anger at the situation, which drove me to ask the two questions that we always seem to ask in the situation: “Dear God, Scott is a Christian, he’s a good man, why him?” I then started asking God, “What is the purpose in this, what do you want to teach me? What do I need to learn?” I’ve always trusted the grace of God; I’ve always trusted the power of God, but something like this can just throw everything I thought I knew about the power of God out the window, and yet God never left us. I knew that God was there; I knew that God had lost his Son, and I knew that God understood the feelings that we were having. Although that was my greatest comfort, I still vacillated between despair, anger, fear, faithlessness, courage, hopelessness, worry and so many other emotions.
A New Opportunity
After two weeks, Scott physically stabilized (he would live…prayers answered) but continued to be in a coma. We heard from a neurologist that multiple brain scans showed that his brain was not working properly. He had sustained a Traumatic Brain Injury. In cases like this, no one can tell what the extent of that injury was. We would have to determine the damage only by what he was able to do, if and when he “woke up.” He would most likely never return to “normal”, but would he permanently remain in a vegetative state, would he ever walk, would he ever talk, would he even be able to recognize us?
We heard about an amazing brain injury hospital in Atlanta called The Shepherd Center. There was not much more that the Atlanta Medical Center could do for him, so we prayed that we could transfer him to this rehabilitation center we had discovered. We worked with the Shepherd Center intake team, and they accepted him to be transferred. (Prayers answered again.) He spent over three months in Shepherd hospital. The first two weeks there he barely opened his eyes. There was no response.
I remember praying to God about how much I loved his laugh and how much I loved his jokes and how much I loved having fun talks with him. I remember praying to God, “Please let me hear his voice again. It doesn’t have to be spectacular. He doesn’t even have to put words together. I just want to hear him. I just want him to be able to respond to me, whether by voice, touch or smile – just some reaction that acknowledges he sees or hears me.” Yet there was nothing. The weeks turned into a couple of months, and one of the fallacies that people think is that when a person goes into a coma, they suddenly wake up and everything’s okay. He was in my world completely, but I was not in his world. He couldn’t squeeze my hand. He couldn’t follow any commands; his eyes just looked straight ahead. I continued the prayer, “Lord please help him to understand that I am his father. I just want him to communicate with me even if it’s just by blinking his eyes or squeezing my hand.” I love him so much and I just wanted him to communicate with me.
After a few weeks, he would follow people in the room slowly with his eyes. I would smile at him, talk to him and touch him, but there was no reaction. I would look at my son, the young man whom I spent 20 years nurturing and raising and enjoying life with, and that same young man would just stare at me with no reaction or acknowledgment that I was in the room with him. I can’t tell you what it’s like to see your son listless, motionless and unresponsive. I was with Scott. I could see him. I could touch him. And yet no acknowledgment of me or anyone was occurring. I would stop by the hospital before work, and I would pray, “God, let today be the day he speaks. Let me see an acknowledgment. Let me hear his voice just a little bit and again it doesn’t need to be anything profound, just a touch, just to squeeze my hand, a smile, and if possible, some words.” But there was nothing.
I would come back from the office and pray for the same thing, yet nothing happened day after day, month after month. I prayed the same prayer and yet it remained the same unanswered prayer. As I looked at Scott day after day after day and would look into his eyes, it was almost like I could look directly into his spirit as if I could see the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. I knew that the Holy Spirit dwelling within him was still alive and vibrant and that I could communicate with Him, and believe me, I was communicating with Him so much. Yet from Scott’s physical body, I heard nothing back – no acknowledgement, no smile, no words, no touch.
