A look at women ordination and roles in the church: Part II

Before I begin, I must apologize for the lack of citations to support the points in this post. This is one of those posts that I just want to get the opinion out first, and perhaps come back to later with supporting references.  That said, most of my view point for this post comes from my interpretation of the Genesis story (Chapters 1 to 3). That also said, please forgive me and endure my opinionated response (which is still emerging as I encounter many life experiences and mature spiritually in my walk with the LORD).

In part I of my post on this subject, I laid out my views about how I as a father of daughters welcome some of the gains of feminism in Christianity, but disagree with the challenge to overthrow the patriarchal hierarchy totally. I however, welcome the role of feminist thought in the church to re-emphasize what men's Biblical obligations for the proper treatment of females, especially the transformation of our thinking towards women. However, in this post, I want to discuss the dangers of extreme feminism in Christianity, especially in leading us into apostasy.

If one wants to know the role that women play in church history, one only has to look at the Catholic's elevation of Mary as the mother of God. This was done, in my understanding of church history, as a way of marketing Christianity to pagans, through use of symbols and stories that pagans were familiar with. Pagans at that time in history, possessed views about a god-family (father, mother and son), and so early Roman-dominated Christianity adapted these ideas in order to market the religion to the new market of pagan adherents.

Today, however, we as Christians do not need to emphasize the merits of our faith through incorporating pagan ideas. In addition, we do not need to appoint women as priestesses, which follows a spiritually dangerous tradition of pagan religious systems. God has ordained a hierarchy since the fall of humanity, that in time he will redeem all those who oppressed or under authority, giving them the true status they deserve. (This does not mean a justification for slavery, a subject that I am prepared to write in a future time). Yet, God has established an order and hierarchy that is contrary to pagan practices for purposes that only he knows best, that at the end of time, he will reverse, and men and women will be elevated to their rightful status, after Satan, sin, death and evil is finally dealt with.

Let us look at the hierarchy before the fall of humanity in Eden

Man and Woman - Earth

We must note that the Genesis story mentions that both man and woman were equally responsible for tending the garden of God and the earth. Dually, their roles were to name and understand objects and things in nature, and through nature and their work, come to an understanding of who God is as well as to love and appreciate the Creator more. They were to equally share the roles and responsibilities for the earth and all the animals. In this state, there was no hierarchy.


Let us now look at this post-sin hierarchy established from Eden.

Earth - man - woman - child  -Serpent and serpent's child

Instead of man having power over the earth as God intended, man is now subject to nature and need to exert effort in order to produce for human needs and wants. Man also goes back to the earth in death. In addition, woman, who was made an equal partner with man becomes, becomes subjected to him and now becomes the one that has the full responsibility to bear the child needed to overcome the serpent. The serpent, who apparently had some other means of travel, is now demoted to only being able to travel by land on his belly, with the added burden that there would be war between his descendants and that of humans, with humans becoming victorious.

The hierarchy established after sin, also reverses the order in which sin was introduced into the world.

Serpent - woman - man - Earth

So while the feminist movement has brought along some advancement in women rights, the true women's liberation is yet to come through God's timing and intervention. In fact, in God's timing and intervention, there will be total liberation of man and woman from their subjugation to nature and natural laws, as well as liberation of the Earth from death and decay. Hence, there will be an overthrow of hierarchy, but I have no confidence that we as human beings with our errors and faults can justly correct the situation.

However, until then, we must make the necessary incremental improvements to provide justice for women and care for our environment. Justice for women however, does not necessarily mean equity or even equal treatment. Justice means fairness, a fairness that respects and affirm differences. Also, differences do not imply a hierarchy, as objects can nominally differ. Differences mean that there is separation and demarcation, especially due to different characteristics. Justice means that people get what they deserve: where people get what is fairly, reasonably and rightly due to them based on their needs and situation.

There are some within the [radical] feminist movement that implies that there are no scientific differences between male and female. But women and men are biologically different also, which should also affect how we allocate what is due to women. Biological differences between make and female include:

• different sexual organs (and the fact that we are sexually stimulated differently)
• women experience menstrual cycle; men don't
• women possess natural wombs and can naturally give birth to children; men can do so only artificially

Hence, such differences need to be taken into consideration in seeking justice for the genders.

