“God revealed Himself in the Bible pervasively as king not queen; father not mother,” Piper said. ”The second person of the Trinity is revealed as the eternal Son not daughter; the Father and the Son create man and woman in His image and give them the name man, the name of the male…God appoints all the priests in the Old Testament to be men; the Son of God came into the world to be a man; He chose 12 men to be His apostles; the apostles appointed that the overseers of the Church be men; and when it came to marriage they taught that the husband should be the head.”

“Now, from all of that I conclude that God has given Christianity a masculine feel,” Piper continued.“And being God, a God of love, He has done that for our maximum flourishing both male and female… He does not intend for women to languish or be frustrated or in any way suffer or fall short of full and lasting joy in this masculine Christianity. From which I infer that the fullest flourishing of women and men takes place in churches and families that have this masculine feel.”

I had not seen Rachel’s post asking for men to respond until a friend suggested me and a few others should offer our perspectives on the issue. Those of you who have read this site for a while know very clearly what I think. I’ve done a lot of thinking about this for years now and so I thought my biggest obstacle in writing a post like this would be to figure out what to include and what to cut out. I could, literally, write a book on the subject and have written papers on it.

There is an abundance of information, an abundance of examples of God being portrayed through feminine imagery in the Bible, numerous examples of women in places of leadership – real leadership too, not just Sunday School teachers for children – and innumerable life experiences that have shaped my views on this topic. I thought about laying out the God as Mother motif that is scattered throughout the Hebrew Bible, especially in Hosea 11. I thought about rehashing Romans 16 and talking about what the text really tells us about, for example, the leadership roles of Junia (an apostle) and Phoebe (a deacon). I contemplated sharing stories about how my wife is more of a minister in one finger than I am all-together.

But then I stopped thinking of examples and proofs and logic because I realized that it isn’t going to do any good. Yes, I am cynical. I know that I could write a post that would encourage women that they have my complete and uncompromising support (maybe this post actually will, because they do). I could write a post with lists of anecdotes and facts that show the reality of how women have consistently held leadership positions in Jewish and Christian congregations and have done a damn good job of it. I could thoroughly refute Piper’s blatant misunderstanding of the text and the socio-historical reality of the ancient world and illustrate that men being in vastly more leadership positions in the Bible and throughout history is evidence of patriarchy and gender discrimination and not evidence that God is somehow masculine, has a penis, or hates vaginas.

But none of this will change John Piper’s mind. This conversation is not one carried out on the field of reality and facts, but rather on the field of entrenched worldviews. I know how entrenched these views can be because I used to be right there with Piper, but my faith has always been open for consideration, open to change when new, better, and more accurate information comes along. John Piper’s faith simply isn’t there. His Calvinists foundations, among other things, make it entirely impossible to step back and consider the influence of men on the writing of the Bible or to actually see the work that God has done and continues to do with and among women or to realize the implications of his views and his words.

So while this is not the long, detailed academic type of post I had in mind I do hope it serves to encourage women who are in positions of leadership now and those who are still being told (and still believing) that they can’t be. We should continue to engage in conversation about this topic, but not just in an effort to convince and change minds, because that is, by and large, a futile task. Instead, we need to be more cognizant of the implications of our views and our words and where they do not support freedom, equality, and dignity, we need to change them. Plain and simple.

And for those who think that God does not support unfettered equality, freedom, and dignity, but instead supports genocide, gender discrimination, and willful blindness – well, your God is not a God I believe in. Your God is not a God worth believing in. I can be discriminatory, chauvinistic, and ignorant on my own; I don’t need God’s help with that.

For all his talk of loving the Constitution, Gingrich showed an immense lack of knowledge about what it actually says (or a lack of concern). He had this to say at a campaign stop yesterday afternoon here in FL (ThinkProgress has the video up):

GINGRICH: Now, I think we need to have a government that respects our religions.I’m a little bit tired of being lectured about respecting every religion on the planet. I’d like them to respect our religion.

Apparently for Newt Gingrich a religion only deserves respect if it’s one we adhere too. Certainly all religions should not be respected.

Members of the Southern Baptist Convention leadership have (unsurprisingly) jumped on board with this divisive and deceitful rhetoric. Here’s what Richard Land had to say a few days ago:

Land said the Obama administration “has shown from the very beginning that it is hostile to free religious expression.”

“There’s no question about that,” he said. “They have done thing after thing after thing after thing.”

“This is really serious,” Land said. “You’ll hear the Obama administration; they are disciplined in their talking about this. They talk about freedom of worship. They talk about freedom of worship overseas and they talk about freedom of worship at home. We do not have a guarantee of freedom of worship. We have a guarantee to freedom of religion.”