God’s Heart for Us
I then realized a very profound mystery of God. You see, I had a son whom I loved so much, but he didn’t acknowledge me. He wouldn’t speak to me. He wouldn’t touch me. He wouldn’t smile at me. Scott was fully in my world, but I was not in his. I realized how God looks at me as a son. Just like I spent hours and hours and hours in Scott’s room, hoping for some kind of acknowledgment, God sees us every day and what does he want from us? He loves us so much and he’s looking at us. He’s in our room and yet when we don’t pray, when we don’t talk to Him, when we don’t acknowledge Him, we are breaking his heart because he wants to hear our voice, He wants our acknowledgment of him. How selfish it is for us not to acknowledge the Creator of the universe. To not acknowledge the God who gave his only Son for our salvation, for our joy and our peace in this lifetime must be so painful to our Creator. It must break his heart. Just like it didn’t matter to me what Scott said or how he communicated, but only that he let me know that I was in his world, our God wants us to acknowledge him. I can’t imagine how God must feel when we go day after day after day without prayer, without just acknowledgement of our Father, without thanking him for the nature that he provided us, the lives he provided us, and most importantly, without thanking Him for the salvation that cost Him so dearly.
As you go about your day, your heavenly Father is in your room, in your car, in your house, in your workplace, while you’re sleeping, while you’re awake, and like a father or mother to their child, he wants to hear from us. Our prayers do not have to be anything profound; he just wants to hear from us. Prayer took on a whole new meaning for me. Prayer is not simply asking for things. Prayer is not simply using God as a Santa Claus – “I’ll do this if you do that for me”. The God of the universe wants a relationship with us. He shows us his love every day. He shows us how much he cares about us every day. When we pray, do we talk to him as a father, as a son talks to his earthly father? Remember how much God loves you and remember he just wants to hear from you. We are totally in his world; Is He totally in your world? He just wants to hear your voice.
Recently, Jeanie Shaw published her doctoral dissertation in edited book format, “Re-Examining Our Lenses,” and I have published my book, “The Bible and Women: How Did I Miss So Much.” These books both deal with similar topics, topics which are both complex and controversial. Thus, they are sure to provoke interest and discussion. In the midst of these discussions, you are likely to hear the term, “sound doctrine.” Of course, many Bible translations use this term, but for reasons I will note in a few moments, I think the translation is misfortunate and misleading.
Throughout my years in ministry, I have heard the term “sound doctrine” assigned to a category all its own, distinguishing it from “disputable matters” (Romans 14:1, NIV), called matters of “opinion” in the NASB, and also from what we often call “salvation issues.” One may assign “sound doctrine” to its own separate category, but a closer examination will show that such cannot be substantiated logically. The implication is that items in this category are far too important to be viewed as mere opinion matters and yet, not quite certain enough to demand that they fall into the area of salvation issues which could cause you to lose your soul. However, in my decades of experience in churches with a Restoration background, areas designated as sound doctrine are often applied in ways that strongly imply that such teachings could be salvation issues.
Romans 14 Examined Contextually
Let’s start by taking a closer look at what Paul placed into the area of disputable or opinion matters in Romans 14. These are not incidental matters of their day that we might compare to matters in our day such as movies with ratings our conscience allows or disallows us to watch, or whether we feel that we can or cannot drink alcohol. Far from it. He is discussing areas that fall within Jewish practices, notably eating meat which might have been sacrificed to idols and observing special days of the Jewish religion. That is the context of the entire book of Romans, how the Mosaic Law related to the new covenant for both Jewish and Gentile Christians. Paul is certainly not addressing nor condoning any activities or customs in pagan religions. Romans 14 addressed issues that could have divided the first century church into two separate churches, Jew and Gentile. These issues, like some of ours, were both complex and controversial.
Acts 2 ushered in the beginning of the new covenant of Christ. The Christian Age had begun. The Law of Moses had been fulfilled and was no longer the standard of authority for anyone, Jew or Gentile. But Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians had a different relationship to the Law. It was ingrained into the Jewish culture. The moral laws of the Old Testament were restated in the New Testament. The ceremonial laws could be observed as customs by the Jews but could not be viewed as necessary for their salvation. Although that must have been a thin line to walk, passages like Acts 18 and 21 show its reality among Christian Jews. For example, Paul took a vow and cut off his hair as noted in Acts 18:18 (similar to the Nazarite vow found in Numbers 6). When he reached Jerusalem, he met with James and the elders, and rather shockingly, James had this to say:
20 When they heard this, they praised God. Then they said to Paul: “You see, brother, how many thousands of Jews have believed, and all of them are zealous for the law. 21 They have been informed that you teach all the Jews who live among the Gentiles to turn away from Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children or live according to our customs. 22 What shall we do? They will certainly hear that you have come,
While these passages show that Jewish Christians were observing Mosiac laws as customs, many other passages could be cited showing that trusting observance of the Law for salvation or binding it on others, Jew or Gentile, was strictly forbidden. Regarding Gentiles, Acts 15 shows that they were never to be burdened with any aspect of Judaism, customs or otherwise.