A look at women ordination and roles in the church: Part I

So my place of fellowship is having a Bible study on women ordination. So far, I have been listening to the debates, especially to hear the point of view that promotes women ordination as pastoral leaders. I want to hear Biblical arguments and not just feminist arguments that have originated out of secular cultural movements. Hopefully, I will get those soon, yet within the mean time, I want to share my own understanding so far, based on past revelation.

I must begin that by being a father of all girls, I have become more interested in justice issues for females. Especially considering that as a father I cannot protect my girls from engaging with the wider society and perhaps encountering the gross acts that men take to satisfy their sexual lusts and cravings. Right now, my girls are all young and do not leave the house unaccompanied. However, in the future, I can't guarantee that I can lock them up forever and only let them exit with parental accompaniment. As such, I want to see laws put in place to protect them from abuse (especially perpetrated by males).

At the same time, my spiritual views do not see the need for the feminist movement within Christianity to go beyond articulating the personhood of females and the prevention of women abuse. I hold traditional views on patriarchal hierarchy because the Holy Scriptures endorse hierarchy, rather than sees it as an evil to be presently eliminated. The New Testament reveals this the most in the relationship between Jesus and God the Father, which could be liken to man and woman in the church. (Ephesians 5: 21-33).

Philippians 2:6 states that Jesus in his nature, being God: "did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage" (NIV). Rather, despite their equality, Jesus ,  "gave up his divine privileges; he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being... [or appearing] in human form," (Philippians 2:7; New Living Translation).  From this perspective, Jesus, despite having equal rights and privileges as God the Father, chose to deny himself those rights and privileges, in order to work with God the Father and accomplish the larger picture and plan for humanity, which required great humiliation.

It is the same Christian duty that Jesus requires of us. Women though being equal to men, are asked to endure or even put up with men's often impoverished and poor leadership (especially wives), in order to please God. Let me just raise some of the scriptures that illustrate this point:

But I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God. (1 Corinthians 11:3; New International Version, 2011) )

Also women be they subject to their husbands; that if any man believe not to the word, by the conversation of women they be won without word. (1 Peter 3:1; Wycliffe Bible)

Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. (Ephesians 5:22; New International Version, 2011)

Wives, submit yourselves to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. (Colossians 3:18 ; New International Version, 2011)

I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet. (1 Timothy 2:12; New International Version, 2011)

Based on the above Bible verses, it seems as if women are asked by Christ to walk with him in humility and take a place less than they deserve in order to fulfil God's purpose and design for them and for the larger humanity. Again, I must emphasize that male-dominated leadership in a sinful world has often been abused and that women suffer dreadfully under such abuse as victims, as mothers of victims and even the disappointed mothers of the perpetrators of abuse. Christ in his treatment of women in the New Testament demonstrates a break with men's abuse of power:

• he teaches that men must look at women with dignity and not with an imagination desirous of fulfilling sexual cravings (Matthew 5:28); 
• he shows that we must not view a woman's one time sin of adultery as being greater than any other sin (John 8:1-11; New International Version)
• males must treat even prostitutes with dignity
• males must not criticise women's efforts to show and express their appreciation to God in worship in ways different from us (Matthew 26:7-13)

There are countless other teachings that I can't go into detail now, but look out for part 2 of my post on this subject. (I've typed it already; just to tidy it up and publish it).

The institutionalisation and corruption of Protestant Christianity

This week, I read Tooley's (2013) article putting in perspective the end of mainline Protestant churches, as the National Council of Churches abandons New York City for a shelter in D.C. Tooley's (2013) article basically raised the issue of the decline of Protestant churches politically as force to be reckoned with in American politics. In this post, I want to particularly explore some issues related to his article, especially as it relates to the corruption of Christianity by the powerful and liberal elite.

First, I must say that I learned from Tooley that the Rockefeller family and other New York elites were sponsors of the National Council of Churches. This is not a good sign, considering the rumour that the Rockefelllers are Illuminati members (Dice, 2009) and partners of  the infamous Bilderberg group (Lendman, 2009). Yet, conspiracies and rumours aside, consider this quotation from Tooley:

His father having recently died, John D. Rockefeller III was present at the dedication to honor the Interchurch Center as the fulfillment of his father’s dream of a new Christianity without denominational distinctions. Although he didn’t then specify it, the Rockefellers also dreamed of a uniformly liberal Protestantism devoted to good works instead of doctrine. The elder Rockefeller donated the land for the Interchurch Center plus over $2.6 million for costs.