Land said the free-exercise of religion protected by the Constitution “will involve us in much more than just worship.”

“And the government under the Obama administration wants to curtail that and to restrict it to the private sector only,” Land said. “There can be no other explanation for what they have done the last three and a half years.”

It seems that Land and Gingrich are confused about what freedom of religion actually is. They cannot seem to fathom that religions other than Christianity deserve any rights and to them any move by the Obama administration to be more compliant with the Establishment Clause is somehow a violation of the Free Exercise Clause. Both exhibit a serious misunderstanding of the spirit of religious freedom and both are using tactics of fear and xenophobia to stir up their base.

As we mark the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, we must remember that this Supreme Court decision not only protects a woman’s health and reproductive freedom, but also affirms a broader principle: that government should not intrude on private family matters. I remain committed to protecting a woman’s right to choose and this fundamental constitutional right.

While this is a sensitive and often divisive issue — no matter what our views, we must stay united in our determination to prevent unintended pregnancies, support pregnant women and mothers, reduce the need for abortion, encourage healthy relationships, and promote adoption. And as we remember this historic anniversary, we must also continue our efforts to ensure that our daughters have the same rights, freedoms, and opportunities as our sons to fulfill their dreams.

It should be more than a little surprising that the Republican party who consistently says that the government should not be involved in our personal lives wants the government involved in the most intimate of matters: marriage, women’s health, and birth control. From the narrative that Republicans have presented one would think that an apparently “socialist” Democratic president could never express a commitment to less government intrusion in private matters. Nevertheless, it is the Democrats who have consistently stood up for women’s rights (see this decision from Friday) on this issue and the Republicans who have shown their desire to have the supreme court decision overturned.

Further, I would be remiss if I did not note that President Obama’s strategy in this complicated issue is multiform and one that supports women and families at all stages, calling for reduced need for abortions (i.e. better and more available birth control) and especially promoting adoption. Contrary to popular belief not all who support Roe v. Wade and a woman’s right to choose want to see every woman having multiple abortions and using the method as just another form of birth control. Rather, many of us support better health and sex education in our schools, more available birth control, proper care and support when a women is going through the decision making process (and that does not mean trying to guilt her into not going through with an abortion), and a more effective, efficient, and cheaper adoption system here in the US.

Having been adopted myself I know how thankful I am for the adoption process and those willing to sacrifice as much (and often more) than biological parents to be parents to those without. I also know, though, how complicated and expensive stateside adoptions are and while I commend those who choose to adopt a child from elsewhere in the world I also realize that it is often chosen over stateside adoption because the process and cost of adopting a child here are extremely prohibitive.

I am quite thankful that we have a president willing to stand with the medical community and with women and families on this most important of issues. And if you’re a female considering voting for a Republican this November, just remember the control that they want over your body.

First, I have followed the Republican race for the nomination much less closely. This has, to be sure, meant that I am a little less well-informed than I have been previously, but the greater impact has been less stress because of watching and hearing politicians attack one another and offer their proposals for this county that are directly antithetical to every thing I believe in. Thus, I was able to watch last night’s SC Republican debate more for entertainment purposes than anything else. I knew how each candidate would answer every question they were asked and I didn’t let the possibility that one of those four white men would be leading our country in the future totally scare and depress me.

The second benefit I have noticed as a result of my busyness is that I have gotten much less caught up in what conservative evangelical Christians are saying and doing. Many of the people I follow on Twitter continue to write about why Mark Driscoll is wrong about this or that or why Al Mohler’s stances are unacceptable. There’s basically no chance I will ever agree with Mark Driscoll or Al Mohler on anything anytime soon so why waste my time offering refutations of their views and ideas? They’re not listening to what I say or write and no genuine dialogue will come about by me decrying them. I know that in some circles these figures and others like them are very influential, but they aren’t in any of the circles I find myself in. On top of that, I am about as far from a conservative evangelical Christian as one can get, so why get worked up over the views of those who do  fit that description? It’s just not worth it.

Do I wish I had more time to blog? Absolutely. I quite enjoy it. Does this mean that I will never write something correcting or refuting someone else. Probably not. This is not an ultimatum on what I will allow myself to do/say/write in the future, it is simply a realization of how my busyness of late has had some positive unintended consequences. Besides the above, I have also been able to spend the free time I do have with my wife and dogs (since we live together now), something that is much more enjoyable than other ways I could be spending my free time.

Me, Dr. Goodman, Sam Harrelson

It was three years ago today that I received the early morning phone call telling me Dr. Goodman had died suddenly. In man ways these past three years have allowed the pain and sense of loss to slide out of the foreground a bit. I have gone on with my life, finishing my masters degrees and even starting a PhD. But in many other ways, the loss is as real as it was that morning. There were so many more conversations I thought we’d have, so many more emails, so many more trips. Nevertheless, I am reminded of his legacy on just about a daily basis by those who are close to me and who were close to him as well. It is a legacy we all share.