This Acts 15 setting described a meeting of apostles and elders, along with the church at some points, which carried huge implications. Paul and Barnabas had done battle in Antioch with Jewish Christians who were binding the Law on Gentiles as a matter of salvation (circumcision in particular). During the discussion in the Jerusalem council, Peter could not have been clearer when he said: “Now then, why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of Gentiles a yoke that neither we nor our ancestors have been able to bear? 11 No! We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are” (Acts 15:10-11).
Soon after the apostles’ testimonies, James brought the discussion to a decision regarding Gentiles with these words: “It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God. 20 Instead we should write to them, telling them to abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals and from blood.” Any attempt in that day or ours to bind any aspect of Judaism on Gentiles necessitates a denial of the obvious. Any claim that those early Jewish Christians were to rely on keeping the OT Law for salvation is in direct conflict with the entire books of Galatians and Romans and many other passages in the epistles.
That said, Jewish Christians had the option of continuing to observe as customs certain aspects of the Law. My opinion is that a total rejection of all aspects of their historical culture would have been too much to bear all at once, and so God provided a transitionary period for continuing to practice at least some of their more entrenched cultural traditions. I believe Hebrews 8:13 refers to this transition period which was about to end. “By calling this covenant ‘new,’ he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and outdated will soon disappear.” The Jewish religion was at its foundation a sacrificial system. Once the temple was destroyed in AD70, forever ending those sacrifices and other temple practices, the whole obsolete and outdated system was nearing its God ordained disappearance.
However, until that happened, issues especially among Jewish Christians (which likely included proselytes and God Fearers – Gentiles who had followed the Jewish faith without becoming full proselytes, likely more men than women for obvious reasons) had differences in how they observed those continuing customs. Romans 14 addresses two issues that had come to the forefront – observance of Jewish holy days and eating meat that might have been sacrificed to idols. Paul begins by addressing the latter. Those whose faith was weak ate only vegetables, evidently fearing that meat bought in public markets may have been sacrificed to idols first. Paul addresses this issue in more detail in 1 Corinthians 8-10, which shows it was a big issue in the early church. He ends up by saying something similar to, “don’t ask, don’t tell.” If you didn’t know where the meat came from, just eat it. If you do find out its origin was from an idol sacrifice, avoid it and let the issues of example and influence on others carry the day.
My point with this rather lengthy explanation is to show that the issues addressed in Romans 14, matters of opinion, were not minor ones by any means. Yet, as serious as they were, they could not be bound as matters of salvation. Differences in consciences and choices were to be accepted without passing judgment on one another. Do you really believe that women’s role issues are more significant in our day than those issues were in Paul’s day? That is my bottom-line application here. So-called doctrinal issues don’t become salvation issues unless they affect our view of, and allegiance to, Jesus as Lord and Savior, with our lives demonstrating that devotion to him.
So where did the idea of sound doctrine come from? In short, a pattern theology approach to hermeneutics, faulty translations of two Greek terms and our traditions of having too many focuses on theological issues rather than on Jesus. If all of the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden in Jesus (Colossians 2:3), don’t you think most of our study and teaching should be centered on him rather than on so-called issues of “sound doctrine?” Even feeling the need to ask the question hurts my heart. Maybe the following excerpt from my recent book will help us begin to focus on a better path and free up our women to fully join us on it.