Ironically, nearly all the Mainline denominations housed there would begin their nearly 50-year membership decline just a few years later. A sanitized Protestantism without doctrine or distinctions simply became too boring to sustain. In the early 1960s, about one of every six Americans belonged to the seven largest Mainline denominations. Today, it’s one out of every 15.

 Explicitly stated here is the revelation that the Rockerfeller family had a vision to purge Protestant denominations of "doctrine" and create a "new Christianity". In addition, Protestant institutions that got involved with Rockerfeller's vision, suffered a decline in their numbers. Further, another quote from Tooley shows that being aligned to elite and powerful men was the priority of Protestant churches in the 1960s, with an ecumenical aim.

Likely unable to conceive of such a dramatic spiral, the NCC’s chief pronounced at the Interfaith Center’s 1960 dedication: “It is the prayer of all who worked toward its creation that this will become more than a symbol of the growing spiritual unity of Protestant and Eastern Orthodox Churches in America.” Those days were heady times for the Mainline denominations, who were flush with members, money and influence. Church offices in the God Box then claimed to represent 40 million church members.

In fact, Tooley also mentions a German Lutheran bishop warning at the Interchurch Center’s 1960 dedication, against the “institutionalization” of churches, noting that a beautiful building and organization were of “no avail without true faith.” As the Apostle Paul would say: with our institutionalized churches, we have a institutionalised a form of godliness, but deny the power that makes us godly (2 Timothy 3:5). Which brings me to my personal point.


I have benefitted from institutional and bureaucratic church socially, economically, emotionally, spiritually and even psychologically. However, the more I study the Bible, experience life and the contradictions between how church and church people operate and how the Bible actually records early church life and even Jewish culture at the time of Jesus, the more I realise something is wrong. As beneficial as institutional and bureaucratic church is, and as enriching as it is to me and my family, institutional and bureaucratic church can no longer imprint in me the image or character that I see in Jesus Christ.


Church as practiced today simplifies Christian living to:

• church attendance, 
• giving tithes and offerings to church charities, 
• participating in church activities and services,
• doing good deeds for church members and 
• spending time trying to increase the membership of the church organisation (including doing good deeds for outsiders with the goal of winning them over to the church).  

Nothing is inherently wrong with any of these activities. However, when I exam Jesus and even the apostles, the way that they practice "church" was more subversive to the cultural, social and economic order. First of all, I do not see Jesus or even the church in Acts as owning property or buildings. They shared what they own and helped others. In this regard, they were socialist or almost communist. Today, Christianity is highly linked to democratic capitalism and many denominations own many properties. At the same time, the budgets of churches are focused on trivial budgetary items such as property maintenance or acquisition. Each time I hear churches talking about setting aside money to redo the tiles or carpets of the floor of the church building, or the interior or even get gowns and musical instruments to improve their 'worship service', my spirit is disturbed. And to think that there are people who are in poverty who need help getting an education and subsequently a job to sustain their own life. To make matters worse, there are even members of the same church, that while they are giving their tithes and offerings to help renovate the church building interior, they themselves are living in rent house. Compare this with the church in the book of Acts, where people met in each other's houses and other spaces and public places in order to fellowship and worship. Isn't something wrong with the picture?

Reference:

Dice, M. (2009). The Illuminati: Facts & fiction. The Resistance: San Diego, CA.