More than anything, this post is for me (and maybe Trinity and Sam).

Today I remember Dr. Dan Goodman; professor, mentor, friend. He taught me how to walk away and how to be a passerby.

There is a short story that was written in 1973 by Ursula Le Guin called, “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas.” Sam has shared and referenced this piece rather frequently over the past few months. It came up again in a recent email conversation among a few friends regarding this recent episode of This American Life, where Mr. Daisey travels to China to find out who makes all of our Mac crap and shares what he saw and what he learned.

I will not try to describe “Omelas” to you, for my attempt would be futile no doubt. And besides, that would rob you of the experience of reading it for yourself. It is short after all. The story ends with this line:

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

In some ways, “Omelas” reminds me of the much more well-known poem by Frost, “The Road Not Taken.” The problem with something being well-known – be it a holy book, a poem, a movie – is that we think we know what it says when the reality is that we have most likely focused on one part at the expense of the whole. That one part in Frost’s poem is certainly the final stanza.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

That decisions was not reached lightly, though, for the first half of the poem recounts the traveller in the process of deciding which way to take, looking down each road as far as he (or she) could. The final line of “Omelas” appears to have more certainty than Frost’s poem, but I think when you read both you will see that neither decision is reached lightly. It is only after the mind has been made as to the path to take that one can walk confidently – both away from something and toward something.

I don’t know what you need to walk away from. Heck, I don’t know what I need to walk away from, but after hearing Mr. Daisey’s piece, I feel pretty strongly that some other direction is needed. And when this direction is away from injustice it will certainly be the road less travelled.

Drake’s book is an example of history done well (i.e. it is well-researched, appropriately nuanced, does not accept easy traditional answers, and steers clear of anachronisms, both blatant and conceptual). Even with the scholarly acumen Drake exhibits I found myself immersed in the text as one does well-written novels. I even told a colleague that someone should make the book into a movie. It really is that engaging to read.

So, while I know you are not all as interested in 4th century Christianity and the social, economic, and political realities that made Constantine’s famous actions possible, I must still highly recommend this book. The Virginia Quarterly Review offered this nugget for the back cover:

If you read one book on late antiquity this year, read this one. If you read one book on politics this year, read this one again.

I couldn’t say it any better myself.

trinitywhitley.com: experiencing life, exploring Tallahassee, and trying to minister along the way.

My wife Trinity has been toying with the idea of blogging for some time now and has (finally) decided to use her domain name that I’ve had for a while now. She’s writing about crafting stuff, her new life as a presbyterian, and many other random gems. She’s got a nice little design going on too. So, head over and check it out.

Because I know some of you are interested in these types of things, I thought I’d give a quick rundown of my classes this semester.

Aramaic
This promises to be a great language class as I learn Aramaic (in just one semester). Aramaic’s many similarities to Hebrew make learning it significantly easier than just any other language. By the end of the semester I should have translated all of the Aramaic portions of Daniel (roughly half the book) as well as at least some of the Genesis Apocryphon, an Aramaic text found in Cave 1 of Qumran.

Rabbinic Judaism
This course serves as an introduction to the rabbinic literature of late antiquity. Most of our reading will be from the Babylonian Talmud and Genesis Rabbah. The readings will all be in English, but knowing Dr. Levenson we will spend plenty of time focusing on the Hebrew and Aramaic versions, at least as reference resources. I’m extremely excited about this class and the potential to how it allows for a better and more thorough understanding of the 1st century world.

Hebrew Bible Proseminar
This is a seminar on the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) which will focus on the history of scholarship surrounding the HB and various critical approaches to the text. I’m particularly interested in the section on scribal culture as it relates to the HB.

Christianity in Antiquity
This is the followup class to last semester’s Christianity After the New Testament. Mostly we’ll be dealing with 4th and 5th century Christianity with the majority of our time spent with primary texts, though we will also be spending a healthy amount of time studying the rise of saints and monks during these years. This is much more my area (early Christianity) so I am naturally looking forward to this course.

I am also TAing an Intro to the New Testament course for Dr. Levenson. And when you add on a likely weekly Josephus Greek reading group my semester will be quite busy. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

If you’ve never listened to the album, go do it now. Seriously. Leonard Cohen is a genius and this album is a collection of his songs as done by the likes of Willie Nelson, U2, Elton John, Bono, Tori Amos, and Suzanne Vega.

Also, Leonard Cohen is releasing a new album soon that is expected to be just as brilliant as his previous work. Check it out.