Translations of the New Testament Didn’t Help
In what we call the Pastoral Epistles (1 & 2 Timothy and Titus), Paul addresses numerous false teachings. He informed his younger proteges how to handle these teachings and those who taught them. One of the unfortunate translations of terminology found often in these three letters to evangelists paved the way to an increasing emphasis on what we often call “doctrinal matters” or “theological matters.” I refer to the term sound doctrine. This very theologically sounding term became one of the most used when debating what should and shouldn’t be a part of the pattern to follow. Debates in print and in person were in vogue as leaders argued about various aspects of the so-called “pattern,” hence the term “pattern theology.”
If one sees sound doctrine as strict adherence to all theological doctrines in the New Testament, matters of interpretation become more of a focus than Jesus or the Christian life. Here are a few passages from the Pastoral letters using this term, taken here from the New American Standard Bible, one of the most accurate translations from Greek to English (with emphases added).
1 Timothy 4:6 — In pointing out these things to the brethren, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, constantly nourished on the words of the faith and of the sound doctrine which you have been following.
2 Timothy 4:3 — For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires,
Titus 1:9 — holding fast the faithful word which is in accordance with the teaching, so that he will be able both to exhort in sound doctrine and to refute those who contradict.
Why is this translation both inaccurate and misleading? The word translated “sound,” hugiainô, is translated every time in the Pastorals this way in the NASB, and yet the word itself means “healthy.” Hence, sound teaching is teaching that makes one spiritually healthy. It is translated better in other passages. For example, here are two, also from the NASB.
Luke 5:31 — And Jesus answered and said to them, “It is not those who are well who need a physician, but those who are sick.”
3 John 1:2 — Beloved, I pray that in all respects you may prosper and be in good health, just as your soul prospers.
The word “doctrine,” didaskalia, is translated as such 9 of 15 times in the Pastorals in the NASB. The Cambridge English Dictionary defines doctrine as “a belief or set of beliefs, especially political or religious ones, that are taught and accepted by a particular group.” When you are indoctrinated with an approach to interpretation with its foundation in pattern theology, sound doctrine will come to mean a type of important or essential theological doctrines, and much will fall into the category of salvation essentials. When doctrine is exalted to such a status, it can be shocking to see what will be included under the banner of salvation matters. It is, in fact, quite shocking when you study the history of the Restoration Movement. But this word “doctrine” in the Greek is simply the normal word for teaching. Sound doctrine is healthy teaching, no more and no less.
Matters of Opinion
I have defined this phrase for years in ways like this, for I know no other way to practically define it. “When good brothers and sisters who believe the Scriptures to be God’s inspired word and have studied a topic in detail, yet come to different conclusions and applications, that alone puts it squarely into the realm of disputable or opinion matters.” Obviously, women and their church roles (and maybe home roles) cannot fit elsewhere. Inventing a category called sound doctrine solves nothing. For those in our movement prior to 1994, sound doctrine involving women issues dictated that in church assemblies, they could sing and nothing more. Then in the mid-1990s, sound doctrine included women part-singing in front of the church, serving as ushers, sharing publicly in various settings (as long as they were accompanied and “led” by a man), and baptizing other women with whom they had studied.
Now, sound doctrine has expanded to have women speaking alone in conference classes and similar settings – as long as it isn’t in a Sunday assembly. To me, making a difference in a Sunday assembly or an assembly on another day of the week is strange. All are assembled worship gatherings. But for now, some insist we must hold on to our present sound doctrine (which will continue to change)! Trust me, most of the issues surrounding what women can do in church services on any day of the week is quite comparable to the statement made by the writer of Hebrews in 8:13 – what is outdated and obsolete will soon disappear.
A Term of Intimidation?
From my own extensive background in three segments of the Restoration Movement, sound doctrine terminology is all too familiar to me. Sound doctrine, sound preachers, and sound churches were common nomenclature, usually presented in question format. (Is he a sound preacher; is that a sound church?) In my earliest church experience, it was taught that only one cup was to be used in communion, passed around to the whole assembly to drink from. After all, the gospels say that Jesus took the “cup,” not the “cups.” This was in the minds of some of our members clearly a salvation issue, as were many other components of agreed upon sound doctrine. Though all agreed that issues like this one and the use of instrumental music in worship were in the realm of sound doctrine, not all agreed that they were salvation issues, although many did. At best, they were said to not be biblically supported and thus “might” be salvation issues, putting our souls at possible risk.