Lendman, S. (2009, June 1). The true story of the Bilderberg group and what they may be planning now: A review of Daniel Estulin's book. Global Research, Retrieved from: http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-true-story-of-the-bilderberg-group-and-what-they-may-be-planning-now/13808


Tooley, M. (2013, March 1). End of the mainline: The declining National Council of Churches abandons New York City for shelter in D.C. The American Spectator. Retrieved from http://spectator.org/archives/2013/03/01/end-of-the-mainline

Return of the Neanderthals

So I have been absent from my spiritual blog for some time due to the fact that I was preparing for my comprehensive examination as well as contemplating the future of this blog in a world that is becoming increasingly intolerant of criticism. In fact, I have plans to at the start of the Passover season around the end of March to take a forty day break from social media (namely Facebook, Twitter and Blogger) in order to deepen and enrich my spiritual life as well as learn how to cope without social media. After all, one day, such freedom can be taken away from me. Nevertheless, for this post in particular, I want to discuss and comment on the National Geographic feature on the Return of the Neanderthals (Hughes, 2013) and possibly other extinct beings, putting it in a Judeo-Christian perspective.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/03/130306-neanderthal-genome-extinction-cloning-hominid-science/

Return of the Neanderthals

news.nationalgeographic.com

Scientists could someday resurrect Neanderthals—or at least their cells—to help modern humans. Would it be ethical?

The very sound of the title: "Return of the Neanderthals", seems like a title that would make a nice Hollywood story: like a modern retake on "Frankenstein" and/or even "The Planet of Apes". I find that we have this theme running in science fictions where human beings create an artificial being that is much stronger than themself who ends up tormenting humanity and becoming an oppressor, with the human creator (or creators) losing control over such beings. This idea is also expressed in Jewish mythology through the idea of the Golem, which in my opinion shows that all our (scientific) thoughts and developments are driven to some extent by our mythologies (more to come on this later).

Of course, the seriousness of the matter is overlooked. Our [mad] scientists who actually try to summon these extinct beings from the dead through cloning, need to be guided by our science fictions that warn us that one day we will create something that will almost devastate us. As they say, the road to hell is paved by good intentions. Hence it is much frightening when we consider the science fiction scenario of how we as human beings create or summon beings into our dimension that will totally devastate, oppress us and lead us to our ruin. Yet, in reality, this is actually being done and has been done in the past. Our pagan religions have sought to communicate to and establish connections with other beings not of our world that have lead to demonic possession and domination by fallen angels. But even if you do not believe in fallen angels and demons, if you just consider our science fictions and what they tell about the dangers of our inventions, it does point out that if man's destiny is in his own hand, then what a frightful and fearful future is on the horizon for us as humanity.


Essentially, human nature cannot be trusted. I have no trust in human nature. Men conspire, scheme, institute tyranny and oppress others. Such nature has not yet changed. And as long as human beings are the same as they were for millenia, then someone will use science and technology for evil. Already, we see that the US military is contemplating creating (Weinberger, 2013) and attempted to create (Heussner, 2009)  supersoldiers. However, even if humans do not intend to use their inventions for evil, as our science fiction themes point out, there can be unintended consequences of even creating artificial beings, especially humanoids.

But, since I subscribe to Judeo-Christian eschatology, I know that the future is not as scary as how science fiction predicts that it will be, at least not for everyone. The Bible already tells us how the world will end, thereby telling us that our fate is not in our own hands. However, this latest development could in fact create what we call the return of the Nephilim from Genesis 6:4. This is already an idea that is explored in Harding (2010), who suggests that what the ancients called the Nephilim may actually be the Neanderthals so-called by today's scientists. In addition, Jesus himself did say that the end of the world will be like the time of Noah (Matthew 24:37; Luke 17:26), lending credence to the fact that the Nephilim could actually return. Hence, it is very possible that our scientists in an attempt to bring extinct humanoids back to life, may create and resurrect the Nephilim of the 21st century.

Currently, we have demons, which according to some scholars are the disembodied souls of the Nephilim that continue to roam the earth and look for human bodies to possess and inhabit (Klein & Spears, 2005).  As such, I do not see it as farfetched that human scientists are creating the conditions for the return of these demonic entities in physical form that will permit them to regain physical bodies to oppress us as they once did before the flood. In fact, the imagery in the book of Revelations does show one such possibility. In one chapter of Revelations, the Bible speaks of an image being created, who will kill all that do not worship it (Revelation 13:15). When we consider that there is to be a seed of the serpent (Genesis 3:15), it is clear that Satanic forces are driving our science to create a body in which Satan can find an incarnation, just like how Jesus was an incarnation of God (an idea I know that many currently do not accept). Biblically, it makes sense.


