Scripture, women in ministry, and correcting problems

New Testament scholar, Ben Witherington III, has two short videos that very quickly address some scriptural interpretation issues around women in ministry, and how those "problem texts" in the New Testament have been appropriated by subsequent Christian traditions to, for instance, rule out women from ministry. Check 'em out...

The fall of leadership: A Yoderian rejoinder to neo-Reformed sausage parties

Mmmm...sausages...
(Photo by Greg Peverill-Conti via Flickr)

There's been some heated talk about masculinity and the Christian faith coming from the neo-Reformed movement these days. Lots of talk about what "real men" are like and such, and of course the related question of how women factor into these things. What strikes me is that most of the talking is being done by white dudes and, well, sometimes the rhetoric sounds more like a sausage party than anything else. Or to use another metaphor from the Flight of the Conchords: "There's too many [crude phallus reference] on the dance floor!" (Crude/hilarious video alert...you've been warned.) Not that what I'm going to offer below addresses the issue by my weighing in because, well...I'm a white dude. But here goes...

Rather than argue directly with my neo-Reformed brah's, which I'm really not interested in doing, I thought it might better to very briefly offer some Yoderian reflections on gender as it relates to leadership. In John Nugent's recent book about John Howard Yoder's Old Testament hermeneutic, The Politics of Yahweh, he talks about a few of Yoder's writings on the Fall in relation to leadership.