So why was sound doctrine a term of intimidation? The items that fit into this category were highly important matters to those holding these views, and they were described in ways that introduced doubt about whether they fit into the salvation issues category. Thus, when asked if a given practice did fit into that category, responses often included those like the following:
“Well, I am going to take the infallibly safe way and not risk my soul by using multiple cups (or instrumental music, or whatever else the issue was).”
“Your church can do what the leaders decide, but I could never do that and take a chance on missing heaven. It’s just not that important to me.”
“God did warn us about becoming progressive and not taking the ancient paths. I’m going to stick with the old ways that I know are safe. That’s what I read in Jeremiah 6:16 – “This is what the LORD says: ‘Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls.’”
“All I know for sure it that Jesus described a narrow way and a broad way, saying that most end up on the broad way that leads to destruction. Why change from what we know is right?”
I found it quite interesting that in one presentation I heard addressing women’s roles, in which sound doctrine was declared to be a separate category from opinion matters and salvation matters, this assumed category was introduced with this passage:
“Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers” (1 Timothy 4:16).
How does this describe doctrinal issues and not salvation issues, based on its very wording? Since a number of passages use the term “sound doctrine,” was the choice to use this to describe the women’s role accidental? Perhaps. Bottom line, what a female does in a church service, on a Sunday or any other day, is by my definition an opinion issue. If it is not that, then at best it puts those who allow women broader participation in the church at risk spiritually. If this is the case, then those who oppose it dogmatically and forcefully use intimidation tactics, which constitutes a type of judging. Some reminders from Romans 14 seem most appropriate.
3 The one who eats everything must not treat with contempt the one who does not, and the one who does not eat everything must not judge the one who does, for God has accepted them. 4 Who are you to judge someone else’s servant? To their own master, servants stand or fall. And they will stand, for the Lord is able to make them stand.
10 You, then, why do you judge your brother or sister? Or why do you treat them with contempt? For we will all stand before God’s judgment seat.
13 Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in the way of a brother or sister. 14 I am convinced, being fully persuaded in the Lord Jesus, that nothing is unclean in itself. But if anyone regards something as unclean, then for that person it is unclean. 15 If your brother or sister is distressed because of what you eat, you are no longer acting in love. Do not by your eating destroy someone for whom Christ died.
Example, Influence, Stumbling and Grumbling
Paul does go on to elaborate on how we must be careful with our influence. It is a matter of great importance, no doubt. However, in my former background, the emphasis that we should not do anything that would cause our brothers and sisters to stumble through our example led to misapplications of these passages. The appeal to try something new or different was often met with the strong admonition that we mustn’t cause anyone to stumble. Many good ideas were thus blocked, usually by those in the older crowd more prone to keeping the traditions.
In the context of Romans 14, stumble means to fall away, to have one’s faith destroyed (Romans 14:15). He is talking about causing someone to stumble, not simply grumble. Notice also that it was the weak ones in danger of stumbling and not the strong ones, yet the latter were the ones who were most apt to speak up strongly and often impose their will on others.
If we understand the historical and cultural contexts of Romans 14, we then realize how big these issues actually were. If we had adopted an erroneous application of Paul’s principle here to avoid causing the traditionalists to grumble, we would all still be drinking out of one cup and never hearing a guitar as we worshipped in song. As important as influence and example are, to restrict women’s participation in any way that Paul himself did not is traditionalism, pure and simple. The churches he spoke about had women exercising spiritual gifts, including speaking publicly on Sundays (1 Corinthians 11). The fact that local customs rightly affected what they wore while doing so didn’t affect the fact that they did it. Such was foretold in Joel 2 and Acts 2 and occurred as promised. Now that is what I call sound doctrine – healthy teaching indeed!