References:

Harding, Fred. (2010, March). Nephilim skeletons found. ISEE Magazine. Retrieved from http://www.teklinepublishing.co.uk/art-nephilim.htm

Heussner, K. M. (2009, November 9). Psychic spies: Any truth in 'Men who stare at goats?' ABC News Retrieved from http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/psychic-spies-truth-men-stare-goats/story?id=9032019


Hughes, V. (2013, March 6). Return of the Neanderthals: Should scientists seek to clone our ancient hominid cousins? National Geographic News Retrieved from http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/03/130306-neanderthal-genome-extinction-cloning-hominid-science/


Klein, J, & Spears, A. (2005). Devils and demons and the return of the Nephilim. [S.l.] : Xulon Press, c2005.



Weinberger, S. (2013, January 21). Iron Man to Batman: The future of soldier suits. BBC Retrieved from: http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20130121-batman-meets-iron-man-in-combat/1

The trials before and during comps week

I appreciate all the well-wishing and votes of confidence offered by everyone, but especially those offerings of prayers and benedictions. In a week that one would expect to go according to plan, all sort of incidents and story-worthy events began to happen.

The week before comps exam, 4 of us in the family got sick with the flu. (Makes me regret not going for those flu shots, as this is the second time for the winter that we are down with it). To make matters even more interesting, the Friday morning, I lost my dear Jamaican tam (on Jamaica day too). Finally, I had to forgo grocery shopping that same day. With all these events going into the weekend, I just knew that this was the fiery testing before my comps, and I was determined not to let them distract me from my preparations. I switched into spiritual war mode, wondering if this was my 'Job' testing by the enemy.

On comps week, I went to school to print and begin responding to my exam questions. When I printed the paper and looked at it, I almost panicked after seeing the first question, which was a bit longer than I expected. I wasn't expecting to see a paragraph before me, providing context in which I had to carefully underline the questions being asked of me.

However, after a time, my exam taking experience returned and calm was restored. I then did what I used to do as a student when faced with a problematic first exam question: turn to the back of the paper, in hope to work my way back to the front. There I found the more straight forward one sentence questions that I expected, some of which I already knew 2/3rds of the answers. So I began the journey putting down an outline for each question and some of what I already knew.

When I took a lunch break from the process, I browsed the Web and by accident went to my blog statistics. I then noticed a new trackback to one of my professional and scholarly blog from a science blog. Hence I checked out the science blog and found that the blog had linked to the post I had made. The next day, another blog directly quoted me, a first time for me in my recollection. To make it equally surprising was that I was cited along with another well-known personality in LIS. Interestingly, also I also gained a lot gained several Twitter followers that week, moving from 80-something to 91, though this may just be coincidence.

As if to humble me and keep my ego and sense of achievement from being too much, that night, 2 of my daughters health seemed to take a nose dive. One developed a sore throat, after improving over the weekend, and the other also had incessant coughing for what seemed like almost half-an-hour, after improving in comparison to the day before.

Not to forget that on the Saturday night before comps week, my wife and I smelled a cigarette-like fume in our basement but with no smoke that apparently went away on its own. I now in retrospect wonder if there was some escape of gas from the furnace into our house, causing the affliction this second time around. Is there any possible connection?

Anyway, it is Wednesday morning, the beginning of the middle o the week, and I am awaiting the trial and story-worthy incidents to come to a conclusion. I am also thanking God that he did not let last night's trial take any of my family members to the hospital.

Applying Information Science theory to the Word of G-d

As an information scientist, I see that a lot of what I am learning, reading and discovering in my secular studies could very well be applied to understanding Biblical concepts. Take for instance the concept of the Word of God. We in information science have a theory called Shannon's theory of information defines information to a signal sent by a messenger to a receiver. Many times a signal sent is not fully received by the receiver as intended due to the concept called noise. In my view, such a theory can very well be applied to learning about the word of G-d. The Word is the message or information or in Shannon's theory, the signal.
The message or signal is usually carried in a vessel or medium. However, by the signal being carried by a medium, it becomes limited to the constraints of that medium.

For example, in order to convey a message in a book, nonverbal cues get lost. Also, one's act of writing it down, requires it to be expressed in language choices and the system of writing and alphabets, which have a potential to constrain what the writer wants to say to his audience. To explain this, just imagine a man seeing a weird animal that no one has ever seen before. Further, he has no camera to capture what he saw and the experiences he had with the animal. He then has to use language to describe what he saw and his experience. To do so, he has to draw on images and literary devices like similes and metaphors that he and his audience are acquainted with in order to explain and describe his observation and experience. Hence he explains or describes a new thing through use of comparisons to a familiar thing. This is exactly the case with men in the Bible who saw things that we have never seen. Ezekiel, John and Daniel for instance, all saw strange animals. These strange animals they saw, were compared to animals that they were familiar with.

Each medium requires the writer to adapt the signal to the strengths of the medium. For example, in graphic novels, more focus is placed on the visuals and the action taking place in the graphic novel rather than dialogue. As such graphic novels and even movies never tell stories the same way that the traditional printed book does. Hence, something therefore is always lost, when one seeks to convey a message from one medium to another.

The scriptures are the medium that carries the Word of G-d to men. However, what ever God wants to communicate to us gets distorted and a lot of noise comes with the signal and message. Whether it be the limitations of a particular language system or the translation into another language system. Hence, when we final get the message of God, our own understanding and reception will never be perfect. Apostle Paul has this saying that I think could accurately describe what goes on when we read the Bible's message:

For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. (1 Corinthians 13:12, KJV)

In the final analysis, the message that God wants to convey to us always comes with distortions that occur within our dimension of time, space and reality. Even, Jesus, the embodied message and word, came with limitations that made him only communicate with few persons (see a previous blog post where I mention this). As such, we as a people must always recognise that when we read the Word of God, we partake in a communication process that is not perfect, and as such need to depend not on our own intellect and training to handle and interpret the message, but also the Holy Spirit, who reveals what it says and inspired the men of old to record the portions that they have recorded. Hence, like the actors of Hollywood, when we approach the Word, message, script or the simply the Bible, we must approach it with the understanding that we need to invite the spirit that summoned the word into being to enable us to read, interpret and receive the message in it for us.

Shalom!

The hidden cost (and stresses) of communication

I don't know about anyone else, but communication devices are becoming very stressful for me. Email, Social networking sites, Skype and telephone mean that your friends and people you know expect you to keep in touch. No matter where in the world they are, because of these devices, I have no excuse to not keep in touch, even with persons that I do not know if I will meet them in person again. 

On top of that, I have to keep track of birthdays, anniversaries, and special holiday seasons, and remember to send various persons greetings who may or may not be expecting me to do so. Managing all these relations, responding to emails, messaging people on Facebook, are taking a toll on me. I have started to ignore when Facebook reminds me of friends birthdays, and begun to email people in groups general messages and greetings and updates. I don't even bother to instant message persons unless I need to set up a meeting with them or bring a matter to their attention.

These days remind me of the times when I started mail correspondence with girls in high school. It was always good to receive mails, but these was just too much pressure to reply. (Yes...these were before the days of cell-phones and text messages.)

I now appreciate the ancient days when if people wanted to correspond, they would have to travel. Those days of John the Baptist or Jesus of the New Testament Bible for instance. People had to travel distances to see them and get a word from them.


No offence to my friends, colleagues and those who I know personally. I love people, and love deep conversations and the advice given by my many mentors and friends. I need and depend on my social capital. However it is really costly to have many friends and know many people. It is costly to one's attention span from a communication perspective. As the number of people I know increases, I am forced to zone some people out until some event or happening makes them more relevant again. Hence it is nothing personal. It is just that I am unable to manage the stress of keeping in touch with so many people. :(

That's why I understand that Jesus narrowed down those whom he communicated with. In Luke 10:1, he appointed seventy-two people. Then he later narrowed down the 72 to the chosen 12 disciples out of the crowds that followed him, as the Bible says in Mark 3:13, Jesus "called to him those he wanted, and they came to him." He later narrowed this down to 3 out of 12 (Matthew 17:1). It appears to me that being in man's limitation, one can only communicate effectively with a few people, especially in order to impact those people so that they can pass your message on to others.

Shalom! God's peace be with you!