When I wrote the first part of what is now becoming a series, I intended for it to generate discussion and responses. To some degree, it has done that. Nearly all of the responses I’ve received directly have been quite positive, by the way, with a few exceptions of course. However, from what I sense and hear about, I think one of the responses has been, not surprisingly, similar to responses generated by my articles addressing another type of systemic issue, that of unconscious racial prejudice. So, how are the responses similar? Avoidance, with the hope that the discussions will simply die down quickly and disappear. They won’t. Our younger generations (and many of their parents, by the way) simply won’t let that happen.
One of my advisors for this article is a very impressive young woman who just began her college career in an Ivy League school. She gave me this feedback: “My one suggestion would be to possibly include some of the positive reactions you received to the first article. I think many people don’t understand how big of a deal it was to so many women for you to say those things. I think it could help some of the older generation understand how deeply our hearts yearn for change and how strong our desires for validation are.” (I will let her speak for all the others – and there have been many.) What that in mind, I will do my best to keep all prejudices and biases of which we are generally unaware (unless we are the object of them) exposed on a consistent basis, at least the ones most pertinent to church life. They are hurting individuals within our fellowship and they are a hindrance to our effectiveness in reaching the lost. If we address them and change what needs changing, they can be a genuine catalyst for growth.
In this article, due to the length of material I want to ultimately include, I am going to limit my observations to the main things I am seeing, hearing and hearing about in response to addressing this topic. By far, the biggest needs to explore further fall within two basic areas. They will each be explored in two separate articles in the near future. One is the identity and relationship of leadership roles and authority. We are yet a long way from understanding this topic, and unless we understand the finer points of this one, we will not be able to make the needed progress in the realm of women leadership.
The other most pressing topic is that of understanding the importance of the cultural settings in place when the NT was written, and from there, what those cultural scenarios were and how they influenced the content we are reading 2000 years later. I made a statement in my first article that I believed was very fundamental, but I now view it as even more important to our continuing discussion. Here’s the statement: “The real estate world tells us that the three most important things in their realm are location, location and location. Similarly, the world of proper hermeneutics tells us that the three most important things in biblical interpretation are context, context and context.”
In that upcoming article on contextual considerations, I will include quotes from highly respected biblical scholars that will at least get us closer to seeing why and how these issues demand our attention. Prior to sharing those, we will have to deal with the topic of simplistic, flawed approaches to biblical interpretation that selectively choose which contextual issues to seriously consider and which to ignore. These fall within the realm of explicit and implicit sexist biases – which I will now take a moment to define more broadly.
Terminology Clarification
In my first article, I described “systemic” in this way as it related especially to racial issues: “Calling anything systemic simply means that it so stamped in our psyche that we have it without being aware of it. In that sense it is somewhat like carrying a virus or having something embedded in our DNA string that may be unseen – until it becomes seen.” My good friend and wordsmith par excellence, Tom Jones, offered an observation regarding my use of terminology. He pointed out that technically, systemic refers to something system-wide (our whole society in this case), whereas “implicit bias” more accurately describes unconscious biases, expectations, or tendencies that exist within an individual. Of course, biases accompanied by ill-will or self-aware prejudices fall into the realm of explicit (intended) bias whereas the unconscious type are implicit.
To say that racism is systemic is to say that it is found throughout our system – in business, in education, in criminal justice, basically everywhere so that a person is affected it by it wherever they turn – not simply that it is something people are doing unconsciously or without awareness. However, I believe that we can for the sake of simplicity tie systemic and implicit bias together and legitimately say that that implicit bias is systemic in our society. It is in that sense that I have used the term systemic and will continue to do so, including in my references to gender bias and sexism. But for those who might aware of and interested in more technically accurate terminology, I include this brief explanation. With that now clarified, let’s move to the more practical examinations and applications toward which this present article is aimed.
Responses and Concerns Prompted by Our Discussion
Several things have become more obvious through the responses and questions I have received after teaching on and writing about male/female role relationships. One already mentioned is that we are indeed painfully unaware of cultural contexts of the first century in which the books of the New Testament were written. Some of that lack of awareness is simply due to not yet being exposed to its importance and its content. However, some of that lack is related to a faulty approach to hermeneutics (biblical interpretation) – and in some cases, that flawed approach is deliberately chosen to apparently avoid having our traditional interpretations questioned. Due to underlying explicit and implicit gender biases, males can be curiously disturbed by delving into this area. That issue I will address in much more detail in a later article, for it is a scary one and a dangerous one. All I can figure out is that somehow it threatens our manhood and brings the insecurities out of our carefully locked and guarded emotional closets.
Area #2
A second area of awareness based on responses that I have received is that far too many of us seem almost incapable (at this point) of considering any type of leadership role without reading a worldly concept of authority into it. In my book, “Dynamic Leadership,” my first chapter was devoted to trying to help us distinguish roles and functions from positions and offices. Whether that had much effect I don’t know, but I do know that our worldly concepts are nearly impossible to shed, no matter what Jesus said and demonstrated about them. Our years in the world, with all of our experiences therein, established and reinforced our views of leadership and authority.
Then, in our earlier history as a church movement, we were led by a Navy Admiral’s son. In his attempts to tie his work in Boston to the so-called beginning of our movement, he prided himself in establishing what he (and then we) called “ordered” discipleship partner relationships. These were purposely designed to replace those previously called “prayer partners” relationships. The latter type provided a very reasonable approach to helping implement the many “one another/each other” directives in the New Testament. The former type provided Satan with an opportunity to promote the abuse of authority through these “one-over-another” relationship pairings.
In my opinion, this authoritarian approach to discipling ended up almost being the death knell of discipling, or nearly so. To me, this is beyond sad, for the biblical concept of discipling is what drew me into this movement in the first place, and a concept without which I do not believe that the evangelism of the world can be accomplished. The decline (near-demise?) of true discipling and our falling growth rate have tracked together, say what you want. Unbiblical, damaging discipleship (and the resultant absence of the right kind) is not the only thing on the list of what has negatively affected our growth, but I would put it at the top of the list – and almost everything else on that list is inseparably tied to the sins and failures of leadership. We must develop a much better understanding of Golden Rule leadership if we are to reverse some trends that badly need reversing. When we do broaden this understanding, the women’s role is going to end up inseparably connected to it.
Area #3
A third area that has become more apparent is that far too many of us are lazy – and careless as a result. We don’t like to dig into deeper issues. We don’t even like to read anything that is not quickly and easily understood. Our younger generations raised in the electronic age can be especially guilty of this, although many of them are indeed avid readers and students – in and out of classrooms. Others of their peers don’t read much unless forced to in school or jobs – they love Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and other forms of social media platforms. They can handle a reasonably short You Tube video addressing serious topics, but if the time length indicator registers more than 10 minutes, they will hit the start arrow button reluctantly, if at all. The idea of digging into more technical writing almost causes them to hyper-ventilate. Because of that widespread tendency, I have been encouraged to put more and more of my writing into those briefer and more visual formats. While I’m willing to do at least some of that, complex issues cannot be understood without deeper study, and that includes reading slowly, carefully and even somewhat extensively at the very least.
If we are not willing to do that, we will simply scan what others have said until we find something with which we agree and latch on to it without expending the intellectual and emotional energy of studying for ourselves. Trust me, some have already stopped reading this article when it spread onto a second page! But based on passages like 2 Timothy 2:15, we can’t please God without being willing to pay the price demanded for learning spiritual truths, especially the more complex ones. “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.” Since we are going to be judged by God’s Word, we had better be studying it – seriously! “There is a judge for the one who rejects me and does not accept my words; the very words I have spoken will condemn them at the last day” (John 12:48).
One dear sister in my own age category, a very accomplished student and teacher of the Bible, said something to this effect about my article. “I agree with what you have written, but my fear is that women especially will quickly buy into it just because you have said it and not as a result of their own study.” I couldn’t agree more and that thought disturbs me greatly. We cannot just follow what others have said, no matter how much we may like them or respect them. God is calling us all to be Bereans. “Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true” (Acts 17:11). Please follow that example when reading what I and others say or write.
Area #4
A fourth area brought to the surface by discussion our topic is how quickly we want to jump past principles directly to applications. This is closely related to area #3. Our attention spans are shot to pieces. If we don’t have ADD or ADDA or ADHD, we act like we do. Just give us the bottom line, Man, and let’s get on with it! What I said under Area #3 is certainly quite applicable here also.
Here is why I make this a separate, though related, category. One of the most frequent questions asked of me after my first article was published concerned specific roles that I thought women could serve in. So, Gordon, are you saying that women can be appointed as elders or evangelists; that they can lead churches? Those questions will have to be addressed in time but starting off the discussion by asking them is disturbing. We are dealing with a very sensitive area involving some interpretative complexities. The principles simply must receive our attention first, for without understanding them, how can we make applications that are biblically allowable and practically helpful?
Basically, all I said in my first article is that we needed to restudy the whole topic and that in my judgment, women were too limited and not utilized as fully as they deserved to be and as the church needed them to be. Some assumed that I was opening Pandora’s Box to anything and everything that the religious world was already practicing. Within that “some” were those saying “Amen!” and those saying “Oh, NO!” Let’s stop assuming and jumping to convulsions, and begin studying and talking. And let’s put a governor on our emotions, be they giddy excitement or red-faced anger.
Area #5
A fifth type of response demonstrated just how resistant some are to the idea of expanding (again) the involvement of our sisters in more public church participation, and how that resistance is most often age-related. We did once expand their involvement, as mentioned in my first article, but now seem even more reluctant to consider doing so again. Although I have received some surprisingly strong encouragement from those in our older generations, all of the negative responses have come from those over 50 (maybe 60). Hence, my oft-repeated statement (to the chagrin of some) that some who were once new wine, willing to break old wineskins, have unknowingly become old wineskins themselves. If you find yourself thinking “Amen” when you read that, you are not one of them; if you find yourself feeling defensive, you are. Figure it out.
As a young minister in the Mainline Churches of Christ, I was often very frustrated with some of our older ministers and our lack of direction in churches. I appreciated what they had done in their years of service and I learned many things from them. But I saw the ineffectiveness of the then-current status quo and just couldn’t act as though I were oblivious to it. I was viewed by not a few as something of a rebel, but I was not a rebel without a cause. This drive to be a part of something where great things happened led me to leave my former church association (in which I was pretty well established) and become a part of what I then called the “Discipling Movement.” There were a few others of my age and background who followed a similar path but not many. Those who did were still young inside no matter what their wrinkles may have been on the outside.
We find ourselves in a similar situation today in our movement of churches. Our younger members are not going to be content with just “doing church” in the way that many of the older generation are. They want to change the world. Our young men and young women want to change the world. They are trying hard to be appreciative of all that we older ones have done in the past and remain respectful toward us, but they are not talking very openly about what they are really feeling about our status quo. I feel for them and I’m concerned about where they are going to end up if we don’t get back to a mission aimed at changing the world far more than we are now changing it. I am loath to think that they may feel the necessity of leaving our fellowship as I left mine when I was young, but I know that some already have. Therefore, I am going to begin quoting more of the responses I receive from the those in Generations X, Y and Z. I am also going to begin publishing some of their own writing containing their honest-to-God beliefs and feelings that we need to hear and seriously consider. So, enough editorializing! I feel better – on that point at least!
A Disturbance in the Force!
I close with a great quote I just saw in a Facebook post by my dear friend, Steve Hiddleson. It strikes a great note for ending a potentially disturbing article!
“The kind of teaching that I have been giving has disturbed some people. I am not going to apologize at all, because, necessarily, if I have been traveling along thinking I am all right and there comes a man of God and tells me that there is yet much land to be possessed, it will disturb me. That is the preliminary twinge that comes to the soul that wants to know God. Whenever the Word of God hits us, it disturbs us. So don’t be disturbed by the disturbance. Remember that it is quite normal. God has to jar us loose.”
A.W. Tozer
